Half way there and a slight change of direction

elantan

ZTD wrote: »

If you go to Scotland for holidays, you will have over a thousand heads - one on your shoulders and a thousand buried into your flesh, drinking your blood...









Is this not true? :rotfl:

You know us so well

beanielou wrote: »

Watch it Z :rotfl:
We thought you were our friend.
Dident we El?

Aye ...

elantan

August since I last updated, well thats been a while then.

What have we been up to, away in the caravan quite a lot, also kayaking and going to folk festivals, it's been a great time even though we have spent so much money, I keep thinking we need to buckle down and save and pay off the mortgage then part of me thinks but we need to find the balance, we need to find a way which allows us to save, pay off and still enjoy ourselves in the meantime.

Currently I think we are doing a bit too much of the living and spending but I think it is probably in response to the amount we saved and paid off in the last few years.

So I need to find this balance, something that works for both Mr El and myself which will allow us to retire early have savings and still have a life.

I am still at uni currently on placement and loving it, just finished another paper which I hope will be good enough for a pass, I finish in July then the role of getting a job starts, I'm still not entirely sure which are of the profession I want to go into but I am still sure on which area I don't want to go into, this hasnt changed since I started so it is comforting to know that I feel more sure about things.

I dont think I will be working again this xmas so no doubt will have to have the family over again, but I spose it will be the last time for a few years as I will be working them for the next few years.

The mortgage is down to just below £6k now so whilst I am still paying small bits off the mortgage I am not concentrating too much on it as I can use our money better elsewhere. I have been paying quite a bit into the pension, but I fully recognise I need to pay more in, still trying to find a place to put savings but becoming more aware I need savings that I cant access quickly as I am aware we are having quite a bit of fun and often think " oh will just take x from x and that will give us more fun" ... Trying to work through where to put this money just now

Hope everyone is doing good.

beanielou

Blimey El.
Believe it or not I was just thinking of you the other day & hoping that you & Mr El were well.
Cannot believe that you finish in July!!!!
Take care L xxx

beanielou

& great great result on the mortgage :j :j
How long to go?

elantan

beanielou wrote: »

Blimey El.
Believe it or not I was just thinking of you the other day & hoping that you & Mr El were well.
Cannot believe that you finish in July!!!!
Take care L xxx

hey Beanie lovely to hear from you, was thinking of you during the budget myself and hoping you would be ok... Yep July, on the one hand I am excited on the other very very nervous, my understanding of this is its natural and normal to feel this way .. so we will see

beanielou wrote: »

& great great result on the mortgage :j :j
How long to go?

Well if Mr El and I stick to the plan we will be clear by the time I finish, I somehow doubt that though given the way we are spending just now but hopefully start to middle of 2018 at the latest

Butti

This is all sounding good!

elantan

Thanks Butti am hoping we can all meet up again once I'm done studying ? Beanie, skinty your good self and others ?

Well talk about erm spending money ... yesterday my Kayak arrived ... Today Mr El fitted it to the garage, am trying to show a wee pic of it but can't quite figure out how to

We won't be able to use it till next year but Mr El did quite a bit of overtime so we decided to do something with it rather than waste it

We have another Kayak to buy and paddles etc ... but we have started purchasing things for our fun on the water

elantan

Hi all,

Happy new year and all the best for 2017

so a wee update if i may,

mortgage is still over £5k but coming down all be it slowly, I had hoped to have it paid off by the time I qualified however, in order for me to do that I have to find over £3k, which I could do but I think I can use £3k in a much better way. I am still putting my Tilly Tidies into the mortgage and also the money from Halifox( down to £3 next month i see ) and my interest from TsB ( down to 3% from today as well ) so I am still paying more than the interest off every month, the interest works out at 48p per day which is not too bad.

We nearly took out another mortgage though as we have a leak on the roof, this does need addressed but we are loathed to taking out more of a mortgage as we have worked so hard at paying it off, but it is the cheapest form of credit so we really did consider it.

which brings me to savings and things we have decided to start a savings account for things like repairs, now I know that yes we should have had one of those long before now and we have had, however as I am sure a lot of you will remember trying to keep a hold of savings in this house is like trying to stop a damn leaking with a plaster, although the plaster could possibly more effective.

I have looked at savings accounts and the interest is dire, average cash savings accounts ( although you really need to go current account and not savings account) is 3% and we have the TsB one that gives us that,so we are going to attempt to try and put some savings in that.

We are due a pay out on our endowment in August 2018, If we can manage to save between now and then we should have enough for the roof, the leak isnt too bad ( but it isnt good either). If we cant nurse the leak along till then we will have to look at taking out credit.

I have worked out that in order to retire when we want to I need to save £1k per month into a pension and £500 per month into a savings vehicle, currently I am putting £700 a month into a pension and £250 a month into a savings vehicle, I do this without Mr el knowing as if he did know then I am sure we would have several kayaks telescopes , cameras. motorhomes and drones, and I REALLY want to retire early.

The reason we need as much is that although I have tried in vain to save for retirement since I was 20 ( yes I started young and even have a small pension from my 20's) family commitments and low wages have meant that I have been unable to, so now I have a lot of ground to make up and it will be painful to make that ground up, byt the end of this year however I will be qualified and intend on reaching my target of £1k a month into the pension and £500 a month into savings with added extra's as and when I can to make up the shortfall for not starting earlier

So I have been kinda staying on top of things as much as I can, however there is always room for improvement. I have tried many things before those that worked I stuck with and those that didnt got lost by the way side.

This year I think I want to concentrate on one thing only financially to try and hone it down, when I first started I was doing loads of things at once, experimenting with what worked and what didn't. Now that I have had a wee shot of trying things out I want to go back to the drawing board and see if I can make deeper in roads into out financial life.

With this in mind I have decided it is time i battled the spectre of the food/ take away budget, for anyone that has followed me for a while, I know I know its funny, really funny, but I am gonna make this the sole concentration this year, everything else ( apart from roof savings) is ticking along just nicely.

For those that dont know me well I imagine my first ever post about finance on MSE was about food budgets and take aways, we are better than we were but we are far from good. If i were to cut out take aways and all the crap food that is bought in this house I reckon we could probably afford to eat fillet steak at least once a week, not that I would want to but I could afford organic vegetables as well ( now that I would like)

So with that in mind what to do, well I have tried doing a meal plan and they work they really do, as long as we do them they work wonders, however after the third occasion of doing one Mr El gets bored so I land up doing them myself and then I get frustrated that things always get left to me so I stop and then cant be !!!!!dability kicks in and before you know it were back to take aways again ... sigh

I need to break this cycle, we spend way way way too much on take aways and rubbish food and no where near enough on healthy food ... and more importantly I want to be healthy when I retire and eating is part of that


So anyone got any advice ?

elantan

On a lighter note, Hogmanay this year was spent at Stonehaven watching the fireballs, It was a long 2.5 hour drive there and and even longer 4 hour drive back ( we had to pick up sons GF? from a party) but it was worth it, it was wonderful watching traditional practices and being made to feel very welcome by the local community, the last two hogmanay's were spent snoring our wee heads off till the fire works went off approx 12.15 and woke us up, this year it was great to do something different, next year were considering going wild camping and star gazing, that could be fun

beanielou

:wave: Good to see you & get your updactes.
All falling into place now I think