In years to come I will laugh

beanielou

Amazingly awesome

flyingscotsman67

Two months on from my first post and a couple of weeks since my last post and it feels right that i give an update! Like most people it feels like all of the bills are going up in price- first the mortgage, then the electricity and now the home insurance following the flood claim over Christmas! That said some of this is offset with the reduction in mileage for work, the reduction in credit card interest and the massive savings in me not boozing- more on that later!

Our daughter has been home for the weekend which has been lovely, she has been great company, Son is still doing great in USA- I had a great conversation with him last night about money and how he needs to focus on getting a p/t job when he gets back for the simmer and forget plans for a lads holiday . The penny seems to have dropped that he needs to earn in 6 weeks at both summer and Christmas what he plans to spend the other 40 weeks in USA! Thankfully he is not a big spender and pretty much only spends on nights out socialising and comfortably living on £20 a week. We pay for his food and he gets all his accommodation and bills in scholarship. Between flights there and back+ food + insurance we are paying 7-8k a year so really cant afford to help any further. We are also paying 5k a year for daughters accommodation- and here was me thinking their time in nappies was the expensive time!!

My wife and I do have healthy salaries and I do have periods  of thinking that if we had sorted the money earlier we could do more for them! However I then have logical moments were I think we/they have never wanted for anything and if we were to help them more we wouldn't really be helping them in the long run. Truth is that they are both doing great and learning better habits than i ever did and they have great opportunities. There is a lesson there for me in worrying about stuff that i don't need to worry about.

I am off work this week and catching up on some work around the house, painting and clearing the garden. All the time i am noticing how my mindset used to work- I didn't think it was fair to budget for things like paint, or petrol for the lawnmower as there was no pleasure in that!. Therefore, expenses like that came out of the magic money tree (credit card). It isnt any fun taking petrol to cut the grass out the weekly spending but I don't fancy trying to steal it either so needs must.

I still have some of cc balance on interest deals- so hoping for some 0% offers when all the balances (from recent moves work through). I will be paying about £200 interest in Feb which is a lot better than the £900 in Dec- but still annoying. I continue to follow the DMP discussion closely on these boards, just in case we need to go that route, but think we can continue as we are hopefully. My wife is in the game re the extra hours at work and is still getting lots and asking for more.. This is a god send and giving us an extra £500 a month for now. 

The weekly spend we allow ourselves continues to manage us comfortably and most weeks we have money left over- so that goes to our emergency pot for now. When we reach £3k - that money can go to extra debt repayment. 

Later this month my son has a meeting to ask for an increase in his scholarship= fingers crossed it could really help- I dont want him to feel pressured to get it but also think its great life skills for him in having the conversation!!

I am still not drinking (42 days) and according to my app i have saved just short of £500 in booze!! Crazy mental!! Where is that money? Clearly a large part of it would have gone on credit cards one way or another- says a lot!!. So, clearly I cant afford to drink as I did before in terms of financially, mentally or physically. I am still busying myself with the running and getting into this nicely- ran 8.5 miles last night which was incredible!

Overall things are going good- it can feel a slog at times and like it would be good to not have to think about money but much more often I feel grateful that i am thinking about money now rather than being unconsciously incompetent with my money. Now i feel consciously incompetent with a goal to being consciously competent. I just need to stay consistent and on plan in my budgeting and health. Thanks again for reading and taking an interest on my musings!!

lucielle

Hi, you mentioning petrol for your lawnmower set my alarm bells ringing.  They changed the ethanol content last year so don't use normal unleaded in in (if you do it will run hot and kill your engine, same for strimmers and other small engined items)  You need to use super unleaded with an additive (you'll have to buy that separately) added to it.  Alternatively there is a ready mixed fuel called Aspen which keeps fresh for 5 years.  Hope this helps, could be cheaper than having to buy a new machine
L

dprovan

Thanks Lucille, I didn't know that! Good to know - ill look into that some more as you say i don't need the expense of replacing a lawnmower

dprovan

I listened to a podcast when running tonight- it was the diary of a CEO with Jimmy Carr. There were a number of fascinating conversations about happiness, purpose, contentment, motivation etc. It was thought provoking for me on so many ways. At one point Carr shared a quote about the modest individual saying to the wealthy billionaire who was buying the flashings of income I have what you never will "enough". He also said there is nothing you can buy today which will make you as happy as it does today in 5 years time. Really got me thinking about what is enough! Should be to be safe, warm, not hungry and enough in reserves to give some security. I wonder what others define as enough?

flyingscotsman67

I decided to look at our mortgage- we have been on a great deal of 0.99% above BOE base rate for the last number of years which has served us well with low rates. With two rises in the base rate the past three months I thought it wise to have a look and see what is available. I was delighted to be offered a fixed rate of 1.74 for 7 years with my own bank (no fees/no credit check). It seems that everyone is predicting higher interest rates for the next while- but the way i look at it they can only go down 0.75% from what i am fixed at but can go much higher so prepared to lock that in. Quite exciting that by the time this deal ends - 7 years- I will only have 12 months of mortgage left.

Ive been thinking about money and the future a lot lately. I am a number person- quite ironic for someone so bad with budgeting! So I spend lots of time forecasting how many months ill be paying x- and what this means for what i owe in 12 months/3 years- what ill be able to save, how much my pension will be, what ill have spare each month. I have been checking balances and whether there are 0% deals almost daily. I think i need to simplify things for a while- maybe getting into a habit of sticking to the weekly spends and the basics (no cc spends) and review numbers once a month, otherwise I risk getting obsessive and i need to live my life also. Another downside is that i have been wishing my life away- "in 4 years ill be debt free, in 10 years ill retire- ill then be 60 etc etc...." and all of a sudden i am feeling really old. Whereas when i think back 10 years ago and what was happening it feels a lifetime ago and I feel young again! 

Anyway enough of my ramblings- a good day and time spent well- off now to do some more powerwashing on the last couple of days of my leave.

Humdinger1

@flyingscotsman67 just wondering how you are? Very much enjoying your diary.  Look forward to hearing latest news Humdinger 

beanielou

Hope the sun is shining for you today 

flyingscotsman67

Hi, thanks for the messages @Humdinger1 and @beanielou- everything is continuing to go great!

Lots of balance transfers back and forward and back again- trying to get as much of the debt on 0%. I haven't lowered the total I am paying on interest as much as I had wanted, but I have protected us from any 0% deals ending in the next couple of months so that's great.

We have managed to increase our income this past few weeks- selling a few things on eBay and the flying Scotswoman has been picking up extra shifts. We are sticking to our budgets really well! Not one takeaway this year!! We used to get them every week! I got a spice set for christmas and i have been making homemade curries every week and we enjoy them as much as takeaway!

I am going to update the totals at the end of the month- so i have a consistent number. But we have added to savings and brought debt down a bit more so still heading in the right direction.

We had to pay some more unexpected expenses- but again we have been able to flex our budget to cover these. Got a letter today from a credit card to say they had got my interest wrong and would be repaying £360 into my account!! What a result that is!!

The biggest difference is the mindset shift- I keep noticing the things we would buy before that DIDNT COUNT from a budgeting perspective. As an example lawn feed. I like the grass to be green and look healthy, but who budgets for lawn feed- you dont eat into your weekly spend for lawn feed- that goes on the credit card. In the new world where we have to decide if we want lawn feed or to add to our pots- its a no brainer - who cares about lawn feed!!! There have been so many of those incidents where we would have spent before... literally dozens of them.

As for my general wellbeing- i am still running and loving it- up to 20+ miles a week, lost a stone since start of Jan and feeling generally happier overall.

The best thing i did was share the total with the flying Scotswoman- we both knew there was an issue but the minute we knew the total together- it became a shared focus so i no longer have the pressure of conversations about big spends etc. I think deep down i dont want to disappoint and now we are both aware of the priorties those chats just dont have air to breath.

All good here- thanks for the interest folks- speak soon!

Chrystal

Things sound great... I'm so glad that everything is falling into place for you. Keep it up and reap the benefits!