It's time to start digging up those Squirrelled Nuts!!!!

Audaxer

Sea_Shell said:

For completeness, I should also add, that although we have spent £3,600 so far in 2020, we have also brought in £660 in interest, vouchers, cashback and sales on FB.   So the net effect is only a £2,940 spend, or £588 per month.

Sea Shell, I know from previous posts that your annual spend is usually very low, but £3,600 for 5 months, i.e. £720 per month, seems incredibly low for a couple, even in lockdown. We are also retired and I was quite pleased that our spend for the first 5 months was 'just' approximately £10k! 

I'd be interested to see a rough breakdown of your monthly expenditure if you care to share. 

Sea_Shell

Audaxer said:

Sea_Shell said:

For completeness, I should also add, that although we have spent £3,600 so far in 2020, we have also brought in £660 in interest, vouchers, cashback and sales on FB.   So the net effect is only a £2,940 spend, or £588 per month.

Sea Shell, I know from previous posts that your annual spend is usually very low, but £3,600 for 5 months, i.e. £720 per month, seems incredibly low for a couple, even in lockdown. We are also retired and I was quite pleased that our spend for the first 5 months was 'just' approximately £10k! 

I'd be interested to see a rough breakdown of your monthly expenditure if you care to share. 

No problem...

The totals for the first 5 months of the year are...
Bills - £1260 (includes 2 month CT "holiday")
Hols/Entertainment - £78 (nothing booked)
Car Running - £95 (MOT/Service postponed)
Groceries - £1115 (includes alcohol!!)
Household - £443 (bought some new chairs and bedding early on)
Health/Beauty - £312 (includes new running shoes)
Clothes/Shoes - £60 (few bits in Primark)
Fuel - £73 (we're not going anywhere)
ISA fees - £144
Misc - £30

TBH, even without the pandemic, it would only be the Holiday and Fuel categories that would have changed significantly, as we would have had about 3 breaks by now (probably only UK, but possibly Canaries too).


Out of interest, what's your breakdown of your £10k?  Did you get an early holiday in?

Audaxer

Sea_Shell said:

Audaxer said:

Sea_Shell said:

For completeness, I should also add, that although we have spent £3,600 so far in 2020, we have also brought in £660 in interest, vouchers, cashback and sales on FB.   So the net effect is only a £2,940 spend, or £588 per month.

Sea Shell, I know from previous posts that your annual spend is usually very low, but £3,600 for 5 months, i.e. £720 per month, seems incredibly low for a couple, even in lockdown. We are also retired and I was quite pleased that our spend for the first 5 months was 'just' approximately £10k! 

I'd be interested to see a rough breakdown of your monthly expenditure if you care to share. 

No problem...

The totals for the first 5 months of the year are...
Bills - £1260 (includes 2 month CT "holiday")
Hols/Entertainment - £78 (nothing booked)
Car Running - £95 (MOT/Service postponed)
Groceries - £1115 (includes alcohol!!)
Household - £443 (bought some new chairs and bedding early on)
Health/Beauty - £312 (includes new running shoes)
Clothes/Shoes - £60 (few bits in Primark)
Fuel - £73 (we're not going anywhere)
ISA fees - £144
Misc - £30

TBH, even without the pandemic, it would only be the Holiday and Fuel categories that would have changed significantly, as we would have had about 3 breaks by now (probably only UK, but possibly Canaries too).


Out of interest, what's your breakdown of your £10k?  Did you get an early holiday in?

Thanks, yes we got a holiday in this country early February, but no other real big spend, but comparing the main spend items to yours there are a few big differences: 
- Food - £2,280 (includes cleaning products and all supermarket shop) 
- Direct Debit Bills - £2,030
- Petrol for two cars - £360
- Car Other - £806 (includes 2 annual insurances, breakdown cover and car tax for one car)
There are a few other columns in the spreadsheet where we could probably make some savings, but reasonably happy the way our spending has been so far this year.  We have not withdrawn any actual cash since lockdown and I put petrol in my car last week for the first time since the start of March, so we have made savings.

Sea_Shell

Good Morning all

 A technical question for you this morning...

I've received my annual pension statement from Scottish Widows, for my old Contracted Out bit, that is on a With Profits basis.   It's ticking along, and the death benefit is approx. £19.5k.   However, this year they appear to be applying a MVR (market value reduction) so the actual transfer value is reduced by £2500, which is approx. 13%.    Having read the blurb that came with the statement, am I right in thinking that this would only be applied if I actually wanted to move the pension.    The scheme pension age is set at 60, so i'm hoping that no MVR would be applied at maturity if we leave it to run it's full course.

Because it's a With Profits, we didn't roll this pension in with my others when we saw our IFA.   It'll be too big to take as a "small pot" anyway when I reach 55, so we'll just leave it be.


In other news....i'm seriously bored now!!!!    Still can't really go out for the day anywhere, as so many loos are still closed, and none of our family fall into the category of being able to "bubble".   The one who is single is still shielding, and wouldn't pick us to be their bubble buddie anyway (we don't have the GKs)!!    I know we could just go "stuff the rules, everyone else is".

OH said the other day, "it's not like we usually go anywhere in July or August anyway", which is correct, and we usually happily stay home during the school holidays, but that has never before come of the back of 4 months of already having to stay home!!!!

I have, however, started to relax my running routes and have reinstated some of the ones with tight spots or pinch points.   I've still not run "into town".    

Bravepants

Food & Household	99.23	430.00	5160.00
Council Tax	27.04	117.19	1355.85
Cleaner	0.00	0.00	0.00
Energy (Gas & Elec)	30.00	130.00	1560.00
Water	7.85	34.00	408.00
Mazda Maintenance	7.69	33.33	400.00
Phone and Broadband	8.31	35.99	431.88
Car Road Tax	0.58	2.50	30.00
Car Insurance	4.75	20.58	247.00
The AA	2.75	11.90	142.80
TV Licence	3.24	14.04	168.48
Solid Fuel for Stove	2.69	11.67	140.00
House Insurance	2.31	10.00	120.00
Sky	2.31	10.00	120.00
Mobile 4G	2.46	10.66	127.92
Window Cleaner	2.00	8.67	104.00
Canary Security	1.52	6.60	79.20
Ring Camera (Front) Plan	0.48	2.08	24.99
Heating Servicing	0.77	3.33	40.00
NowTV - TV	2.07	8.99	107.88
Carbonite Backup	2.19	9.47	113.64
Chimney Sweep	0.96	4.17	50.00
Total	203.20	915.17	10931.64

Always fascinated by peoples' budgets. Mine is above. Monthly figures in bold. This doesn't include "pocket money" for each of us nor house/garden maintenance costs. My partner and I also pay petrol for cars out of our own money; although normally I generally walk to work (when I'm there!). Also, I have just started cycling, so that will save a bit more petrol in general too.

fred246

We have a larger house that we could downsize at some stage. We pay more than double council tax but our other bills are less. Not much incentive to move.

MallyGirl

I'd like your window cleaner - ours is £30 a visit and he comes every 4 weeks. For that he only does the front windows, sills and front door as it is too much of a pain with the dogs to give him access to the back - it is quite a big house with awkward ashes though. Our metered water is less, our energy is nearly double and our council tax is more than double.

michaels

Bravepants said:

Food & Household	99.23	430.00	5160.00: We pay this for a family of 5 but we are tight
Council Tax	27.04	117.19	1355.85 This is half what we pay but our heating (24/7 as DW does not work) is similar to yours, could you improve efficiency in your heating (our house is 160m2)?
Cleaner	0.00	0.00	0.00
Energy (Gas & Elec)	30.00	130.00	1560.00
Water	7.85	34.00	408.00
Mazda Maintenance	7.69	33.33	400.00
Phone and Broadband	8.31	35.99	431.88 Worth shopping around every time your contract ends, we just renewed fibre broadband and after cashback will be paying £15 pm
Car Road Tax	0.58	2.50	30.00
Car Insurance	4.75	20.58	247.00
The AA	2.75	11.90	142.80 Do you need this brand, there are much cheaper 'full service' offerings.
TV Licence	3.24	14.04	168.48
Solid Fuel for Stove	2.69	11.67	140.00
House Insurance	2.31	10.00	120.00
Sky	2.31	10.00	120.00
Mobile 4G	2.46	10.66	127.92
Window Cleaner	2.00	8.67	104.00
Canary Security	1.52	6.60	79.20
Ring Camera (Front) Plan	0.48	2.08	24.99
Heating Servicing	0.77	3.33	40.00
NowTV - TV	2.07	8.99	107.88 If you shop around for vouchers, threaten to cancel etc you can probably get this down to £4pm
Carbonite Backup	2.19	9.47	113.64 We use Microsoft cloud for our backups that has 1tb free cloud storage with an office 365 subscription that is about £50pa
Chimney Sweep	0.96	4.17	50.00
Total	203.20	915.17	10931.64

Always fascinated by peoples' budgets. Mine is above. Monthly figures in bold. This doesn't include "pocket money" for each of us nor house/garden maintenance costs. My partner and I also pay petrol for cars out of our own money; although normally I generally walk to work (when I'm there!). Also, I have just started cycling, so that will save a bit more petrol in general too.

Some comments inline

In our annual budget I also include an allowance for car depreciation, house repairs/upgrades etc, it is obviously not spent most years but captures the big one offs.

MallyGirl

Sea_Shell said:

In other news....i'm seriously bored now!!!!    Still can't really go out for the day anywhere, as so many loos are still closed, and none of our family fall into the category of being able to "bubble".   The one who is single is still shielding, and wouldn't pick us to be their bubble buddie anyway (we don't have the GKs)!!    I know we could just go "stuff the rules, everyone else is".
OH said the other day, "it's not like we usually go anywhere in July or August anyway", which is correct, and we usually happily stay home during the school holidays, but that has never before come of the back of 4 months of already having to stay home!!!!
I have, however, started to relax my running routes and have reinstated some of the ones with tight spots or pinch points. I've still not run "into town".    

I am bored too - and I work from home year round so in theory not much has changed. They have opened up shops - which don't interest me in the slightest - but no restaurants, spa, pool, camp sites or any of the other things I would like to be doing. I am not saying that they should but I do miss those things. I haven't seen my Mum since October or the in-laws since Christmas as they are too far for a day trip visit.

Bravepants

MallyGirl said:

I'd like your window cleaner - ours is £30 a visit and he comes every 4 weeks. For that he only does the front windows, sills and front door as it is too much of a pain with the dogs to give him access to the back - it is quite a big house with awkward ashes though. Our metered water is less, our energy is nearly double and our council tax is more than double.

I think I need to update our window cleaner bill, it has gone from £12 to £14 every 6 weeks we have a Victorian terrace on a main road, it's a bit bigger than those you find in back streets.  Ours does our conservatory in the back.