Prosperous soul in the making

Drawingaline

Our tip takes gas canisters. If you look on your local council website on the tip/household waste centre it should give details on what is taken. 

enthusiasticsaver

Brilliant you are debt neutral even after completing and paying for fees etc.  Sounds like the budgeting is going well too. You will soon have the house just as you like it.  I am sure you will see plenty of the dog if you offer to have her if your Ex needs dog minding.  Was that the agreement or was she always his dog? 

Scottiedog_3

Could somebody explain to me what " debt neutral" is, please ?

savingholmes

Scottiedog_3 said:

Could somebody explain to me what " debt neutral" is, please ?

@S@Scottiedog_3
I have enough money to clear my debts - but because it is at 0% rate - and I would prefer to have a 'cash' emergency fund - I've not paid it off the debt yet. I have one CC due to be repaid by the end of March - and a second that is 0% on purchases over £150 - until around the end of April.

Because I have some big car bills coming up - I want to keep cash just in case or may use the second CC. I have never had such a big mortgage before - the standard payment will be just over £930 - which scares me - so I am trying to run with a £2K+ EF - (emergency fund) while I get used to living on one wage. This will be the first month in about 16 years - when all the bills are on me. (We were married for 30!). This month it will dip below my desired EF - and probably will for a few months - as I have a lot of upcoming car bills as well as a larger than normal mortgage payment for the first one. Plus its xmas and DS's birthday - and even at £200 budget - that's a lot...

I forecast my whole year out in advance. I may not always stick rigidly to budget - but I have a plan - and I look at what I need to shave off to meet that plan if I overspend in one area.

Hope that helps. You could start your own diary. Then you can get targeted help to your situation. You're welcome to keep posting here too.

Scottiedog_3

Thanks for the explanation.  I don't think being debt neutral is within my powers at the moment. I'll just have to pay off the credit cards as and when I can. My car suffered a burned-out clutch on Saturday, so that's another bill of £250-£300 heading my way. I'm long retired so there is no prospect of overtime or bonuses helping me out. The car was due in the garage this Friday to have the clutch problem investigated but I had to drive 16 miles to get £54 worth of painkillers for the dog from the vet. Thank goodness for the AA - and for PetPlan which is taking care of most of the dog's ailments. Writing my own diary would be too "Woe is me" for anybody else to bear. Thanks for giving me space to vent here.🙄

savingholmes

Thanks EH and DAL unfortunately my tip doesn't take them. They do take oils though. A neighbouring council does take them so I may need to travel further afield to dump them!

enthusiasticsaver said:

Brilliant you are debt neutral even after completing and paying for fees etc.  Sounds like the budgeting is going well too. You will soon have the house just as you like it.  I am sure you will see plenty of the dog if you offer to have her if your Ex needs dog minding.  Was that the agreement or was she always his dog? 

Thanks @enthusiasticsaver

We originally bought the dog for DD as a kind of therapy for her - but we all fell in love with the dog. I wanted to keep the dog - but it would have made a £50 pcm dent in my budget and money was tight - plus Ex let me keep the house without market testing it and we didn't fight over £ - so she was kind of his reward... Softened the pill for him. Sad though. I've asked for first refusal if she would otherwise go in kennels. DD wants to see her too - so she's my ace in the hole really. At the same time, seeing the dog means seeing Ex - so I didn't want a formal dog sharing arrangement as I want to be able to move on...

I do hope MIL / Ex will have enough of her and send her back to me however I would struggle to cut more out of my budget than I already have. I'm not willing to sacrifice my cleaner - although I have cut back her hours. The only thing left really would be trimming my food budget or reducing my counsellor frequency - but she's there to keep me sane and level headed.... My hobby / art / days out / clothes / holiday etc budget already feels small - and as I get used to paying for everything myself - some months that £ won't in reality be there as I'll want to prioritise other things.

My budget is tight but doable... I have probably spent enough for this pay period though - so just need to do top up fuel and food essentials only for the rest of the month. 

savingholmes

Scottiedog_3 said:

Thanks for the explanation.  I don't think being debt neutral is within my powers at the moment. I'll just have to pay off the credit cards as and when I can. My car suffered a burned-out clutch on Saturday, so that's another bill of £250-£300 heading my way. I'm long retired so there is no prospect of overtime or bonuses helping me out. The car was due in the garage this Friday to have the clutch problem investigated but I had to drive 16 miles to get £54 worth of painkillers for the dog from the vet. Thank goodness for the AA - and for PetPlan which is taking care of most of the dog's ailments. Writing my own diary would be too "Woe is me" for anybody else to bear. Thanks for giving me space to vent here.🙄

You are welcome to vent. My current 'debt neutrality' was aided by a gift from family...

Ouch to the car bills. Do you have any hobbies that you could turn into cash? Do you do the bank switching deals to get cash? Do you use cashback sites when you buy stuff? I think you would find that if you did keep your own diary - that things would start to seem more manageable. Perhaps post a 'statement of affairs' on the debt free wannabees board (not the diary page the one above) as a starting point to get some advice... that way you can get some initial ideas without committing to a diary unless you want to.

Blackcats

Just caught up - you are a whirlwind of a woman!! Amazing progress and such a positive mindset.  It will be lovely to see some glimpses of your upcycled projects.  Would be interesting to look back at a post from this time last year to compare where you were then and where you are now.  Are you going to start a "new you" diary? 

savingholmes

Thanks Blackcats -  I think!! Put it this way my day job skills came in handy when it came to managing the divorce LOL (and getting out of debt). I will find a way of sharing upcycled projects - but some may need to be via PM if they are otherwise too identifying. 

I have been wondering about reading back over my diary again- I do so at least once a year - but a lot happened this year that I was unable to post - and I don't want to trigger dwelling on that. Can't change the past - only the present.

I have been considering doing a new diary - and whether to use Wednesday's new scary mortgage as the trigger... or whether to get past xmas and start in the new year... I have also considered shifting boards to MFW - but am unlikely to have any significant amounts of £ to overpay in the short term - unless I manage to sell stuff. Even then my focus is growing my EF and only secondary debt and mortgage neutrality - the latter would probably be through my pension. Perhaps it could be prosperous soul part 2 or prosperous soul heads towards mortgage neutrality or something like that. I also want to see where I'm at compare to my FI goals.

TBH - my interest in F1R3 was always about financial independence and not about retiring. I want the financial independence to be able to spend more time doing creative projects. I really like the idea of doing art on furniture for example - I have quite eclectic tastes... I think also it takes me a long time to value my work - but later I look back at stuff I did and rushed over and think - that's really cool how did I do that? I would consider doing my own utube too - but the technical side of that feels too much at the moment so trying to pace myself. 

I've bought a couple of pieces that others had 'upcycled' from FB to see what they did - and why it didn't attract a higher price... £20 for a navy/grey bureau the other day. Today, I got a beautiful octagonal table today for a fiver painted in navy blue that has castors on it. It's from 1910 apparently!! It could probably be a table for two on a covered balcony rather than being a more typical, smaller side table size... The top surface looks like a kid has gouged a pattern on part of it at some point - I think that's why it didn't sell for more... I don't know whether that would be recoverable with a decent sander.

Weirdly, I did find a plug in sander in the shed - but I'd have to buy sanding pads to know if it's any good. I also found what seems to be a soldering iron. There were blow torches too - but with no instructions - and I wasn't sure of the safety of the canisters as they looked that old.

I did find a literal tin of £ in the shed. Mix of foreign coins and English shrapnel but I'm going to check the ages of the coins and see if any of them are worth anything. I even wondered if the previous owners left it - as I never bought that tin. Considering buying some coke to pour on them to clean them off!!

MovingForwards

Sanding pads are cheap on 3bay, but you may need to get wood filler depending on how bad the top is.

The torches just require watching YT videos as the instructions tend not to be much use.

Well done finding the tin of money, if there's anything of value that can be reduced cleaning them / doing it the wrong way; if they're all regular coins throwing pop on them won't matter.

Don't read back, only focus on the future as your life has changed.