Busy Mee's Last Leg

Busy_Mee1

We had a very hard frost this morning but thankfully the snow missed us for a change. I had a lovely walk this morning with the dog. I haven't been out with him all week because of work commitments and a stinking cold. I really missed it and so being out this morning in a winter wonderland was lovely, everything was so pretty with a coating of hoar frost. The added bonus was that all the mud had frozen solid, so I managed to return home with a relatively clean dog. He is such a swamp monster

I have been having another hard think about our finances again today and wondering if I can trim anymore off anywhere. Anyway I have a few things in my cross hairs...Sky which has another 6 months to run. This will save £49 per month, if Mr Mee still agrees. We are tending to watch more Netflix and Amazon Prime at the moment and the kids pay for these :rotfl:

I am also going to cancel my gym membership at the end of April, this is £36.50 per month and I will either run or join the cheaper gym for £14.99 a month.

I am also having a hard look at our life insurance. We are currently paying £70 a month :eek: but this was because we had an eye watering mortgage, a big chunk of which was on interest only. The thought of one of us dying and leaving the other in the !!!!!! was terrifying or both dying and leaving the kids in the !!!!!! was even worse :eek: Happily now we are in a better financial situation I am thinking we could get rid of a couple of the smaller policies . These are decreasing term policies which would currently pay out £70k together and cost £30 per month. I would hang on to the bigger one which is whole term and terminal illness and pays out £140k and costs £41 a month. This would give the survivor a good financial cushion. I need to discuss this one with Mr Mee. It feels like a big decision, a bit like doing the lottery for years with the same numbers and then stopping gulp _pale_

Suffolk Lass - you are a genius. I had never thought of paying the car tax for 6 months to move it to the different time in the year. It doesn't much matter for mine which is 20 quid, but Mr Mee's is over £400 ( Don't ask :mad:)

The February budget is very tight. After paying all the standing orders (including regular savings) and the credit cards, there is no cash left. In fact we are in deficit so I am raiding the holiday pot, and annual bills pot and generally scraping all the barrels so we can keep our savings total unscathed.

I will also need to put groceries on the credit card this month and straighten things up next month. Luckily I feel like I have nailed the grocery shopping. Only £214 spent in January and I have managed not shopping for the last two weeks. We are limping on until Sunday using up things we have in and I even made hob nobs yesterday to ensure we have enough snacks to stop Mr Mee moaning.

Anyway I think that is the end of my musings today ..Happy Friday

beanielou

I cancelled my life insurance with was linked to the mortgage term as my mortgage got smaller.if It would have only paid off the mortgage.
As it stands DS could pay it off he so wishes.
My other life insurance all went when ex DH & I split up.

teapot2

Glad you are feeling better and had a lovely walk - maybe helped with all the financial musings and planning

Busy_Mee1

Thanks Beanie, it is quite reassuring to hear that others have ditched the life insurance. Mr Mee agrees so the two smaller policies will go.

Hey Teapot- you are dead right a good walk does help with the financial musings.

I had another duh moment last night. I remembered that not only has Mr Mee not had a N@t West switching bonus, but also he hasn't had a FD one.

So I opened him a H@lifax account as a donor account last night and will switch shortly to N@t West/RBS, then after a respectable period of time to FD. This should net £275 in switching bonuses and also give us access to another regular saver @ 5%. Mr Mee will become a standard tax payer when he starts getting his pension so he will be allowed to earn more interest before paying tax.

Suffolk_lass

That all sounds good. I have also been thinking about Life insurance. We consolidated all (except Death in Service benefits and Union Death Grant) into one joint policy that would pay out on first death, up to my 70th birthday (I am older, by a few months). It is £90 for £1/4m payout and goes back to when one of us would have been a single parent, having to either give up work or pay for a nanny to live in. It is far greater than our needs now but it is fixed. Any alternative will cost more for less. On the other hand, if we wait until I am 70 it will be much more for much less. Maybe pre-paying a funeral is the other option then. I am not going to touch it now.

Busy_Mee1

Ultra Uber Frugal February has begun......in fairness if I can manage to repeat the low spending levels of January I will be pleased.

The weekend passed without any spending beyond the normal grocery shop. Saturday was an NSD. I walked the dog and went to the gym and did the pensioner patrol......living the dream here :rotfl:

The grocery shopping came to £76.19 but we had run out of anything fresh. It included a good top up of fruit ,vegetables and generic medicines as the lurgy has now passed from Mr Mee to me and now onto DD. But no one has been as ill as Mr Mee was .....obviously
I am hoping that the groceries will last 2 weeks as we are out for the day next Sunday.

I feel like I made some financial progress. I have opened a donor account for Mr Mee and shuffled a Tilly Tidy in there to make it look active. This will switch to either N@tWest or RBS depending on timing (different deadlines) .....they don't require any direct debits attached to the switching account, just £1500 swished through the new account. Simples ...probably the easiest switch ever for £150....but we will see if it all works

I have cancelled one of our smaller life insurance policies today and will do the other later when Mr Mee gets home (they need us both to ring up). This will save £30 per month.

I just needed to check this wouldn't affect the last part of our HSBC switching bonuses (these are direct debits attached to the HSBC accounts) We received £150 each 12 months ago, with the promise of £50 each if the accounts were still open 12 months later. Luckily cancelling the DDs won't affect this and I expect this little bonus to land sometime in March/April.

March and April is also when we start to really reap the benefits of our complicated banking arrangements when all the regular savers mature. Although I have banked all the savings in our savings totals, I havent included the interest. I am expecting the following:

March
N@tionwide. £161.28
S@ntander. 64.52
HSBC. £161.28
FD. 96.77

April
M&S. 80.64
Leeds ISA. 410.00

We are potentially looking at another £974.49 to either add to the savings or the holiday fund or both.

We will then set off on another year round of regular savings, with the addition of another FD account for Mr Mee that doesn't pay out until the 20/21 tax year. I also need a new ISA to replace the Leeds Perm that ends its 5 year fix in April.

I keep thinking I ought to simplify all this, but it is all set up now and the rewards are quite good. I will give it another year to see how we cope in retirement :T

beanielou

All looking good

themadvix

I'm joining you on UUFF!

Thanks for doing the maths for what I can expect from some of the RSs

Busy_Mee1

You are very welcome to join me in UUFF....we can make it a thing :T

No problem re maths but just keep in mind we have two accounts with N@tionwide and HSBC, so the the interest on one account would be half of that shown.

Suffolk_lass

Gosh, when you set out the income from your account juggling it looks amazing. I did set up a BS account 5 years ago that is a 7 year 3.5% thing and it is still looking like a good cash account (thanks to compound interest and the removal of tax from our interest) but I am looking more towards investment funds for income with my retirement pot.

I am also joining you on UUFF although I do have a gift card to spend and I have ordered seeds