Keep calm and carry on....

debtfreeoneday

I found having kids the push I needed with having a tipple now and again. The thought of having to parent with a hangover was the worst so I hardly ever drink, maybe a sip of champagne at a wedding. That’s it!

Hello by the way. Great progress so far. Which south coast are you on?

South_coast

Hi DFOD, no kids here and to start now would be an extreme way of breaking the habit! I am south coast of sunny England (actually has been sunny today as well)

South_coast

£5.08 in from Prolific to the holding account. Bought lunch but will be expensing that so not counting it

Revelation of the day: The exact same engine oil I have been paying £23 for from H@lfords is £16 in Mr T, only spotted it as I was walking past, so picked that up as I was all out

MrsLovely

Hi South coast, your £32k balance is very enviable! I'm about a year behind you. No real words of advice on the drinking front, is it work stresses that are making you have the odd glass or more? Maybe like you, I get to Friday, and just the relief of getting through the week, and excitement of the weekend off, 1 large glass turns to a bottle! Having said that I don't touch the stuff any other time off the week and I've not really fancied it since Christmas either.

Anyway, in a year you'll be mortgage free!! not long!

South_coast

Hi MrsLovely, that's exactly it, I'm just a bit over-exuberant and the "that's enough" reflex gets drowned out (literally) and I get carried away. Difficult to know how to keep my head - even thinking how I could lose some weight and be MF sooner doesn't seem to do it.
P.S. Your £70k in two years target makes me feel like I am slacking!

£5 payout from Huyu as a Mr T voucher, so transferred the same amount from the grocery pot to the holding account. Then decided the petrol pot looks suspiciously healthy for this late in the month and topped up the holding account to make another £25 OP
Sorry, that was a very long-winded way of saying "£25 OP made" :rotfl:

Current balance £32,076.21

debtfreeoneday

I meant south west or south east of England. We do have a yellow shiny thing in the sky here today. We are south west coast!

savingholmes

Well done on the OP. It must be fab being so close to your goal

South_coast

Shattered. MF seems a very long way away right now....

Day of extremes of emotion yesterday. In the morning heard about someone who'd spent a whole year saving up to carpet their house (bare floors for several years until then) and thought "I never want to be that skint, how can I make sure of that", then in the afternoon got savaged in a meeting and thought "I shouldn't have to put up with this, I don't care about the money"

Lost track of spending but there are still balances in the pots and enough until payday, so no dramas

Back with more later (probably)

Current balance £32,051.21

DFOD - I don't think I'm a million miles from you (to the east), based on what I've read in your diary. Don't want to give too much away though or could lose the ability to rant freely on here (and what a tragedy that would be for all!)

newgirly

Morning SC, I think that’s a battle lots of have. If it’s not a situation where you are really unhappy and just a bad day , I would use it to focus on the mf goal so you can look forward to telling them to beggar off one day in the future :rotfl: some plan holidays or fast cars, this could be your end goal

South_coast

Thanks NG, it's just such a mental drain most of the time. I already indulge myself with a nice car (I spend a lot of time in it!), so the main motivator at the moment is to have a job that I can just turn up to, keep my head down and go home at the end of the day and not think about it again until I need to go back in. Over 5 days this week I had two 5.00am alarms, 13 hours driving, 3.5 hours working in the evenings, 17 hours of meetings and an overnight stay :eek: so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I miss some things Just need to get better at making sure the things I am going to get called out on are the things I actually get done

Anyway, perspective:
I actually have a job - and it pays well
I can comfortably pay my bills - pouring a huge % of my monthly income into the mortgage is a choice, not a necessity
I have people that love me
I am generally in very good health
I have a roof over my head, in one of the richest countries in the world and was able to have an education
I am lucky enough to live all year in somewhere that other people choose to come on their holidays
My neighbours don't complain when I listen to loud music at the weekend :rotfl:
I have a washing machine which is cleaning my clothes for me at this very minute (in my last year of uni our washing machine broke and I was too tight to go to the laundrette and did my washing by hand in the bath - leading to some very creaky underwired bras which had objected to being wrung out!) On reflection, probably not the best way of spending my time when I could have been studying

Feel better now :D:D