The Edcawber Principle

edinburgher

Suffolk_lass said:

Hope all is well with you and yours. End of the month - exciting times. Have your plans progressed I wonder?

@Suffolk_lass - as you say - month end and everything is ticking over nicely. This is the last month of our mortgage holiday, so the budget needs to be tightened up for August. I think our actual NW will drop by the end of July (vs. June), but that's ok, there were a few factors that made the end of June look artificially good

DD furniture is looking to be more expensive than planned. Actual furniture itself is fine, £200 or so in IKE@ for a large chest of drawers, a bedside table and a mirror (we'll use her built in cupboard for hanging space). Clearing out the built in cupboard will force our ridiculously full garage to overflow, unfortunately, so will force us to realise costs of another £200-250 to hire a large skip to empty this. I had considered driving to the tip 8-10x, but this is completely unworkable, some of what we have can't be recycled and we're only allowed one carload a week. I'll be able to get rid of a couple of larger articles of furniture via Gumtr3e or similar. A pain in the posterior, but a one time thing and long overdue. Mostly budgeted for, £1xx or so top up required.

Also looking to be an expensive month as we've started buying school uniform for DD and she has decided to be a giantess! Everything is currently size 7-8, more than I'd expected for a (just) turned 5 year old. We have spent £1xx already, probably the same again to go on gym clothes, outdoor gear and shoes. What can you do?... It's (largely) budgeted for and will be topped up as necessary. Again, £100 or so to be topped up from surplus.

On the moneysaving side of things, I think it's probably time to start relisting a few eB@y sales and our V1rgin account is up for renewal, so will be haggling to keep the current cost (or lower).

ISA balance growing steadily, I continue to add monies to VHYL and the DD for DD is doing its thing in the background.

Good times - overjoyed to be allowed to return to play parks and the recent changes re. children not having to socially distance outside will make the world of difference!

beanielou

Good to hear from you   

Suffolk_lass

I feel your tip pain. We use ours weekly in the summer for garden waste, normally (re)using those bulk bags that you buy a ton of aggregate in. Well currently there are no trailers and I have to say that hell would have to freeze over first before I put any of them in my car so we had ten built up (garden is large). We wanted some pruning and hedge work done so I negotiated with the local friendly farmer and the friend who was the farm manager for the not-friendly farmer. Friend and I did the hedging and clearing (he used his chain saw, I used my loppers and mostly cleared) and we disposed of ten bag and fifteen caged trailer loads - all burned. Such a relief. The normal tip stuff can wait but we just had so much garden waste (and all the compost bins were full).

I also share the school uniform memories. Our DS is and always has been 97th percentile tall and was born long enough for 3-6 month baby grows. (Why is there VAT on School Uniform?) - Add the fact that as a boy he resided on that particular planet and had no memory of kit or possessions and we went through some very smart Coleman Lunch boxes and whole bags of PE Kit. He attended a prep school that clearly felt this was collateral damage for sending your child there, with the uniform only available from one shop at 50% increased price and no concept of passing on uniform except within families between siblings. I still have his last Junior School duffle coat (bought when he was 9) that I swear would fit a shetland pony and is labelled age 16.

Suffolk_lass

How are you? I can see you have been on here but you haven't posted for a while. I hope you haven't started a new thread and not mentioned it here?!

We have got honeybees for the timebeing. Bought them from a man who had developed an allergy. They seem to like it here and there are reports of them across the Village (people assume all the honey bees are from here!). Hoping some of the pulled way frames with nectar in are going to be made into honey soon!

edinburgher

@Suffolk_lass - you must have sensed the disturbance in the force - had resolved to post today as it has been too long.

DD has started school and is absolutely loving it. I'm not at all surprised, she requires a level of social interaction that Mrs E and I can't provide with our company and all the play dates that we can scare up. The list of uniform demands grew and grew and Mrs E is out again today picking up last minute items for PE. I'm all in favour of kids getting plenty of outside time, but they have all the usual uniform stuff, PE kit, a set of waterproof outers (top, bottom and wellies) for "muddy play" and a seperate raincoat for daily use. It's not even a private school (I grew up with their unreasonable demands, so would have expected it more)!

Having her back at school means more time for work (yay) and I'm just starting to appreciate how tired I was with 9 hour days plus the commute. The thought of another 25 years of this has made me feel fairly miserable and this is the new and improved, no commute version of working. My employer has vacillated between being very supportive and a total tool who can't wrap their head around the fact that looking after a child seven days a week reduces the hours that you can work. Back to normal as of next week, so at least that can no longer be held over my head as the ineffective sword of Damocles that it has become (public sector and we have thousands in the same boat, so no real threat from the fact that I've been unable to do "proper" f-t hours).

Mrs E's employer has been reasonably flexible and there's a chance of getting free office furniture, which will save our backs any more aches from our current unsuitable setup.

Financially I don't have a lot of news. We've basically floated for the last couple of months, tinkered around the edges by getting money off a couple of tariffs and insurance, but the needle hasn't started moving on any savings plans. I had a bit of a moan last night because I'm not feeling much agency with our finances at the moment, particularly as recent expenses have been OTT. I had envisaged coming up with £25,000 towards a potential extension, but it's just too big a target at the moment.

I think a more sensible target would be aiming for a proper Emergency Fund. Nobody seems to be paying any interest at the moment, so I guess we'll just stick it in Premium Bonds (already have T5B accounts and a regular saver in DD's name that we're using). A one month EF will be £2,869.47 (am counting all expenses, not just bare bones). Will start adding £28 every three days, because I need something granular and incremental to keep my endorphins up

Hazelnutty

Good to hear from you, Edinburgher! I think a lot of people have been floating the last few months, and that's just fine in the circumstances

Suffolk_lass

@BusyMee1 has just done a Halifax currant account swap if you want an extra £200 + small loyalty things for a bit of a shuffle.

You have my sympathies in terms of window of time to work in!

Your need for little gratifications is why I tidy most days. With most things simplified down now they are reducing in terms of volume and amount but they are my little fillip.

I keep looking at matched betting but I just don't have time at the moment. Got veg to prep and freeze (garden is bonkers!) - we might be self sufficient all year at this rate!

Busy_Mee

I have also been struggling with my financial mojo. Everything has felt quite passive over the last few months. I know we are very fortunate in that we are receipt of a very safe public service salary (me) and pension (OH) so are in no position to complain. The H@lifax switch has given me something active to do and was probably the easiest yet. £200 dropped in today approximately 2 weeks after starting the process. You can also get a £5 monthly reward for either keeping £5000 in the account or for spending £500 with you debit card. 

I have also set some new targets to introduce a bit more tension on our finances. This works for me...gives a bit of focus and stops us frittering.

 

edinburgher

Can't believe I forgot remortgaging! H@lifax switch off the table for now. Also starting to fret about our decision to take a three month payment holiday. Yes, we used it to pay off the last of our debts, but folk were being furloughed left right and centre at Mrs E's employer, so it seemed sensible enough at the time Our mortgage payments started again in August, so hopefully a good broker will still be able to give us options?

£31 paid into Premium Bonds. Feeling tired after my first real week back at work - my Friday tomorrow

Suffolk_lass

Hopefully a good broker can do the business. I have only ever used one - I always did the research myself but I thought they might have access to something I did not (they didn't). I would certainly do a bit of research yourself - type of mortgage, advantages and disadvantages, flexibility, penalties if you OP, fees, that sort of thing.

At the time we used a broker, we were remortgaging and building our extension and went with Skipton, adding £90k, 18 years ago. I have since toggled between repayment and interest only, and we ported it when we moved. I can see from Skipton's web site that they are offering 2, 5, and 10 year fix currently - one of the 10 year deals is 2.55% for 75% which I would be tempted by, just for the certainty. Ours is a lifetime tracker that we intend paying off in October. I wanted to stay with a BS rather than a bank. I just like the mutuality thing. I had been listening to R5 Wake up to money and I thought a tracker might be good for us (it has been)

My own thinking is that these current early signs of inflation are just the first things. Some slightly better savings deals creeping in is in my view an indicator of others thinking the same. I would say it is an excellent time to remortgage. And it is always worth asking your current lender if thy can waive the fee if you move to a better product with them - they often have in the past.