Ongoing Journey to being a Frugalista..

Humdinger1

@brizzlegirl groovy baby! Sorry I'm late to the party love Humdinger 3

brizzlegirl

So near so far isn’t it?! Thanks all for dropping by. I had my first jab so that’s good news. Very grateful. But holiday wise not entirely sure what to do. We had the most fantastic holiday about 5 years ago in Zante, SA, and as a creature who likes the good things in life that’s where I have been hovering.. Tui website  and Zante for a June few days or more likely July. At the moment for work reasons  (and it’s not really his bag to do fly and flop) it may just be me and the girls. But then again the dishwasher packed up last week. Would be £350 to repair so guess what we are getting a new one.. that’s budgeted for but also some big family birthdays coming up which are not (yet) so maybe we rethink... hard to know what to do isn’t it. I do so crave a sun and food holiday. Maybe I’ll make a final decision when we know whether we will have a lodger next year as that will really help justify it (or not). 

Hope everyone is having a good weekend. Turned colder here now so the woodburner is on burning lots of offcuts from someone’s skip.... feels especially frugal. 

Lots of love to you all xxx

Suffolk_lass

We have now booked a cottage in the far north west of Scotland - fantastic scenery, loads to do, superb local food (and drink), stunning coast, loads of interesting wildlife. Just need to wait until October. We will be sharing with another couple. Just a week. Italy (our favourite) might have to wait another year

brizzlegirl

Hi all sorry for the lengthy absence, hope you’re all ok.

That sounds  lovely SL, am sure you’ll have an amazing time. Haven’t been to the far NW but the Hebrides are a particular favourite of ours. Life is never better than when heading out to sea on a CalMac!! 

Life has been quite intense for the last few months. I have been hovering over how to describe it..and I think that’s about right. Not that I am face to face with illness, money worries or anything like that, just a sobering sense of underlying domestic changes and perhaps a sense of not sure what the future holds. Hitting a big birthday late last year may be just catching up with me, not sure.

On the money front there have been a lot of expenses in recent months, including that pesky dishwasher, vehicle servicing, insurance, repairs and storage, birthdays, puppy costs etc but we have weathered them all which is pretty amazing compared to where we were not that long ago. Am very grateful for our good steady incomes. I also did splash out on a package holiday in the Med for me and the girls for July. It’s a bit of a steal, but who knows whether we I’ll be able to go, but we can always move it as needed.  But for the first time I was able to pay it in full, nothing is on the CCs, so in summary whilst we are not as far forward as I’d like to be with the accelerated repayment of the ginormous home repairs loan, we are holding fast on not accruing more debt...which is what absolutely kiboshed us one the previous decade. I do hope the debt repay debt cycle has been truly broken in the Brizzle household.

However ....we do need to start putting more away as a buffer, who knows what’s ahead, so we are planning to take the lodgers incomes and the cost of living increases from this month etc and put that away immediately upon payment as if we have never seen it and so our incomes are at the base 2020 level. I think taking the money out of the equation before we even ‘have’ it is the better way forward. If we leave it until the end of the month it never happens. Although I love YNAB and it’s an absolute gamechanger, it does lend itself to making it harder  to just pull money out of sight from the off. You think you need to build it up into to pots which can then just be raided. I think we need to pull it out immediately and put into an off budget account.

So I have decided I will have 3 goals for the rest of May:

- not spend 20% of our income, moving towards 30% of our base income in June (saving 100% of the ‘extra’ income referred to above) 
- run or exercise 5 times a week
- be in bed by 10, reading a hard copy book not a blue lit device (!) to make me doze off! 

Off to catch up on some housework now....hope everyone is good.

xx

Sun_Addict

Good to hear from you, glad all is well. Your goals for May sound brilliant and achievable.

greent

I've got back into reading paper books in bed and I'm sure it's making a (positive) difference to my sleep

beanielou

Good to hear from you & good goals for May 

Suffolk_lass

Lovely to hear from you and know things are going well, whatever life chucks at you (us). I always have to make us poor by moving a bit too much into inaccessible places (regular savers or bonds are good for this) - the money is just never in the pot for living on or spending in the day to day dribble - because when it is, it trips my smug filter and I use it [eek!]

Seasidegal58

Lovely to lovely to read your update brizzle and hope the puppy has settled in well. 

Good MSE plans as well. 👍

jwil

Lovely to hear from you Brizzle   Plans sound good