Ongoing Journey to being a Frugalista..

beanielou

Three years seems so much better than 4.
Not sure why.
You can do it

greent

Re: ERPs, you can save the excess above the permitted 10% and then see if it's worthwhile paying the ERPs - sometimes it is. My ERP on a sub acct was less than the interest I'd accrue in the following months until it went onto SVR, so I paid it off - made sense. (Was the only ERP I had, though - as the other accts went to SVR before I paid them off, which was great for flexibility) If it's not a sensible move then you can, as you've said, be MF in principle - which also gives you EF flexibility.

If Mr brizzle is up for it, then go for it - if it becomes too much a little down the line and you decide to ease up then you're almost certainly to be in a better place then than now balances-wise, so you'll still be ahead of where you would be without going for it (iyswim) It is fairly short term pain (3 years) - and 3 years will be less painful than 4 - treats will still be available x

Seasidegal58

Great news on the CCs and the 25.2% brizzle and some good, thoughtful ideas on the financial planning! Perhaps take advantage of Mr brizzle's enthusiasm?

I was sorry to hear about your poor chickens though.

P.S. thank you also to Tilly for your helpful, positive post a few days ago. What are tilly tidies by the way?

brizzlegirl

Wow! Need to sleep but couldnt read and run without calling out what an amazing invention Tilly Tidies are.. its rounding down to the nearest pound or ten pounds and sending it to your debts or savings accounts. Inspired and you make a difference every time you do it

Much love to all of you lovely folks x

mfmaybe

brizzlegirl wrote: »

MFM..my method is to add up all the categories in YNAB that are not spends so yes I exclude pensions, ISA, (currently debt repayments) and EF. This month we drew a lot of income but even so I was pleased at basically only spending 3/4 of our months income. I am not sure why you would only count quote spare quote money...maybe it is because we subscribe to the YNAB every penny has a purpose concept. If you are putting money into savings pots that are true savings post, rather than say for the insurance or Xmas (when you know you are going to raid them) I think that counts towards a savings rate. Hope that makes sense. When we are clear of these last two cards I will put everything into paying off the £4K OD, the EF, pension and ISA. Cannae wait

Yes it does make sense, thanks . I will go and work mine out - but it's going to be lower than the true number because I put a whack into pension pre-tax. Don't hold your breath for even double figures

enthusiasticsaver

Good news on the cards almost gone. I wouldn't worry about the slight dip in your s and s isas. Ours are down as well but the dividends from our income funds is holding steady.

I strongly recommend overpaying on the mortgage especially if your girls intend to do uni( sorry I can't remember their ages). We aimed to be MF as our daughters started uni to help them through that. After that it was heavy duty investing/saving to early retirement.

Seasidegal58

brizzlegirl wrote: »

Wow! Need to sleep but couldnt read and run without calling out what an amazing invention Tilly Tidies are.. its rounding down to the nearest pound or ten pounds and sending it to your debts or savings accounts. Inspired and you make a difference every time you do it

Much love to all of you lovely folks x

Thanks brizzle. Sorry to be a numpty but do you mean that if I spend say £4.75 on something then I would put away 25p - rounding the amount to £5.00?

I bought the Frugalwoods book on kindle - looking forward to a good old read!

mfmaybe

Seasidegal58 wrote: »

Thanks brizzle. Sorry to be a numpty but do you mean that if I spend say £4.75 on something then I would put away 25p - rounding the amount to £5.00?

I bought the Frugalwoods book on kindle - looking forward to a good old read!

I think how most people do it is to round down the bank balance. So if you log in and see you have £142.30 in your account, you might transfer £2.30 to debt payments. Some people do it down to the nearest £5, or a tenner. Some maybe do it just to the nearest pound. I guess the principle is just that tiny increments soon add up; but the Tilly Tidy is a nice neat idea.

Seasidegal58

Thanks very much for explaining mfmaybe. It's certainly sounds a very good idea and I think I will start doing it.

Sun_Addict

This is the sort of thing I do to build up my VSP. Whenever money goes into the bank I shave off the oddment to the nearest ten pounds. Can highly recommend doing this.