The Piano Diary

glass_half_full

Good morning diary and all,
Working from home today. This week has been quite busy with a couple of Christmas meals to attend. Preparations for Christmas are reasonably well progressed. We have set a budget for presents and are mainly sticking to it. OH struggles with it because she always buys just one more thing which isn’t in the budget, so we end up going over by quite a bit sometimes! Next week is my last week at work but I am working on some papers so I need to try to work away on those if I can. Taking next Tuesday off to go down and visit my Mum as I haven’t been in a while.
Trying out the new version of YNAB. I like the fact that it is online so I can update it on my phone. I can now do all my budgeting on my phone which saves me time in the morning.
Have a great day all!

selloptape

Hi there - another one here who’s really interested to see how you get on with the new car. I’d love an electric car but it’s on street parking here so think I’ve got to wait until I move.

glass_half_full

selloptape wrote: »

Hi there - another one here who’s really interested to see how you get on with the new car. I’d love an electric car but it’s on street parking here so think I’ve got to wait until I move.

Hi there Sellotape,
So far so good with the electric car. Have you considered getting a hybrid car until you move?

glass_half_full

Good morning diary and all,
Went to see my mum on Tuesday. A long journey in really quite heavy rain, saw a couple of nasty looking accidents on the way back. She was ok, sat with her for an hour or so and chatted about things. It was really nice to see her.
Money seems to be slipping through our fingers this month, but I’m still hanging on to the £1,000 emergency fund, otherwise it’s a case of juggling budget categories to try and balance things out.
Hoping today will be my last day at work and that I can work from home for the remainder of the week.
Have a great day all!

glass_half_full

Dear diary and all,
Collected DS yesterday from University. Its great to have him home, we had a chat about all sorts of stuff. It is his 21st birthday coming up soon so he may have a few friends round. Final last few things to do so we are ready for Christmas. We have spend a bit more than we planned but I’m not stressing about it. At least it is not on the credit card as it would have been previously. I am going to review progress at the end of the month over the last 6 months and look forward to what we want to achieve over the next 12 months.
Hope you all have a restful and peaceful break!

glass_half_full

Dear diary and all,
I do like this few days between Christmas and the New Year, it’s a good chance to relax and unwind. I thought I would do a bit of a stock take from the year.
There have been a few changes since I started this diary. Our joint income has gone up by around £260 per month. We have cut back in a few areas and then relaxed the budget a bit in certain areas. I have redone the SOA.

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 3
Number of children in household.........
Number of cars owned.................... 1

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 2740
Partners monthly income after tax....... 2100
Total monthly income.................... 4840

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 1049
Council tax............................. 248
Electricity............................. 118
Water rates............................. 30
TV Licence.............................. 12.83
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 112 (includes landline, tv, mobile SIMs)
Groceries etc. ......................... 500
Clothing................................ 150 (I don’t think we will spend this but is mainly for OH so she can rebuild wardrobe after 2-3 years of not buying very much at all)
Petrol/diesel........................... 100
Road tax................................ 0
Car Insurance........................... 40
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 50
Other travel............................ 65
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 38.15
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 13.79
Buildings insurance..................... 0 (paid annually)
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 16
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 20
Haircuts................................ 50
Entertainment........................... 50
Holiday................................. 100
Cash allowance OH....................... 100
Cash allowance me....................... 100
DS allowance............................ 100
Giving.................................. 30
Hobbies................................. 32
Software subscriptions.................. 16
Spotify................................. 14.99
Netflix................................. 7.99
Societies / Union etc................... 50
Newspaper............................... 9
Total monthly expenses.................. 3222.75


Assets
Cash.................................... 1000
House value (Gross)..................... 350000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 15000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 366000


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 75236....(1049).....2.44
Total secured & HP debts...... 75236.....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Car............................17600.....488.......0
Total unsecured debts..........17600.....488.......-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 4,840
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 3,222.75
Available for debt repayments........... 1,617.25
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 488
Amount left after debt repayments....... 1,129.25

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 366,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -75,236
Total Unsecured debt.................... -17,600
Net Assets.............................. 273,164

Created using the SOA calculator at https://www.stoozing.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.

It suggests that we should have £1,100 per month available for saving/debt repayments. The bigger financial changes have been remortgaging to a shorter term and buying a replacement car.

Mortgage
Current balance £75,236
Remaining term 6 years and 7 months
I started this diary at the end of June with a balance of £79,600 and a term of 13 years. The biggest change was to reduce the term and remortgage to 7 years. Had I continued on the old mortgage it would still have been about £77,200 so I see this as having overpaid by £1,964. The best part though is the reduced term which means I will be 58 instead of 65 when it is finished.

Pension
I have £135,000 in two defined contribution pensions. I have a few other DB pensions. I am a member of my work pension where I am paying 12% of my gross salary. I would like to be in a position, if not to retire at 60 then at least have the option to do what I want to do. Maybe some part time work etc. In order to be able to do this I will need to increase my pension contributions. I plan to do this as soon as the car is paid off in 12 months time.

Car
I bought a plug in hybrid electric car in November. We are a one car family. So far so good as it does the daily commute, OH drops me at the station and then drives to/from work. It does all this on the battery. In fact anything less than around 20 miles. If it is cold or you put the heater on etc it sometimes uses the petrol engine to generate the power. In terms of fuel consumption for December, the figures are approximately:
Petrol £94.88
Electric charges on motorway £3.39
Increase on December electricity bill £13.00
Total cost £111.27
Monthly Saving on previous car = £123 (previous average £235 per month)
This is about what I calculated before I bought it so I am happy with that.

Goals for 2019
1. Pay off car loan completely
2. Continue to maintain mortgage payments
3. Build emergency fund to £3,000

That will do for 2019. If we can manage to do that then we can switch in 2020 to higher mortgage Ops and increased pension contributions.

Happy 2019 to you all! :beer:

glass_half_full

Dear diary and all,

I’ve been reading many of the threads on MSE and meaning to keep up with my diary, but somehow the days have flown by and I haven’t got around to posting. Must keep this up as I know from previously that if I post more regularly, I stay on track!
One week away from pay day and just about staying on track with the budget. I had forgotten we have a number of annual costs in January, most of which I had remembered but one or two came as a surprise! I am putting them into YNAB so next year they will not be surprises.

These were:
Annual professional subscription £250 (reclaimable as an expense but I still need to pay it)
Annual house insurance £138
Antivirus family subscription £75
Annual house alarm service (necessary for house insurance) £72
YNAB £60

Mortgage
I have overpaid by £200 in January. This brings the balance down to £74,143. If I can keep this up as a regular overpayment it would reduce the term to 5 years and 6 months from now, I would be 57.

Decluttering
In an attempt to reduce our energy costs I have been thinking about what I can do. The loft is insulated but because we were storing so much stuff up there, there was a large area which was not fully insulated. There was 110mm of insulation and then some boards on which I was storing boxes. So over the break I decided to bring everything down so we could review it and decide what to keep. This allowed me to add some more insulation to bring the whole loft up to the maximum thickness of insulation. This was also because several times this year I have spent a lot of time searching for various items and was frustrated by how disorganised everything is. Anyway, in the end I brought down around 45 boxes and bags of various sizes. I put it all in the garage and we have been sorting through it. So far about 80% of what we have looked at is destined to be thrown away or given away. In doing this we have finally got some order. We found about 20-25 vhs cassettes so I need to get a second hand player so we can see what is on them and whether we want to transfer onto DVD. Also many photographs, so OH and I are going to spend an evening going through all the photos and organise them. OH has been rather bemused throughout, although I think she can see the benefit as we get more organised.

Piano
Aiming to take the grade 3 exam in the summer. I’m trying to practice 30-40 minutes each day. Usually in the evening after I get home from work.
Good luck to all with your various January goals!

glass_half_full

Dear diary and all,

We have both been paid, it feels like a long month, I guess is a five weeks. We are just about staying within budget. This month OH and I have been using envelopes for cash, clothes, eating out and a couple of other categories. I have been a bit dismissive of this approach in the past, but it really has made a big difference. First of all parting with cash does feel different to using a card, but more importantly you see visually when you run out! As a result I have started taking lunch to work, stopped the morning coffee on the way to work (again!) and we have stayed in budget on the envelope categories. We have had a number of annual expenses which are cheaper than the monthly equivalent so we will benefit later in the year, but they have made January a bit tight including home insurance (£138) and car insurance (£433). Work bounced my professional subscription for the first time this year. A new policy which is affecting everyone. I have decided to cancel it and get a refund. To be honest I don’t feel I get enough value from it to keep paying it. I’m really pleased with the car. So far in January we have only used £20 worth of petrol. We may get to the end of the month on £40 which would be a saving of £200 on the last car. Payments on the car loan start in February. I aim to pay the car off in around 12 months. OH and I are aligned on this. We will have a holiday this year, but we will have to keep it relatively low cost and somewhere in the UK, we are talking about Scotland.

Poor old cat had to go to the vet yesterday for a recurrence of the coughing which he had last year. The vet has prescribed some medicine for him but we may need to revisit the specialists at some point, lets see how he goes.

Today is a quiet day, time get on with some chores and some piano practice later.

Have a great day all!

glass_half_full

Good morning diary and all,

The snow has missed us and OH is grumbling as she was really looking forward to a snow day! I am lucky as I can usually work from home on Fridays. I have cancelled my professional membership, and so I can no longer use the letters after my name, but to be honest I am no longer active in that profession so it was a bit meaningless anyway. I have noticed that the refund of the membership of £250 is coming back to me tomorrow on the on line banking. I am going to direct this to reduce the car loan. I have been playing with the numbers and it looks like we can repay the car by February next year. Then I plan to increase the emergency fund to 3 months (£9K) and then use the extra money to OP on the mortgage. It is possible for us to repay by August 2022 and I have decided to commit to this as the new target date. It feels more real with the numbers in the spreadsheet and more like a plan than a dream. That works out as 43 months and importantly for me I will still be 55. I really want the option to do something different at 55 and being mortgage free will really make that possible. I think this will make sticking to the plan easier.

Have a great day all!

Busy_Mee1

Just catching up with your diary. Glad to see you well and still heading for mortgage freedom. Mortgage free in 43 months sounds like a great target and who knows if you keep chipping away at your outgoings it could be sooner.