julicorn's journey

julicorn

Karmacat said:

Good news on the quilt and on looking okay for the Zoom calls - I know what you mean about that.  I mean, yours is about an illness, but mine is just about looking like a ghost bit of eyeliner works wonders

Haha, I'm quite a fan of the built-in 'touch up appearance' function. Luckily I don't often wear make-up on zoom anyway, I think that would be a real faff at the moment with that eye and all! 

julicorn

It's been a whole month since my last update, and I'm happy to report that my face is fully functioning again A day after my birthday I was able to fully close my eye again, so that was lovely. Now everything is back to normal - the last thing I wasn't able to do was rolling my tongue (not exactly a skill I use a lot anyway), but I just gave it another go and I seem to be able to do that again too!  

My birthday was lovely, relatively uneventful considering it was the big 3-0, but I didn't really mind that all that much. Had a lovely few days anyway. 

Work has really picked up. We're busy, got a lot of jobs on and even more proposal requests flying in. It's getting a little hectic, but at the same time it's good to see after a few bumpy months at the start of the pandemic. Speaking of the pandemic, we're staying in Brighton for Christmas for the first time in who knows how long, and I have to admit I'm actually quite excited to have a quiet Christmas with just Mr julicorn for once. Usually so much time gets eaten up by flights and all that, it will be great to have a week and a half just to ourselves. It's also gotten me more excited about decorating, I've even ordered an advent wreath (I've missed those ever since I moved over here from Germany, and I think this year is a good one to reinstate all my German childhood traditions, haha!). 

Financial news: At the end of October, we were 9 years ahead on our mortgage (if we count the overpayment savings pot, anyway), which is fantastic. Maybe we should have a little celebration once we hit 10 years ahead! 
Plan is now:
- keep paying down mortgage as a way of saving for a house deposit
- buy a 3-bed property (ideally a house, but a nice flat would do the job too), probably in 2022-ish
- start trying for a baby if we still think it's a good idea then, haha
- start planning for early retirement once we've bought the house, with less focus on paying off the mortgage. I've put together a spreadsheet this weekend because I love me a good spreadsheet, and it's quite fun playing around with the numbers. I always got quite confused about how to work out what we need and how to split it between pensions and ISAs and all that, but actually it's not super complicated once you've got your head around it - famous last words. 

Have a lovely Sunday everyone  

beanielou

Good to hear from you & that all is well.  

Glad that you had a good birthday if quiet. 

I am nearly double your age. Oh to be 30 again! 

Take care 😊

julicorn

beanielou said:

Good to hear from you & that all is well.  

Glad that you had a good birthday if quiet. 

I am nearly double your age. Oh to be 30 again! 

Take care 😊

Thank you beanie, you take care too  

Karmacat

Congratulations on your 30th!  I'm pleased for you that the finances are panning out so well, that's great to hear.  And a quiet Christmas too, as you say travel is a nightmare - one glitch, and everything stops.  Have a good November too, but keep posting

South_coast

So pleased you're back to normal, and congratulations on the birthday 🥳! I'm cautiously optimistic about a quiet Christmas this year, we normally get swamped by BF's family and I do find it wearing (last year we had 7 staying and another 3 joined us for the day). If indoor mixing is allowed again by then, I'm hopeful it will just be the 3 that live locally!

julicorn

Thank you both

@South_coast, because of the travel every year I have this dream of being able to host Christmas for our families at some point (i.e. have enough space, it's a bit tricky in a 1 bed flat haha!), but I suppose the reality is a lot more stressful than my imagination We watch Christmas Vacation every year, so not sure why that hasn't made me wary yet. 

julicorn

Hi everyone, and happy new year (well, we're almost there!). 

Seeing as it is the last day of the year, I thought I'd have a look back at my posts from a year ago and see what my goals there at the time. Well, fair to say a lot of them went out of the window during the pandemic at the latest!
- meal planning / saving money on groceries: definite fail on that front. We spent a lot of money on food this year, including getting recipe boxes when life got too stressful, and spending way more money than usual on alcohol (turns out I used to just drink once a week at work for free before, haha!). 
- DYI projects / sorting our flat out: even less successful than the above! I know lots of people managed to get really stuck into DYI during the lockdowns, and well, we've done nothing.   
- Etsy shop: I gave myself some pretty ambitious targets when it comes to number of new patterns, which I'm pretty sure I didn't hit, but it's been a good year nonetheless. Orders and revenue up 33% on the year before, which I think is great. Very happy with that. 

That all doesn't sound that triumphant, but really, it's been a good year financially. Taking into account our overpayment saving pot, we are now 10 years ahead on our mortgage, which is a fantastic milestone to hit. Also, at the start of the year I said it would be nice to spend under half of our income. Well, I'd pretty much forgotten about that goal, but just had a look at YNAB, and we've only spent 47% of our income. Again, very happy with that. 

Aside from that, I've been exercising much more this year which feels really good. I'd like to keep that up. Have been enjoying online yoga classes lately especially. 

Given that I clearly didn't really go back to my goals throughout this year, I'll try something a little different this time round, and just set monthly goals. Starting off January with a bit of a tough one, we shall see how this works out! Goals:
- Keep grocery spends to under £200 (last few months were close to £400, ouch! We used to get by on much less. Plan: Raid the cupboards, there is so much food we really shouldn't have to buy that much)
- No eating out. None. No takeout either. (January has traditionally been a bit of a wild one for us, because of Veganuary. Will see if we can hold off for a month for once )
- No money spent on booze. We have plenty of wine, beer, and a silly large selection of spirits, we really shouldn't have to buy anything. 
- No 'treat yourself' kind of spends. If there's something we really want, we can wait until February surely. 

That would save us around £350 more than usual, which would be great. We get free Caffe Nero drinks every week, and have one voucher for a fancy restaurant delivery we can use one weekend in January, so really it should be very doable, but it's a bit of a turnaround from the last few months if we manage to pull it off. 

Either way, have a good start to 2021 everyone

beanielou

Full of lovely positives 

julicorn

beanielou said:

Full of lovely positives 

Indeed! How are you doing beanie?