My 5 year plan

fatrab

enjoyyourshoes wrote: »

Fantastic for setting your stall out clearly and objectively over longer time frame.

HMRC are always best to put up as number 1, and well done for paying it off sop quickly !

Excellent for accruing monthly to pay of insurances annually, smart move.

Why both rent and mortgage on SOA?

I assume mob bill was pre cancelling the 3 contracts?

Good luck and excellent start

Thanks!

I work away from home so have to pay for accommodation as well as mortgage. I get an allowance for this which is included in my salary. It's a tiny 1 bedroom place 30 seconds from the beach in the Scottish Highlands!

Currently £70 for 2 mobiles and a tablet. Tablet (£10) expires in July. My mobile (£24) expires in October. Wife's mobile is December. I now have a company phone and my Wife will be going onto a sim only deal which she'll pay for herself.

fatrab

117pauline wrote: »

Hi FR

Sorry you have had to start another diary.

I lived in Peterhead for four years back in the early 90s. Not an attractive place in itself but there were some fantastic places to visit very close by. I had never met horizontal snow before. We arrived in August and the foghorn went continually for forty days and forty nights! Then suddenly the weather broke and we had a lovely Indian summer.

I know that's the opposite side to you but I do like Scotland and have many happy memories.

Take care
Pauline

Thanks Pauline, sounds like you have fond memories. I've never been to that corner of Scotland! Used to go to Brechin when I was younger as we had family there but never ventured into that part of the north east beyond Aberdeen.


We currently have horizontal sleet in Inverness! It's nice to look at but it's bloomin' freezing up here

JoJoC

Your February plan sounds great - lots of achievable stuff in there.

You know that in Scotland loads of museums are free and there's loads of free attractions. At your little one's age, he won't care where he goes but he'll love to see new and different things, so I'd stick to things that are interesting to you and your wife and your little one will just enjoy the ride Here's a link to 50 free things to do in Scotland but there's a trillion more websites with free ideas for days out.

https://www.visitscotland.com/see-do/attractions/free/

EssexHebridean

Happy new diary - and I'm deeply jealous of your beach proximity!

jwil

Good luck

fatrab

Not a lot to report today really. Submitted expenses for January so that'll be £170 in a few days time that'll be paid towards something or other, not really decided a definite plan of attack yet.

Mrs fatrab has decided that she does want to downgrade her car, so current car will be up for sale soon and that'll cover most if-not-all of the loan when it sells. We won't be buying another car until Mrs goes back to work in April.

Still have my tax rebate in April/May to factor in to the plan too so the next few months should be productive.

Been thinking a lot about re-mortgaging as my current 5 year fix ends in September. I know I don't need to look into this until May/June but I want to have an idea in mind of what to go for, whether it be the cheapest 2 year fix or a sensible 5 year rate again. I will only have 7 years remaining on current mortgage come September and I hope to re-mortgage over 6 years if possible and then make overpayments and/or save up enough to clear the mortgage at the end of the 5 years.
Hmmmmm..... food for thought!

Just hoping there's no more hiccups around the corner....

fatrab

Coasting isn't fun.

Knowing you have to hunker down, slug it out and stay alert for any obstacles that jump into your path is the hard part of this journey. The massive elation when payday comes is so overwhelmingly overshadowed by the slump a few days later. Back to thinking about moneysaving. Back to the routine and the mundane.

I'm starting to think that determination is turning into obsession. That is not healthy.

A nice little NSD to start the month, and hence with it a TAFD (Take Away Free Day). And an AFD thrown in for good measure is the icing on the cake. Small goals, baby steps.

I've invented TAFD for my own goals this month but feel free to steal/borrow for your own goals. A take away in this context is any fast or convenience food purchased from an outlet. Bakery, sandwich shop, burger establishments, pizzerias, take away Indian, Chinese etc, etc - basically anything you didn't make at home, but I will exclude purchases of groceries to make food. For example, If I buy a sandwich from a supermarket, that's a take away. If I buy bread and cold meat and make the sandwich myself then that's ok.

February!! Lets do this!

JoJoC

I like your idea of recording TAFDs! That's something that can really hemorrhaged money from our account every month and it's 100% down to disorganisation.

We had an Indian takeaway with friends (a get together planned since November last year so I wasn't changing the plans) but other than that, we haven't had a takeaway since going back to work after Christmas. I think we could easily have spent £100+ per month on takeaways in the past and although we were much better in 2017, we had bumps in the road that meant we relied on ordering food.

It made us feel terrible - bloated, dehydrated, dodgy stomach, couldn't sleep because of the aforementioned ailments...it's just not worth it.

I'm with you for February - let's do it!

fatrab

At one point last year we spent £125 in one weekend on take aways and eating out. It had to stop.

I was living on kebabs and Chinese food. Having full fry ups in a cafe every morning for breakfast. And I was drinking 4-5 nights per week too. Usually 3 or 4 pints after work but sometimes that crept up to 8 or 10 pints per night.

You're right JoJo, it's not worth it.

JoJoC

When you read that back I bet it sounds horrendous! But the fact that you can recognise that and change your habits says so much.

Think about what you could do with that £125!

I know it's not necessarily reflective of a typical weekend, but if you did that every weekend, that's £500 per month in the pockets of the takeaways. It's crazy money, but so, so easily done.

It's definitely a crutch that we're trying really hard to move away from here. It should be a treat now and again not a part of every week. And i don't want my kids to learn those behaviours either.