The turtle moves.... slowly

Merlin's_Beard

astrocytic_kitten said:

I also have a terrible 99p kindle book habit, despite reading a lot of library ebooks, having an audiobook subscription, and already having an entire shelf of unread paperbacks at home. Not to mention the TWO HUNDRED unread books on my kindle, which is a lot of 99p deals 🤦‍♀️

In my defence, the vast majority of the kindle books were bought in the mindlessly racking up debt days. I have a much better ratio of actually reading the books I’ve bought in the past few years. I’d really like to get the unread number down because it’s embarrassing, but there’s so many other books I want to read more, and so many new books I want to read coming out all the time…

I've got no such defence for my 200 unread books! 

astrocytic_kitten

So what I’m taking from this sample size of 3 is that hundreds of unread books are not a weird, shameful thing, but instead totally normal. Excellent!

redofromstart

Sample of 4, 5 if you include mr redo who also has unread 99p kindle books.  We tend to buy things we will want to re-read at some point if not now. Classic sci fi (chyrsalids) being a good example.

astrocytic_kitten

Sample of 5 is a pretty robust representation as far as I’m concerned, normal it is then! 

Came on to report that I have now paid 5% off the mortgage! Very pleased to be ending the year on that.

If I can find another £340 for the mortgage over the course of 2023 then I’ll have paid off 10% by the end of the year. Things will be fairly tight next year, but 340 seems like a doable target to push for and I do like my nice round numbers, so I’ll aim for that.

astrocytic_kitten

It occurred to me to use the MSE overpayment calculator to check the OP/savings thing, and I’ll be better off putting the OP money in savings rather than overpaying now.

However! I think I’ll ignore the financially sensible thing to do and OP anyway. It just feels psychologically more comfortable to see the mortgage coming down, and I also have a slight fear that I’ll either lose or spend all the money in savings 🤣  

I could do with properly looking at savings for next year, at the moment everything is in a Marcus account which has a decent rate so it’s not an urgent problem but I could definitely make it work a bit harder by putting some of the emergency fund in a notice account or something. My job makes investing a bit more difficult than it is for most people, but I’ve been meaning to sort a basic s&s isa passive tracker for a couple of years so I should sort out the extra paperwork to actually get it done.

Maybe if I make those my 2023 financial goals, I’ll at least get them done by the end of next year…

LadyWithAPlan

astrocytic_kitten said:

I’m slightly inundated with balance transfer and credit card and loan offers at the moment, kind of ironic since when I was paying off debt and trying to consolidate or balance transfer nobody would touch me 😂 out of interest I did a pre-check on a card offer my bank sent today for 24 months at 0% purchase, they’d give me a 7k limit, which is around what I’m hoping to save up over the next couple of years for some more flat work. 

If I was feeling more secure in my health and my job I’d be very tempted to take it now, get the work done in the next few months, and pay it off at 0% over the next couple of years. And with inflation who knows how much the same job will cost by the time I have the money. I’m definitely not going for it though - partly because I need a break from the upheaval of work getting done (especially planning/organising/sorting people to do the work) and partly because I’d just lie awake and stress about not being able to pay it back with the way the economy is. A sensible and risk adverse financial decision, who’d have thought it 😂

Well done, yes risk adverse and waiting til we have saved up for what we want really does keep stress levels down especially in this COL crisis. 

savingholmes

Well done on the mortgage clearance - that's good going. Doesn't seem 5 mins since you moved in.

astrocytic_kitten

I have had a slightly calamitous time since I last posted and after a series of domestic/family/vet disasters I am now about 4.5k down on where I was a couple of weeks ago. Trying to focus on the positives and be grateful I had the money and this will not be a complete financial disaster…it is, after all, what insurance and emergency funds are for.

Also spending £5 a day on gas at the moment 🫣 I’m in a cold part of the country and that’s keeping the room I spend the most time in at 17 all day, plus wrapping up in multiple wool and thermal layers, using a heated throw off and on, and sometimes turning the heat up to 18. It’s not ideal but not much to be done about it right now so I’m trying to be grateful I have working heating and can afford to use it, especially as my health can’t cope with any lower temperatures. And the cold snap won’t last forever. Energy efficiency improvements are definitely in the long term plan…I’m also dreaming of lottery wins and passivhauses 😂

In not entirely unrelated news, I’m making a big effort to pick up my lapsed daily meditation habit. Zen is needed 🤣

Merlin's_Beard

oh no, I hope everything resolved as well as it could do.

As you say, this is why emergency funds and insurance exist and you've probably been able to make choices you wouldn't have been able to without them.

redofromstart

All sounds difficult. Hope things calm down (and warm up a little) soon