Frugal, thrifty, make do, mend! Let this debt come to an end!

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, that's good news! Yes, the parking board is very helpful - we got one cancelled too (in our case Mr Cheery did actually o erstay his welcome in a supermarket carpark because he was having a long phone conversation in the car 🙄 But we asked nicely and they waived out of good will 😊)

Love MSE!

Elisheba

Morning, all,

Just a quick update as I'm still in bed, and I need to get ready for a visit out to a town with friends.

Total spending for the week was 99p on a Kindle daily deal book I've had on my list for ages and my library doesn't stock. I read it straight away so a worthwhile purchase 😊. Very much a guilty pleasure though as it's a tell all by a woman from a US fundamental Christian family who used to have a reality TV show I used the watch 😳.

Just over £10 interest from January on my rainy day savings account where I keep all my current account money until I need to spend it so that's good.

I didn't do any surveys yesterday, but with what I've done already and some slack in my February budget I do now have a decent pot over and above my allocated pocket money for my day out with a friend in March. I'll keep doing surveys though as more never hurt!

I've made a little nook in the space under the stairs with my old dining table for doing jigsaws and other projects. The new dining table is too small, so glad I've found a solution. I've also sectioned off the back.hsll with a adjustable rod and a curtain I had lying around, so my chest freezer, brooms and mup bucket etc are now hidden. The curtain could do with being thicker, so I'll keep an eye out in charity shops for either a thicker one or something I can back it with.

I'm off out with friends today so won't get much done home wise. Tomorrow I'd like to wash the car and get my front grass cut, but I've not looked at the weather so will see how that goes. I've also got a jigsaw I want to start in my new worktable nook 😁.

Just off to have a shower and breakfast now. I've made a good start on today's crossword, which is a surprise as. My brain doesn't seem to work as well in the mornings 🤣. Hope everyone has a fab weekend!

WinterWarrior

Lots of good news there. Enjoy your day out with friends ✨

SuzeQStan

Good solutions Elisheba re jigsaw table & a curtain for the business end of things.

have a lovely weekend xx

Makingabobor2

Great idea for the jigsaw puzzle table. I struggled with doing them on the dining table as they always got in the way, so DH made me a table that folds up. although I hardly ever fold it up as always seem to have a puzzle on the go these days.

Can I ask what savings account you use that pays the interest monthly? 

Elisheba

Afternoon, austerity aspirers,

Thanks, @WinterWarrior, @SuzeQStan and @Makingabobor2. I had a great day out yesterday with my friends. Coffee and cake, lunch and then raided the charity shops and had a look round the town. Very nice it was too! Fairly spendy as these things are, but all accounted for in my budget pots. Bought a navy M&S cardi for £4.50 (clothes annual budget), a teapot (household annual budget) for £2.50, and a couple of books reduced to 75p each (monthly personal allowance). Lunch, and coffee and cake, were out of my monthly personal allowance, and were both lovely.

@Makingabobor2 the savings account I use is the Barclays Blue Rewards Rainy Day saver. I think the interest is 5.12% - when it came out it was on Martin's emails as the highest interest available, although it's been overtaken now. You need to have a Barclays current account and sign up to Blue Rewards. I think the limit it pays interest on is £4k or £5k. It's instant access so I just plop all my money in there at the start of the month and transfer it back to my current account when I spend anything.

I picked up some IPA ale and twiglets on the way home yesterday to have during the rugby (monthly personal allowance and food budgets respectively), and as the twiglets were in little bags I have beer and twiglets to have with other matches during the Six Nations. Hopefully Scotland won't make it as nail biting again as the second half was yesterday, but then again it's Scotland so I'm not holding out much hope 🙄.

It's drizzly out today so I won't be washing the car or cutting the grass as vaguely planned, and I'm officially declaring it a lazy day. Went to church this morning and the vicar said he might pop around to my house to say hello at some point. Full kudos for proper parish ministry and care, and great to make friends and get to know more people, but with silly dog that could be a bit of a problem! He goes bonkers when people come in the house, and the vicar has some mobility issues. I'll have to put silly dog in the car I think if the vicar does appear! It might also give me a reason to keep the house vague presentable 🤣.

I had a post church brunch at home of scrambled egg on toast, followed by the last Xmas pudding and custard. Dinner will be a veggie pie with veg and potatoes of some sort. 

I managed to get channel 5 working on my firestick so I can finally catch up with All Creatures Great and Small, which is the plan for later on. Might do some jigsaw as well. The crossword started well today, but I'm thoroughly stuck now and don't know if I'll get any further with it. I need to start a new book but not sure what I'm in the mood for - one of the books I bought yesterday was called The Austerity Book and had lots of WW2 leaflet reproductions in it. I had high hopes for it but a proper leaf through last night shows it to be be more a gimmicky, general interest sort of book than anything particularly useful. I want to have nice bath later on as well, as it's always relaxing on a Sunday evening, so will have to pick out a book by then. 

Hope everyone's weekend is going swimmingly and a relaxing time is being had by all.

SuzeQStan

Wish I were more like you Elisheba - you are just so TOGETHER! 🥰  

Lol re the vicar visit - maybe get some nice biscuits too - and if the visit catches you out just say ‘wait a moment whilst I pop silly dog away’ and spray some Pl@de or other nice smelling cleaning stuff in the air so it smells like you just cleaned! That’s what I do LOL

Elisheba

Evening, frugal folks,

Thanks, @SuzeQStan. I honestly don't feel very together! Most of the time I'm just making things up as I go along, and often find I've rushed into something and haven't got a scoobie what I'm doing 😂.

Nothing much to report on the MSE front today, but I'm posting just to keep myself on track.

I was going to say it was a NSD but just remembered I bought a birthday present for someone. It was fairly cheap and will come out of my annual presents money pot.

Did a lovely walk up the hill to the common at lunchtime. There is an iron age enclosure up there, although you can't see much because of the bracken, just a semi circular ditch. I had a look on LIDAR when I came back, but you can't see much on there either sadly.

Had the heating on tonight for a couple of hours, but it's still very mild so didn't need it on in the morning. The forecast says the mild spell is due to end soon, and there will be snow on Thursday. It doesn't look like it will last long where I am, so pretty certain I'll need to go into the office on Friday. 

HM muesli porridge for breakfast today, and the last of the homemade lentil soup for lunch. Didn't feel like cooking at dinnertime, so just had pasta and marmite.

I was very good earlier and turned down a fun activity with friends in March as it was too expensive. Thankfully we have organised a much less expensive activity instead 😁.

I'm feeling awfully tired for some reason, so I'm going to have an early night. Hope everyone has started off the week with a good day.

Elisheba

Morning, all,

Despite an early night I've woken up feeling a bit grumpy and fed up. I'm sitting in bed with a coffee, the monkeys are all fed and watered, and I figured if I write down some some aims for day it might not end up a total write off.

So things I want to do today -
Shower ✅

Make bed✅

Get ready✅
Breakfast✅

Put breadmaker on✅

Work - 4 main things I want to get started on with work

Lunch - make vegetable soup✅
Dog walk - probably go down by the river❌
Wrap and post a birthday present and card❌

Clean bathroom❌ Did clean out cat litter tray which was the most pressing task

Put dishwasher on and then put away dishes ✅
Hot wash of towels✅

Give monkeys dinner✅
Dinner - bangers, peas and mash

Dig out book on knitting socks on circular needles and give it a go 
Listen to audiobook

Okay, that seems fairly manageable. Hopefully I was just in need of a plan to give me some get up and go. Other than posting the birthday present I don't think I need to spend any money today. I've checked my bank accounts and all money is where it's supposed to be.

I read in the paper yesterday that by the time I'm retirement age the state pension age could be 71 or even later. As neither my Dad or my Uncle made it anywhere near that age, and my Mum is still a few years off it and her health is extremely poor, the whole thing doesn't fill me with confidence.

Despite it being a bit of a pipe dream at the moment, I'm still aiming for retiring at 60. Of course in the interim I still need to pay off debt, save a deposit, buy a very moderately priced house and pay said house off! Or buy a narrowboat and pay it off by then, and then cruise the cut for a decade. I've done the sums for both options and if I stick to my budget both are manageable. The ongoing problem with the house plan is that I can't afford one within commutable distance to work, but I'm keeping the option open as it'll be 6 or 7 years until I'm in a position to buy and who knows what will have happened by then. It needs to be very moderately priced as I'm hoping to pay it off in 10 years - again, quite the challenge.

One way or another, as long as I don't have rent/mortgage overheads at 60 I should be able to afford to live off my public sector pension as long as I'm frugal and thrifty. All my Nat Ins contributions will have been paid, so at some point 10 - 15 years later I'll get my state pension which will be an extra boost to funds for when a bit more doddery (touching all wood I make it that far). 

Of course I need to live and enjoy life in between then and now, and my challenge is to do that on a small budget. I need to invest a bit of cash into my car camping set up, which will be one of the ways I can have fun thriftily. My friends wedding may well prove a lot less expensive than expected (as I may be able to camp) so if it is, I can use some of the funds allocated to that to buy window shades (homemade haven't worked in my new car) and a porti potty. Once I have them I can pretty much go anywhere, just for the cost of diesel.

So yeah, just need to focus on the bigger picture and look after myself in the short to medium term. And get started on today, as lying in bed at 9.30am isn't exactly productive 😂.

Moorviews

Good luck with today Elisheba, I think most of us have flat days sometimes. Your plans sound very promising as a public sector pension is a good thing to have and you don’t need to worry about it running out or making complex arrangements with it. Now that you have your camping nearly set up with your car you will have some adventures to look forward to. It might be worth exploring which areas might offer some good camping spots for you.