Busy Mee's Last Leg

shangaijimmy

An eye opener...and a can of worms that i'm not tackling with Mrs SJ just yet!!

wishingthemortgaheaway

Have you worked out what your spends are as a % of your income? That may give you a clearer idea as I know your income is huge compared to mine.

Maybe finding an activity to do with your daughter rather than shopping may be the way to spend quality time with her instead of shopping. Yes you'll probably have to pay for the activity, but the outcomes maybe the same, just a bit less spends.

Busy_Mee1

Jimmy - Mrs SJ seems very good and tbh what you are doing is working really well for you and your family.

Wishing- It is about 20% of our income. It isn't that we can't afford it, but more that I want to make conscious decisions about our spending and not "waste" money so that we can properly enjoy our retirement.

I do spend quite a bit of good free quality time with DD, walking her dog and going to the gym. It is just that we both love shopping and she is such a pleasure to buy for. She looks good in everything and she is appreciative of everything she gets....but I need to be strong

Suffolk_lass

Busy Mee1 - You really are my Sister from another Mother! - I do exactly what you do with DD with my DS. I am going to track through May as April involved our Easter Hols with a trip to the Scottish Highlands and weekends with friends on the way up and Mum on the way back. I do not actually know what my percentage spends on invisible things are. I do know my CC was over £1000 for each of the last four months and I was not happy. I now plan to track this and report on it in my diary. Thank you!

Busy_Mee1

So the best day of the month and my round up of the month's progress:

Savings April. £1678.39/1458.33
Total Savings. £66,678/100,000

Total Mortgage. £237,497.48
Repayment £68,497.48
IO. £169,000.00

Savings:Mortgage. 28%

Odds and sods £539.77 :T
Emergency Fund. £30.00 :eek:

Overall I am pleased with the amount saved this month, but because I have now set everything up so that standing orders go to savings at the beginning of the month, I would have to make a conscious decision not to save my target amount. This is obviously a more committed approach than waiting to see what is left at the end of the month.
This has impacted on our emergency fund. I have cleared this out to cover the large May Credit Card ( car insurance and 2 services) and give us some holiday money, but I have left £30 ( Birthday Money) in the pot because I could bear it being completely empty :rotfl:

I am really pleased with the amount of "free" money saved in the odds and sods account, this was a bumper month with £425 of switching bonuses from N@t West and HSBC. I have a further £125 due in May from FD.

On to Month 2/24 and May. I hope to save at least £1660. 80, which keeps us on track to hit £70k in savings by end June and well in front for our target of £100k in 24 months.

We are away for a couple of weeks in May, so just hoping that we can keep our spending low for the couple weeks we are here, so that I can start building the EF up again. In June I intend to set budgets for all areas of our spending.

I think that is all ......Only 23 months until I can finish work :T

wishingthemortgaheaway

Impressive savings amounts.
Here's to a frugal May.

Busy_Mee1

The Universe looked down and said "lo look at that silly woman who has spent all her emergency fund, let us send her a broken boiler "

Our boiler has been condemned and will cost £180 to repair :mad:. Thank goodness for my credit card.

I think I need to start saving up for a new boiler

In more positive news it is a new month and £12.70 has been Tilly Tidied into the "odds and sods account.

I have been reading that lots of other people on here are starting to invest in S&S and I appear to be bucking that trend, as I have just stopped the £100 DD I had going into a S&S ISA with Nutmeg .

I opened a Nutmeg account in the 17/18 tax year with £2000 saved in my "odds and sods" account in 16/17, I was attracted by the £200 cash back that they were offering at the time. Any hoo like most S&S it hasn't done brilliantly, the account currently stands at £3430.

Over the year it has made the princely sum of £30 ( £230 if you include the cashback ). Not bad I suppose if you consider the initial £2000 was "free" money, with another £200 in free money on top.

However I have just paused any further investment in it because I will need to really start maxing out our ISA allowances as our savings increase and we get closer to retirement. I will have a load of regular savers that will mature at the end of this tax year and I don't want to restrict myself to this particular ISA at this stage in the tax year. I will decide later in the year where I want to hold my £20k for this year and probably transfer this account across too. I am really not sure if I am doing the right thing here, so any advice welcome

try_harder

Loving your determination and the fact that every month you always reach your goal and more .Great savings for the month .

I have around £15,000 in ISAs they have increased around 11% over the year overall , obviously they do go up and down daily but as we dont have a big income i do have to hope that they will do well over the next 8 years . I was putting £500 a month in but it was getting difficult to find that much each month so i have stopped but i think i might start again but with a smaller amount.

Its a shame about the boiler ,so annoying

Busy_Mee1

Thanks Try Harder, it sounds like your investments have done well.

Part of my reticence with S&S are they are a long term investment and actually we are saving for the shorter term, i.e. the period before the mortgage is paid off and SRP kicks in. We will be considerably better off in the long term but need to supplement the early retirement period.

I am also a wuss and terrified of losing any money that is effectively destined to pay off our mortgage....

try_harder

I would keep my money in the accounts you already have and are earning good interest on if i was you and then maybe just pay in each month what you can afford to lose maybe your odds and sods or free money then it wont affect your mortgage money but may turn into a very sizeable amount in 10 -15 years time


I am much more of a risk taker but then thats the only chance i have really of getting anywhere near my target