2020++ - smiling and waving and looking so fine

mark55man

Thank you @alt80 - kind of like holidays indulging your kids is fine if you can afford it, but not always an option. 

I have a strong belief that in the significant period of our children's lives (from teens to adulthood) the austerity and working environment set by government, and the toxic capitalism from giant corporations, has made life significantly harder for them. So for me trickle down of money now is fair.  I believe in and support business but what has happened with excessive HR, zero hours and the annual trickling up of profit and T&C (eg paying for mandatory uniforms, paying for mandatory training) had put the costs on the working young and it has been painful to watch.    

savingholmes

Hi Mark - I get where you are coming from and it's your £ to do with as you please. I'm glad you are having a lovely run of holidays. Sounds just what the doctor ordered. Perhaps throw in the odd photo so we can live it vicariously through you.

alt80

@mark55man you're right about both holidays and kids. Also don't think you should feel awkward about talking about holidays - it's good to see you're at the end of the DF journey and financially things have loosened up for you. That is the goal; to live DF effectively getting more for less with no more interest being paid to banks for things you've bought in the past.

It'll probably surprise you but I don't disagree about the environment of the large corporates, their near monopoly on some industries and the working environment they provide for their employees.

f0xh0les

Another vote in favour of holiday tales.  My mortgage is gone, but my renovation continues, probably another £25k worth.   So hearing about other people's experiences of alternating full time paid work/ part time paid  work + more time for fun and  full time unpaid work and financial freedom in  real life is really helpful.   Consider yourself a case study In real-time 

mark55man

Thanks alt and FH - I always wanted to be a case study

@alt80 I'm not that surprised we're thinking alike, I could tell from your narrative on your thread that you were not exploiting your workers.  It's got so you can't say anything negative about poor business practice without being called a commie.  Everything is a spectrum and IMHO we've gone too far in one direction

mark55man

Another month, another weigh-in, another kilo - so that's good.  We are trying the Gousto system now its just the two of us most of the time - enjoying the food and the cooking, but not the necessary but endless packaging

Offsetting my stupid and lazy moments, I earned some cashback by moving a pension to a different provider, and just managed to time it so that I exceeded a cash back thresholds so earned an extra £250 for a bit of patience and judgement - I'm not convinced by the name but I shall call that a MSE rebate (any other suggestions??).

In response to my slackness I have decided to do a bit of a differing thing with my monthly budget,  which had become a touch nebulous when freed from the constraints of salary and savings.  So my project 4000 is to start each calendar month off with a balance of a generous £4000 - this has to pay everything including half on mortgage, utilities and regular monthly payments - The remainder will be spent on my usual categories - cars, groceries, coffee (and cake), entertainment and household costs. My target will be to have as much left of that as possible so the top-up to 4K the following month will be less.  I won't pay the balance to savings as it is coming from savings.

savingholmes

Good luck with your challenge. 

Well done on the kilo

mark55man

Olympic watching is a marathon!!  1 week down and thoroughly enjoying it.

Project£4000 underway 2 days of the month gone and over half my budget spent but that's expected.  Won't update in daily detail but looking to get my focus back onto financial prudence 

f0xh0les

Marathon is tomorrow morning 7.00. Eliud Kipchoge for the win! Womens marathon Sunday morning.  Loved the Triathlon coverage, and got sucked into the gymnastics.  As someone who spent most of her childhood upside down or spinning, it made me a bit sad that I gave up. 

doingitanyway

mark55man said:

Olympic watching is a marathon!!  1 week down and thoroughly enjoying it.

Project£4000 underway 2 days of the month gone and over half my budget spent but that's expected.  Won't update in daily detail but looking to get my focus back onto financial prudence 

I find I always spend more at the start of my spending budget, then it eases off.