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

Elisheba

Oh and I forgot to say, I bought Gilead on the Kindle Daily deal for 99p. They had lots of women author's and women's topics on special today as it's International Women's Day.  I've been meaning to read it for ages so hopefully I will get around to it soon.

SuzeQStan

Happy eve Elisheba 😊 

chilly weather - I’ve got my oversize non brand hooded blanket on - am
jealous of your leccy one!

phone delays 👎🏻 - don’t know how you survived!  I have a work phone too but it’s nowhere near as good. Hope you are all sorted tmoz

Im intrigued with the soup maker - I tend to just boil up my leftover veggies with stock and whizz.  But don’t make soup as often as I would like.  It is proper lovely homemade soup - so much better than store bought.

I’m with you re the sweet things - my uncle always ate his dessert 1st just to make sure he had room for the best bit of the meal bless him. 

Re newspapers - don’t suppose you have any old bills/statements hidden away from
the days when paper statements were still a thing?  I found a huge box full the other month and have steadily been using them
for the fire.  They were dated 2002-2008! Says a lot about the pack rat in me.

keep toasty Elisheba 

xx SQS

badmemory

The logic re the no longer getting the 3 years is that back then you needed 39/44 years that was then reduced to 30 for a short time and is now only 35 years despite retirement age being later.   So a male would have needed every year from 21 to 65 & the year he was 65 wouldn't count either.  It is far better to be born on April 6th than April 5th!!

missymoo81

Love reading your diary @Elisheba Josh you do need a lot of sleep. I have to make do with 6-7 hours if I’m lucky! Oooh v jealous of your soup maker, I immediately and she’s for ages about getting on and then didn’t. Enjoy using it!

Elisheba

SuzeQStan - I wouldn't be without my soupmaker - as can be evidenced by me buying a new straightaway!  Its so quick and easy and can just be thrown in and then will be ready for lunch.  Sadly no old bills etc as I had a proper clear out when I moved out a few years ago.

BadMemory - thanks for the explanation

MissyMoo81 - I've always needed a lot of sleep, but was more like 9 hours rather than 11.  The 11 hours is purely due to medication and is an utter pain.  The thing with a soup maker is that you end up getting sick of soup  .  I do hope my new one lasts for as long as the old one.

Elisheba

Evening all,

I have my phone back with a battery now so finally have some money stuff to talk about!

I wasn't able to break February spending up as much I would like so late after the fact, but I know where I am at least.  All being equal come the end of the financial year I will have £2315 spare and I need to decide what to do with it. 

Options
1. Put it in LISA, and get £578.75 back from the government, which will go towards a house if I decide to buy one.  Currently not sure if I will be buying a house though due to working from home and location issues.
2. Use most of it to pay off overdraft, with a bit of spare change and its available as a pillow if necessary.  As most of my bills come out at end of the month, for most of the month it will stay in 5% easy access savings account.
3. Keep it in my 5% easy access savings account until the interest free period on Barclaycard is over, then pay that off.  Available as a pillow if necessary.  Barclaycard will be paid off fairly quickly after interest free period is over anyway.

Hmm.  If I don't pay it into the LISA, then the best financial option seems to be the overdraft, although neither option 2 or 3 will save much money as my debt is pretty cost neutral just now. I need to decide about the LISA though.  If I knew it would be okay for me to buy a house up in the Lowther Hills in Scotland and only work from the office one day a month it would be a shoe in, but it doesn't seem likely at this point and I don't really like any other options! I wish something would jump out at me.

Other than that, financially I had to buy a new phone case and can only buy the Teracube brand so that's £20, and then I needed to buy some metal backs for the phone case so it will stick to my phone holder in my car so that was another £2.99.

Tomorrow is an office day so got a baked potato and cottage cheese to pack for lunch, and I'll make a flask for the train. Still got the stirfry to eat as I fancied toast and poached eggs for lunch.  My bread isn't rising very well at the moment - probably the yeast is getting old.  I've kept it sealed in the fridge but it just goes that way.  Might try the next one with more yeast and less salt and see how that goes.  

My Mum has messaged to say snow has just started up in the central belt in Scotland, and I imagine it'll be heavy so I hope every one is safe and warm tonight.

SuzeQStan

Hey Elisheba - seems a shame to let go of future plans for home ownership just yet.  Could you do a combo of all three options? 

have that emergency fund in highest interest bearing account, get some more of that overdraft (albeit a neutral one) gone for good & get the LISA govt payout.  Just divided up between the 3 possibly?

I think all these options sound great tbh - your head is proper screwed on. 👍🏻👍🏻

Is there room for a discussion with work around a more permanent home working role in future?  

Another thought - if your heart is in Lowther Hills are there steps you can take to get yourself there? Could your skills translate to a similar role there?  

You deserve to achieve your dreams 

xx SQS

Jellytotts

DH had to come off of those tablets as they made him far too tired and zombie like.  Worth checking if you can swap to something else if they’re making your sleep pattern interfere with life.

Elisheba

Afternoon, all,

@SuzeQStan I'm not giving up the homeowner dream per se, I just want to keep my options open just now in case I decide to go down the narrowboat route, or something like that.  I could split the money into 3, but I would feel more satisfied by doing an actual thing with it.  Also, if I don't go down the house buying route any money in the LISA won't have earned anything.  I'm veering towards paying off my overdraft as its just easier to have a starting balance of 0, but far from certain and keep changing my mind.

Sadly my job doesn't exist in Scotland, so unless my specific job with a comparable salary came up in Carlisle, its not likely I can change jobs at this stage.  If I move to something else it would mean starting at the bottom, and would quite possibly effect my DB pension.

@Jellytotts I spoke to the Doctor this week actually about another option I know of which is used for nerve pain, but he said it was addictive and a schedule 3 substance and wasn't keen on it for that reason.  It can make you sleepy as well so I'll stick with the one I know for now.

Today turned into a home day rather than an office day for various reasons  .  So I celebrated the £20 saving on the train by having the heating on all day  .  When I looked at booking the train it has gone up by £1.05 a journey. So that will be an extra £4-5 a month.  Got my Council tax bill today and that is up by £5 (which was what I had budgeted for). My water is up by almost £5.  Don't know about broadband or my mobile phone yet, but that will be at least another couple of pounds.  Can't remeber if the TV licence goes up in April as well - probably .Energy is how long is a piece of string right now, especially with that £66 a month gone for next winter.  Its all adding up.  If we do get the same payrise as last year (which has been proposed to the Unions and the Unions are doing whatever they do) it will cover it all as that was almost £100 a month for me last time.  

My bank offered me free access to a book site and app called Perlego for 12 months, so I thought 'Why not?'.  Its seems to be more of an academic book site but I've seen a couple that I will probably read. I've put it in my calendar to cancel this time next year though, as there is no way I would pay for it!

I might pick up some chips from the chippie for dinner - if not tonight then tomorrow.  I have nothing much planned for the weekend - some basic house stuff needs done, and then breakfast out on Sunday with friends.  I really need to think of some nice things to do or I'll feel like most of the weekend has been wasted.  Always got books and telly I suppose, and the neverending mending pile of doom.

All this thinking about what I am aiming for had got me thinking about houses again.  I would just love alittle cottage with a bit of land - a few raised beds, and I could get chickens again.  If I had enough land I think a couple of goats and 3 alpacas.  Mind you if I get all those animals I'm going to need to be near family and need to have my brother agree to come look after them when I need to travel the 300-400 miles for work!  I checked the mortgage calculator again, and even at current interest rates I could afford about a maximum of £180k over the 15 years I want to pay it off.  That wouldn't leave me much wiggle room though, so ideally a good bit lower.

Right, I had better get on.  I hope you have stress-free Friday afternoons, and lovely, relaxing weekends.

SuzeQStan

Hey Elisheba - I can defo see you living the good life in bucolic cottage with nature and animals dancing around you like Sn@w Wh!te 😉 glad the dream is still alive 👍🏻😊

Hope you have a fab weekend - if the sun shines we might have a nice canal walk to the pub