Future Proofing my life: Deposit saving then MFW journey in under 13 years

LadyWithAPlan

Sistergold said:

Oh @LadyWithAPlan my head spins when I read of all the animals you are taking care of and all the escapades!! And you are working aswell? 

Gosh the whole country will need to be praying for me if I am left to take care of a few fish in a tank! My children have been asking to get a pet. Any pet they say! I asked them if we get a pet what will I do with them? Lol. 

Did I not mention there are fish here as well - somehow I have remembered to feed them ..

LUCKILY the chickens got killed by one of the dogs burrowing through to their apparently fox proof run a few months ago - I wasn't  here so not responsible! If I had 4 chickens to look after  as well to make it 20 mammals then I really would have lost the plot even with the free eggs.

The cats have thrown up twice on the Brand new mattress/quilt/pillows and all brand new bedding all bought for my arrival.. 

@Sistergold but 16  .. no.... If your kids have a rota and they stick to it in terms of looking, feeding, cleaning up after it...
No wonder the freezer here hasnt been defrosted for years.

I am trying to work! (last summer I was wfv - working from (Ibiza) villa ... but now  often  a few hours in the afternoon and then in the ev  til 11pm once all have settled. I am way behind so ended up doing a few hours Sunday. I charge daily so have not billed for the missing days.. but once bitey but cute dog who really just wants to hang with me and attack the others is gone then we will all breathe a sigh of relief

This is why I am getting the bitey dog moved to lovely friends kennels - waiting for her to pick him up as it will give me at least 90min if not 2 hours back a day now I am having to segregate him and walk him separately, plus at night when I bring him in he is difficult - woke me up at 1am and then 7.30am.
He managed to bang his nose on his cage yesterday and cut it so I was salt water washing that and sticking manuka honey on his nose this morning as still sore.

The older dog he attacked is limping when he runs so he is not eating as normal plus  he and the other old dog need certain drugs each day.
 
Every time I go to sit down I remember something else I havent done for an animal. Still its a 15 day jaunt and I am more than half way through! The cleaner comes in once a week and I am paying her to come in the morning they all come back - so house is fresh for them.

The one horse who never loses his fly mask did this morning - but his eye looks great - go me.. so I had a spare other mask  but its a bit tight on his ears so I think it will last maybe a minute. Need to find the other mask and wash them all.

I am a fiend with the horse fly spray, the little pony who hates men was fine with me but now runs when she sees me. The big pony fly blanket is staying on so I just need fly spray on her. The really big mare (with the old horse who needs feeding 4 times a day) can be a monster and terrifies the horse woman who trains them all but I wave a rope or  the bottle fly spray at her and she stops trying to steal the other horse's food. 

Just on phone to halfx as realised I have not been getting my monthly £5 reward since June 21! Saw £5 moving in but it turns out it was between my pots. They said I need to renew every 12 months and they had let me know. However there was no emails in my inbox so they are raising a complaint so hopefully I will get the missing £70. I kept reading in Tilly about their Hal rewards money - so it prompted me to finally spend 60 mins on phone as I type this. 

Hopefully I will get the £70 back (14 months x 5) in the next 2 hours they say now )  and that will go to Hse deposit. (or 50/50 hse and sipp). I need to get to 125k - big big target 

LadyWithAPlan

TallGirl said:

Hi Ladywithaplan finally got to the end of your diary you've done so well. Amazing savings and I totally get your conundrum re buying or not. I did live in London for 4 years had very cheap rents (I was a property Guardian) and rented out my house down South in the meantime. 

Property prices in London are scary and you get so little. I know some people love the place or need to be there for work. If you're rich and can afford to live in a lovely place or pay cheap rent then it's fine however I would rather be outside. I've got 2 hours door to door to my office in London £400k buys you a fully refurbed 4 bed detached house where I am. If you're not thinking of buying for yourself what about buying a buy to let outright outside of London. Down here 2 bed flats sell for about £150k. You could still get a mortgage for your own place but at least you get on the property ladder. 

Anyway enough waffle just thought I would let you know I got to the end. Good luck with horses and hounds. 

@TallGirl Tx so much for popping in I am very impressed by you getting through my diary (and the huge gap when I didnt get paid in full  for months which meant I stopped being able to budget my pots properly and somehow they meant I spent more) 


I have been a property guardian before  in London and it is amazing if you get the right place. London is my home, I have dozens of friends here - though some have started moving abroad/away during Covid. I will only live in London if I live in the UK. I love the vibe, the art, culture, music scene, my friends stretching over 30+ years, the community. I do now mainly wfh at present but  as but that can change again quickly to needing to be in central London daily and in the evenings so not expensive cabs every night.

I may have to go to London outskirts to get this garden I want especially as I really want  freehold as well - london service charges start at £100/month and often go into £250 range.. so not MSE...  I need to look at places near a tube and easy to get to an airport. Plus a 2 bed would make me feel secure as I could always rent out a room.

A friend of mine left North London to buy outside Canterbury - a lovely 2 bed flat as she just couldn't afford to buy in London despite being v successful - however she only has one set of friends there and she comes to London to work a fair amount. Luckily she bought before covid so had a great place and made 50k on already on prices.
However she has no real social life beyond her 2 friends there as she is new to the area and is thinking of one day coming back once she can afford it. 

 I do like your idea of the BTL - really made me think so thanks -  maybe I could buy one cash then have to save up again for the house deposit..
May I ask what area roughly you are based now ?- the 150k is insanely doable in 12 months or so I think.
 I looked just at canal  flats in central Birmingham as I have family near who could pop in and check stuff - we talking probably £200k plus though.

I am outsaving and out earning house and interest rises at present so I am on a 'get a MASSIVE house deposit by earning more and spending a lot less' I do stop at least once a day recently think I have a 100k in savings, it makes me feel very secure and a little in wonder.
They say the first 100k is the hardest and then the first million..

LadyWithAPlan

LadyWithAPlan said:

Just on phone to halfx as realised I have not been getting my monthly £5 reward since June 21! Saw £5 moving in but it turns out it was between my pots. They said I need to renew every 12 months and they had let me know. However there was no emails in my inbox so they are raising a complaint so hopefully I will get the missing £70. I kept reading in Tilly about their Hal rewards money - so it prompted me to finally spend 60 mins on phone as I type this. 

Hopefully I will get the £70 back (14 months x 5) in the next 2 hours they say now )  and that will go to Hse deposit. (or 50/50 hse and sipp). I need to get to 125k - big big target 

RESULT!! Free Money £70 Hali
And £70 just hit my bank account for the lost Halifx £5 rewards of 14 months - love complaining and getting a result! Plus I am signed in from next month
£70 is straight split between my SIPP £35 and my hse deposit £35 to my baby van isa.

I have now hit the tax free interest earning limit first time ever- smashed through it on recent payment- so pointless to earn interest unless in tax free wrappers as getting taxed now 40%. 
I do have some small pots in current acct, old Marcus etc.
I have an old H2B ISA that goes out £200 a month max so I can only have a S&S isa.
Last years's ISA was Fid***y -as part of my hse savings -  having had a messy move from HL where they lost funds and took months!   but charges argh as I was with Cavendish who were cheaper and they got taken over by Fid. So opened a new 22/23 S&S ISA with the fabulous Vanguard

May look see if can move my Harg La SIPP to another provider which will just transfer the share ownership etc  (Vanguard only lets you invest in its funds etc)  but its only about £6k so nothing much to worry too much and I dont plan to add to HL at present beyond dividends which are fully covering monthly fee costs


So MSE!!

TT 50P


Dividends
Just seen I have been paid quarterly dividends again  from Supermarket Income REIT plc Ord GBP0.01 Dividend Payment - I rarely buy individual shares or Reits but this one is great - a REIT specialising in properties for food storage and supermarket  space..
It is in my HL Sipp - costly but I think it has the best platform for share info  so I am not planning to add to it just keep it running plus £100 minimum buy now - was £25.. Most my SIPP is at Vanguard as cheaper and I can add tiny amounts in but I keep watchlists in HL even for my Van SIPP. 
The dividends at least pay my costs for HL

SAVINGS 
Hse 23/08/2022  £102,035   
EF £1k/£15k. 
Hse buying costs + SD £1950/£15k - from H2B isa uplift if I buy below £500k (!)
Why am I normalising such a huge figure?? 

SIPP               23/08/22    £35,995.70  - 
those % are slowly creeping up..
FIRE 7 years (ex any DB etc)   exc home 12k pa 12%, 16k pa 9%. Current spend inc rent 10.8% FIRE - 

TallGirl

 I do like your idea of the BTL - really made me think so thanks -  maybe I could buy one cash then have to save up again for the house deposit..
May I ask what area roughly you are based now ?- the 150k is insanely doable in 12 months or so I think.
 I looked just at canal  flats in central Birmingham as I have family near who could pop in and check stuff - we talking probably £200k plus though.

I am outsaving and out earning house and interest rises at present so I am on a 'get a MASSIVE house deposit by earning more and spending a lot less' I do stop at least once a day recently think I have a 100k in savings, it makes me feel very secure and a little in wonder.
They say the first 100k is the hardest and then the first million..

It is a massive security to have such savings it means you can ditch jobs and work less hours totally agree. Understand about your attachment to London that said there is life outside I live walking distance to my small local station so I can get to two major cities in less than 30 min and 1 1/2 hour by train straight to Gatwick. I'll PM you the area if you want to take a look. 

Well done on the £70 always worth complaining proper MSE for sure 

LadyWithAPlan

Thanks @TallGirl some decisions to be made, amazing how cash in the bank makes life less stressed. Had times in my life when I earnt a LOT less but the moment I started doing a monthly budget including food, going out, annual bills, gifts etc pots my life got easier even with the  same amount of income.
Thinking back I had some chaos happen about 6 months after I started my pots and as I had been taking food and even a daily flask of decent coffee out to where I was studying (the coffee was awful so I wasn't prepared to pay for it!)  it meant I had excess savings to throw at a scary problem.

NSD to yesterday Tues 10/13

Grocery Aug 22 £97.42/£170    + 17.50 Sains card    
£4.50/£30 bulk - 
SD now though as I popped to local shop this morning as I got a lift - still not moved car here- to get basics such as ground coffee, DF milk, onions, toilet roll etc £14.90 spent but £1.50 was dog food - been given some extra cash here for that so will say £13.40

Paid cash as have now most monthly grocery money in cash.  I always spend less with cash

Family member popped round yesterday and bought GF fish and chips - the local one changes its fryers on a Tuesday so Tuesday is all GF. I tried to give them cash but failed. so NSD yesterday

There is a brand new Panasonic bread maker here so I made some GF bread earlier in week - works out about £1.30 for a small but fabulous  GF loaf. It has no preservatives though so you have to slice and freeze the same day. Comes out with a perfect crust.
I had a go at making a banana bread GF in the Panasonic yesterday - it was lovely and sent family member home with more than half of it - as well as frozen bread.

I am determined (and have their permission) to defrost the huge iced up chest freezer here of which they literally have access to maybe 20% of it - just the top layer. There is deep stores of food that has been frozen for years in there!!
I sent all the frozen sweet stuff,  icecream and desserts off to a neighbours today so I can start to see what needs eating up. So my food spend will be much less. Waiting to deliver some stuff in there to other family members at weekend and then can properly defrost it.  I was planning to go to the local Ald or Lid but no need really now.

On the Dr Dolittle meets The Good life front -
I got rid of the bitey dog today! woohoo. The Kennels could not pick him up yesterday as planned but someone turned up today to get him. I told her I loved her Did feel slightly sorry for him as he is cute - he did wake me up at 2,30am and 8am ..but he had a pigs ear beforehand -  which we swapped for a biscuit before being put in the car as he gets v food aggressive - he promptly climbed into the front to eat more biscuits she had left on the front seat. He seemed quite happy and I now have an extra 90 mins back minimum to my day just on him. I managed to find his vaccination stuff - 
The dog he went for has a cut in his ear so manuka honey in that one.

I am hugely behind on work so can now buckle down and be a lot less stressed - so down to 15 mammals and a few fish.

I have to bring all the horses in tomorrow as we have to swap fields as the dressage lady coming to work with the main horse - he with the eye infection that seems fine now - though I am on the hunt for a missing fly mask as one horse somehow gets hers off. . He is great and I may yet actually ride tomorrow - work dependent 6 horses and 0 rides.

TT 31p

My CC is small £400 and have paid off in full  this months bill already but it is annoying as I put utilities and the course (I have not looked at yet) on it and I find it hard to transfer money from my pots or current acct to pay it off - I feel richer having cash in current accts. I really have to stick to only using it for travel. I only got it for my credit score - small limit £2300 - but its annoying how it creeps up.
I keep reading how I should use only 10% of the limit.. 

I am due loads more invoices from 2 x companies  over £10k - and not sure if I will get paid by the start of Sept so I am keeping a float in current acct as well as the ~£1k EF I have added to a separate pot in case so I am not paying down the card in full as some spends are for payment end Aug

Merlin's_Beard

Congratulations on getting rid of Bitey! Hopefully that helps you deal with the rest a bit easier.

savingholmes

On the cc paying it in full monthly is what is important. I pay mine straight after spend every few days so no build up

Cheery_Daff

Well done on getting rid of the bitey dog, I hope it's easier to get some work done now! Very impressed at you even attempting to tackle the freezer 😮

LadyWithAPlan

Cheery_Daff said:

Well done on getting rid of the bitey dog, I hope it's easier to get some work done now! Very impressed at you even attempting to tackle the freezer 😮

This freezer is awful - literally 20% of it is useable/in date  - 50% ice and 30% v old provisions... I am waiting to take my other family some stuff I have they left (most will be useless) as well as excess plums apricots etc as there are loads trees here and most going to waste. A few branches have fallen off the plum tree and another tree literally split in two after the storms so I will dump some branches in the back of the 4WD and they can have fun picking them from the branch!

I managed to work with a calm head til midnight last night and get stuff which was needed over now bitey dog gone - though I do worry about him. This morning a lot less stress as well and saved an hour this morning!
The dressage lady popped by to work one horse, so getting them all in was easy  - bar one horse deliberately playing up and going into another's stable - I ended up dragging him out - he is the 30 year old horse so good to see he is feeling feisty and I saw him canter yesterday so operation feedup is working.
However after last week when one horse would rather wander round the stables  and see her friends than go straight into her field with her stallion - which ended up with me in a tight space between two gates leaping around hay bales trying to get a lead rope on her so  I asked if the dressage lady would help me get them back after she finished working with the horse. The horses are not led by lead ropes but just let out and 'encouraged' Of course said horse still decided to hang around and party in the stables - at least there were two of us trying to get 2 17+ hand horses go in the right direction rather than just me... She is an expert as well - so almost glad to see its not just me. Horses eyes are all cleaned up..
She said if I was a standard employed person as a horse/petsitter many of them would have left or resigned by now

savingholmes said:

On the cc paying it in full monthly is what is important. I pay mine straight after spend every few days so no build up

Very sensible - I often just send cash over the next day to the CC but the lack of paid invoices make me want to keep my cash ... Still got it down to £400 - I would pay it down now but got rent out next Thursday so no clue when I will get paid next...so keeping cash.Merlin's_Beard said:

Congratulations on getting rid of Bitey! Hopefully that helps you deal with the rest a bit easier.

The rest are easy!! 15 mammals vs 1 .. Still 3 hours work each day minimum but stress levels are considerably reduced and no two extra runs a day and all that running around keeping him separate. I have arranged for him to be brought back on Tues eve - I am planning to go see other family Tues eve )

NSD day hopefully so makes it 11/13

Ate out the freezer - I never eat ready made food beyond crisps and sweets -  but this freezer battle I am going to win!
Had some weird GF cauliflower hash browns - why???? Who comes up with these food ideas..
Fresh GF Sausages I have cooked for me and dogs.. and some plant burgers.
Its such a deep chest freezer I need to be here as it defrosts so I can get chunks of ice out or I will be bailing water out for hours!.

Realised yesterday Grocery spend was too high as bought some stuff for pets here and toilet/kitchen rolls for here- so need to reduce by £2 at least - They left me £60 to cover other stuff. Plus main animal food in or on account so ..

Added £10 to cash acct for Fidel**y ISA - last years - just to cover charges. So can add that to hse deposit savings
I did have some dividends in from an Asian REIT - 

ISHARES II PLC,ASIA PROPERTY YIELD ETF USD DIST GBP(IASP)

so just reinvested into 
Legal & General Global Real Estate Dividend Index Fund (I) - Accumulation

My 22/23 ISA S&S is with Vanguard  - there is a great VNQ REIT - so vanguard US REIT - so property - but I cant see how to invest into it from Hargreaves or indeed Vanguard in my SIPP... its US based. I have tried and asked both companies and they say no. Anyone know please let me know. I dont have normal trading accts - only S&S isas and SIPPS. as it would be a long term investment it needs to be tax friendly investing.

TT - £1
I cant login to Hali at all so done one from my Monzo 
I will have probably £30 from the two TT post to add at the end of the month

Budget win
My accounting software was all supposed to go up this month as discount ran out - but looking at pdf  bill it shows not til end Sept so another cheaper month - so saving £34 there vs what I had budgeted so I have added the £25 to PB and £9 to Baby 22/23 vang ISA in ESG Global All Cap UCITS ETF Distributing (V3AM)

PB No at £16500 - but some of that is saved tax 
I have a mini goal of getting it to the max £50k - easier as part tax savings and harder as I am splitting lots of cash to baby ISA.
Savings accts are pointless as I am now at 40% tax rate on all interest earnt this year now.

Nice to see daily movement upwards

MFW savings 25/08/2022  £102,079 - somehow it has crept up .... 81.66% of £125k first target - then £155k annual target.
EF £1k/£15k

Saving in August month: £5,588.81 + £1k EF = £6,588.81 - big jump after month of 0  as got 2  very overdue invoices paid plus back to daily journalling 

Grocery Aug 22 £95.42/£170     + 17.50 Sains card    
£4.50/£30 bulk - 
NSD 11/13

TallGirl

Excellent savings rate shows what a diary can do. Sounds like you’ve got your hands full I love animals but that would be way too much for me.