The Edcawber Principle

Suffolk_lass

It made me laugh! I read back about the rats and cat and thought "Lordy, nobody wants to read that!!"

edinburgher

3/4 eB@y parcels paid for and packaged, no idea how I'm going to wrap the 4th :think:

Just remembered that we needed pet insurance. I have signed up for a lifetime policy at £5.04/month, which seemed to be a balance between provision, cost and common sense. There wasn't any discount available for an annual premium. I almost bought it through a comparison site before checking TCB and finding out that I could get £12.60 for going direct. Luckily the quotes were the same. No comparison site - that's my hard earned money! :mad:

*Edit: £30.03 paid off a CC - new balance £16,999.99 :cool:

beanielou

Happy new balance :j :j

Suffolk_lass

Always had cats. Never had insurance. Just budget for jabs, cattery and would use emergency fund for everything else. Mind you, lots of wet and dry food and gargantuan amounts of cat litter. Not to mention those well-known cat treats that are cat-crack. Would not be without at least one.

edinburgher

We don't have an EF

£1.60 paid off a CC - I have managed to forget a £105 payment that is going out tomorrow (building and contents insurance) :eek:

Butti

edinburgher wrote: »

I've made some dashi (a seaweed and bonito broth, the base for miso soup and other Japanese dishes) and will also be making a cauliflower and chickpea curry in the SC.

Hi Edinburgher.
Is dashi easy to make? I'm looking for easy ways to get iron into my diet.

B x

Suffolk_lass

I am a strong advocate for an EF! If you tidy diligently you could apportion 50% to OP your CCs and 50% to your EF stash. You have been in your house for a couple or more years I think - if you chose appliances that saved a few pennies, or inherited these, you need to think about a stash to be able to cover replacements, without reducing your disposable income by taking on additional outgoings like finance (be it 0% or not).

I also have a budgeting S/S that tells me which months things like VED, Insurance and Servicing (boiler, cars) hit and what they were for the last 2 years, so I can anticipate these drains on the flexible part of the budget. The last 2 years bit informs when to use the comparison sites too. And I use the one month £1 "Which?" trial for comparing appliances. Although I have been to the Library in the past to look things up.

BTW my car insurance goes from my JLPS CC so it staggers it and I get JL Vouchers. Worth considering rewards for these lumps too. My Paypal also uses that card

edinburgher

Butti wrote: »

Hi Edinburgher.
Is dashi easy to make? I'm looking for easy ways to get iron into my diet.

B x

Butti - yes - very.

I forget - are you a fellow Scotchlander? If so, See Woo is your friend for ingredients, if not, whatever your local Chinese supermarket is called (they tend to stock Japanese products too).

1. Tear up 30-40g of this and pop in a pot
2. Add 2l of water
3. Bring to the boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 10 minutes
4. Turn off the heat and add a packed mug of this to the pot
5. Leave covered for 10 minutes
6. Strain, allow to cool and then refrigerate

Makes 2lish, will keep for 2-3 days in fridge. The strained out seaweed and bonito can be used again (once), just pop in pot with 2l of water, bring to boil and simmer for 10 mins on a low heat. This second, Niban dashi is a lot weaker than ichiban dashi, but still good for you.

Please note, while the ingredients are relatively expensive (maybe £1/litre), it is very healthy and can be made cheaper by buying the ingredients in bulk if you like it. You can also get several uses out of them. For example, you can make 4l of dashi from the ingredients listed above and can than make something like tsukudani (a strongly flavoured rice topping/garnish) from the leftover seaweed.

Suffolk_lass wrote: »

I am a strong advocate for an EF! If you tidy diligently you could apportion 50% to OP your CCs and 50% to your EF stash. You have been in your house for a couple or more years I think - if you chose appliances that saved a few pennies, or inherited these, you need to think about a stash to be able to cover replacements, without reducing your disposable income by taking on additional outgoings like finance (be it 0% or not).

I also have a budgeting S/S that tells me which months things like VED, Insurance and Servicing (boiler, cars) hit and what they were for the last 2 years, so I can anticipate these drains on the flexible part of the budget. The last 2 years bit informs when to use the comparison sites too. And I use the one month £1 "Which?" trial for comparing appliances. Although I have been to the Library in the past to look things up.

You are right SL, I think I need to start treating our lack of EF as a debt to future us :think: Getting started is difficult, as we are squeezing blood from pennies as it stands

edinburgher

SL - how would you predict cost of replacement devices, say white goods? Assume 10 year life and add a bit for inflation, or something more complex? I'm not so worried about the stuff we've bought for now, but we do have fridge/freezer, dishwasher etc. That we inherited.

I suppose all of our electronic chattels should get the same treatment. Laptop, TV, hoover etc
..

wishingthemortgaheaway

Just jumping in here.....
I've got a £1000 'white goods repair & replace' 'fund' I'm working on the assumption that not everything should break at once and, if it does, I've got my £2k emergency fund as multiple appliances going west at the same time is an emergency in my book.

Wish.