Head out of the sand. Saving for a shiny future

ForestBluebells

MovingForwards said:

Stop! Breathe.
Wait to see what happens with the leak and how the ceiling dries out. Take it one day at a time. You are not useless!
With your garden, do a drawing to show what it's like, say where it gets sun / light and tell us what colours you would like, we can name a few plants, say where they can be placed and then you can pick from them, dig the hole and stick them in. 

Why do you need to cancel or remove a lot of things, just because it's a big order?

You are trying to take too much on at once, running before you walk, for now you need to learn to crawl.

Well done on the money side, that's a huge positive, as is getting your car back on the road.

Good idea I’ll do a drawing this week (be warned... I can’t draw 😂) I’d definitely appreciate the advice on what to plant so I can actually do it!

i need to cancel my order due to having too much in there. I’m replacing a lot of stuff I’ve run out of but I can do without some of it for now to bring costs down. 

Tallied up this months savings and I managed to squirrel away a shocking £2,384.57! That’s just slightly more than I take home each month after tax/student loan/pension deductions!

i already save 44% of my take home each month, all commission gets saved, and then I earned the rest doing my side hustles and selling a few things online that I didn’t want anymore. 

Doubt I’ll be able to hit that figure again but I’m soooooo proud of myself! 

I used to only save £50-100 a month last year If I even saved anything at all. 

I’m able to go to bed happy now 🥳

Chrystal

WOW to the savings for one month!  That's phenomenal!  But I don't understand why you have to cancel stuff on your list (that you've run out of?)You've got the money and you need the stuff so why make things difficult for yourself when you're going to have to buy it anyway?

Make the drawing of your garden as suggested, and I'm sure you'll get lots of advice for planting. XX

ForestBluebells

Chrystal said:

WOW to the savings for one month!  That's phenomenal!  But I don't understand why you have to cancel stuff on your list (that you've run out of?)You've got the money and you need the stuff so why make things difficult for yourself when you're going to have to buy it anyway?

Make the drawing of your garden as suggested, and I'm sure you'll get lots of advice for planting. XX

A lot of the things in my cart are unessential items I have run out of 😂

I will get all the essential items. 

MovingForwards

It doesn't matter if you can / can't draw, we only need a few lines on paper 😁

I'm gob smacked at how much you have managed to put away, how quickly you have gone from a small amount to well loads!

ForestBluebells

MovingForwards said:

It doesn't matter if you can / can't draw, we only need a few lines on paper 😁

I'm gob smacked at how much you have managed to put away, how quickly you have gone from a small amount to well loads!

I couldnt believe it either until I totalled it all up. I’ve been working really hard to boost my income outside of work and I guess in essence I have 2 jobs on top of my full time job to help boost my savings. 1 of them is only a 12 month contract and I anticipate ending around December but I hope to be able to replace it with something else once it ends as it’s really been helpful. I sold quite a few things this month that I no longer use too which was a good boost and I now put everything I earn outside of work straight into savings. 

savingwannabe

First of all i want to say congratulations it is fantastic news on the savings Forest but I think you do need to allow yourself some nice treats eg food.  What we put into our bodies is important as it fuels us. It's great that you have saved but we want you to be  alive and healthy to enjoy them so please order what you like for food. I am a bit worried you are doing too much. Do not burn yourself out. Mr MoneyMoustache is superhuman you can still achieve similar things without burning yourself out. Remember the story of the tortoise and the hare. Put your health first. 

ForestBluebells

savingwannabe said:

First of all i want to say congratulations it is fantastic news on the savings Forest but I think you do need to allow yourself some nice treats eg food.  What we put into our bodies is important as it fuels us. It's great that you have saved but we want you to be  alive and healthy to enjoy them so please order what you like for food. I am a bit worried you are doing too much. Do not burn yourself out. Mr MoneyMoustache is superhuman you can still achieve similar things without burning yourself out. Remember the story of the tortoise and the hare. Put your health first. 

I decided to keep my shopping basket in the end. You are right I can afford it and I do deserve some treats. Most of the spend is replacing items I’m out of and then some treats. I do have stuff in the freezer so I’ll use this shop first and then a week or 2 or freezer meals (I have made my own portioned meals)

I have beef in the freezer so I ordered a few herbs to make a meatloaf and my mum grew me some potatoes so I’ll make that and have with salad. I’ll freeze the excess meatloaf for future meals.

i have wraps in the freezer and tomato sauce so I just got some fresh ingredients to do mini pizzas with. Leftover salami and salad will be used in sandwiches for lunches

i also got vegetables and Thai curry paste/coconut milk to have a lovely curry. One of my unnecessary purchases was a jar of creamer coconut which you can dilute into coconut cream or milk. Hopefully that will keep a while. 

Varying options I can use the leftover ingredients for to follow on to the next week so I Should get 2 weeks meals out of this shop along with the treats/topups. 

I didn’t do as detailed a meal plan as I usually would hence why I’ve probably bought too much but equally it’s not easy to get a delivery slot.

my sister said she will come with me when I want to go to the farm shop to give me confidence to go into a real shop again. I won’t need to go for a few weeks though at least. 

Still trying to sort my ceiling and I managed to arrange for a guy to
come over this weekend to give me a quote. One step closer to getting it fixed!

i need to make my dogs some more treats this week as I’m getting through them too quickly 🙈 my reactive dog eats a LOT of treats on walks as I try to stop her chasing cars and just generally being a terror. I did eat one of the cans of mackerel I bought for their treats and it was lovely so maybe they will have to share with me 😂

ForestBluebells

Hi everyone, I thought I’d do a little update as I’ve been feeling sad about what feels like slow progress for such hard work and feeling a bit like I’m still wasting money at times. 

I’ve now paid off my student loan but the extra £150 a month I thought I’d have to invest has mostly been consumed by inflation on my household bills combined with the fact I didn’t get a pay rise this year for the first time ever I’m worse off.

Back when I started my diary in April 2020 I had £21,217 cash savings and £6,180 in pensions makings total worth of £27,398. I now have £22,566 cash savings, £14,435 invested savings and £33,970 in pensions making a total worth of £70,972! 

This means my total worth had increased by £43,574 in 20 months. It still feels like such a below par amount to have at 37 (just!) but I have to try look at just how hard I have worked to boost my savings over this time. 

I signed up to online property investment training so I’m currently wasting £60 a month on that as I’m not sure if it’s for me or not but can’t cancel for a year 🙈

My food budget has been horrible the last few months and it’s been an average of £240 a month recent which is well Over my £160 a month budget and I had even increased it to that already. Is that excessive for a single female? That’s just my food and any items I buy from the grocery store such as dog treats, cleaning supplies etc. I do buy gousto every week which may be part of the problem. It’s £31 a week and covers 8 meals so I only need to cook a couple of extra meals a week. Ive found it much easier and I eat more sensibly when I get all the food delivered. Maybe I should go back to meal planning instead though 😬🤷‍♀️

Im still struggling to decide if I should keep my pet insurance which is £145 a month for 2 medium dogs. 

I have taken on 2 online jobs which is 2 hours work a day 7 days a week which is a bit above minimum wage but nothing special. It does help boost my savings massively though and I put everything in my pension apart from the money I set aside for tax. I also do other online freelance tasks more adhoc. 

I am working a heck of a lot as I’m still just trying desperately to get back on track and still feel so far behind. 

Saying that I’d better go do my online jobs now!

Toodaloo

MovingForwards

You've forgotten to include your equity in the net worth calculation.

Without knowing what you're buying, we can't give you hints and tips as to where savings can be made. If you've got a freezer, dedicate a few hours to batch cooking, big pots of food, portioned up and frozen. 

If your with p3tplan, consider keeping your policy running. The alternative is saving that money each month and hoping if a vet bill comes in, it's within budget. 
- Skinty will probably tell you to keep it going and give examples of the bills PD has incurred for general illnesses. 

You're being too hard on yourself, step back and assess what you're aiming for. I know from the other board you've a figure in mind, buts what's your overall purpose.

I'm glad to see you posting again 😀

ForestBluebells

Equity in my home do you mean? I don’t count that because I can’t really downsize from a 1 bedroom maisonette to withdraw equity in the future and I’ve no idea what my home is worth now, I don’t think it’s increased in value since I bought it 6 years ago 😬 I also hope not to die in this home and wish to buy a final home next (but not any time soon!)

im mostly buying gousto then I’ll do a few top up shops and this is where I’m going over but I don’t feel I’m buying anything excessive but clearly I’m spending too much. Maybe I should cut back on the gousto. I just find I end up eating cereal for dinner and plain rice when left to my own devices but gousto means I eat proper meals. 

I already have lots of batch cooked meals in the freezer (chilli, bolognese and soup) that I cooked ages ago but I never get round to eating them due to buying gousto 🙈. Next time I do a shop I’ll detail what I’m buying so maybe it can be identified where I’m going wrong. 

I have spent about £700 on vet bills this year and nothing major even cropped up but one of my dogs is getting older so has been a few times for minor things. That wasn’t covered by my insurance as my excess is very high now. I have spent more on alternative treatments too and more to come as I’m trying to get the physio to see him. 

My main purpose is building my pension up to £650k. I’m woefully far away from that total right now 😂 on top of that saving for moving to a better final home, I put £200 a month aside currently into a s&s isa this would maybe be enough to move at retirement age but perhaps not enough if the stock market doesn’t keep up with house price inflation? maybe I can set aside more once I’m better positioned with my pension. I will have some extra spare in about 18months-2 years once I have filled my car replacement pot (if my car lasts that long), I have the cash available now if it goes before then it’s just earmarked for different things