Improving all the time

FloraandFauna

Thanks, Velvet and Holmes, I know you're right! Which is why I'm sitting on my hands again. Think the thorough clean and attention may scratch some of the itch, so thank you Velvet for the suggestion. : )

Jimmy, it's a good point, and I did try to think about it that way. i.e. it's an extra 20 mins in the morning I could be reading, and it's an extra 20 minutes in the evening I could be working. There isn't anything else I could do with that time though (I don't have a smartphone so can't do money-raising stuff on survey sites). So is the opportunity to re-read part of yet another Agatha Christie more important than saving £1.50...? And if I'm honest, that last 20 minutes of the journey home I'm usually packing away the work laptop, putting my coat on, rolling a ciggie... it's not quality work time.

The big mental incentive for me is that there will be £100 less coming off my salary every month (work very kindly do a Season ticket scheme and reclaim a part of it every month directly from salary). And as everybody knows - all together now - people are far more averse to losing what they think they already have, than getting off their !!!!!! for a potential additional gain. I'm SURE there's a snappier economist's phrase for that : )

So being £100 better off at the start of each month would encourage me a) to drive really nicely ALL the time so as not to nibble too far into that saving, and b) actually save me a minimum of another £50 a month once additional petrol is paid for. And the extra £50 a month paid off the mortgage would allow me to retire at 62, not 63. Re-reading "The Mysterious Mr Quin" is not going to knock a year off my mortgage.

I think I'm going to try it. See how it goes for a couple of months and if it really does turn out to be a terrible mistake, at least it's possible to change the Season ticket and I can revert back to the current arrangement.

FloraandFauna

End month update!

NSDs - 15 out of 30. Can do much better here. Goal for next month will be for all weekdays to be NSDs, so 20/30

OPs - £381! Big gasp there. I know I said I needed to OP £300 per month to be able to retire at 60, but I didn't say it was possible. It's not - there is only £160 spare in my SOA at the end of the month for both OPs and savings. This is purely through hunting down additional opportunities, including the numbingly dull, tedious, bingo offer, and an extremely lucky result on a mistake with matched betting.

BIG lesson learnt here for me - I have things coming through for next month and the one after (switching etc), so I really, really, really have to prod myself to take a punt on the opportunities that take months to come through, not just the ones that deliver more immediately, like surveys.

Mortgage - so far cut 3 months off length, and avoided £707 of extra interest. Not too shabby for a mortgage that's only 11 months old.

As an additional motivator, have added a calculation to the spreadsheet which tots up the amount I would have spent on the mortgage had I continued to make payments every month. This is the amount of money I could have sitting in my bank account if I continue working to the end of the initial term, but not having to pay the mortgage. So far sitting at a motivating £2,577.

FloraandFauna

Reporting in

- improve something every day - yes, cut grass, weeded beds, potted up some parsley away from dreaded slugs, cleared stubborn section of wall, weeded paving stones and tided edges. Garden looking really lovely, am so pleased with it. Rhodies to tackle tomorrow.

- Tilly tidy every day - no, no movement in a/c

- free money? - some prolific surveys, but been outside most of the day

Bonus points: NSD today, that's 2 out of 4 so far this month. There's a charity open-garden day around the village tomorrow, so will be emptying some pound coins out of the treasure chest* in a good cause.

* Years ago I bought a shiny copper box with a pirate ship embossed on the top. Like an utter child, I keep particularly shiny new coins in there when they come my way. Don't see them often, so there's only every a tenner at most in there - emptying in a good cause though.

FloraandFauna

Village garden day was lovely - met some new people and saw some interesting ideas.

Wasn't an NSD as have spaffed away an embarrassing amount of money on old-style filament fairy lights for the tree at Christmas.

Have listed a gazillion things on ebay - never a favourite job. Got some watchers already so fingers crossed can redeem myself. Also done a few more prolific surveys.

Hacked away at one rhodie today, but it's going to take a long time to get that bit of the garden under control.

savingholmes

FloraandFauna wrote: »

- £381! Big gasp there. I know I said I needed to OP £300 per month to be able to retire at 60, but I didn't say it was possible. It's not - there is only £160 spare in my SOA at the end of the month for both OPs and savings. This is purely through hunting down additional opportunities .

Even more fantastic then - well done you.:A

FloraandFauna wrote: »

BIG lesson learnt here for me... so I really, really, really have to prod myself to take a punt on the opportunities that take months to come through, not just the ones that deliver more immediately, like surveys.

I must admit I gave up on surveys as I used to get screened out a lot

FloraandFauna wrote: »

Mortgage - so far cut 3 months off length, and avoided £707 of extra interest. Not too shabby for a mortgage that's only 11 months old.

As an additional motivator, have added a calculation to the spreadsheet which tots up the amount I would have spent on the mortgage had I continued to make payments every month. This is the amount of money I could have sitting in my bank account if I continue working to the end of the initial term, but not having to pay the mortgage. So far sitting at a motivating £2,577.

I think that's a great thing to do. On my current house I want to be debt free by May 28 - and then put that money away until max of age 67. If we did that we would be sat on an amazing sum of money. If you can dream it, you can do it.

FloraandFauna

Cheers, Holmes! I share your frustration. I joined quite a few survey sites - ipsos, isay, panelbase, a few others, and it enraged me that they would get 75% of the info they needed and then screen me out!. So I've abandoned those and just stick to prolific and testable minds now - they only offer you surveys you're already pre-approved for so there's no screening out. It can come in waves, but mounts up pretty quickly.

Reporting in:

- improve something every day - not today, been all work so far, but did take another chunk out of a task that really needs finishing up so happy with that.

- Tilly tidy every day - yes, 91p

- free money? - oooh, yes! £11.15 cashed out from prolific and transferred, plus had confirmation from two different network operators that they're sending me £66 and £33 respectively! That's a much better result than expected. Cheques though, so a while before they arrive or will register anywhere. Also, picked up quite a few watchers on ebay items - not sure about most of them, but I think one item may do quite well.

Bonus points: NSD today, that's 3 out of 6 so far this pay month - still on only around 50% so will have to watch that this week.

VelvetFreak

Well done on your big OP, Flora
Hope your eBay items sell. Not many of mine have sold lately, there doesn’t seem to be much of a market for it these days.

FloraandFauna

It's not OP'd yet, Velvet, it's still just promises! : )

One of my items has a bid on, so that's at least £10 coming my way at some point, barring mistakes and accidents.

Home insurance. That was odd. Mine's up for renewal in 4 weeks, so I've had the email from my provider saying my quote was going up from 200 to 280. Yeah, right. Have googled about and seen an offer for 135, so as per the excellent MSE guide advice, will wait until next week before confirming. ANYhoo... the point is, I called the current provider up to cancel the renewal, and they just said "ok, all done, thanks for calling!". I expected a bit more of a hard sell, but they didn't even make the attempt. Lovely people though, thumbs up for their call centre staff.

FloraandFauna

Reporting in:

- improve something every day - not today, been all work so far, but did make a gigantic quiche that will do me for lunches for the rest of the week at least, and might need to freeze the rest.

- Tilly tidy every day - yes, 62p

- free money? - yes, a couple of prolific studies, and not in my lap yet but have found some much cheaper deals on house insurance, so I'll get one of those next week, when I'm 21 days away from expiry of the current one

Bonus points: nul points. Spent £1.25 on additional ingredients for quiche, so not an NSD. Although re-did my figures for the season ticket versus driving debate I am still having in my head - and did it properly this time. Results still come out quite well, even with sensitivity analysis testing fast-and-furious driving, petrol costs going up 20p a litre, a 15% decrease in working-from-home days, and an extra 2 punctures a year assumed.

savingholmes

:EasterBun:EasterBunHi Flora - great news re your home insurance.

On constantly re-running the season ticket versus driving numbers - how much is your time worth... I would chill and do something nice with that time instead... It's not like I ever spend hours playing with spreadsheets lol