Prosperous soul in the making

Busy_Mee

Happy New Year SH !

Wow that was a very productive 2020 and some great goals for 2021. I need to decide what my goals for 2021.....will go and mull.

becky170

Happy new year Savings Holmes. I haven't caught up with your diary for a while so had 20 pages to catch up on! It reminded me that I hadn't submitted my claim for tax relief for WFH so that has now been submitted congratulations on publishing your book, that is fantastic news! 

savingholmes

Thanks Becky and BusyMee
I'm looking forward to January's payday in particular as I plan to  send over 50% to our CC repayments. Been watching M@m@FurFur today on investing - but want to focus on CC clearance first. Hard to make myself wait. If I want to preserve our EF though - I need to wait and not try to do everything at once. Off for a walk with DH and pooch now.

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Happy New Year! 
Congrats on the book... could you send me the link and I'll look it up on KU
Your 2021 plans look good, being CC free soon would be amazing

ohdearhowdidthathappen

I've probably missed it upthread, but what are your plans for passive income? (being nosy!)

Tahlullah.H

Happy New Year Savings.

MovingForwards

It is very hard to not want to follow through on ideas when they form, but you will soon be in a much better position and can then take the steps you've been working out.

Enjoy your walk!

savingholmes

Thanks Ohsh.... MF and Tahlullah - Happy New Year to you all too
Passive income ideas:

• Writing books / courses - requires effort upfront but then potential for long term passive income
• Blogging / Podcasting / Vlogging (I plan to experiment offline and then see which I am most interested in taking forward - I've done blogging before)
• Selling prints of my art - if I can find a suitable print and drop ship company so less effort for me - potentially linked to 3tsy store
• Mug / T-shirt design & print or similar (with drop shipping) - design once and get paid as people buy - potentially linked to 3tsy store
• Stocks and shares ISA - particularly if go after dividend paying companies (I wouldn't plan to draw this money any time soon)

savingholmes

With regards to debt repayment I'm going back to £0 based budgeting - where you tell every £1 of your income where to go rather than letting it tell you. You also redo your budget each month - to make sure it takes account of your annual bills (if you don't already have savings pots to pay them). One ways to achieve this is to pay off your desired debt / mortgage / savings payment at the start of the pay period and then force yourself to live on the rest. I find online grocery delivery helps with that too - as you can take stuff out of your basket more easily if you are likely to go above. We came into January with around £150 in cash which we'll be using to help pay our cleaner (if she has childcare and can come). We're in Tr 4 so assuming we stay there - will put the £33 I normally pay my hairdresser towards debt and so on. It's a lot easier to do zero based budgeting if you have an EF / Savings in place. Hope that helps someone.

It's been a long time since I've shared our budget so see below from joint salaries of c£5182

• £130 mortgage (£126pcm interest only on £144.2K @1.05%)
• £187 Council Tax (Feb & Mar payments will go to debt)
• £52 Life Insurance
• £67 Water bill (meter - went up £17 when DS came home + we're home more)
• £123 Gas & Elec combined
• £23 BB
• £12 Nflx
• £48 Mobiles (2 sim only deals plus £27 phone contract)
• £11 NT
• £28 Regular giving
• £54 Dentist insurance for 2
• £10 Presc pre-pay
• £15 Health plan for dog (flea and worm treatments, discounted price for other things)
• £24 Dog Insurance
• £15 Cat insurance
• £17 Gym for DD (knocked this month's payment off her debt - we hope to go back to gym when things resolve)
  
• £240 personal spends (DH and I will get £100 spends each. DD gets £40. Hopefully DS will earn his own £ & buy some of his own food.)
• £125 fuel (50% of what it was pre-c19.)
• £13 car service plan (my car)
• £450 for groceries (Want to get this back down to closer to £360 - we were at around £310 pre-c19)
• £50 Eating out / Takeaways (mostly Chinese & McD!)
• £100 miscellaneous (I regularly overspend this)
• £5pcm net bank account fees (includes insurances from NW and £12 reward from
• £160pcm average for cleaner
• £51pcm hair (£33 hair dresser, £12 home dye & DD pay, £6 DH)

Comes to approx £2K

Quarterly - averages £88pcm
£225 Clothes (3 x £75) (normally paid Mar, June, Sept & Dec - I delayed my £75 to Jan)
£40 TV Licence (due Jan, Apr, July, Oct)

Annual - averages £500-800pcm - however most due after our planned DFD date so not over-worried about these

• Home Insurance (May)
• Car Insurance x 2, Motorbike insurance, MOTs, Other motoring costs (Most due in mid/late summer)
• Gifts (Biggest spend xmas)
• Holidays (main spend normally August)
• Home improvements

If all goes well - plan to repay:
From December payday (a further £168)
CC 4 £48
CC 3 £120 
From January Payday (£2960)
CC4 £2765
CC3 £120
CC2 £75 (fixed)
CC1 £14

Grogged

Happy New Year (had a day "off", so just catching up!)
We too budget on just leaving our grocery and DD money in the bank account, everything else is squirreled away straight after payday.
I'd imagine your art will sell well from what you've shown (as well as your books), especially as it could be used on cards, t-shirts, etc. as well as picture prints.