Giving every £ a job

Blackcats

A very relaxed day today and we both enjoyed just being at home listening to music, watching old tv shows and drinking tea/coffee.  
2025 marks the start of my 2nd full year of retirement so hopefully the major expenses of 2024 including the garden, garden room, new garage door, roof repairs and new loft hatch/ladder are all done - not to mention paying the pesky tax bill.

we want to strike a balance between living for the now, having fun and keeping an eye on funding the future.  Answers on a postcard please!

Makingabobor2

Its hard isn't it. Having fun is a " must", but so is being able to save for the future. 

lucielle

You’ve both achieved a lot, time to enjoy the fruits of your labour!  Still envious of your garden room. 

L

RebeccaPAgain

@Blackcats - gah, me again!  They couldn't get the issue with my account sorted out due to me not being able to get back into my new email and couldn't tell me what I'd done to get myself expelled unless I can send them an email from the new email I can't get in.  So am back again under a new account.  This time I have written down the passwords so hopefully won't happen again.  Will start a new diary soon (my poor fingers)

Your new years' day sounds perfect - if you find the answer between living for now and saving for the future, let me know!  But from what I've read over the years, I think you are doing pretty well!

Blackcats

thank you @Makingabobor2 and @lucielle.  Feeling ready to have some structure around regular bills and spending and better forward planning around bigger expenditure.
@RebeccaPAgain - yay you are back in to MSE land.  Looking forward to reading your new diary.

As part of our 2 day January financial summit 🙂 we started with a brief recap of our Christmas and have concluded we need to do some tweaks for this year.  We have 9 birthdays in December & January and these were being subsidised by the Christmas pot which, of course, left the Christmas pot short.  So this year Christmas is being saved for via a n'wide regular saver which matures beginning of December and birthdays/gifts/celebrations will be in an accessible pot topped up each month and used when needed.

What worked well was using the cashback credit card to pay for all the gifts,  We will also repeat our company Christmas night out and Secret Santa which we enjoyed very much so that needs to be saved for too.

Blackcats

We have continued with our 2025 financial summit this afternoon and have been thinking about the importance of planning.  I updated our wall planner and my diary with birthdays etc but I also marked up when various payments are due eg holiday payments, home insurance, car insurance etc which enabled me to calibrate payments due with payment pots and required savings.   I was a bit surprised that some of the pots will need some high payments to be front loaded at the start of the year.  However, I'm delighted that at least now we know what's what.  Our holidays are a significant cost during 2025 but we enjoy them all and agree that they are worth every £.

Sun_Addict

Definitely agree holidays are worth every penny. Can’t put a price on memories. 

savingholmes

Glad things are on track. 

lucielle

Holidays are certainly a priority for us now. Anything in the pipeline?
L

Blackcats

thank you SA, SH and Lucielle.
@lucielle - so far we are off to the Isle of Wight in a few days, a couple of nights in Brighton in the Spring, Guernsey in May and Isle of Wight again in August.  We will book some more short breaks later in the year too.

submitted meter readings for my dad's house and for us.  Will be interested to see what our credit balance is when the accurate figures are used.  I'm hoping that we will get through the worst of the cold months using our monthly payment and the credit we built up in the summer.

very bracing walk with some of the grandchildren today. It's a great way to chat to teenagers who aren't always full of conversation.