Beating Lifestyle Inflation and Staying Mortgage Free!

earthgirl2

So May was just insanely busy with working and also extra work with student staying. Lots of 14 hour work days (which I'm definitely too old for now!!) Lots of money made to add to my totals but a distinct lack of spare time! 

Money made
£3000 in from student 
£300 cat sitting 
0 surveys 
£135 YouTube

Money saved
monthly grocery spend even with student was £235, my target was £500. 

£3.5k moved to S and S isa/pension. So £5.5k of my £20k target saved. From here on in it will be much more difficult to generate this amount of income. 

Other money things 
acquired hens (one laying, one not, one broody currently sat on fertilised eggs). Have been feeding them for free via olio waste, collecting limpets and shell etc from the shore, plus free ranging them. I am then still offering feed but they seem pretty full on the"free" stuff. Will it be money saving in the end? We will see! 

June so far has not been as busy, but I'm still recovering from overdoing it in May I think. Off for some motivation from reading your diaries! 

South_coast

Cracking work on the extra income 👍👍👍 I'm not surprised you're pooped though!

Courgette

Great work Earthy! These are really big numbers! 

earthgirl2

Trigger warning - mention of pupil and grief.

I came back to update a few weeks ago but couldn't get it to post! So here is an update on about a month!

Money saving 
My experiment didn't pay off and the hens and chicks were not money saving. Although I didn't spend much I could see they were just going to be a drain and so much work for me that it would be silly for me to keep them.  The breed I was given were not suited to the area I have and it was all getting a bit much moving them so often. Boys and hours of work each week. So after much searching I found them a new home with experienced people on a farm. It was a shame but the right decision! 

I'm still continuing olio and shopping at Aldi but as we have got down quite low in the freezer in terms of meals, I had to spend more in July than normal so far.  I got a £20 voucher after a complaint so I'm hoping I can use that to claw a bit back. 

Income
Income - I'm doing a lot of cat sitting which pays quite well. Still no where near my previous income levels with students staying, but I enjoy it and it's very relaxing. 

My nephew (30 years old!) payed us a little to stay but he then flooded the bathroom, so I don't think this classes as income!! He left the shower on and it seeped through the wall and into the bedroom. So we need to pay for quite a lot of repairs. He said he would pay but we did need to update the room. I'm just happy he has moved out it was a disaster! 

I'm starting a new tutoring client next week, and I'm also looking at other ways to bring in more money. I will do actual figures of the extra I could pay into savings in June and July soon. 

General
Went on a weeks holiday with family to turkey. They loved it and I thought it was good, but too hot for me. 

Really upsetting devastating news about a pupil when I returned. The whole thing has just made me feel I want to retire asap. 

My birthday on Tuesday kind of passed in a fog of grief, but I'm feeling more myself now. Although I think this has really changed my outlook on life. I want to do less @&$* that I don't like doing, and more of the stuff I do like doing, being with family, friends, outdoors etc 

But I'm currently feeling very strongly that retirement in some shape or form is calling me (I'm 45 with 2 teenagers so I can't get too excited yet!) 

So some things I can do to move me closer

1. banking overview for June and move money to savings. 

2. Income generating bank switches
3. matched betting (?)
4. Creation of more income generating resources (courses, books, videos) in my niche, and marketing. 

5. Work on OHs business as then he can pay for more of the work we need to do on the house.
6. Airbnb the spare room again when we have renovated it
7. Go back through our expenses and cut costs
8. Cook for anniversary party (will be very cheap, it's a picnic lunch with fizz). 

9. Get cheap ish meals and shop planned for our self catering holiday next week. 

So I'm hoping to do the banking and cooking for my anniversary party today. 

South_coast

I'm sorry to hear about your pupil 🩷 x

Watty1

sorry to hear about pupil  sending love.

beanielou

Sorry to hear about the pupil.

TallGirl

Lovely to hear from you again. Sorry about the pupil give yourself time to process this. Shame about the chickens but right decision you don’t need extra work. 

earthgirl2

Thank you all, I work very closely with pupils and families so I am finding it hard. But all the more determined to enjoy the time I have with my family now, and the retirement or semi retirement I am working towards soon!

earthgirl2

So today we had a family day out, a bit frustrating because it was with the other members of my family 😜 but I just went with the flow.

They wanted to go to a golf driving range so I just sat on a lovely bench in the gardens and chilled out. They wanted to go to the "car repair shop", and also DH a tile shop, so we didn't use the free cinema tickets I'd brought and the snacks etc! Oh well, summer holiday days out are a bit different now. 

Tomorrow I'm going to get an olio collection and will get some other things I need for the 20th wedding anniversary party I'm throwing for myself next week. 

I did a big review of pensions, savings etc and if I invest a bit more aggressively I could retire in 5 years with about £250k to last me until my first pension (5years later) and then to supplement this until age 69. Within this £250k would be £30k each for each child for uni/car/house or whatever they need. And combined spending for myself and DH of £38k per year in retirement until pension age, then it would rise to £43k. DH is older than me and gets his first pension in 2 years,  and will continue working, hence the numbers being quite rough. 

More likely would be for me to work for another 10 years which would negate the pension age rise or reduced payment that may come about, but we will see. 

It's all very rough figures put into some calculators and certainly not detailed enough to actually make any decisions now, but it gives me hope and something to aim for. 

So far I've transferred an older isa to my s and an isa. I've moved £5k of pretty low interest savings into s and s isa. 

I'm just going to leave £4k in our bills account for the money shuffle and monthly expenses and anything over this I'll move to Isas, a little to SIP, a little to kids ISAs and then general savings. 

To do- 
check old accounts for money and move to isa
move NW saving over when I get access to it 
Move 2 dds to DH as they are his thing. Maybe 3? Although we are in this together, I want the flexibility to retire so he will have to pay more. 

I've always been frugal, but now I'm on a mission!