Busy Mee's Last Leg

try_harder

I hope you feel much better today BM..Great numbers as always , keep it up you are doing brilliantly

themadvix

Ouch! Hope antibiotics are working!

Moneyfordreams

Hope you feel better soon, Dental work is so expensive

Busy_Mee1

And so finally everything is bought, wrapped and we have visited everyone that we need to visit. I now have two days at home with my family :happyhear until we have to go to the gathering of clan Mee on Boxing Day.

I hope everyone has a lovely Christmas and a happy, healthy and wealthy New Year

:xmastree:

beanielou

Have a lovely time.

Busy_Mee1

Well back to work in theory......it is dead. However, I am only here in case of crisis, so long may it last !

I have cleared a few emails and done some admin tasks but I think that will be about it. It would have been nice not to have had to bother to be honest but it does mean that I can take the leave later in the year.

I have assessed our finances following Christmas:eek: and done some shuffling into our accounts to round the year off. I have also claimed £36.43 from TCB.

Despite trying not to go over the top with Christmas food, our fridge is still rammed. I have asked DS over tonight to eat some more of it. Basically another Christmas dinner but with cold turkey . I have sliced up the remaining turkey and gammon and put the turkey carcass on to boil to make stock for soup. There will be nothing wasted

I am itching to start setting goals for 2019. It will be a big year of change for us as Mr Mee retires and we need to make the next 10 months of full salary count. I need to start sweating the small stuff again.

So some goals for 2019:

Save £1500 a month for the next 10 months. This will give us £84k savings at "R" day

Save another £5k towards 3 week travel trip booked to celebrate Mr Mee's retirement :whistle: - this is going to be harder....we only have £300 in the holiday fund so far :eek:

Longer term goals:
Pay the Mortgage off. We should be mortgage neutral when Mr Mee retires (he gets a tax free lump sum as part of his DB pension). Depending on what happens with mortgage interest rates will decide whether we pay off the mortgage or carry on saving in higher interest accounts.

Decide when I will retire....I have done the numbers and the earliest I could retire is April 2020. Obviously the longer I carry on the financially better off we will be and I also have the option to partially retire...so lots to consider

I have signed up to the Uber Frugalwoods challenge for January....I have done it before but it will just give us a bit of focus and challenge. I will also be tracking our spending through January again......we need to have a very frugal month because we have some large Christmas credit card bills to pay.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and is enjoying the weird lull in between Christmas and New Year x

Suffolk_lass

My word, those goals are a stretch. I will be mirroring Mr BM1 in using some of my TFLS from my pension to pay down a lump off our mortgage. Then I know DH's Teacher's pension will pay off the remainder in September, along with £500 a month overpayment from March to Sep.

I was wondering if you have done a retirement budget to look critically at all the headings your money goes to now, and pare back things that will go when you stop (work clothes, shoes, commuting costs, work expenses like going for drinks in a crowd and buying a round, collections and Charity sales, and of course NI contributions, are my list).

On the subject of NI Cont's have you looked at whether to make the payments after you stop work in the gap until you get your SP? It is about replacing some of the years when public servants were opted out of SERPS (I think this may be both of you). For me it is 5 years of payments (so I can decide at the end because you can go back up to 6) for about £4.50 a week of benefit for my lifetime. I think it is about 4-5 years to pay for itself based on current year rules

Busy_Mee1

Thanks Suffolk Lass - they are stretching targets but if I don't put some tension on the finances I find that the money just leaks away with not much to show for it.

I have done a retirement budget spreadsheet and although I think Mr Mee will save on fuel and car parking and all those other work related expenses, I don't think I will. I work from home 2/3 days a week and don't have high travel costs if I go into the office. Generally most days that I work are NSD. I actually think my spending might go up when I am not working, because I will have time to be a lady that lunches

I hadn't factored NI in at all. I had no idea that we might be deficient in our NI contributions:eek:
I have just instructed Mr Mee to go online and get his SRP forcast and I will do the same....thank you very much for pointing that out.

Busy_Mee1

So I have been on line and checked my SRP forcast and I have 38 full years, however to get the maximum amount I need to pay for a further 6 years ( including this one). I basically need to pay NI until I am 60 whether I am working or not to receive the full amount of £164.35 a week. I will need to do the sums to work out whether this will be worth it.

Mr Mee has also checked and although he has already paid 43 full years he still needs to pay for another 7 years to get the full amount. This has really surprised me as I thought you got a full retirement pension after paying in for 40 years.....he will have paid in for 50 years.

I clearly need to understand this a bit better, but thanks Suffolk Lass

Busy_Mee1

I might as well do the December update as there will be no further financial movement this year.


Repayment mortgage. £61158
IO mortgage. £169000
Total mortgage. £230158.50
Savings this month. £1500
Total Savings. £69000
Savings offset mortgage to. £161158.50
Savings:Mortgage. 30%

I am slightly disappointed that I couldn't manage a nice round 70k to end 2018 but I just couldn't conjure up another £1000 :mad: Anyway next month we should break back through the £70k barrier.

I have actually been out to the shops today for the first time since before Christmas and it was all quite MSE. I had a trip to sainsbreeze for reduced wrapping paper (50p), cards (50p) and tags (20p) and is now all packed away for next year in my wrapping paper box :cool:

I also called to farm foods for some trays of pop (saves Mr Mee buying it at work) and some other bits - I spent £25 and used a £2.50 voucher that I printed off line. Finally I had a trip to town this afternoon with DD to pick up a parcel and we had lunch out in M&S cafe using my reward vouchers :money: No other money spent

We are heading away tomorrow to family for NY so a long road trip. I will be packing food and drink for the trip so that we don't have to pay exorbitant motorway service prices.

If I don't get back on here before, I hope everyone has a Happy New Year