2020 - 'Nothing in your life will change until you make the decision to change'

WinterWarrior

Well done on getting the sofa’s. You deserve to wear the MSE crown for that piece of money management ⭐️

jwil

pennywisepoundstupid said:

Happy new sofa, hope you have a good day xx

Thank you, you too

jwil

WinterWarrior said:

Well done on getting the sofa’s. You deserve to wear the MSE crown for that piece of money management ⭐️

Thank you

jwil

I've just been listening to the press conference on the IPCC climate change report.  I'll try and read the report at some point too.  Very sobering.  I hope governments will listen to it!  It's also important to remember that lots of people making small changes will add up too, so it's better that everyone does something small than a few going really hard.

I'm trying to do my bit, but am not perfect by any stretch.  I could do a lot more, but am gradually increasing what I do to reduce our emissions.  We're pretty good at saving energy where we can, and we buy a lot second hand rather than new.  I'm working on reducing our meat consumption (though we will never be vegan) and try and reduce our food waste as much as possible.  We try and throw away as little as possible. I want to reduce our consumption more (though DH and I have differing attitudes on this!) and we need to drive less (again, DH and I have differing attitudes on this, with him being into cars/vehicles).  As we get round to doing up the house, I want to make sustainable improvements, but obviously they often cost more, so that's the dilemma. 

I don't buy a lot of 'eco' stuff, because it often costs more and there's a lot of greenwash out there where so-called 'green' items have just as bad or potentially worse impacts on the environment. I'm also not anti packaging, because the impact of food waste is much higher than that of the packaging.  There are areas where packaging needs to be reduced though, and things like toys and beauty products can have huge amounts of unnecessary packaging.

I'm a firm believer in buying and using less to start with and then at that point looking to buy better. There's a lot of science out there, and I've seen people say similar myself, that they use more of something because it's 'green' so it doesn't matter.  That misses the whole point of reducing our impact in my opinion.

I've been sorting through some paperwork and craft stuff whilst listening, so a nice pile to go in recycling.

jwil

I feel like I've not really achieved anything today.  I worked this afternoon and that went on longer than anticipated.  They are talking about another meeting later this week, which is annoying but so be it.

Tomorrow little jwil is meeting some of his friends so that will be nice.  I put a post on the school FB group to see if any of little miss's classmates want to turn up as well, so we shall see if any do.  She's meeting a friend on Sunday anyway too.

A nice pile of stuff has been removed today, but I haven't done much else.

Cashed out from PA so £5 has been sent to the mortgage.

savingholmes

It sounds like you educated yourself and made plans. That's not a waste... as you say even small changes add up.

jwil

savingholmes said:

It sounds like you educated yourself and made plans. That's not a waste... as you say even small changes add up.

Thank you, that's very true and I hadn't thought about it that way.  I shall try and remember that for the future.  Progress isn't just measured by visual impact.  Thank you

jwil

I've just had my pension statement so have been playing with figures. I am very excited to find I 'could' retire at 55 (although I don't think I'll be allowed to, as I think the changes til 57 come in before that).  It's a very freeing thought.  Whilst we could manage on what I would get at 55, the longer I wait to take the pension the better.

So, we have 12 years to try and do everything we want to do to the house, build some savings, pay off the debts and clear the mortgage (which has 14.5 years left).  That's assuming I don't get made redundant. If we can do all of that, then I will have the freedom to choose what I do, whether that's retire, work part time, change jobs etc.  I'd hope to have an alternate source of income whether that's savings or a part time job so that I could leave my current pension in situ to grow as a long as possible.

DH never really thinks about retirement, but I try and keep an eye on his pensions and ensure that either one of us could live if the other wasn't around.  He'd have a spouse's pension from mine, and also death in service benefits if something happened sooner.  He has a very small DB pension, and the rest of his are DC.  I try and base my calculations on the confirmed amounts from the DB pensions, so that anything else is a bonus.  I exclude the state pension as well so that will be additional too, but obviously not until I'm 67/68.  DH is a couple of years older so would get his sooner than me.

It would be great to just have the freedom to choose what we do and how much we want to work rather than feeling we have to.  If that's not enough motivation for me to stop frivolous spending, and try and be more frugal, then nothing will be!

WinterWarrior

How lovely. I lost a huge chunk of my good pension to my ex layabout husband 😢 He took absolutely every penny he could of everything I’d paid for. So mine will be much reduced and I can’t get a real quote. Sigh! 

I’m aiming to keep plodding on to the bitter end if possible 😖

jwil

WinterWarrior said:

How lovely. I lost a huge chunk of my good pension to my ex layabout husband 😢 He took absolutely every penny he could of everything I’d paid for. So mine will be much reduced and I can’t get a real quote. Sigh! 

I’m aiming to keep plodding on to the bitter end if possible 😖

Oh that's a shame, how frustrating!