Hope is not an Effective Financial Strategy

shangaijimmy

We're stumbling towards the big day.. 2 of the 3 kids finished school yesterday and their excitement levels are ridiculous! I really need to get cracking with some present wrapping now!

I've made a few TT's here and there this week and thats about it really. Amazingly the current account still has money in it and we're less than a week before payday..I'm not sure when that last happened so that's a nice surprise at Christmas. Avid readers may recall me saying how well the Christmas fund was holding up and I was waiting for the inevitable thing I'd missed. Well it turns out the difference is no Christmas parties or nights out, which is quite sad really. 

debtfreeoneday

Or quite refreshing from a bank balance point of view SJ. 

Suffolk_lass

Merry Christmas Jimmy to you and the family, however different. I know you have shifted your focus to mortgage neutrality and I was wondering if the "Save £12k in 2021" thread might be a good challenge for you? - I've been in it for a while and it is just a google-sheet update each month - we are about to hit £10m saved since @slowlyfading started it in 2012

shangaijimmy

Well a belated Merry Christmas to everyone. I'd say we made the best of it, but it certainly hasn't felt 'right'. The kids have had a great few days which is all that counts.

I'm also happy to report that I ate nowhere near as much as usual, though as usual...Mrs SJ did an obscene amount of food. Last night she suggested 'I may have overdone it with the amount of food we bought.' We're not big eaters at all, but all Mrs SJ's family are so I suppose its a family developed habit. This morning I pleaded with her not to buy any food for New Years Eve, and we agreed for a home made curry (which will give us some portions for the freezer), or an Asda pizza. If I'm honest my main objective is for a 10mile run on New Years Day, so I won't be indulging in late night food!

Money wise Christmas came under our 'skinny' budget by £180, which is a massive bonus given we have 5 family birthdays in January.

Decembers accounts have been done, so I will post those in the next post and then turn my attention to 2021s plans.

shangaijimmy

Suffolk_lass said:

Merry Christmas Jimmy to you and the family, however different. I know you have shifted your focus to mortgage neutrality and I was wondering if the "Save £12k in 2021" thread might be a good challenge for you? - I've been in it for a while and it is just a google-sheet update each month - we are about to hit £10m saved since @slowlyfading started it in 2012

SL - I started that challenge this year but got in a bit of a mess with my figures during our realignment to pensions and eventual neutrality. Now that I'm settled on our strategy I'm just going to focus on the MFW challenge and consider my mortgage neutral savings as an overpayment pot to use at a later date.

Karmacat

You're doing well, Jimmy, life/finances balance is sounding better and better  

shangaijimmy

December 2020 Financials - Month 70

• Closing Mortgage Balance - £70,673.47
• Mortgage Neutral Deficit - £60,118.85
• Overpayments - £35.87
• Savings to Mortgage Neutral Pot - £520
• Mortgage Neutral Balance - £10,554.62

shangaijimmy

I love this time in between Christmas and New Year. Meandering along with dog walks, tea, beer, chocolate, cakes, darts, cricket, movies, running, spreadsheet fiddling/analysis/obsession... Mrs SJ went our for 5 meals (we no longer go out for drinks, it's meals with a drink!) yesterday evening with work friends. We're in a tier 2 area currently but expecting that to change this afternoon. So I got the kids to bring don't duvets, pillows, teddies and set up base in the living room for a movie and Christmas chocolate night. Then hastily tidied everything away before we picked Mrs SJ up from the train station just before bedtime. 

I've had a quick reminder and check of accounts this morning. As expected there were no surprises...EF was as expected though it's taken a little hit from Mrs SJ's brakes needing fixing, holiday savings which is all of 2020's all nicely resting in premium bonds (2 little wins along the way that is more than any interest we'd have found), and a small pot of cash from Mrs SJ work bonus and the sale of some of her annual leave. No surprises but nice to look into and remind myself of why they are there! Current account wise we have £230 left until payday in 9 days time. Neither of us need petrol and our food shop will be £50 at most, so the cash that is left can go towards the family birthdays in the early part of January.

Finally I have a couple of nice mortgage targets that we'll hit in January & February where we'll go into the next £10k segment. In Jan our mortgage neutral balance will go into the £50k's, and in Feb our actual mortgage balance will go into the £60k's. The 10k milestones always feel like a major achievement and we will celebrate with a takeaway or an actual meal out if we're allowed!

debtfreeoneday

Awesome progress SJ!  Happy New Year to you!

shangaijimmy

New Years Eve has arrived and today at SJ Towers we're only going to focus on the good elements of 2020. All negatives are banished... For example:

•  DD started primary school with no problems at all, no tears, no refusal to go etc... She absolutely loves it!
  
• DS1 moved to High school and despite the usual parent anxiety, he is flourishing there. He was definitely ready for it.
• DS2 is a perpetual bouncy ball of happy...I've no idea what planet his head lives on but its so heart warming. Anyway he was player of the season for his football team (he had absolutely no idea what that meant by the way).
• My old car passed its MOT!
• Mrs SJ close friend finally had a baby after years at the age of 40.
• I ran a marathon...but the key thing is I haven't injured my previous chronic calf since Sept 2019!
• Mrs SJ got a National award at work

I'm sure you get the jist now... There's a stack of financial positives as well but in reality there's only me that rejoices in those...

In other news Mrs SJ was trotting out her list of New Years Eve food plans.... Nooooooooooo! I said whatever you're thinking of doing, half the quantity and then we only need to throw a further quarter away. 

All the best everyone...only positive thinking from now on...!