10 year stretch 31 December 2018 at 12:41AM edited 31 December 2018 at 1:31AM in How much have you saved? 42 replies 7.1K views

pinknsparkly

Hi Tori :wave: and welcome on board!!

I also have a diary on this forum - it started out as a mortgage wannabe (saving for a house deposit), but we bought our house in mid Dec so perhaps I need to change the title... We're now trying to save to pay off our mortgage - we're aiming for mortgage neutrality rather than mortgage free by saving the mortgage "OPs" into stocks and shares. Actually, that's a complete and utter lie as I've not actually got round to setting up S&S ISAs and LISAs yet - but it is on my To Do list for January My ultimate aim is to build up money in S&S that will allow us financial freedom. Quite what that financial freedom will be remains to be seen, but it may be early retirement, reducing working hours, taking a year off work to go travelling. We also hope to have children in the not-to-distant future so want to make the most of having two incomes and no expensive children in the meantime!!

As some other people have already mentioned, this is quite a quiet forum board so if you have any specific questions that you want a large number of views on then it is worth posting on the appropriate board (probably mortgage free wannabe for you).

pinknsparkly

I'm another one that thinks your job sounds wonderful btw!! I LOVE plants and gardens etc and dream of growing a reasonable amount of my own food. Sadly, plants don't seem to love me and they always seem to die on me, or last for ages but always look really sad and unhappy no matter what I try!

tori.k

It will come Pinknsparkly, just takes time to build up the soil you looking a 30/40% organic matter per SQM for good soil, get the soil right and the rest will just happen.

A spendy week with another £50 gone on shopping but pretty much done for the year on the non-perishables.
DH car insurance came to £250 for the year with £35 cashback, which seems high as its only a 1.6 Vitara but the cheapest we could find, least they don't charge for changing vehicles as he gets a new car every 6 months ( he sees it as a perk of the job I see it as a hassle)

Moved £300 into the emergency fund (Feb/March council tax payment) moved it now just so it feels like ive actually started this year, so far money only flowed out not in, Its just such a drag between paydays.

pinknsparkly

Yeay on moving council tax payments into savings. I've actually got ours set up to be paid every month, on the basis that paying ten months and then getting two months "free" means I'm giving them money that I could be earning interest on in the meantime

Being stocked up on non-perishables for the year is very impressive, I'm definitely not organised enough for that (plus, between a clumsy me, a destructive cat and a husband who hates "mess" I'm fairly sure at least some of it would be damaged!)

tori.k

Normally its just paid up for the year, but last year opted for 10months as it freed up the income when we moved house. Normally our household expenditure is drip fed across four regular savers that mature every 3 months which covers the annual cost, just a way of making pitiful interest on money we have to pay out anyway. Normal services will resume this year.

mark55man

I like that "ladder" idea of having money maturing every quarter - plus in a YNAB like way (not that I use it) its using last months money to pay ahead. so I will investigate - although at the moment my regular savings are resting before being used to pay off (hopefully) all of a 0% debt

tori.k

Its probably a convoluted way of doing things, basically I worked out roughly how much our annual bills were and over the years set up regular savers that dump into one DD account, each year The money I have to put in is very slightly reduce as the interest earned starts to cover the bills and is cycled back across the regular savers.
I wasn't very smart with our money in our younger years or i'd basically be living for free by now but this way should make our eventual retirement a little easier.

savingwannabe

Hello what an intelligent idea to keep bills for year in one savings account. That is really thinking in a MSE way - I would never ever have thought of this! I just pay by dd from my wages.


You are vvv smart.:money::money:

tori.k

Well its payday, and I managed to put a whole £100 across to the savings well £140 if im being pedantic the other £500 I had has gone as a loan to the youngest towards a new car as his would need to much work to get through a MOT.
Out of my Children he's the one that doesn't like to borrow and is the stickler for paying money back so I will get £100 a week without issue, annoying thing is he already has another insured car that is currently sat in bits as it is/was a rolling restoration project. when I say sat in bits I really mean it the body is tarped up on my mothers driveway and the chassis is in the garage having just been welded and painted I think the referbed wheels are currently in his bedroom :mad: the lads a packrat

The other couple of hundred has been earmarked for some jobs in the front garden as DH and I have next week off work if the weather plays ball we can make some good strides in the garden as we have already started the next project on the side return.

savingwannabe

Well done on saving at all when you are having the gardening project done. Its great that you have been able to help your son and he is able to pay you back. Happy gardening!