The journey to financial independence.

Cream_Tea

Very productive day made:
-2 x cottage pies,
-2 x lasagne
-1x chicken stew.
-dauphinois potato
-potato wedges (3 freezer bags worth)

When I went out to get the ingredients tesco they had 2.5kg of potatoes for 20p!! I obviously got carried away and bought 5 kg for 40p. I made a big dauphinois potato and the rest I cut up into wedges and froze.

Feeling very pleased with the outcome of today. I am now ready for the new year. I also did an inventory of the freezer and cleaned all the freezer draws.

PopcootMFW

Cream_Tea wrote: »

I'm getting very excited about 2015 now I have all my money plans in place. I'm batch cooking today so I can start the year with a freezer full of time saving, money saving meals. I think I've identified that having watched our spending for the last few months we waste so much on food.
1) we don't have it in so we buy our lunches at work
2) we don't have it in so we get take away
3) we don't have it in so we nip to the shops for dinner and milk an spend £25
4) we don have it in so we make lots of bad choices and our waistlines keep expanding!!

Now off to cook

CT

Hi CT
Reading your thread and this sounds just like me and my hubby! We don't do the 'regular weekly shop' just tend to pop out here and there. Hoping MFW will force the issue for me and ensure more planning happens.
I have just stated a new thread for MFW journey and also set an OP target for £4,000 (2015). Look forward to reading more of your journey

Cream_Tea

I think the not doing the regular shop is the killer. I'm excited to hear another couple OPing! I will watch your journey with interest. Good luck!

Cream_Tea

Small victory here. I can't really remember the last day there was no spend but yesterday I bucked a trend... I bought my breakfast and lunch into work and had my dinner ready when I got home (one of the bits I batch cooked the day before).
I had a talk with DH and myself the batch cooking day and decided why are we waiting until 2nd January to relinquish our bank cards and attempt as many NSDs as possible, start now! I achieved day one of the goal, DH spent £35 on fireworks for our NYE party. He later likened it to spending money to set fire to it!
Happy new year every one!

Cream_Tea

Best day of the month again. Online banking has updated and we are now at £156,883.90 which is another £945.15 off!!! One no NSD out of three this year. Here is to many more :beer:
CT

gallygirl

Cream_Tea wrote: »

Yesterday I bought small envelopes and last night we had a ceremonial joining of our two penny jars (we have lived together for three years but still have these two items separate?!) so we now have a large old glass roses jar to put our unspent money in.

Please tell me you counted them first then squabbled over the fact one person had contributed 53p more :rotfl:.

I found your MFW diary from your FI diary. What are you actually trying to achieve - FI or being mortgage free? You can be FI with a mortgage and mortgage free without being FI.

I'm almost at the end of my journey (:j) and started it a lot later than most on here, but if I was in your position I'd seriously consider cutting back on the overpayments and consider investing the money in low cost trackers in an S&S ISA instead. Over time they're likely to grow % wise more than your mortgage interest. Also look at your pension positions. I'm guessing you have a good NHS one but what about hubby? Could/should either of you be paying more in than you currently are? Don't concentrate on one thing to the exclusion of all else - if you pay off your mortgage in 10 years and then look to invest you'll have lost 10 years of stock market gains.

Whatever you choose, good luck, the whole quest for financial freedom is very exciting :T.

Cream_Tea

GG funny you pop by today. I was just asking for help on the savings board with this issue. I am not quite sure how to go forward. I feel we are making good progress with the mortgage overpayments and have transferred all CC debt to 0% CC so that will be cleared in the next few months. Now what to work on?

You mention s&s where do you go about working out where to get them from or which are best?

I read somewhere a little while ago you should OP mortgage, clear debt and save for future all at the same time not to focus on one at a time but I feel quite lost as to what to do or where to invest. So much out there can't see wood for the trees any advice welcome!
CT

Cream_Tea

Also productive day today put 5 items on eBay. It sadly stopped me there and said it was my maximum for the month. How very annoying!

elantan

Hi CT

Just catching up with your diary, like you I work shifts and need to get on top of food for work, worked Xmas day and boxing day this year also ( all pennies for the pot)

I'm aiming for F.I.R.E myself I think, originally started as just wanting to get out of debt, then added in get out of debt and have some savings, now it seems to have moved onto financial independence retire early.

At first I found it hard to get my head around not hammering the mortgage and actually saving some but when I sat down with the figures I reckoned that it made much more sense, I do still pay extra to the mortgage as I feel for us the safety of owning your own home is vital for mental health, so I'm doing things slightly different and probably not the best way tbh

If your interested in S&S I.S.A's then firstly I would recommend working out your adversity to risk, I'm strangely not as risk adverse as I used to be

Maybe read some books about investing as well so that you understand it a bit more, there's loads more but don't want to overwhelm you

Good luck

Cream_Tea

Thank you Elantan lots to think about.
Never sold something on eBay, so very pleased to find 3 out of 5 items have watchers this morning. Feeling good! Also looked into why it will only let us add 5 items not really sure. It's DH account because I couldn't remember my details. Found my login details for eBay and I can list 100! So project for today:
-to list the remaining bits I wanted to sell. Wish me luck!
-count out and deposit in bank penny pot
-send off tax forms to claim back uniform expenses I recently learnt I could do!
I am determined to have some money in the emergency fund saving account and extension fund account this month, I need to see progress.
2015 will be a different year where I will feel more in control!