I Just Want To Retire Debt Free

System

I am on a sim only contract now , but my phone is still going strong , it's 3 yr old . Dreading it giving up the ghost. If you find a great deal that's fantastic, as £1000 for a phone line is extortionate.

Have a good weekend.

Purplebonnie

It has been a loooong time since I last posted. When I started the diary I had also just started a new job etc etc and life got in the way of keeping it up. Plus I think I put too much pressure on myself by thinking I should post every day, comment every day on diaries that I was following, and it all got too much. So now I will post when I can and comment on other diaries when I can - no pressure.
As you can see from my signature, in the last two years I have managed to pay off just over £10,000 of debt but my debt free day has not changed much (yet I will add, as I have just updated my snowball calculator and aim to bring that down). I have also managed to accumulate £11000 in a ISA account which will be needed for a major maintenance job on our home later in the year. I also have some other savings pots with bits of money in.
I still want to retire, or at least cut down to part time hours, so I need to get rid of the debt and get together some savings. I get my State Pension when I am 66 - I am one of the WASPI women having reached 60 this year, so still got a while to wait for that.
My aim this year is to pay off £12000 debt and my first savings goal is £1000 emergency fund. I actually already have £420 in that pot, so that’s a good start. I am also doing a weekly savings challenge - week 1 - £52, week 2 - £51 etc.
Today is payday, so I have moved all my money into various pots and paid my debts, all as budgeted in my shiny new budget book. I have paid off £1150.77 of debt today, so that a good start to the year.
Oh and I still need to lose the weight and get fitter!
That’s it for now, more later.

Purplebonnie

Happy New Year! We had a very quiet New Year’s Eve, no alcohol involved, so have woken up this morning refreshed and full of enthusiasm for the year ahead. My hubby kicked cancer last year and I was diagnosed with COPD, so not the healthiest of years. But we have both learned the importance of eating properly and keeping fit. If I lose the weight, do regular exercise, take my medication and avoid chest infections, I am assured by my doctor that there is no reason why my COPD should progress, so that is exactly what I am going to do.
In the last two years we converted a transit van to a camper van and have had some great fun in it. Last year was a bit curtailed due to hospital/doctor appointments but this year we intend to make very good use of it. We are completely self sufficient in the van, so no need for expensive campsites; free wild camping and Britstops is the way to go and I have budgeted for fuel. You need some fun and adventures in life, we are just going to be very frugal about it.
Today, I am going to spend the day relooking at the finances, doing a bit of decluttering and listing on Facebook to make some extra money.
Have a good day.

enthusiasticsaver

Happy New Year and good luck with your goals. Paying off £10k and saving £11k is great over the last few years. I turn 60 next month so in same boat as you re state pension. Luckily I overpaid my occupational pensions since 1990s when they changed the age for women so took them early to bridge the gap.

Purplebonnie

Morning Enthusiastisaver, I wish now that I had done more towards retirement. Well done on having such forethought. When you are younger, retirement seems so far off, but it catches up to you so quickly!

Purplebonnie

It’s been a NSD today, so that’s a good start to the day.

In an effort to use up my enormous stock of food in pantry, fridge, freezer & allotment, I chose a recipe for dinner that I already had all the ingredients for. I made a Lentil Loaf and served with roast potatoes, parsnips, peas, Brussels tops and gravy. I cut the leftover lentil loaf into slices and froze in readiness for future Sunday lunches. I reckon it cost about £1 to make the loaf and cut into six good sized slices. That’s a lot cheaper than going to the supermarket and buying a Linda McCartney loaf at £3.99 (a lot healthier too as it contained no fat and had plenty of added veggies).

The parsnips and the Brussels tops (some critter had feasted on the actual sprouts) were freshly picked from the allotment this morning. I also took a bag of veggie peelings/compostable stuff to the allotment and a huge cardboard box, which is now covering a raised bed.

I put together a meal plan for next week taking into account what produce we already have. We don’t stick religiously to the day with the plan, but it works over the week.

Didn’t manage to list anything on Facebook today, but will try to find time tomorrow.

enthusiasticsaver

Purplebonnie wrote: »

Morning Enthusiastisaver, I wish now that I had done more towards retirement. Well done on having such forethought. When you are younger, retirement seems so far off, but it catches up to you so quickly!

That is very true. We also were lucky enough to have stable employment with good pensions so did not have to cope with unemployment etc which scuppers many plans. Working in finance in the 1990s also probably meant I was better informed than most.

Purplebonnie

Back in October, the hot water digital timer went out of sync for some reason, I couldn’t find the instructions, so I put it on a shelf ‘to do later’. Yesterday it dawned on me, that having the emersion on all the time was costing me £25 plus a month. So I googled the instructions, reset the timer and plugged it back in. £350 plus a year saved in 10 minutes.
I woke up early today and before six I had cleared three bin bags full of clothes from the wardrobes & under the bed. Most are heading for the charity shop, but some of the good branded ones are going on Facebook or eBay. I am definitely a hoarder, think I might research Marie Kondo.
£6.94 spent today in Home Bargains as I needed deodorant, shower gel etc. I did quite well in using up all my stock of toiletries over the last few months, except body cream – does that multiply in the cupboard?
Still in the mode of using what I’ve got in the fridge, freezer and pantry, I made a creamy red pepper sauce with pasta for dinner from a Happy Pear recipe on YouTube, absolutely delicious. It used up half a jar of red peppers that were sitting in the fridge and some of the huge amount of pasta I seem to have accumulated.

Purplebonnie

I have been reading How Not To Die and decided I would like the cookbook to go with it. Normally I would just order it on Amazon, but I had a gift card for Waterstones so decided to use that instead. The book was actually £6.99 more expensive than it was with Amazon. If I was paying for it I may have just gone home and ordered it, but as I was using the gift card, it was still free to me. It went against the grain though paying over the odds, luckily a quick read through shows that it has a lot of recipes that I will definitely try out. I LOVE cookery books and got two for Christmas, so I am on a cooking bonanza. I am very impressed with Jack Monroe’s new book Vegan(ish).
I also went to Sainsbury’s and the farm shop to top up on tofu, tempeh, fruit & veg etc and spent £24.61, now should have enough to see me through a couple of weeks. Except broccoli, I forgot to buy broccoli and we use a lot of that in broccoli soup which is supposed to be exceptionally good for you.
It is very mild for January, in fact we didn’t light the woodburner until this evening, so that’s a saving on wood even though we get the logs very cheap from my son (a tree surgeon) or free when we use pallets.
Leftovers for dinner today.

Purplebonnie

Just a small spend today of £2.70, I was trying for a NSD. I needed some mustard powder for a spice mix that I am making up, when I opened the tin it smelled funny and when I looked it had actually gone out of date in 2005! I went and got some more and some free from Pesto, but note to self – make sure I use the mustard powder and don’t buy anymore jars of English mustard.
I took my Mum’s jacket that she got for Christmas back to Next and resisted the sale (pat on back for me). I did have a quick look at the laundry baskets as ours has fallen to bits and we are decorating our bedroom. However, I remembered that I have a lovely Lloyd Loom wicker basket in the shed, so have dug it out, cleaned it up and will paint it to match new bedroom using leftover paint. I will have a lovely quality basket, that matches the room for nothing (another pat on the back).
In return for taking the jacket back, Mum & Dad treated me to lunch out. I had the most amazing lentil cottage pie with a mashed parsnip topping and plenty of lovely fresh veg, it was delicious. Dad also gave me a roll of compostable bin bags. These I use in a bin in the bathroom as we do not put ‘wee’ toilet paper in our compost toilet. The bag then goes in the compost bin at the allotment when full, nothing wasted round here.
This hunting around in the pantry first before shopping certainly pays off. I was coming to the end of my homemade vanilla extract and thought I would have to buy some ingredients. However I found half a dozen vanilla pods and a half bottle of vodka. Pods into bottle and now to wait six months. When the old bottle is completely empty I will also add those pods to the new bottle. This is a very cheap way of making a good, strong flavoured vanilla extract for baking etc.