Hope is not an Effective Financial Strategy

shangaijimmy

Cherry picking is the only way that we would be able to make it work, otherwise is a big ask in the last few weeks. We'd be constantly putting £5 in and digging out the change!

I ran some numbers in our networth this afternoon. I'm a week late in the month but pleased to report an increase of over £1.6k for the month. And an uplift of a shade under £18k for the year. Tracking networth really does give an indication of the impact of overpayments with the swing in assets.

It's all part of getting an idea of retirement and pre-retirement plans. I have a working plan at the moment, but its very much in the formulation stage (we are 15-20yrs away), so all info helps for scheming!

debtfreeoneday

Lol at you using the 1p square SJ!

shangaijimmy

Wow its a wet miserable start to the weekend! DS2 is playing football in the pouring rain, pooch needs walking in the pouring rain, I need to run in the pouring rain...And to cap it all off Mrs SJ & me are going to a concert tonight...outside...potentially in the pouring rain!

Forecast is suggesting a lull in the rain at 9ish, but we may well be saturated by then! Too old for concerts in the rain now!

At least I should have some change for the 1p challenge jar as it's my turn today.

debtfreeoneday

Hope you didn't get too wet..

shangaijimmy

Well I was meaning to post on Sunday, but that didn't happen. Then yesterday but had IT issues in work and was then exhausted when i got home (11hr day on a Monday). So here i am now a few days late. Concert was amazing, and we stayed dry! Thousands of others didn't syay dry but we managed to get a great spot in the unreserved seating area. Short 20s scutch to a bar that was surprisingly quiet as well!

That said I did get soaked at DS2 football, on pooches walk, and on my run! Then yesterday I got soaked on school run, and then soaked again during the last 90mins of work. I've got a day off today (grandparents away so I'm on DD duty today) and looking at the weather I can't see us going much further than a play centre.

Moneywise we've hit that mid month lull, so nothing happening. But the relative calm is nice to be fair. Our 1p challenge continues to be a source of competitiveness in the house although its clear that the big amounts (over £2.50) may end up a sticking point.

shangaijimmy

Oh dear I have been missing (without being in action). Lets blame it on the torrential rain we had last week!

In shame I am posting on the train back to the promised land, i.e. Up North, from London village. In money terms we are limping to payday with one week left to negotiate, but that brings excitement as it'll time for money shuffling shenanigans.

At the weekend I shifted our holiday savings out of our Tesco current account and opened one with Marcus for 1.5%. It'll make minimal difference but I'm moving the cash out of principle for them reducing interest to 1%. I will also be opening another in Mrs SJs name for our Christmas savings.

Avid readers will be aware that I had some cash in peer 2 peer lending. Now I'd started to withdraw chunks out at Christmas as more and more loans were seeming to go into bad debt. Withdrawals were fine until the final batch of £150 which has been stuck in sales for 6 weeks now, grrr.... Although I'm frustrated at this, I'm so glad I haven't got thousands in there!

Lastly, our 1p a day challenge is going well, and Mrs SJ is keeping on with it as well.

shangaijimmy

Car insurance renewal notice has popped up, and amazingly our re quote has gone down by about £16. I'm still reluctant to just let it roll on without looking though, mainly because of the desire for cashback!!! So I may crack on with a few quotes tonight.

I am patiently waiting for my Natwest switch bonus to land as well. It did say before August, but I not patient afterall and its been a month now.

Last one is I found 10p roadkill on my dog walk whcih has been added to our 1p challenge. DS1 also found £1 but he wouldn't put it in our pot!

shangaijimmy

Well I am somewhat disappointed that I can't beat our car insurance re-quote. So no cashback. I wonder if they are now changing track with those customers who they see have been regular switchers??

therocket_2

We had a similar thing this year, where are renewal quote was fractionally cheaper than last year's BUT we still managed to beat the quote by nearly £150. No idea how though!

Great progress as always - I always seem to learn something new each time I read your diary SJ!

Top work.

R

shangaijimmy

therocket wrote: »

Great progress as always - I always seem to learn something new each time I read your diary SJ!

Thanks for popping by, however a small confession is that everything you think you've learned from my ramblings, you have in fact learned from my version of what I've pinched off people on here!! These forums are fantastic!

Well the week has been strange and a tough one. I started out by waking up in London after travelling down on Sunday evening for a Monday conference. Conference was great but always in the back of mind I'm thinking that i now have a day of work to catch up on. Tues & Weds were a slog as i caught up, but also caught up on the fatigue from the conference, and as i tried to make sense of and relay the meaningful new info to the team. Yesterday was a 9-1.30, and then 4-10.30 split work day, so a draining end to the week. And in all this our budgets/bank accounting hasn't even crossed my mind :eek:

I was hoping to wake up refreshed from a good sleep...alas the "pollen bomb" has struck!

Anyway onto today. 4 of us are booked on the 9.57 train for an hours travel and off for a day out (DD is going to grandma's as she's a bit young). The weather looks great and whilst we heading to the coast the pollen count shouldn't be as high, so win win. I've made the packed lunches already and ********* Dungeons await. This is completely up DS1's street and he's so excited about finding some ideas to 'torture' his brother with :rotfl: Secretly I'm hoping we can treat them as plague victims and brick them both up in the walls The day is fully budgeted for will come from our holiday/days out fund.

Our plan when we get home is to sit in the garden for the evening and drink beer (me) and gin (Mrs SJ).