Giving every £ a job

Willing2Learn

Blackcats wrote: »

I had previously frozen some white wine in an ice cube tray so I had some wine for the stock. I don't usually have leftover wine for freezing but this particular wine was rather err .... industrial.

Good stuff. Making and using your own stock always results in something far more tasty than you would get from a stock cube or stock pot. And it saves money to boot too.

Honeysucklelou2

What a good idea, didn't realise it was possible to freeze wine !

savingholmes

Hi Blackcats. I like your early retirement goal. Have you got a year / age in mind? Are you planning to use a stocks and shares ISA or pension as your main way to grow your funds once your EF is sorted?

Blackcats

Willing2learn, I did use the chicken carcass to make stock. (Your post promoted me to do that). It is not something that I've done much before but started about 2 months ago. i have always been very wasteful with food and I'm trying to change that for financial reasons and to be more responsible with food waste.

HoneysuckleLou, I got the idea of freezing wine from these boards I think. White wine is usually all drunk in this house but there is leftover red after visitors. The red gives a great flavour to stews.

Savingholmes - I love your diary. You are doing really well and your FIRE plans are inspiring. I'll post a bit more detail about my plans next.

Blackcats

My early retirement plans ...." a dream without a plan is just a wish " so here's the outline plan.

I plan to hand in my 3 months notice in Spring 2021 (my company might be taken over before then and there might be redundancies but this would actually work in my favour)

I have a company pension which is payable at 60 but I can take this earlier with reductions. My calculations tell me that taking it 3 years early means that it would be 18 years of retirement before this gives a financial detriment.

I have a much smaller pension which is payable at 67 which is my state pension age. However, recent rulings have deemed that the move for public sector employer pensions from 60 to 67 is age discrimination and it might be that this pension can also be paid at age 60. I'm not counting on this in my calculations for income at age 60 as it might not happen.

I have another small pension to factor in too of around £350 per month.

I am on track to nearly have enough for a full state pension at age 67 and might just need to buy a couple of years of contributions if that is economically viable.

So, my first phase is to stop wasting money, start saving more and reduce my expenditure to closer to retirement income.

Next phase is the period between 2021 when I plan to stop working and 2024 when OHs pensions start.

Then there is a gap to 2031 for my state pension and second small pension to be paid. ( If 2nd pension hasn't been paid earlier).

The main pension has a good lump sum and I need to calculate what's the most beneficial balance between min and max lump sum.

I have some savings that are tucked away and I try to forget that they are there although I do try to get the best interest rates on them. (This is a new habit learnt from the good folk on these boards).

I think it's doable, it's a bit scary and very exciting.

foxgloves

Good to see it all worked out, Blackcats, because it's a really motivating goal. I need to look at our pension situation because I shan't get a full works or state pension and I haven't so far been able to afford buying additional state pension contributions. I need to have another look at the figures & see if it would be better than stepping up savings. My works pension is local authority, so will be a lump sum & annual amount. I have the titchiest additional amount from some rubbish AVCs I took out too - I only paid into those for a very short time before I needed the money for something else & then decided they were never the best option for me anyway.
It seemed like an age till I'd be needing to think about pension income, & now here we all are doing exactly that. Time flies!
F x

Blackcats

I agree Foxgloves, pensions always seemed such a long way away and now here we are planning for them and looking forward to them.
Have you seen the info on the pensions board about paying in around £2800 into a SIPP which gives you a payment of circa £700 from HMRC as tax relief on the contribution directly into the SIPP?
A friend of mine who doesn't have a job has done this for the last 3 or 4 years and it's worked well. They use Hargreav*s Lansd*wne who are helpful. There's time to do it before the end of this tax year.
Hope you are feeling better.

Willing2Learn

Blackcats wrote: »

Willing2learn, I did use the chicken carcass to make stock. (Your post promoted me to do that). It is not something that I've done much before but started about 2 months ago.

I make about six litres of chicken stock at a time. Half of it becomes chicken, veg and barley soup and then the other 3 litres I put into several small jars and freeze it. I use a jar of stock to make really yummy dinners...

Ooh your posting about wine and stock has made me REALLY hungry lol

Blackcats

Willing2learn, do you use pearl barley in your soup? I still have bad memories of my mum's scotch broth with lots of pearl barley in it. My mum's food was generally very nice (best chips ever) but the feeling of disappointment when it was scotch broth for tea has never quite gone away.
Back to work today. The day went quickly and there wasn't too much to catch up on.
I've got the shopping for this week's meal plan so just need to stick to it now and not be tempted by a trip to the local curry shop. That's a planned and budgeted treat for next week so it's something to look forward to.
Waiting til 14th of the month to move money to savings pots, unless by some miracle my work expenses get paid before then in which case they can go straight to savings and more colouring in of my savings grid can happen.

Franalamadingdong

Is it sad that I get excited by your colouring grid?!