Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

It is an unusual one, OBL. While the main part of the silver coffee pot is kind of tall neo-classical style, it has an angular art-deco looking handle, so I thought it would be good for our 1930s house. The light is nice too. I didn't buy a shade because I like the fusion of old & new.....the recycled vintage item with one of those large industrial-looking bulbs where you can see the filament. It gives a nice sort of slightly yellowy-toned glow & looks very mellow on an evening.
F

foxgloves

Hello Treasures,
I am just wondering if it could possibly be a drizzlier, greyer day here, & the answer is 'No' - I did wonder about a little trippette to the village garden centre, but I don't fancy getting togged up in my waterproof coat & boots and I've also just done the budget, so am feeling very strong on the not spending front. 
So Big Budget Day. Always the same.....up at my desk, plenty of coffee, first reconciliation of current month's budget then setting the next one. No nasty surprises, just the additional complication of running two budgets concurrently as the ring-fenced lump sum for our ongoing home improvements is sitting in the same account, but has its own separate section in my trusty Money Book. But I don't begrudge the extra time & sums, as it's working for us & that's the most important thing at the end of the day.
Once I've set the budget for the coming month, I generally look at what is left & ensuring that I keep a realistic buffer in our current account, distribute the surplus between our 10 savings pots. I studied the Savings Pots Spreadsheet for a good while & concluded that apart from a small boost to the clothing pot & tech replacement pot, none of the others required topping up. 
I have been very honest, I think, about my very silly attitude to money in the past. I never had any emergency money or savings pots because I used borrowing instead. Now that I have these savings pots established, I find it is quite difficult to say 'OK, this one is closed until further notice' because it has sufficient money in it to deal with most reasonable scenarios (except reverting back to the bad old ways, which I will quite simply never, ever do. For instance, I have saved £1000 in our car maintenance pot, because if we have a nasty car bill at some point, I'd like to pay it from there & not raid our emergency fund or 'long-term-plan-to-to-relocate-to-another-region' savings. I am amazed we have £1000 in our car pot & the rational part of me knows that should be ample for most scenarios, but there's that little ex-debtor's voice on my shoulder saying 'What if it isn't? What if there's a car bill which is £1250? Or £1500??' I have decided that little voice can shut its face for now, because looking at the Savings Pots spreadsheet rationally, there are sufficient funds in the majority of the pots to close them to further top-ups for now, while I do the sensible thing of paying the money into our longer-term savings instead. Some of the savings pots are barely being used atm for obvious reasons.....we didn't go camping this year, we didn't go to our usual festival, we've had very few trips out, we haven't bought concert or theatre tickets..... I was turning this issue over in my mind a month or two ago & did nothing about it. Today, I am kicking it off......any budget surplus (which of course means sticking to the budget, as we all know!) will be prioritised for paying into long term savings until the situation changes.  I was able to pay in £400 today - pointless putting that much extra into pots which aren't being used. 
Well, after all that number crunching & filing, I think I deserve some leisure time, so I am going to bake biscuits & soda bread, then maybe some piano practice.
Hoping someone somewhere has seen a ray of sunshine today.....but it won't be anyone in my neck of the woods,
Take care, m'dears,
F x

foxgloves

Oh, forgot to mention that today's our wedding anniversary - 19 years. We didn't plan anything special, as we're not going out much atm for obvious reasons & decided we wouldn't do cards either. We have a holiday cottage booked next month (if we stay well, do not have to self-isolate & stay out of Tier 3) & we thought just seeing the sea after such a rum year would be more than enough. It's simple pleasures atm, that's for sure! So no going out for an anniversary meal tonight... instead we'll be finishing off the chilli I made on Sunday with a bowl of home made jacket wedges, then it'll be snugging up on the sofa to watch 'GBBO' with a few of this afternoon's home baked biscuits, so we don't feel left out of all the tasting, lol. And it'll save a few quid too. 
F x

Blackcats

Happy anniversary.  Fingers crossed you get to go to the holiday cottage.  There's not much fun in eating out at the moment - a night in with GBBO and cake sounds lovely. 

Honeysucklelou2

Happy anniversary !

Baileys_Babe

@foxgloves I feel uncomfortable when I do not put money into a savings pot despite that particular pot having ample funds. In the end, after much deliberating what I did was set a maximum for each pot. Some pots are very unlikely to reach the amount set others may or not depending of what happens. I review the maximum for each pot twice a year. I have found this has made me less uneasy when I do not fund a pot.

Onebrokelady

We have had a dark and dismal day here but no rain as such just dark clouds,I've had my lights on all day. Your savings goals sound sensible to me 😊Happy Anniversary too 😊

carrielovesfanta

Happy anniversary for yesterday Mr and Mrs F!

foxgloves

Thanks for the anniversary wishes. It was a low-key but enjoyable & spend-free evening. Mr F said 'Why are these biscuits soooo nice?' I said 'Because they are made with butter & not whatever low-grade habitat-destroying oil passes for it in big-brand biscuits'. He said 'Can I have three?' Then he said "I think I'd better put a couple of these in with my packed lunch for tomorrow". So no, we didn't go out for a meal or have a nice autumn walk at a favourite NT place, but I think we can say that the home-baked biscuits went down well!
F x

kayannie

Happy anniversary! We have just celebrated ours, 50+years. Interested to hear of your plans to relocate as we have just, after years of longing, decided to do just that. We have purchased a small cottage with gorgeous views over the sea. Although we now have the key to our new home, we are unable to move in as we currently live over 100 miles away and are in lockdown.