Forever Home Fund

v1ckyt

Message from said nephew, he says you are the right height. Not too late to cancel his Christmas donation x

katep23

Money saving not to buy him a present, I like it!

Car insurance sorted. Got them down almost £400 on the 3 cars. Still eye watering but better than first quote.

About £800 spent on budgeted stuff. Think of the John Lewis vouchers...

katep23

Oops, credit card at £3,000 from 2nd December to date. £1,600 spends and £1,400 insurance between car and house. Got a cracking deal on the house insurance though, much better cover, legal protection and breakdown cover on various household facilities (boiler, plumbing etc) for over £100 less than we paid last year

Very austere month coming up! Although we do need a new hoover and were planning on replacing our american side by side fridge freezer which is completely impractical. The hoover can't really wait but the FF might have to :cool:

Signed up for next unit of my course which is £300 (still need to pay for) and the exam which is £96 (on other credit card so still need to pay for this as well).

Okay so I might have some money to OP in about March :eek:

Spanish cats are settling in well after the usual hissing etc.

Big news at my organisation today, someone senior is leaving and the future of the organisation is under review as a result.

We are an outsourced function for a few similar organisations so worse case scenario is that I will end up doing my job for one of the organisations we work for so not too worried but will really shake things up and hopefully mean change for the better.

Had a really long catch up with my boss today, first time since I've been there and bizarrely feel more positive about the role and the organisation than I have since I joined!

katep23

Credit card bill for next month is astronomical and statement isn't due until 2nd Jan so trying not to spend anything between now and then. Not doing the sales!

Been to Mr S for a few bits and used Nectar points so total cost was 70p.

Scraping up change to pay into bank to use against CC next month - we're about £2,800 short as it stands so the more I can save, make, reduce our outgoings, the less will have to come out of savings to cover it.

Spent most of Christmas knocking out the fireplace and removing the 70s crazy paving (yes really) which was cemented to the walls in the living room. Photos to follow.

Good news is that there is a decent size opening for a stove. Now we can get a quote to get it lined.

debtfreeoneday

Sounds like you have had a productive christmas, looking forward to seeing the photos. Sounds the job front might be changing for the better whatever happens?

We did something similar to our fireplace last year, rather special bricks stuck all over the place! Looks so much better.

ourcornercottage

katep23 wrote: »

Spent most of Christmas knocking out the fireplace and removing the 70s crazy paving (yes really) which was cemented to the walls in the living room. Photos to follow.

Seen as youve had the practice, I know where to come when mine needs to come out. I honestly thought that we had the only house with crazy paving on the wall!

katep23

Can't find a before picture!

katep23

Need to send the pictures off to the stove guy and get a proper quote.

Am back to work tomorrow (boo) but OH is off so hopefully he can organise it.

Other plans are to pull down the ceiling in the "office" to see if there are any joists resting on the random wall in there. If not, that wall is coming down, we will fill in the crack in the outside wall and then dry line and get a plasterer in to finish off.

Part of the issue is finding suitable tradesman but we are just going to have to knuckle down and do as much as we can ourselves.

Feels like we have finally started on the renovation project!

Luckyinlife

Lot of work but will be worth every second spent on it :]

katep23

Thanks Lucky.

Still waiting for OH to send pictures to stove guy so no progress on that front.

I was really struck recently by Gally Girl saying that "a dream without a plan is just a wish". So this year will be about planning.

• I need a spending diary so I can work out what our monthly out-goings are compared to one-off spends.
• Work out monthly budget and where we can make savings.
• Plan for annual, six-monthly and quarterly spends (insurance, water bill etc).
• Once I know what our monthly commitments are, work out how much we can realistically save each month.
• Then work out budget for work we are planning this year (roof, stove, kitchen, office) and see if we can afford to do all 4 this year.

I know the above are really basic and I could be kicked out of MFW for not having done this already!

We did use to fill in a spending spreadsheet but it got so complicated and time-consuming. Then we moved and everything went out the window.

The trouble is we are used to having savings, having money left over each month and being able to do / buy what we want when we want it and we are having to adjust to the fact we need to plan and save for work and that we might not be able to do everything we want right now.

We also need to factor in retirement planning (pensions, savings and investments) as the "plan" is to retire (or at least cut back work a lot) at 55 so that's only 16.5 years away and I have no idea how we will achieve this

So credit card statement is in and it was a whopping £4.1K. Looking at outgoings for the month, we need to find just over £3K by end of January or take it out of savings. So the challenge is on - focus this month is not to OP anything but to make / save as much as possible to cover the shortfall.

Already scraped together £26 (egg sales and change)

Still, got 2 months free of council tax payments in February and March to look forward to, the cupboards are full and we're planning on being alcohol-free until 30th January (when I have lunch out planned) so that should save a bit!

ETA - forgot we also need to do the office (this is a need as there is a huge crack in the exterior wall!) so there are 4 planned renovations this year!