Cheery's country living adventure

Cheery_Daff

Ok, decided to do this over lunch as it's pretty easy with online banking and YNAb to grab totals :eek:

*shuts eyes and puts fingers in ears*

A couple of points to note...

* I just recalculated and edited as I originally got YNAb to calculate over Jan-Oct, so it divided everything by 10, but we're only 3 days into October... New figures where relevant are in red - I've left the original figures in but crossed out
* This isn't an aspirational SOA - these are actual monthly averages taken from YNAB for 2019 (except diesel, which I took from last year, as I've been working at home a lot this year and that's going to change back again from now)

I'd added a few notes below in purple

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 0
Number of cars owned.................... 2

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 2900 Mr Cheery is self employed and I've combined both of us in here in a bid to retain a small amount of privacy as he's not as open as me about such things
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2900

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 919.9 - new fix this month, was £889 before
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 173
Electricity............................. 95
Gas..................................... 151 - LPG tank
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 12.85 - we have a septic tank, so no mains drainage
Telephone (land line)................... 0 - in with internet
Mobile phone............................ 15 - both of us, sim only
TV Licence.............................. 12.5 - paid annually
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 45 - includes house phone
Groceries etc. ......................... [STRIKE]250[/STRIKE] 270 - includes household and booze - I was surprised this was this low!
Clothing................................ [STRIKE]30[/STRIKE] 33- I don't feel like I spend this but YNAB doesn't lie... Did just buy a £77 pair of boots though
Petrol/diesel........................... 160 - round trip commute of about 60 miles 3-4 times a week plus general running round, family visits etc
Road tax................................ 15 - paid annually, one car is £140, one £30
Car Insurance........................... 55 - paid annually, moved to joint policy this year. Only got 2 cars for the first time last year so I had no No Claims Bonus - will likely come down over the years
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... [STRIKE]65[/STRIKE] 122 - this is actual average monthly spend (including MOT) this year - both cars are ancient and crap Also realised I had separate MOT and maintenance categories and only included one
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 5 - very occasional bus use for me
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... [STRIKE]40[/STRIKE] 42 - actual monthly average - I have free prescriptions, but we both have pretty bad teeth, includes at least one crown
Pet insurance/vet bills................. [STRIKE]32[/STRIKE] 35 - bloody chickens!! Not insurance or vets but food/treats/bedding
Buildings insurance..................... 11 - combined with contents but I've just halved it for each here
Contents insurance...................... 11
Life assurance ......................... 7.63 - just me - mortgage relies mostly on my income, Mr Cheery is older so was far more expensive
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 60 - this is monthly average for last year as this year doesn't include Christmas yet
Haircuts................................ 0 - we cut our own :rotfl:
Entertainment........................... [STRIKE]235[/STRIKE] 267 - cafes, the odd meal out, and personal spends for both of us - again, doesn't actually seem as bad as I thought!!
Holiday................................. 0 - not been anywhere - any days out has come from general entertainment
Emergency fund.......................... [STRIKE]30[/STRIKE] 32 - monthly average spend on home maintenance this year
Budget fiddling........................[STRIKE]. 86[/STRIKE] 96 - this is when I forget to use the YNAB app - probably mostly in the 'entertainment' or 'food' categories
Professional memberships and magazines.. [STRIKE]62[/STRIKE] 70 - hmm. Three professional organisations (I'm dropping one this year, plus work paid for another one), and I need to get rid of the magazine subscriptions again!
Diploma................................. [STRIKE]20[/STRIKE] 23 - tutorials and an annual weekend away
Garden and land......................... [STRIKE]37[/STRIKE] 41 - this is stuff like fencing, potting compost, tools, seeds etc averaged out over the year
Total monthly expenses.................. [STRIKE]2635.88[/STRIKE]2,779.88


Assets
Cash.................................... 10532
House value (Gross)..................... 440000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 1500
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 452032


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 200000...(919.9)....2.26
Total secured & HP debts...... 200000....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Total unsecured debts..........0.........0.........-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,900
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). [STRIKE]2635.88[/STRIKE] 2,779.88
Available for debt repayments........... [STRIKE]264.12[/STRIKE] 120.12
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 0
Amount left after debt repayments....... 120.12

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 452,032
Total HP & Secured debt................. -200,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -0
Net Assets.............................. 252,032

Ok, so that doesn't actually look that bad, although I confess I don't know where that £264 goes to :eek: I think I included all the YNAB categories but perhaps not - or perhaps there's a discrepancy with my account totals (which I've taken from YNAB rather than the accounts themselves - will check properly later) [EDIT - at least some of it was me calculating wrong so now the 'missing spare' is £120 a month - will still check totals later though]

Will get thinking cap on.... :eek:

Cheery_Daff

Aarrgghh, just realised why it's a bit optimistic - I've got YNAB to calculate the monthly average per month for this year - but it's dividing it over 10 months, when actually we're only 3 days into October...

So hang fire, I'll go back and readjust the relevant ones (going to just edit the post though not type all that out again! :eek: )

Cheery_Daff

Ok, all done now - you can see what I've edited (where I haven't, it's because it's actual amounts rather than monthly average spend). We're left with (apparently) £120 spare, some of which is likely to be rounding, some inaccurate totals of accounts in YNAB, and I don't keep track of Mr Cheery's personal spends - not much but a few coffees here and there with pals and the odd thing in a charity shop will add up.

Ok, so I'm not going to go on a mad hunt for the missing bits as I suspect they're incorporated in the above, and I only put in an estimate of Mr Cheery's income from last tax return anyway (and I suspect it's been lower this year with one thing and another).

Immediate things that are standing out for me

* Got to do something about those gas/electric bills! :eek: Building work will help as we lose a lot of heat through the giant hole in the kitchen at the minute.

* £633 between food, household, entertainment and 'budget fiddling' feels like like the place to start making economies...

* The garden monthly total was inflated by a big spend for the new mesh for the chicken run after the stoat attack earlier this year. Not a regular expense, but indicative of the sort of stupid things that do pop up pretty regularly, especially when you have quite a bit of space to keep an eye on

* Need to sort out which professional memberships to keep and which to ditch - I need to keep the one I'm on a committee for :rotfl: and one of the others I regularly present at a conference for so work can pay for that one. The final one can go. But they're all around £80 - £120 so the rest of the £840 a year must be... magazine subscriptions etc Hmm, need to investigate what I've been plonking in that category!

Ok, plenty to be thinking about, feels good to have got it all out there. Need to get back to work now else the income category will be very severely reduced!! :eek:

edwink

Hi Cheery

Could you shave some off of the chickens spend? I think you still buy from the BHWT which is quite an expensive way to buy their feed etc. I know it goes some way to helping them but as things are a little tight for you I am sure you could cut the pet expenses right down. Only thing is if you buy their feed from somewhere else you may have to go and collect it yourself. You could have a Google and find out if there is a local supplier or a supplier on route to work or whatever. Did you say you know someone locally that keeps chickens?. If so you could approach them and maybe get an bulk order together between you as that would also work out cheaper. Or if they already buy in bulk you could approach them about buying maybe 5 sacks at a time from them. We actually did that for the first 5 years of buying feed for ours and we gave them £1 extra for each bag than what they had paid for it.

How much are you paying for a sack of feed and how much is their bedding?. Surely locally and you collecting it would shave a considerable amount off that £35 plus add a few tins of sweetcorn and some greens and they are well looked after. The Poundshop on-line currently have huge bags of Mealworms 800g size @ £4 and Sunflower hearts 2.4kg for £2. That would keep them going for ages and ages for treats. The sunflower hearts come in 10 packs which are individually vacuum packed so will last. I think the minimum spend is £25 and new customers get 5% off their first order. If you got say 3 bags of mealworms @ £12 and 3 bags of sunflower hearts @ £6 all you need to do is add £7 of things that you would normally buy to the order. Delivery is £4.95 and it doesn't matter how large your order is you just pay the one price. Maybe worth thinking about for the chicken treats.

Just some ideas Cheery to help you out. Besides that the only other thing is your LPG use but as you have said you have had to live with a hole in the roof and once that is sorted your LPG bill will go down. I read somewhere that it is best to have your tank filled just before the summer as it is normally before that years price increase. It's a bit like the utility companies increasing prices just before the winter I guess.

I wouldn't be too hard on yourself over your cafe spends Cheery. If you and Mr Cheery treated yourself to a meal out once a week and a taxi there and back that would soon mount up. You both love your little trips out for tea and cake and it gives you both quality time together plus you help towards keeping these little cafes open and also get to meet people where you live so it's a nice social trip out too.

Just a thought you could sell some of the girls eggs and put that money towards their feed. We always put egg money to one side and when we need feed we take it out of their earnings :rotfl: Seriously though their egg money does mount up over time so this would help your finances too so worth considering.

Hope some of my waffle helps Cheery

Edwink x

PurpleFairy26

Cheery. It doesn't look too bad at all. Some top tips on the chickens from edwink I think on the other things, it's more about if you **want** to reduce them or not. I'm always so impressed by your cafe visits of just a few pounds, you could have about 10 of them for a meal out for the 2 of you in a (semi) fancy restaurant.

If you wanted to feel more in control you probably could do something on food, but again not extravagant. Possibly a couple of bottles of milk (would have to be plastic obviously) in the freezer and a loaf and some other quick things (cook from frozen fish cakes, pizza, stir fry veg - again depends on what's your thing) to stop the £10 pop in shop for a pint of milk

Or as ''tis the season - make the slow cooker your friend. Chuck it all in before you go in the morning and ta da. Hot yummy food on arrival home. I often prep mine the night before and put in fridge and just dump and switch on in the morning.

But, overall it's probably just knowing that buffer is going. We've had lots of building work done recently and I've felt exactly the same as you. The big pot I used to see in our online banking is gone. But we'll build it up again as will you, it's all part of the process.

Cheery_Daff

Thank you lovely people :kisses3:

You're right, it's not TOO bad. That £10.5k in cash does include the £5.1k for the builder and I think that's what's worrying me And £4k of that is MB dosh - so without that we're just not building up anything :eek:

However - we DO have MB, and each month since April I've made between £350 and about £800, so that will build it up again nicely if I devote some time to it :money:

I think I have it in my head that we SHOULD be saving from regular income, but you're right, we're just about within our means, and have no debt, so it's fine if savings come from extras rather than actual wages

So I'm not going to be doing a major frugal push that will take too much time or make me stressed I suspect we will occasionally still nip to the shops in the evening if we're missing something (the problem being, of course, that the shops are a 16 mile round trip ). And we certainly won't be giving up cafes :eek: they keep us sane We probably spend about £7 each time we go between us, tea for me, coffee for mr cheery, and usually toast for him (it doesn't open til 9.30 and there's no way I'm waiting til after that for breakfast :rotfl: ) Very rarely more than £10 if I have toast with posh stuff too (usually peanut butter and banana :rotfl: )

I will have a look at the frittering that goes on round food though, and thanks for the chicken suggestions edwink- you're right I do buy from the BHWT - although that monthly average also includes buying the new chickens plus some adaptations to the run. Our local feed store isn't actually that much cheaper than BHWT anyway and they don't deliver which is a pain (and aren't open on a Sunday).

Anyway, lots to think about. I'm fairly sure we could do some rationalizing around journeys into the city but we do share when we can, but some days it's just TOO MUCH for me to coordinate with my tired brain and we both end up driving - usually when I need to be there by 8am, but am finished by tea time, and Mr Cheery doesn't need to get there til the afternoon and stays til 11pm. We've tried going in together on those days but both end up needlessly exhausted and hanging around (spending money in cafes :rotfl: ) better to go separately on those days.

I do make it a mission NEVER to pay for parking at work though - not least because you can only pay for 4 hours at a time then have to move the car, and by that point there's rarely any other space :rotfl:

Right, speaking of work, I didn't get up this early just to sit talking to you lot, best get going!

pinkypig

Good on you Cheery, a review and re-assess is always time well spent. There’s always opportunities to improve but it also shows how far you’ve come. Your net worth is fab:)
Best of luck with your cost cutting mission - I find the challenge quite exciting and motivating but then I don’t get out much :rotfl:
PP xx

Cheery_Daff

:rotfl: PP :rotfl: I always love a challenge too :j

So today has been a cheery one, after a rather grumpy week, what with work suddenly becoming very busy, and Mr Cheery not being well and the weather getting all gloomy and grim

But today has been nice :j

Wide awake at 6am so I made myself a cuppa and snuggled up in the spare bed with my laptop and did some work for a couple of hours :eek: NOT normal for me to be working st the weekend but I have a deadline on Monday... And actually it was nice to do the work in a more relaxed fashion.

Then we toddled off for breakfast in the cafe (an extravagant £9.20 spent today!) , and I did another hour of work while we were there.

Brought Mr Cheery home as he felt rotten then I met a friend at a tiny little seasonal event which was LOVELY. It was so small we'd finished looking round within half an hour but weren't ready to leave so sat in the little cafe for ages eating soup and home made bread and cake :j spent a total of £11 on two cups of tea, two pieces of cake, soup and sourdough bread, and 3 goes on the tombola (I won a lovely pair of grey cashmere fingerless gloves from a local art gallery :eek: I actually already have a pink pair so I might keep these for a present, they're lovely :j )

Then I did splash out and spent £2.50 on a small handmade ceramic pumpkin but the lady was lovely and it was very cute :rotfl:

Since then I've been decorating - got a big load of painting and hole filling done and now I'm ready to put the final coat on the ceiling and the first yellow coat on the walls tomorrow :j

Also did a bit of MB - got over £200 for the month, and over £4100 in total :money:

Tired now :rotfl:

EssexHebridean

Just reading back and absolutely get your feeling of sight unsettled-ness about the financial stuff in the light of big spends happening, as you know we've had an expensive last few years what with bathroom/kitchen/car/disputed works bill to be paid and that's left me feeling in a rather similar frame of mind!

The thing of it not being so practical to just nip for a pint of milk - that's something we're quite good about as a rule in spite of having many different options for shops either walkable or a very short drive when we're at home - but of course when we're i the Hebrides it's not really practical to nip out for something we've forgotten. Where we stayed this year would mean a 16 mile round trip during the day, or if it's after about 7pm, that would increase to a 39 miles round trip. (and for context, after 10pm there is quite simply nothing open at all, it wouldn't matter how far we'd be willing to drive!) so we've sort of got into the habit over the years of making sure that we think as we're passing a shop "Is there anything we need" and then if we get home and realise there was, just doing without. That in turn has translated to when we're at home as well, as a rule. At home I do generally have a pint of milk in the freezer, and we freeze the ends of home made loaves cut into slices so there's pretty much always bread for toast. other than that I make sure there is always tinned soups in, and frozen veggies, pasta/rice etc, so at a pinch we'd not be short of the makings of a meal without needing to go out either.

Hopefully your SOA (well done - I've done one but never posted it on MSE for various reasons!) has reassured you rather than worrying you anyway - it certainly should have done!

Cheery_Daff

Evening all :hello:

Thanks EH Yes, we were always in the habit of just nipping out for bits and bobs, and I confess sometimes it's a bit of an excursion of an evening, especially if we've been in the house all day. But still, something to think about.

So. Today is Monday Finances day, and I'm enjoying having a specific day to think about this :j So, for today...

* [STRIKE]Ring gas fitter[/STRIKE] - need to cap off gas supply to kitchen before builders arrive (and also the heating has started refusing to go off unless we turn off power to the whole boiler :eek: so will get him to look at that if we've not figured it out before he arrives)

* Check T&Cs on regular savers for when I need to pay builders

* Figure out where all the money is coming from to pay builders

* YNAB and banks

I'm convinced there was something else... but I've not put it on a list so unless I remember - Oh! I've remembered! :rotfl:

Had an email about a pay rise today :rotfl: Normally this time of year we go up an increment on the pay scale, and the pay scale itself goes up a bit to account for inflation etc. They normally happen at the same time, but the union is in dispute, so we just got the increment in August, and this month the employer has emailed to say we'll get the percentage they want, and then if we do end up striking and they have to put it up more, they'll backdate it. So I need to check how much that is.

Right, that's it. Best get on! :j