How much to live on

Organgrinder

Slugs can also walk through walls and doors! ;-)

jaybee

Organgrinder said:

Slugs can also walk through walls and doors! ;-)

. . . and they can jump!

Savvy_Sue

There are apparently now hostas which the slugs don't like as much, but I don't believe it!

Got my fig tree, and some other small bits. Resisted an olive tree ... Non-native and probably too fussy for my liking.

helensbiggestfan

Glad you managed to get a bargain fig tree.  

Received my credit card statement today. My new system of paying as I go on my debit card rather than just shoving purchases on my credit card and clearing the balance each month has definitely helped me slow down my spending this month.  Going forward I will still use credit cards but for larger amounts only, not the dribs and drabs.  It's surprising how they add up and can derail the budget.  

I am also going to go back to using cash more for small spends, see if that makes a difference.  

GunJack

helensbiggestfan said:

I am also going to go back to using cash more for small spends, see if that makes a difference.  

It makes a big difference - I moved to almost 100% cash a couple or more years ago for pretty much anything not done online, and it really does help with budgeting and planning your spend better, plus it encourages you not to overspend. 

It still gives me a bit of a giggle in a shop when they just expect you to pay by card and you give them cash, most of the youngsters hardly know what to do with it!!! 

Organgrinder

I went the other way. Used to withdraw cash and use it to budget. Inevitably I'd have money left over. Which I'd spend.

Since budgeting on a credit card I don't feel the same temptation.

Durban

Organgrinder said:

Nebulous2 said:

I keep a spreadsheet of all my live cash accounts, bank accounts, regular savers, deducting any credit card debt, which I complete on the 1st of the month. The difference in the total shows if I'm up or down since last month. I've spent £700 more than my income this month, but that includes a hefty annual bill - vehicle insurance - a big payment towards our next holiday and some credit card fees for stoozing. I'm quite happy with that, I expected it to be more. 

I've got 3 new credit cards in the last 2 months, two BT cards, that I've turned into cash. Chase is giving me 4.8% for 6 months, so I'm ahead on that. The third is a purchase card, so I'll put much of my expenditure on that, leaving more money to gain interest. Now the fees are paid on the credit cards the interest each month will supplement my income. 

Gosh this sounds so much like me! I have a couple of deals ending in September and another in January. These total some £23k. In addition I have two more ending this time next year. Only £4k on them currently but they should go up to about £15k before they finish.

I've done another big refresh of everything as our mortgage deal ends in January and I want to make sure I know which ISAs need to be cashed in etc.

All looking good and still very much on track for retirement in just over two years.

I finally got round to getting new glasses. My left eye has deteriorated somewhat. But £184 for two pairs of high index Variofocals, Nike and Converse frames, eye test and eye scan was very good value. I was going to go for the cheaper frames (Lambretta!!!) but they were too narrow.

Next week we're off to a wedding which is in the middle of nowhere. So no choice really but to stay at the venue. Place looks nice though and we've made it into a longer stay too.

Been quite a busy month overall as have also booked next year's snowboard holiday.

Happy days.

And me - between me and Mr D stoozing approx £48,000 with 1 ending this year and 4 next year. Money is in Trading212 and Zopa ISA's - about 4.35% and the interest is paying a massive chunk to a big long haul holiday this year.  

Stoozing is brilliant

hugheskevi

Durban said:
Stoozing is brilliant

I agree! Over the last 15 years, the things I have found particularly beneficial in addition to normal work are:

(1) Stoozing - my wife and I combined have managed to Stooze about £50-70K at any given time over the last 15 years. The growth on that compounded has added up to a lot. At some times, cash-back credit cards were also very worthwhile, especially when Ovo used to permit credit card payments to build up an account surplus, which could then be automatically withdrawn to a bank account and the process continuously repeated to build up cash-back.

(2) Matched betting - although once I had opened accounts at about 50 bookmakers and worked through the intro offers I got fed up of it and didn't continue after a couple of years. It was very lucrative though.

(3) Side hustle - I set up a consultancy to do some work on the side. It was very interesting, fun, a bit of a challenge, and although I wasn't too bothered with it and never made huge amounts (a few tens of thousands over several years), the income from it was very tax-efficient back in the days when dividends had decent tax-free allowances. Before that, I used to take part in paid market research, going to group sessions that usually paid £50-£100 for a couple of hours, and often provided food. As I cycled in London and they were all close to my cycle ride home that was easy money.

(4) Minimising spend for each purchase - using vouchers purchased through work benefits platform where possible, and buying via Quidco / Topcashback on top of that and having any loyalty cards that will reduce cash immediately or in the future. Typically savings of about 5% on purchases are possible which adds up over time. As well as the cash benefits, this removes the immediacy and convenience of instant purchase, so purchases tend to be more considered.

(5) Identifying all regular spend and ensuring that it is optimised - single big purchases will get attention automatically, one-off non-regular small purchases are of little consequence, so ensuring all regular purchases are optimised at every renewal point or reviewed no less than annually really keeps costs down. It was a bit of a pain learning how to optimise every regular spend, but once done, staying on top of it is trivial - and the MSE weekly newsletter is really good for that, to keep an eye on new offers from providers.

(6) All the above enabled chunky pension contributions for tax efficiency - in the early years every April was a struggle to put as much into a pension as I wanted at the end of the tax year, but it quickly got easier after the first few years. Once we had enough in a pension, we switched to stocks and shares ISA contributions, and later to cash ISA contributions to ensure we had the appropriate amount of assets in each type of wrapper for retirement.

There are many other things possible to get more cash or lower spend, but I found the above things were the most consistently valuable things to do.

Organgrinder

Amazing! People just like me but clearly better at doing these things!

LL_USS

Just a quick comment during EuroVision...

I have just realised sometimes we may think "wow, that person on MSE does so well, I wish I had done that (stoozing, switching, investing....) so long ago". In fact, it's not late whatever stage as we get on this forum (or any online communities like this), it means we start to want to put our money affair in (a better) order, or realise we want to do something more to improve our situation. That's already very good. New tips will be needed given the pace of change around us - I am sure we will get updates from here ;-)

We could have already done better than we think ;-), given our own personal circumstances, and we are picking up more tips now. 

To some of us, dealing with money could be a lonely process - and it's often a no no to discuss money questions with real-life friends. It's easier to ask here on the forum - I've enjoyed the experience.

With a free full AI account given by work, I have also tried asking AI questions about my pension, saving rates etc., and to be fair, it's not bad "discussions". It still can't replace the community feeling on here. To me, it even feels like I have made some regular acquaintances too :-).

With special thanks to those who have been helping me here !!!!