First Steps to Solvency

alt80

Day 32. Planned spends: food shop/ petrol.

Still not so well. Not ill enough to not be able to get on with the day though ha.

@MovingForwards I take it that doesn’t count lunch budget or if free maybe it does? Iswyacf re calculated income- doesn’t really work like that - the proportion of BTL income I do take is paid as a dividend - they are in ltd rather than personal name. As for only taking wage - by that I assume you’re talking salary only lol doing that I’m poorer than anyone on here haha - I just take the standard directors salary which is under 10% of my total income lol. Rest of my income is dividend. 

MovingForwards

The £10 is my budget for that trip, whether it's lunch, coffee or ice cream. Sometimes I spend more, most times it's less. It all balances over a year.

I've just looked up what a director's salary is 🤣 that could be an interesting budget 🤭 using the dividend and BTL would make it too easy.

Why not try £25 a head or pick a figure, not too generous otherwise your default stance will be let's do X as we can afford it, instead of let's find something free or cheaper. All those £1's not spent in summer go towards winter when it will cost a bit more to do things as it's all indoors aside from dry days. 

This is just a fun family thing budget, it's not your holiday budget, but a day trip, afternoon visit or few hours, creating quality time together and building memories. 

alt80

@MovingForwards ha I’d assumed you either didn’t know how it worked or was taking the !!!!!! lol. 

I do have a £250/m general entertainment budget that I keep an eye on: generally just goes on some days out/ odd meal out (don’t eat out anything like so often as I used to). Separate coffee out budget of £50/m so total of £300/m for things like basic family days out and the odd bit of eating out. Do just about manage to get there most months tbf.

getmore4less

alt80 said:

Day 32. Planned spends: food shop/ petrol.

Still not so well. Not ill enough to not be able to get on with the day though ha.

@MovingForwards I take it that doesn’t count lunch budget or if free maybe it does? Iswyacf re calculated income- doesn’t really work like that - the proportion of BTL income I do take is paid as a dividend - they are in ltd rather than personal name. As for only taking wage - by that I assume you’re talking salary only lol doing that I’m poorer than anyone on here haha - I just take the standard directors salary which is under 10% of my total income lol. Rest of my income is dividend. 

IIRC we have kind of been over this before.

One thing that you want to happen in the background is replace the BTL drawings with other net income, either tax benefits of the wife or increased/transferred from main business to get that BTL back to fully retained.

I think you can work with the net £8kpm/£96kpy as the sensible base for this phase of the plan.

If we do a regular 40hr weeks you are looking at around  £46ph  lets just call it £50ph nice round number that's like a ~37hr week and all days/weeks off paid as well, as the boss you can have as many of them as you like.

while @moving forwards does 
Total spent under £25.80 = 2.5h of work for a really nice weekend.

You can do that in ~1/2hr.

alt80

@getmore4less that’s still my plan re btl drawings. Everything well on track there but eye on things might not be quite so easy soon iyswim. Not impossible though but an element of playing it by ear with market etc I know the game spent the majority of my early years in business during a very challenging market. 

The current figures I’m planning to stick with with save for inflationary uplift for the next 5 yrs. Review when I’ve (hopefully) binned off the current lot of personal debt. Tbh so far as personal income goes this will poss sound a bit odd to those not in business given I’m working on the growth but I’m not planning to raise it. Additional revenue is better reinvested at this stage current drawings should be enough to live on to a reasonable standard of living. Actually feels like a !!!!!! good one when I’m not and wife is not spending thousands a month on utter !!!!!! we get no real value from as a family. 

Remember saying to wife something along the lines of worked an hour for that can’t even remember what it was it was ages ago she said her mind was absolutely blown fml lol. I’ll tell her I worked almost a full !!!!!! day for the Balmain she bought the other week haha. Bit of a sobering though actually there ha.

MovingForwards

It is a sobering thought when working out hours to spends, in a way it can stop you in your tracks although it's more so for people who are not too happy in their jobs.

You're a lot more open to the suggestions now, all you have to do is find a way to relate them to your circumstances.

Whilst it's not about living like a pauper, it is about valuing your circumstances and making the most use of your money.

This also teaches your son money doesn't grow on trees, he can't always get what he wants and there's so much to see for free or cheap which is equally as rewarding and could set him up for a good life.

getmore4less

Relative value can be done with all sorts of base lines.

Number of nails done would be a good one  for the wife spends.

alt80

Day 32 done after a mad end to the day (staff member needed a sympathetic ear and wound up with me and a chamomile tea after hours haha fml probably gone home more traumatised than they walked in ha). Missed my son’s bedtime for first one in a while as a result.

@MovingForwards I agree and yeah must be a massive de motivator if you hate your job. It’s really quite interesting the idea of thinking about spending. The buzz isn’t the same but not gonna lie bit of a quiet satisfaction going through the spends knowing right thing has been done iyswiacf (I need to avoid getting the dopamine up too much anyway I think really ha).

I’ve always said my son doesn’t think money grows on trees but tbh I can see he has been quite spoilt in the past. He can get really angry when he doesn’t get what he wants (I really wonder where he gets that from haha 😜) seriously I don’t want him being ungrateful and a bit of a brat. 

@getmore4less haha I did that calc for one of her purchases not too long ago. Didn’t want to upset her so didn’t tell her. 

alt80

Struggling a bit tonight with the thoughts. Not really managing to get to sleep early enough lately so that won't be helping matters. Up tonight thinking about my staff, things aren't great for one of them - really nice person too. Always wish I could make everything better for them when one of them is going through something tbh. They give me their time, effort and provide my company with an income I couldn't produce on my own. I'd like to think I give them security and a few laughs along the way. Have a big sense of responsibility to them tbh idk if anyone on here is even an employer so not sure anyone will get it - it's just a brain dump really hope I finish typing and fall to sleep, get on the chill app sleep thing too I think. Maybe another one for the didn't cause it, can't control it and can't cure it mantra. Can try to make things a bit easier where possible for them always have said I never want to forget my staff and tenants ultimately pay my mortgage and the rest of my commitments ha. Checked in on my son fast asleep and wife fast asleep I am blessed to have a family not something I ever want to take for granted again.

alt80

Day 33. Should be a no spend day. Interesting sort of tracking these need to maybe track the number of them. Days gone by I can’t even imagine a day of not spending something. Obviously it did happen but it wasn’t something that happened often. 

Haven’t had a great nights sleep and got up reading through my addiction stuff meeting with the pros today. Something one of them said a while back I think I got for the first time- pursuit of perfection and excess isn’t good for well-being essentially it was a long conv. Subscribed to the what are you growing thread on here, not contributed but reading it I found I started thinking in an obsessive way about that Googling how to get best return on whatever crop - taking wife and son to garden centre this week and my eBay chard has arrived so plans to plant it and a few other things with son. Wife said I’m not a farmer shouldn’t care if it grows or not - not like we depend on this stuff ha. Odd way of thinking but maybe a better one, one that makes you more likely to sleep at night. 😆