Giving every £ a job

Blackcats

Thank you SH.  We are definitely enjoying life.

We are away (again!) at the end of this week, so we are going to eek out our groceries until next week.  This makes me a bit jittery but I know we have plenty and can pop to a local shop if starvation becomes a genuine threat.   Not shopping will be a great boost to budgets and will be used to bolster our eating out and fun budget pot.  Eldest grandson was home at the weekend and asked if we could go for a curry.  I was touched that he proactively sought us out and MrBC never refuses the chance of a curry!  Apparently DGS had his leftover madras, rice and naan cold for breakfast 🥴

the plan is to do some more sorting out of the garage on Wednesday.  This often involves standing and staring into the abyss, moving things around a bit and then coming in for a cuppa.  I have one large item that we WILL focus on this week.

I went to book group this morning and last month's book received a resounding thumbs down.  Our next read is by a local author who is coming to the next meeting for feedback.  I really hope that I enjoy it or I'll be reminding myself of corporate speak feedback that skirts around saying what is actually meant. 

savingholmes

Very brave author!!

Good luck with the decluttering and money raising efforts.

Blackcats

I've been reflecting on July and initially I thought that not much progress on various tasks had been made, but I had a quick read through my trusty folder of money and things to do lists and actually some steps forward have been made.  The writing of our wills (take 2) is underway and the refund from the first company has been received.  MrBC's power of attorney forms have now been sent off.  We made a New Year's resolution to get both of these important life & death admin tasks done in 2025 (we don't rush things 🤣 but we will achieve this).

Money wise my budget pots were not properly calibrated again and there is money left in groceries but the eating out & fun budget is well and truly busted.  This is the second month this has happened so I need to be more thoughtful in August and be realistic about what I'm likely to spend.

I've been enjoying reading and watching Diane in Denmark and have been adopting a few of her tips and techniques.  It is so much easier to keep the house clean when it's tidy and organised.  I'm also much better at short bursts of cleaning activity than doing long chunks of cleaning.  I think that the de-cluttering of unused stuff is really paying dividends now.  On that note MrBC has just announced that he has sold a bulky item on bay of e and it's being collected tomorrow.  More space re-claimed in the garage and a few more £'s in the coffers.  Whoop whoop!

Sun_Addict

All sounding good 🙂

On the to do list for me is POA. We got our wills done a few years ago but only got them witnessed last year 😐 But still done. 

Nothing wrong with busting the fun budget. Life should be fun. 

Makingabobor2

We are also hoping to do POAs & wills, hopefully in next 12months. I remember doing my dad's for him & it seemed such a mammoth task making sure all the correct bits had been filled in & signed correctly. Think that's what has put me off. 

badmemory

I did my own POA & actually found them quite easy to do.  The hardest bit is knowing whether the chosen one/s will do what you want.  If you are like minded on that then they are a doddle & mine have no restrictions on them.  You have to be careful with the health ones because some doctors can be a little nit-picky.  So if you state that you want hospitals to tell your attorneys but don't mention GP then some will say you don't have a right to know.  I did have a solicitor to do my will & that was really interesting as he asked questions that frankly would never have occured to me.

Makingabobor2

Think our wills be easy enough. Everything goes to DH if I die first & then all to DD & DS, split equally when DH dies. There will be a small amount for each grandchild & that's it. We have nothing of value, other than the house. 

Blackcats

@Sun_Addict and @Makingabobor2 I watched the Martin Lewis programme on wills and PoA a few months ago and he said that as long as you are logical and follow the instructions PoA's don't need to be done by a solicitor at great expense.  I definitely agree with Martin who is, of course, our undisputed hero in all matters money.   Our wills are not totally straightforward as we both have children from previous marriages so we want to ensure that we get it right for everyone so I prefer to pay an expert to help us.
@badmemory - we have found the same with our wills and have been asked questions that have helped us untangle and clarify our thinking.  

We've had a few days away so I've had an admin catch up this afternoon and feel like I know what needs doing next week.  

Also feeling very pleased that we had a tasty, quick to cook meal ready for our return home last night.  As @foxgloves rightly says a bit of forward planning can save lots of money.

Money wise I've had a bit of clarity in my thinking and I'm separating out capital expenditure from regular expenditure.  I was beating myself up for seemingly spending lots of money and not covering the costs from our regular monthly income.  For example when we bought our shed recently it made the credit card balance look very bad but actually it was never meant to be paid for from our current account or mini savings pots.  I'm still pondering our holiday savings though as this is a very fast moving, fast spending area for us.

Blackcats

We had a nice day out today with 2 grandkids to a localish museum that we are members of so there was no admission costs.  We took a picnic lunch which we enjoyed in a shady spot and were able to easily top up our water bottles throughout the visit.  Crikey it was hot today!  The kids enjoyed themselves and asked if we could go back before the end of the school holidays to see some of the bits we missed today.  Other than petrol our on,y spend was on ice creams but on this occasion they were needs not wants.

still not worked out how best to run our holiday savings/spending budget.  We go away again soon and accom and travel has been paid for so this will be day to day holiday spends.  I'm sure I'll get some inspiration soon about a better system.  

Spendywendywoo

That sounds like a lovely day out, @Blackcats.

In terms of a system, I save a bit of money each month for multiple categories, one of them being holiday spends. If we go out during the summer holidays or spend any money that is related to a holiday then I transfer the money from the 'saves' account (a basic savers account) into the account it was paid out of. I then log what we have spent, when and on what in a spreadsheet which then tallies the outstanding saves for that category. I was working manually until just recently but spreadsheet formulas are a godsend and save a lot of time, making the whole progress almost effortless.