The Piano Diary

Skinnylatte

HI glass_half_full, I am with you on the emergency fund. I've never given it much important until now, but I definately need to focus on building that up now.

glass_half_full

Hi Skinnylatte,
I have never been very good at saving up an emergency fund. There always seems to be a better use for the money. Now I have made a start I am going to keep going. Have you got a target in mind or just as much as feasible?

savingholmes

EF sounds good right now. We are making it a higher priority once we've cleared the card that the 0% runs out on in July.

glass_half_full

Dear diary and all,

Great to make it to the Bank Holiday weekend. Nothing particular planned. OH and I are going to divide the days into morning chores and afternoon leisure. Today I have some cleaning to do and mow the lawns front and back. I also need to fix a dripping tap in the kitchen – exciting times! The latter job will involve a trip to the local DIY shop to get a replacement washer. I hope it isn’t too crowded. I watched a video on line on how to do this. Plumbing jobs are often harder than they look, I have had a few disasters over the years and had to get a plumber out to rescue me. I’m not a DIY fanatic, generally I think, they have their skill I have mine. Get someone in who knows what they are doing and who does it all day. Did the meter readings yesterday for electricity and gas. To my surprise it has resulted in my direct debit going down. I thought maybe we would have been using extra gas in March due to working from home. On the other hand, it has been unseasonably warm since Christmas so maybe that explains it.

I heard back from the Swedish rail company. They have asked me if we want to change our booking for next summer. Still discussing this with OH and deciding if that is what we want to do. Either way, the deposit will cover either the cancellation or the reservation for next year.

Money wise, things continue reasonably ok. I realised that we have broken through £5K saved if we add up e-savings, POffice account and also I have a Moneybox account. Together they add up to £5,170. Need to keep going on this and build up towards the target.

I’ve been thinking about if and when we go back to work about my commute. I have toyed in the past with the idea of using an e-bike for the journey. Distance is about 11-12 miles and can be done mostly off road along canal paths and minor roads. I think I might do a test ride over the summer on my mountain bike to see if this would be feasible.

Have a great Bank Holiday weekend all!

savingholmes

Hope you get the part you need. The Sweden trip sounds fun but it is so hard to envisage what post c19 future looks like or indeed how long it will last. I must admit I am thankful we hadn't got around to booking anywhere.

glass_half_full

Dear diary and all,

Great to get to the weekend, another busy week work wise for both of us. Budget still ticking along ok although we have started to buy a few more things on line. OH has decided enough is enough for her on the hair front so I have bought some scissors and an electric clipper on line, this cost a few £. I’ve watched some on line hairdressing videos so lets see how I get on! I’m going to be very conservative in my approach, nothing drastic. It is a measure of how desperate she is that she is willing to let me near her hair. Hopefully I can pull off a trim and a bit of thinning. For me, I will probably ask her to have a go with the clippers. Plans for the weekend. This morning we will do our usual weekly shop. This afternoon we may cautiously visit our very local garden nursery. I would like to get a couple of window boxes to put outside the front. I’ve never done anything like that before, but I think it could look nice underneath the window on the border of the lawn. DS may be coming home from Uni towards the end of May beginning of June. We need to help him with his choices over the coming months. We have received the refund from the Swedish rail company of £150. In the end we decided not to rebook, there is far too much uncertainty right now. In the end we have only lost £50 which is pretty good, I’m glad we took out the cancellation insurance. Savings wise we are sitting at just over £5,000. This week the leader at our Uni shared with us the picture on the predicted finances. With the current scenario, they are not planning on redundancies, but if things get worse in terms of student numbers, then they will have to cut back. I think it would be sensible to at least contemplate the possibility of us having to go down to one income. Due to the various economies we have made over recent years we are not too far from being able to do that. It would mean curtailing the mortgage overpayments. I think the other thing to do is to build the EF up to £15K by the end of the year, so this is the new target now. I think we will remain very conservative financially for the foreseeable future.

Have a great weekend all!

savingholmes

Sounds like a sensible plan. I wouldn't be recommending my kids to spend on uni at the moment. My DD has another year to go before she is due. DS was in his last year and finished early but has had his course plagues by strikes but not received refunds and now the latest crisis. He feels quite short changed. I like uni for the independence it can give students but I'm not convinced they will get that living at their parents and with remote learning! DS has been home since lockdown night and boy is he noisy!!! Hope it all goes well when yours returns to the nest...

Mortgagefreegonnabe

As someone who did uni (a language degree) and is no where near better off for it I've made a decision that when my kids get to that age I'm going to encourage them to work for a couple of years first to figure out what they might want to do.
The more real world experience the better then if they still want to go they can either pick something more vocational that produces a job at the end of it or if they still want to go back and study something like languages (just for example) then they have real world experience and can see what a privilege and luxury uni is (while also still enjoying the benefits if there are any pubs left by then! 😉) 
It must be a scary world to be starting off in. Good luck and best wishes to your kids SH x

glass_half_full

savingholmes said:

Sounds like a sensible plan. I wouldn't be recommending my kids to spend on uni at the moment. My DD has another year to go before she is due. DS was in his last year and finished early but has had his course plagues by strikes but not received refunds and now the latest crisis. He feels quite short changed. I like uni for the independence it can give students but I'm not convinced they will get that living at their parents and with remote learning! DS has been home since lockdown night and boy is he noisy!!! Hope it all goes well when yours returns to the nest...

Yes, I sympathise with your DS as mine is also in his final year and its a shame how it has sort of fizzled out for them rather than finished in a satisfying way. They will never get this time again will they. I also agree about being sceptical about the value of a degree, even though I teach at a University. I also teach on degree apprenticeships where they work full-time and they are mostly very focused and motivated with their studies.
Mortgagefreegonnabe said:

As someone who did uni (a language degree) and is no where near better off for it I've made a decision that when my kids get to that age I'm going to encourage them to work for a couple of years first to figure out what they might want to do.
The more real world experience the better then if they still want to go they can either pick something more vocational that produces a job at the end of it or if they still want to go back and study something like languages (just for example) then they have real world experience and can see what a privilege and luxury uni is (while also still enjoying the benefits if there are any pubs left by then! 😉) 
It must be a scary world to be starting off in. Good luck and best wishes to your kids SH x

I agree with you Mortgagefreegonnabe. Its a big decision with a lot of debt too so its right to question whether its the right thing to do. Its a challenging world to be graduating into for sure.

savingholmes

My DD is considering the degree apprenticeship route - but currently pictures living at home throughout.