Paid off the £31,000! BUT - still scrimping!

brizzlegirl

All sounds good SSG, best of luck with it all - given your record of debt busting think you’ll be more than fine

Have a good day and an even better decade

Brizzle x

doingitanyway

Great idea to practice living on retirement income. Wishing you well with it.:)

Seasidegal58

in_need_of_direction wrote: »

I cut back on my spends when working my notice period pre self employment. I now pay myself less than a third of what I previously earned as we discovered we could manage on this along with dh’s salary. It was a bit of a revelation just how much we were wasting

brizzlegirl wrote: »

All sounds good SSG, best of luck with it all - given your record of debt busting think you’ll be more than fine

Have a good day and an even better decade

Brizzle x

doingitanyway wrote: »

Great idea to practice living on retirement income. Wishing you well with it.:)

Thank you all! 'Interesting Times' as they say!:D

In the spirit of making sure I update my diary regularly, I thought I would write a quick post before I go to bed.

Wind and rain all day today again weatherwise!:eek: DD and OH went out on a two hour walk through it all as she was testing out a waterproof outdoor jacket for a manufacturer!

I pottered, made dumplings to go with the vegan stew (first time I had made them with vegetable Atora suet and couldn't taste the difference from the original type!) and cleaned out the fridge! Tonight DD and I had a bit of a girly evening with a neighbour and her mum. We had nibbles and watched 'Yves St Laurent' which we all thoroughly enjoyed. DD's OH would have rather had pins stuck through his nose than watch it, so he disappeared to tecchieland!:D

Up relatively early tomorrow as we're going to have a drive out on our last day here.

Moneywise - apart from most of my monthly DDs being debited from my account today I had hoped for a NSD. However I had forgotten that I had downloaded a film on Sky a few weeks ago so this showed up in the Sky debit. Annoying!:(

doingitanyway

Vegan stew and dumplings sounds lovely. What was in the stew? Have you used dark miso? I find it gives stews and soups depth.

Seasidegal58

I used up the root veg that was left DIA - carrot, onion, parsnip, leek, potatoes plus some Brussels and garlic. I would also have added pearl barley (which I love in stews), but we didn't have any! As well as the veg stock; marmite, port (instead of red wine) and soy sauce was added for flavour, plus some dried rosemary and sage. With the dumplings it was very hearty and I didn't miss any meat at all!

We drove over to Skye today - a lovely drive on the West Coast Road - and had some lunch. On the way back we did a small detour to to Eilean Donan castle which was featured in the original 'Highlander' film. It was dusk when we got there and the castle was lit up - DD managed to find and play 'Who Wants to Live Forever' on the car stereo as we drove up so very beautiful and atmospheric! I'm definitely going to visit again and actually go round the castle when we have more time.

Back home tomorrow - all being good I should be back indoors for teatime!

Scrimpy Spends - well not soooo scrimpy - I paid for lunch as a thank you to them both for a lovely time - with tip it came to £52.70. I've split it up between two pots - my share in the Entertainments Eating Out category and their share in the Ad Hoc spends. Perhaps I should have a pot for when I pay for others' meals?:think: When I get back YNAB is going to get a thorough overhaul.

doingitanyway

I like the addition of port for depth of flavour. I will steal that.

You are in such a beautiful part of the world. Lucky you.

Your spends were good spends.

milann

It sounds as if you’ve had a lovely time in Scotland. The furthest up I’ve ever been is to Dundee. I’d love to travel further into the Highlands.
Dh is doing a similar thing now he has reduced his hours. He is living on his pension and saving his reduced wage for a rainy day. I should get a very small pension when I’m 62 later this year and I plan to put it into some savings which I’ll top up with some of my wages ready for when I do retire in 2025.

Sun_Addict

That stew sounds lovely and a good way to use up odds and ends too

Glad you had a fab time in Scotland, safe travels home.

HairyHandofDartmoor

Scotland sounds lovely. I'd love to go to Skye and the other Scottish islands.

I think it 's a very sound idea to live on a reduced income. It will test out whether you can live on that amount when you retire and also will enable you to save more for your retirement. It's too easy to live on what you've got just because you've got it.

Sunshine_girl2

Your last day sounded delightful , I am wanting to go to Skye now as well.

Living off your pension is a fab idea, at least you will get a feel of whether you can survive on it.

Hope work is easy on you this week.