Learning to walk before I run

edinburgher

Not a very healthy day but a fun one today

Ice cream for elevenses, trip to the sweet shop, wasted some money at the arcade where a lovely Dutch? couple handed me a huge stack of tickets for DD1 that boosted her prize count somewhat, fish and chips at the UK's 3rd best chip shop (according to one competition), a lovely walk by the coast, a play on the grass and then home to chill out in the garden. Bliss! We even timed it really well and as we were driving out of Largs, huge queues of traffic were forming from all the cars trying to get in.

After that I updated some financials on spreadsheets, cleaned out the coffee grinder and coffee maker and have stuck on some laundry.

A great weekend, we got very lucky with the weather. Tomorrow's plan is largely relaxing, a bit of housework and our first BBQ of the year.

edinburgher

Urgh - woken up at 06:30 to look after DD2 who had already been up for an hour

I've emptied the dishwasher, taken out the recycling, put on 2 loads of laundry and tidied the kitchen since then. Next plan is to have a quick shower before writing a shopping list, getting groceries and barbecuing this afternoon. Unfortunately neighbours are also drying their laundry outside and will likely leave it there all day (coinciding with whenever we barbecue). I used to give them the heads up on the odd occasion we used the barbecue but have since stopped, as they always say not to bother (while passive-aggressively rushing their laundry in the moment we start)

I also ordered a couple of birthday presents (we have 3 family birthdays in June), fully covered by a £140 big river voucher we got for opening pet insurance policies via a MSE offer.

£3.72 paid into my SIPP (£4.65 after tax relief). I have been Tilly tidying my personal spends account, £3.32 is now the lowest payment I make. It used to be £3, then £3.30 to reflect 10% inflation, then rounded up to £3.32 because I always make payments that are divisible by 4 to make sure I maximise tax relief. Whatever gets me through the day...

savingholmes

Great result on the free voucher.

Glad the weather has helped make the weekend a positive one.

LOL at the £3.72 rationale.

edinburgher

Botheration! After 38 months of behaving itself, my work laptop appears to be gubbed, a failed update that it can't resolve by itself. I may have to go into the office for a dreaded rebuild

Not something that I mention very often, but we have continued the monthly payments into ISAs for DD1 and DD2 (targeting the expected parental contribution by the age they go to university (if they go to university)). I use the FV formula to make sure we're on the right track, with an expected interest rate of 3.5%. I think this is relatively conservative and periods of slower growth are nicely offset by cash gifts from grandparents etc. that get lumped in with the monthly payments. £44 for DD1 this morning, £27 for DD2. Mrs E is responsible for DD2 as DD2 will be 18 the year I hope to retire and this conflicted with my 1 fund ISA portfolio

edinburgher

No sign of IT calling me back, so largely doing the laundry and twiddling my thumbs.

£4 paid into my SIPP from my personal spends account (£5 after tax relief)

savingholmes

Irritating on the laptop - but nice to have a break too.

Well done on the kid ISAs. Think about the cost of driving lessons in your planning too... I wish I'd done what you are... 

edinburgher

Not a good day. Swapped my NWD so that I could look after DD2 and overdid it, feel like poop Woke up typically early, went for a run during her first nap (exhausted) and she only took one nap, so very grumpy from about mid-afternoon onwards. Several whiskeys were drunk this evening... Still, she was happier with me than she is at her crappy nursery (only 10 sessions left) and we survived. All laundry done, house is nice and clean and everything's ready for tomorrow morning.

Have finalised the month end spreadsheets as June starts tomorrow and I am absolutely mortified to see that we spent £1,200 on groceries during May Granted, I'm guessing £500 of that was the 1st birthday party for c. 25 people but still... My first month of next to no virement was very difficult, my endorphins were severely depleted and only good healthy exercise was left to replace them.

Focus on the positives and all that - we're currently adding £600+ to our EF each month and nobody died

I have topped up my personal spends account for presents this evening (Valentine's, Mother's Day, Anniversary, Mrs E birthday and Christmas) and paid £4.68 into my SIPP from my personal spends account (£5.85 after tax relief). I was also pleased to see that our energy bill will be in credit as of tomorrow, spends definitely falling (particularly gas, down 5% on last month and c. 60% on two months ago).

June tomorrow!

savingholmes

Ouch, ouch, ouch to the food bill. At least the party food element was a one off. Is there anything you'd have done differently if you'd realised how much you were due to spend in advance? Just a thought before the next birthday.... 

Impressive savings - even if you were sad at no pension virement.

edinburgher

Having updated our budget and NW spreadsheets for last month, I think it's fair to say that it was a month of two halves!

Our spending was absolutely dreadful and we either added to our EF or re-categorised existing cash as part of the EF on several occasions. This created a considerable drag on our "walking around money" and the cash figure dropped quite a bit (as cash is moving off the main balance sheet).On this front, our "strict" NW only increased by less than £1,000.

On the other hand, we both earned another year of state pension contributions and my DB pensions were indexed for inflation. This added c. £67,000 to our overall NW, which feels like lottery money. I suppose it just illustrates how valuable these forms of pension are?

FWIW, NW including state pensions is now c. £780k, strict NW (cash, DC pensions only) c. £128k. Can't really put a figure against how long it will be before we are anywhere near FIRE, need to rebuild that formula and index our current spending, which has gone up considerably since last year.

• £20.64 paid into ISA
• £20.04 paid into LISA (£25.05 after bonus)
• £4 paid into SIPP (£5 after tax relief, personal spends)
• £162.35 received from Feed in Tariff
  

Suffolk_lass

I used to love going to Nardinis in Largs!  A real sense of occasion in the ice cream parlour bit.

It doesn't help what you are actually spending but I categorise my grocery-related spend into: 

• groceries (fruit, veg, dairy etc fresh edibles and SM toiletries), 
• Stores (things like cleaning materials, tins and other shelf items not immediately opened), these are normally only on offer now - it took a while to work out how many to buy to always get them reduced, and our consumption rate so that I am not paying the SM to store their stuff in my "warehouse"
• DD & subscriptions - milk (doorstep delivery to deter me from the temptation of the SM!, and big river things on subscription), 
• Pets and bees (sugar for the latter)
• Treats and entertainment - I include anything naughty not necessary from the SM - typically; ice cream, chocolate, crisps, alcohol, together with any cafe or pub visits. 

It is rather sobering when this last category outpaces the food we eat for the month and just makes us much more conscious of what goes where. It also contributed to my journey from profligate spendthrift to a much more frugal and conscious approach that has made little difference to our quality of life (there are always no-compromise things) and reduce our spending from IRO £800 per month to about £250 on average (including inflation). Admittedly I make a lot of soup for lunches (homegrown and wonky reg are ideal) with HM sourdough (I buy my Italian flour in 25kg sacks and it is almost £2 a kilo now, including duties and delivery), but I always did do packed lunches to offset the fantastic coffee I bought on my way in to the City.