Marginal Gains

Cornish_mum

Hi Hazelnutty and Becky170 thank you for stopping by, I enjoy your diaries.

I had a trip to the hospital this morning for my regular treatment, blood tests etc, it was pretty quiet so got a bit of work done and kept on top of my email. Treated myself to a flat white while waiting for my clinic appointment. I used to have a very bad flat white (and pastry) habit but cut right back. I do let myself have one now and again as treat.

Then came home, hung out the washing, as it was sunny, chased up DS’s paediatric referral and then had a lovely quiet afternoon writing reports for work.

Also picked up some healthy sausages that were on offer in m and s. We had them for tea. DH just complained he is hungry, so clearly healthy low fat sausages aren’t very filling. I am defrosting emergency apple crumble (more free apples these ones are windfalls from local library).

In money news DH has finally put in his work expenses; after a lot of nagging. Hopefully they will get paid this month. CC bill is a bit higher than usual, on account of the garden playhouse we bought for the kids. Will pay it off in full of course.:money:

Should do some more on the work report but I am pretty tired from being at the hospital so it’s probably more effective to get up early and do an extra hour tomorrow before my first meeting.

CM

Hazelnutty

Hi Cornish! I also have a bad flat white habit! I did try to cut back but then I decided there were worse vices (financially and in any other respect) and now have a small guilt-free spends pot which basically gets used for coffee. A good coffee just makes my day!

Cornish_mum

Thanks Hazelnutty; had another flat-white today as was working off-site and had early start then back to back stressful meetings from 9.45 till 5.15 with no lunch break.:( so thought a coffee before I started might be wise!

She_shall_have_music

Hi Cornish Mum,

Just dropping in to say hi. I've enjoyed reading your diary.
We've just had the 30 hours funding for our youngest as well and it makes such a difference on the amount you can save!
Will follow your progress with interest.

Cornish_mum

Thanks She shall have music; it was interesting to read about your pension plans. I wish I had started our AVCs earlier; as I feel we are playing catch up.

Thursday was an utterly exhausting off-site day followed by a separate meeting across town. Today I was in the main office, free coffee on the way in. I had to book babysitter to pick up kids this evening as I am offsite again until Friday next week and had to plan to work to clear my desk and DH needed to work too. Got home at 8 which isn’t so bad but I am very tired.

New job is a bit of steep learning curve so I think I am going to have to accept that I am going to have to spend abit more on food etc; but I don’t want it to be an excuse for going back to my bad habits. Otherwise I will spend my pay rise on food/help at home which completely negates the point of the new job.

Weekend is nice and quiet, DH bought me a massage and tea at local spa for Christmas last year and he told I should go on Saturday. So I am having a few hours off - which is a really special treat. I have done something to my back so hopefully the massage will help.

Ordered the food shop used a £5 off voucher (£47 for the week), I have a lot of chicken in the freezer so we will be eating that for protein. Also ordered DD birthday presents - she is Frozen mad so it was all Elsa themed apart from the builders play set DH wanted to get her (total of £34). Hilariously, she has never even seen the Frozen film, she just learnt about it from friends at nursery. We tried to watch it at Christmas but she got bored after about 20 minutes.

daisyfrau

Hi Cornish Mum,

Following with interest! We have some similarities actually - I do all the finances too, made some big changes recently, I have DB pension (but not hubby). I need to look into the terms of AVCs on my pension as on the surface they didn’t look so good for me vs a SIPP. There were no additional employer contributions even towards fees but I need to look into this. Am planning to attend a pensions seminar in November looking st this exact question. Right now though we are building emergency fund up. We need 24k as a minimum but in reality we may ultimately need more as hubby is self employed.

Wanted to ask - with your cash savings have you maximised interest on these? I have only just started moving money around to do this but it’s something to keep in mind to in a very small way, offset the ‘remain for liquidity’ of having to keep money in cash. It sounds like your sons secondary school savings might need to be accessed within the next 5 years or so but otherwise would have asked if you had invested any long term savings to try maximise returns? Your pensions are doing that for that money too. It’s all new to me so you may know much more about this than I do - just thought I’d mention!

Good luck!

She_shall_have_music

Enjoy your time to yourself CornishMum. A much needed treat, I'm sure.
My AVCs pot is not as virtuous as it sounds. I couldn't join my DB scheme until I'd worked for my employer for 5 years. Most of my AVCs are from the DC scheme I was in for the first few years. It means I've only got 3 years contributions to my DB scheme so far. I only started extra AVCs a couple of months ago, and then it was mostly driven by a worry I'd end up over the higher rate/child benefit threshold!

Cornish_mum

Thanks Daisy; our cash is in range of fixed interest rate bonds/cash ISA’s and interest paying current accounts plus a regular savers at FD and nationwide. Really terrible interest rates (between 1.4-3%, plus old NSI inflation tracking account). On average we are only getting 2%.

I agree that there are potentially bigger returns in the stock market but in my view the way to invest in the bonds/shares is to have a very long term view and to be able to time when you withdraw the money until you reach FI.

For investing I like low fee index trackers which is basically what our AVCs are (plus for us using the pension envelope is a massive tax break, as we would both be higher rate otherwise). I would like to diversify into another fund eventually but as our AVCs are by salary sacrifice (saving us NI in addition to tax and make us eligible for child benefit) it’s hard to find a better option.

Until we know if we are going to need to send DS private we are in a holding pattern with the other cash and saving as much as we can from our take home to help us support DS.

Thanks she shall have music; AVCs started for us when our whole sector changed our pensions on national basis. We went from a final salary to career average scheme and our pension provider started promoting AVCs to make up the short-fall. This made me think about our pensions for the first time and I got a bit of shock when I realised we had to work to at least 67, probably older.

Booked DS’s half term holiday club - at his favourite club (which also happens to be the cheapest). They do free-play which DS much prefers to organised activities, as he likes doing his own thing. Used childcare vouchers, so no spends.

DD announced on Saturday morning that all her trousers are too tight (most of them are age 2 to be fair and she is nearly 4). I had a look in a couple of charity shops but no luck so had to resort to m and s. Also bought myself a new pair of work shoes as I only have one pair and those are getting harder and harder to make look smart and aren’t really suitable to wear in the rain. Total spend was £44.

Spa visit on Saturday was lovely and my back feels tons better. On Sunday I had to do 4 hours work on a presentation, made a banana cake for the kids, a batch of soup and a batch of mash for freezer.

Had an early start today, I left home just after 6; first site visit ran 9-3.30 now off to Gatwick to catch a flight to be ready for the next site tomorrow. Free lunch but had to buy a coffee and a snack.

Loads of kids around on their way home from school, missing DS and DD terribly. Won’t see them till Wednesday morning can’t believe I used to think work travel was a perk of the job...:(

Cornish_mum

Planes for work trip were delayed by an hour on Monday, 2 hours on Tuesday which was pretty annoying.

I managed to clock in 39 hours work in the first 3 days of the week. Today I had a meeting in my home town and I just managed admin and emails from home. Nothing very demanding as I am completely drained.

Dropped DS at school and picked-up DD, walked or took the bus; lovely to spend time with them. First thing I organised the house for cleaner, then did a very quick online shop for food (which is often a mistake as I forget things when I rush) came in at £55. Used freezer chicken for dinner with bottom of the fridge veg.

Spent lots while I was away but I should be able to put most of it through expenses; as was mostly trains and taxis. Just paid this months wrap-around care for DS using childcare vouchers. Think I am going to head to bed soon as so tired.

Cornish_mum

On Friday took a cab for the nursery drop off in attempt not to miss my train. It cost £20 but missed the train anyway and was late for work. Had a lovely talk with lady cab-driver about washing machines and husbands. So grateful for that. Paid cleaner £40. Working is costing me a ton of money.

On Friday afternoon I had a meeting about DS’s school support plan. The new SENCO and class teacher are brilliant, I am so grateful that DS will be getting help again this year. The new SENCO has lots of experience of DS’s condition and told me he is pretty severely effected. In some ways it’s a relief to finally meet a professional that actually knows about his condition but it’s heart-breaking to be told the extent of it. I have known for a long time he wasn’t going to “get-over it by trying harder” despite what a lot of well meaning people have told me.

Unfortunately the paediatric team just referred DS straight to physical therapy without a diagnosis. It’s really frustrating not to have any medical documentation of his problems or an official diagnosis. But it just reflects the reality that DS can’t be treated, he just has to learn to live with his impairment. I feel so bad for him that I can’t take away his problems; I think this might explain why I have been a bit spendy this weekend.

We had take away Fish and Chips for tea (in the old days we did this every Friday). DH managed to get one free portion with our loyalty card,so we only paid for one large F&C to feed the 4 of us.

Had my haircut this morning. The Hair dresser was really good and I seem to actually have a haircut which will look nice with minimum effort. If it does work out that way it will be amazing, as my hair tends to look terrible on a regular basis. Cost £80....:eek: I cut out this type of expense as part of operation frugal so feels quite cheeky to have spent this amount of money on my hair. But it does feel nice.

Then DH took kids to the library while I did a bunch of chores at home. We then bought bulbs, compost and a few cheap plants at the garden centre. I used coupons but still spent £55. Last year I skipped these autumn purchases and it really showed in the garden so I decided to go back to spending a bit, as it brings us so much joy to have a colourful garden.

Then we took kids to the woods, spend £3 on the car park and £2.60 on cup of tea and drink for DD. We picked a handful of blackberries, the rest had gone over. It was really lovely to be outside together. Kids enjoyed ‘adventuring’ in the fresh air.:)

I used the blackberries to make a crumble with free apples from our neighbour. Tea was spicy chicken soup with sweet potato and green beans from next door. With mash, chicken and veg for kids.

DH second job has paid £250 this quarter which was unexpected bonus, and his extra pension contributions weren’t taken. We will have to add a chunky payment pension soon to deal with this. My pay comes in on a Monday hopefully it will reflect my new salary this month.