Keep calm and carry on....

killerpeaty

I decided to add to one of my trackers once. Very carefully checked which one I wanted, found it in the big list of very similarly named trackers, double checked... Still was the wrong one  so now I have a random £50 sitting by itself that reminds me that it's not that serious. 

Sunday88

Hi @South_coast come to nose at your diary,  your flat sounds perfect! Interested in your ISA journey I'm hoping to start the same this autumn 

South_coast

Thank you 😀! I've actually had an S&S ISA for many years, it's just getting a lot of mentions at the moment as I've gone through a very painful switch to a new (but definitely better) provider. The balance used to be closer to £5k, but then Covid happened and I pulled £4k out of it at the end of last year to fund my first year of LISA contributions (sacrilege, I know 🤣!), so the journey begins again!

South_coast

Right, time for a July round-up, I think....

Free money. Target = £85.02

£0.23 bank account cashback
£0.29 bank account interest
£1.83 Qmee
£2.00 Storewards 
£2.00 Lidl coupon plus
£2.13 TopCashBack
£5.00 Online forum about savings
£5.00 Vypr
£5.00 cashed-in Nectar points
£10.00 i-Say
£10.00 Consumer Pulse
£10.65 Panelbase
£20.00 Shop & Scan
£39.92 Prolific

Total = £114.05 👍

August's target = £79.21

South_coast

Monthly goals 

South_coast said:

Money....
* Save up £4k to transfer into the LISA at the start of the new tax year - This will earn me the maximum bonus of £1k for The Future and the overall "money needed" figure - Achieved 🧚‍♀️
* Once I have the £4k ready, pile all money into the mortgage - Simples! - Achieved 🧚‍♀️
* No clothes purchases, except for work clothes, underwear and tights - I don't have loads of clothes, but I definitely have enough and they're all in decent enough condition. The exceptions are to a) make sure I look professional and b) ensure public decency, so are sensible enough omissions! - I bought a lightweight running jacket (£45 😱) so I don't have any excuses for not exercising on drizzly days, but paid 100% with Amazon gift cards earned from surveys, so I'm not counting that. I also replaced a couple of items which had completely fallen apart - so were definitely needed, but were not in the plan 🙁! £50.80 spent. Then got refunded the wrong amount for the items I'd returned, meaning I had to do more interacting with companies - and this one didn't have a phone line (who doesn't have a phone line???), so it took 3 very frustrating emails to sort it out 🤦‍♀️
* 1% of monthly salary to be donated to local homeless charity - Rolled over from 2020, as not yet a habit - Yep, done

2021, the year of health....
* Buy a 12-month prescription pre-payment certificate - I have been guilty of not using my inhalers at the prescribed dose to save on prescription charges in the past, so this feels sensible and grown-up. It will also save me money overall - Yep, done
* Act promptly on health concerns - No more ignoring back/chest pain for two weeks and telling myself it's down to sleeping on a lumpy mattress (although this did at least prompt me to buy a loooovely mattress topper 🤣!) - I haven't had any this month 👍
* Continue to minimise alcohol consumption - No explanation needed here, I think! - Started off very badly (see next post), but dramatically improved for the rest of the month
* Avoid all processed sugar - I'm not going to refuse birthday cake if someone has taken the time to bake it, but I'm not going to go looking for it either. The same goes for biscuits, chocolate etc - I had one piece of jolly nice home-made cake with cream and ice cream 😋
* Take steps to minimise processed food - A bit tricky as I'm veggie (I do eat fish, but not at home - mostly to make it easier for other people catering for me), so I can't just base meals round a piece of meat, but some of the meat-alternative products don't feel very natural so I'm trying to cut those out as much as possible. Just need to make sure I leave myself something to eat! - A couple of bits at BF's again, but nothing at home. Plus, all pizzas have been home-made 😀😀😀
* Exercise outdoors once a week and indoors once a week - I know this will sound really lame to you fit lot, but I have to start somewhere and also try and keep it achievable - I had a week off work and managed 6 walks. If I can go out again tomorrow I think that takes me to just one week behind. I've also introduced some short bursts of jogging too and not died yet 👍 I'm retiring the indoor exercise though, I just can't motivate myself to do it, plus skipping is so unbelievably hard!!!

South_coast

Pretty happy with that lot. A- for July, I think 😀

South_coast

Some things I learned in July....

(....In no particular order)

* If I have a week off work and the weather is poor, I should not spend large chunks of my time reading FIRE blogs. I was not ready to go back to work after that 🤣!
* I don't need to finish alcohol to get it out of the house. After a valiant effort in trying to plough my way through a bottle of spiced rum I didn't really like (yes, that's despite stopping drinking spirits last year), all the while thinking "Why am I doing this to myself???", once I put my sensible head on, I took the rest of the bottle to BF's 👍
* I need to be a bit more gentle on myself. I saved 59.6% of my June salary and 59.5% of my July salary (which is epic by any standard - and makes me feel even more guilty about only donating 1% to charity 🙁**), but instead of celebrating that, all I can think of is that the amount I want to be saving each month for the first 5 years after the refurb is equivalent to 75% of my current salary - which is completely unachievable and so way out I just need to tell myself it's not possible and stop even thinking about it. Except I can't 🤦‍♀️🙄!
* I need to focus on bigger wins in terms of time v money generally. I'd already given up Nectar Canvass and have also now deleted Qmee and Curious Cat. That's time I could be spending learning things instead (although I'll probably just be watching Inspector Morse 🤣). I've also turned off the notifications on Olio, as there's very rarely anything I would like to request, and when there is I don't have the inclination to go haring off late in the evening to pick it up (I do still think it's a fab concept though 👍 just not very practical for me and my life right now)
* I need to think more carefully when taking advantage of offers. I planned to do lots of batch-cooking of lunches while I was off, but found myself thwarted by the fact there's way too much frozen veg taking up space in the freezers (I stocked up when there was a 15% off voucher on the Lidl Plus app - I probably saved about 50p 🙄). Sadly, I only discovered this after purchasing the fresh items for my batch-cooking, so there followed a fraught episode where I was desperately trying to eat food from the freezer in order to put more food in the freezer before the veg went soft 🤦‍♀️! I now have enough lunches already prepared to take me up to apple season from BF's trees - at which point the freezer Tetris will begin again and I'll be cursing that I don't have any room for lunches 🤣!
* I've accepted that I'm not going to sell on eBay and have cleared out my "to eBay" drawer. I haven't listed anything for 18 months, yet I kept a whole drawer full of tat ready to put on there - while at the same time being annoyed that I could have done with more drawer space 🤦‍♀️! I had an email from eBay to say that due to changes in their systems and me not updating my details they'd suspended my account for selling - of course, I could have just updated my details and carried on the same as before, but instead I took it as a sign 😀😀😀 This hasn't yet moved on to the next stage of getting rid of the "Ooh, that's a good box, that'll come in handy for packing up an eBay sale" cardboard boxes I have in my store room, but I'm getting there (and at least not adding any more to the stocks in the meantime)!


** The intention is to give generously with my time once I am early-retired, but that is a very long time away and I still feel bad about not doing more now, when I can clearly afford to do so 🙁

Baileys_Babe

Thank you for sharing your progress and analysis @South_coast It is worth us all doing from time to time to check we are using both our time and money positively.

South_coast

Thanks BB 😀!

I've been pondering a bit more on my 60-ish% savings rate and have worked out that my bills are almost exactly 25% of my income (the curse of solo living - no economies of scale! Plus, er, my car....) and my living expenses (petrol/groceries/personal) are almost exactly 15%. I like the idea that 3 days per week I am working for savings (and only 2 days per week are to cover my costs)! I may remind myself I am working for savings when things go wrong at work 😀 (nothing terrible at the moment, just keep getting rugs pulled out from under our carefully-laid plans and having to do a re-think)

South_coast

*Ahem* Just worked out that the car payment is 13% of that 25% bills figure (and that's the new reduced payment after I scaled back my mileage due to Covid) 😮 More thinking definitely required here before it goes back in March. Could some short-term pain become my long-term gain 🤔???