Viking's Diary

Viking_mfw

The expenses got paid and I paid off the credit card.

I also got to the jewellers I'd been recommended for selling gold and got £40 for a necklace that's too small and I never wear. Paid it in to the bank immediately, along with 2p I found on the street. Adding that to the money left over from expenses that wasn't needed for the credit card I sent some of it to the joint account for expenses related to selling and buying (surveyor needs paying tomorrow) and made an OP of £26.18. Every little helps, as a certain large retailer reminds me

Looks like budgeting has worked as for the first time in months I have a surplus left, with an intended NSD tomorrow and payday on Friday. Hurrah for budgeting! It's not entirely accurate as I've overspent in some categories and underspent in others, but it's a good start and there were some un-remembered expenses this month that we could/should have budgeted for.

And finally the house insurance renewal has arrived, at a grand total of £1.01 a month more than last year. Given that we'll be moving when the policy is 1-2 months old I'm just leaving it as it is, and we'll see how it goes when we get into the new place. I had planned to save the interest by paying annually but given we're in a critical cashflow moment with the move, and the total interest is less than £20, I think we'll prepare to do that next year instead.

Final update on July OPs will come on Friday when I will (I think) have some overtime type things in my pay slip which I am planning to OP. But £152.80 is a pretty good start to the MFW journey so far!

Jessy103

Great start Viking, well done! x

pinkypig

Hi Viking - we are beginning our journeys at a similar time. I will be cheering you on. Subscribed:)

PP x

Viking_mfw

Thanks PP - we are indeed in a similar place.

Payday! (I notice there was lots of action on the board this morning - a complete coincidence I'm sure.)

So I did get some overtimey things in my payslip but there's still a bunch to come next month, which is welcome. OP'd £126.51 from that (the amount in my pay over the amount we budgeted from) and also the contactless rewards had come into my account so I OP'd an additional £5.01, meaning a grand total of £284.32 OP'd this month/ ever! This saves me about £259 in interest over the life of the mortgage which is excellent Actually if you take into account the fact I'm overpaying from the SVR mortgage portion rather than the fixed rate, it's more like £276. Even better.

I also had, as mentioned, a surplus left over at the end of the month due to budgeting. So I transferred £400 into our joint account which is where moving expenses/ stamp duty etc are being collected - the 10% deposit on exchange will need to be in there, even if it later 'repaid' on completion and used for stamp duty, solicitors' fees etc. So I'm balancing building up that account with OPs that make me feel happy!

As I said a couple of days ago, I think the real revelation to me has been how much less afraid of my bank account and anxious about money this has made me. I feel more in control, even if we are spending less. I also feel like I've been much more savvy this month - had a free Amazon Pantry delivery credit from buying cheap loo roll on Prime Day, so yesterday I used it to buy things from Amazon Pantry that we need and use but which were cheaper on Amazon than in the supermarket, with additional vouchers from Amazon. The best bargain was the sachets of Whiskas that I got - buying a 40 pack instead of 12s from the supermarket, with an additional 25% off meant they were 17p a sachet or thereabouts instead of 25p. Which is several quid over the course of a month. Just a shame they went out of stock on our toothpaste at the last second, which would have been a bargain at half the price it is in the supermarket!

Going to a wedding tomorrow, so that will be expensive as I need to take some cash out to put in a card, but it will be worth it - and they took my spare Douwe Egberts jars for their sweet trolley which gave me some satisfaction since the jars are just too nice to recycle!

Happy end of the month everyone.

V

Viking_mfw

As predicted, an expensive weekend. Had a lovely time at the wedding though - they are ten years younger than I was when we got married last year, and they deserve a bit of support towards their future.

Also did the expensive first shop of the month (I always seem to spend more on that first shop, even when not budgeting, because I'm buying things that I've thought 'that will wait til next month'. Still less than the budget for the week though, so we're good. I also included a pair of shoes for the wedding, so I reckon it's not too shabby. Only downside was the receipt was so long ReceiptPig wouldn't upload it!

I also had the time to read up about LISAs which I only heard of last week. As I said before, I'm not looking to retire early (or rather retiring in mid 60s would be early for my profession) and given we're about to embark on a 30 year mortgage that's going to stretch us for a while, I think that investing in a LISA is a no brainer - even if we only dripfeed £25 a month into one for the next 13 years - which will take me to 50, just about - then the bonus gets us an extra grand before growth. And then after another ten, we can empty them and pay them off the mortgage, which we are highly likely to still have in 23 years time. And if by any miracle we have paid off the mortgage early, we can have a stonking great holiday of a lifetime to celebrate our 60ths I won't be able to max out the amount - certainly not to start with - because we'll need money to do things to the new house and we'll be tightening our belts significantly. But I think £25 a month each is doable. And having them opened now means that if we can up that amount in ten years' time, it will be an option. (And yes, we do both pay the maximum into our employer pensions, and get the maximum match. I have a very good workplace pension, the OH pretty good but not as good, but he's been paying in for longer than I have.) So my next debate is to work out what to invest in for the LISA. I've ruled out the Cash one because 0.50% rather negates the point of the bonus; I'm debating whether to put us both in the same fund or to put us in different ones to spread the risk a little. (The reason for opening two is in case we can afford to put more than 4k a year in towards the end.) I guess it makes sense to do two different funds. I'll be going through HL so I will have a look at the options. I suspect I will nominally have a more risky one and DH will have a slightly lesser one, but it is fairly nominal. Anyway, the plan is to each put £100 in opening one this month (he's got some left over from last month which he grudgingly agreed to use and I will use some of the budgeted surplus from this month) and then regular investments of £25.

Otherwise am trying to have a cheap week. Just eating some soup from the freezer stockpile for my lunch and planning on eating as much as possible from stores this week. We have a friend and her two boys coming to stay for a week from Friday and we're having a big family BBQ on Sunday so I expect next week will be expensive, even if I am planning to descend on Mr A for meat and salad for BBQ rather than Mr S as usual. So if I can get to Friday without spending anything on food I will be a happy Viking!

mrspuddleduck

I'm trying to use up freezer stockpiles at the moment too! My challenge tonight is working out how to cook something with no instructions! Sticking it in the microwave til it sizzles should be good enough!

Off to investigate what LISAs are now!

Viking_mfw

Hi PD!
Our microwave died during getting the house ready for sale, and we're not going to buy a new one til we're in the new house... defrosting is sometimes problematic. Did the soup in a bowl over a pan of water yesterday!

LISAs = Lifetime ISAs. You can save in them up to the age of 50 providing they're opened before you're 40, but you can't access them until you're 60 (unless you're a FTB). The bonus is the govt will put in 25% of what you do (£4k limit on your deposit a year). Opinion seems split on them, but if you've got a pension already, they seem like a no brainer to me, particularly if you're not looking to retire before 60/ think you will still have a mortgage by then.

Talked to OH about it last night and we've agreed that it's sensible for us to buy into different funds to diversify. So now just to find out what the choices actually are...!

Managed to spend more money today - ended up stranded and starving and had to buy a few items in Mr S. Too early a start does not make for me being able to plan ahead!

Have decided to target £200 of OP in August. I can see where half of that is going to come from (expenses plus delay repay on train) but the other £100 is a mystery

Viking_mfw

Mildly disastrous day from a MS point of view - washing machine just died. Luckily it died at the end of a cycle so I just had very wet clothes to deal with not soapy wet clothes. They're now on the line blowing in the quite strong wind which should hopefully make them at least not sopping wet so they can come in this evening.

Only mildly disastrous because parents in law are buying us a new machine as a housewarming present and are happy to just bring it forward a few weeks. I just have to write to the solicitor and say we won't be leaving a machine now.

On the other hand my delay repay cheque has turned up so that's £14.75/ 200 to OP. I'm actually topping it up to £15 because why wouldn't you? so hopefully by the end of the day £15/ £200 for August will be OP'd.

Viking_mfw

Whoop. Last lot of expenses have also been paid, so added them and the delay repay together, topped up with £2 and made an OP of £100.

Just the mystery £100 to find now...

Viking_mfw

Having been lurking on some other threads, namely the 'make £10 a day' in DFW, decided that wondering where the mystery £100 is going to come from is not an acceptable strategy! :rotfl:

So: I have listed a bunch of stuff on sticky tree (I don't have a working paypal account so don't have a fleabay account either. I may have to resort to it in the future.) There's still a dressing table to go on there, but can't do that this week.

I have also put to one side stuff to send to Vintage Cash Cow or whatever they're called, having sorted through some broken jewellery and a couple of old bits of costume jewellery (I used to have a bit of an addiction). Now I just need to find an appropriately sized sturdy box to take them to the PO tomorrow.

I joined YouGov but I can't see that being a quick payer!

I also have a bag of books to Ziffit, and I shall try to get them sorted this week.

Finally, we have some guests this week and are on a staycation, which we are keeping as low cost as possible for all concerned. However, we have had to increase the food budget - and spent it! - so next week (starting the 14th) I'm going to try and limit food spend to bread, milk, fruit, salad. Hoping to keep that to £30, and ditto the week after, which should actually net £100 alone. However, I suspect I won't be able to stick to that. I have a special offer Gousto box coming the first week - 3 meals for the 2 of us for £9.99 - which I have already paid for, and which should help things along.