Mortgage free in Forever Home :-)

KajiKita

Finally dropped below the £27#,###K level this week! 😊

In the midst of a horrid work week, this has lifted me 👏😊

KK

KajiKita

It’s been an interesting week hasn’t it, with the autumn statement bringing lovely news about stealth income tax rises, slow down in the housing market knocking 9% off the value of houses by autumn 2024 (just as we want to remortgage), higher food prices, etc etc …..

I ‘treated myself’ to a copy of YNAB (funny how ones definition of a treat shifts so fundamentally after some time on here! 😂)  and have been reading it this week. To be fair, it has been the perfect antidote to all the gloomy news and one thing I will do today is go back over my budget and see where I can cut again, that isn’t aligned to where I want to get to in the future. I also now fully understand the importance of being one month ahead of paycheque in terms of funds, even if I can’t see how to get there yet …..

My car seems to be using less fuel since the clutch change (is that even possible?) but it wasn’t a full week last week (I filled up some time over the weekend, not the Friday as is my usual routine) so I will see if that is still the case after a ‘normal’ week. 

QM33 has been a hard slog this week. Loads of declines and fails part way through or at the end of surveys. Struggled to get to £10.24, but got there and sent off as OP. 😊👍

I am getting very fed up with my daily food, so have made the decision to eat a maximum of once per week in the work subsided canteen to ring the changes a bit. I’m too tired and stressed atm to deal with it properly and find other options I can organise. This task will go on my list for looking at over Christmas.

Christmas shopping is going slow and steady. My spending is more under control and I’m tracking it. It is also helpful recording every present as I find / order them as I do to start fretting that I don’t have something for so and so, ordering / buying more things, as was my pattern in previous years. I am being more conscious in my general spending - there is a chapel fund raiser in my village every Christmas. I normally go and ‘spend’ quite a lot on stuff I don’t really want. This time I donated some good quality items for the white elephant / raffle that I can’t face eb@ying and didn’t actually give them any money. 

I was having a look at V1nted the other night for NYDJs (mine are getting really worn, I want a new pair, but they are so expensive!). Think this needs more time spent on it - both in terms of sourcing cheaper clothes for me and clearing out some of my too small stuff, turning it into revenue for savings / OPs. Again, a Christmas task. 

KK

KajiKita

Made a batch of rice ‘n beans - gussied up with a bay leaf in the rice and some thyme in the mushrooms. Be interesting to see if that is detectable after freezing and microwave reheating 😊

Time to do the weekly £cial update and see if there is anything else to trim from the budget. 

KK

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, rice and beans sounds tasty 😊

Is it YNAB the software you've bought, or the book? I've not read the book, so if it's that, do report back!

Don't blame you for wanting to keep food simple for now. I too am a bit bored with my usual round of things I resort to (I won't even call them recipes). I did buy a cook book in a charity shop the other day, not something I usually bother with but we'll see what happens!

KajiKita

Cheery_Daff said:

Ooh, rice and beans sounds tasty 😊

Is it YNAB the software you've bought, or the book? I've not read the book, so if it's that, do report back!

Don't blame you for wanting to keep food simple for now. I too am a bit bored with my usual round of things I resort to (I won't even call them recipes). I did buy a cook book in a charity shop the other day, not something I usually bother with but we'll see what happens!

It's the book, Cheery. I find I absorb ideas better that way and tbh, what I need is a shift of framing / understanding / philosophy rather than any further subscriptions!   

It's an easy read and there are quite a few things i am going to lift from it to use to work on my finances going forwards.
One being, always having funds to pay next month's liabilities so you aren't absolutely dependent on next month's pay (which I think I am atm),
having the flex in your savings pots so you can shuffle funds around between allocations as needs arise (which I think you do already?),
having pots for long term goals (so for me these will be garden structure related),
that you are NOT failing if you have to rejig a budget - you are learning more and adapting,
get rid of debt asap(!!!)
measure every spend against "Is this how I want my money to work for me?" - this is different for every person and may well change over time - for me it is very much focused on paying down the mortgage and beautifying our home  
and various other things that I can't remember off the top of my head. 

KK

KajiKita

I have completed the various trackings and shuffling arounds ….

TT’d £2.20 from current and food accounts. Moved the £50 cheque refund for the noticeboard from the parish council into my savings account (and torn up the hard copy cheque) and recorded the monthly interest from At0m in my savings tracker (£17.94). This means that my actual savings are at £4,985 - soooo close to my first £5K target  

I have reviewed my outgoings but there is nothing else I want to cut atm ….

However, one thing I have realised is that the format I have this in is not great. It’s a big muddle of guaranteed monthly outgoings, allocations of what I might spend on various categories and what I have actually spent. It’s quite difficult to see what is going on. I will reformat this at some point. Again might be a Christmas job, or possibly before. 

I also have a hard copy payment advice from work for £570 for expenses but I’m not sure which ones are on the company Am3x and which ones I have paid for on my cards, so tomorrow’s job will be to log into the expenses system and see which is which …. It doesn’t matter too much that I can’t action this today - I have until 12th December to pay the Am3x so I have some time to sort this, and although they advised the payment as being dated 18.11.22 it hasn’t actually appeared in my account yet ….. I still HATE the expenses system!! <growl> 

KK

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, so close to savings target there! Well done!! 

Thanks for the book report 😁 I've been using YNAB for years (since before it was a subscription, although I do subscribe now). Some sensible advice in there for anyone to use with any system I think!

KajiKita

I splashed a little bit last night. I am trying to make a teeny, tiny, fabric representation of our house for the village wall hanging project. This involves working on pieces of fabric about 1/4 the size of a 5p with single strand embroidery thread and my eyes are STRUGGLING!! I have ordered myself a hands-free, battery powered, daylight, swan neck LED magnifying lamp (£21.99) which will make the process so much easier! This will also allow me to work on my other crafting projects (tapestry, embroidery etc.) through the winter and I think will be much better for my soul than just surfing FB all evening in front of telly that hubby wants to watch .... I have been wanting to get back in to my crafting for ages and this feels like a positive thing to do for ME!   

Hubby said that he may well 'borrow' it for his model making as well - we'll see ....   

Discovered that the best CBD tablet (to help me sleep) supplier can be accessed through TCB!  So have restocked with them. 

In passing I have discovered that my quality engineer, who I have been racking my brains for a Christmas present for, (I don't know her that well yet) loves cross-stitch but hasn't done one for ages. I have one skulling around at home that I will never do (cross stitch does my brain in!!  ) which will be perfect as a present for her. I will buy a little one for her to practice on first (preferably of a bulldog - like her dog) and it will cost me barely anything!   

KK   

KajiKita

Qm33 has been a little less awkward this week. £11.38 to OP ❤️

KK 

KajiKita

Feeling virtuous and energised - have already cleared and cleaned out the cellar fridge! 😊 Well chuffed as that is a job I have been wanting to do for a week or so now.

Another key job that must happen this weekend is scraping the weird, clear, non-water soluble, blobs (tree sap?) off my windscreen and replacing the wiper blades that have been ruined by the blobs! 

Hoping to spend some time in the garden, lifting the last of the dahlias for drying, removing the last of the summer bedding and putting out the bulbs and homegrown spring bedding plants I have ready to go in 😊

KK