The turtle moves.... slowly

astrocytic_kitten

Thanks both! I don’t want to jinx it, because after the third thing broke I said ‘oh well that’s three things it’ll all be ok now’…and then there was a fourth 😂. But i should have mentioned that it’s all ok now and most importantly the cat is home and on the mend and will be ok, and as long as the kitties are happy and healthy not much else really matters.

So many people in my life seem to be having a very difficult time at the moment - every day seems to bring bad health/relationship/life news. I’m trying to lean into the twinkly light aspects of the season as much as possible to remind myself that darkness doesn’t last.

And yes, even a couple of years ago the past couple of weeks would have had me losing sleep with worry over paying for it all. I’ve come far since I joined MSE! It still feels so surreal, a couple of not unrealistic different turns in my life and I’d be in a very different position.

savingholmes

Ouch to the bills. I averaged £5 for gas a day last month too - I think it will be worse for this cold snap - but hope that it's a short lived one.

astrocytic_kitten

I’ve spent this afternoon sorting out my savings… I now have:

- 1 year fixed ISA for my emergency fund (this is only to be touched in catastrophic emergencies so hopefully locking it away won’t be tempting fate!). Could have got a slightly higher rate not going the Isa route, but I’ve decided to be optimistic and decide the tax benefits of the Isa might apply to me at some point

- 5% linked regular saver to bank account - this was already set up and I use it for the home sinking fund 

- 2.5% easy access saver for money I’m saving for flat work in the next year or two, plus vet sinking fund. I’ve got a monthly standing order going to this account - looked into options for a second regular saver for this but it got complicated so decided to stick with this, not least because it gives me a month’s worth of living expenses instant access.

I also have a couple of instant savers attached to my bank account that I use for pots that don’t really ever go high enough to make it worth the extra faff of having them somewhere else for interest. Ideally I’d like to change my spending bank account one day to one of the new app based ones that have lots of virtual pots, I just never seem to get round to it and I do fine day to day with the help of ynab. 

Still have a mountain of financial admin to do, but at least I’ve ticked this one off the list!

savingholmes

Great progress...

I did a bit of budgeting yesterday. Good to finish the year all straight 

astrocytic_kitten

Happy new year all! I wasn't going to bother with a financial roundup this year, but checked a couple of the YNAB averages and before I knew it the spreadsheet was out and the colour coding was happening. Here's the monthly averages on discretionary spending for 2022 (2021 figure in brackets):

• Food, household: 148.21 (120.02)
• Cat food and litter: 75.66 (47.45)
• Toiletries: 11.45 (12.48)
• Meds, vitamins: 18.17 (21.66)
• Books: 25.62 (16.31)
• Plants: 23.66 (25.83)
• Yoga: 10.36 (39.05)
• Clothes: 87.49 (40.07)
• Home stuff: 54.02 (24.38)

Well! Toiletries, meds, and plants are all slightly down. Yoga is very down, but that isn't a good thing - my online class was cancelled and I've struggled to find a replacement so went for months without doing any (I need the actual live class to make me do it).

Food is up but I can cope with that. Cat food etc is way up but then cat food prices have rocketed and I don't plan to change their food or litter brands to something cheaper unless I'm really struggling. They've done very well in presents of dreamies from various people this Christmas so that will probably last them for the whole of 2023 at least!

Books: increased... I did reduce the number of unread books on my kindle this year (now below 200!) and I'm a heavy library user but I also buy a lot of books. Will once again aim to get kindle unread books down in 2023 

Home stuff: doubled, but I moved home so it was always going to be higher this year. And this is a bit of a finger in the air figure anyway - the true one will be eye wateringly high as this doesn't include furniture (bought second hand where could), appliances, work done on flat, etc etc etc

Clothes: I knew I'd spent more this year but was still surprised how much it added up to. It's the most I've spent on clothes since I had my LBM and I'm always mindful that this is a potential danger area for me. I've continued to keep a list of all the discretionary type purchases I've made throughout the year - looking back, I've bought a LOT of wool and warm stuff: new home is notably colder than old home! Two huge cosy thick wool jumpers that I've lived in for almost the entire year bar a couple of months in the summer, fleece lined leggings, thin wool jumpers to use as an extra layer, sheepskin slippers.... plus a lot of underwear, socks, and some summer tops as all mine are now too small. I've tried to shop ethically and sustainably where I can so while the jumpers especially were pricey, their cost per wear must be pennies by now as I basically have them on rotation and they're so warm. 

Going through my clothing list and picking out the things that in retrospect I could have done without was a very interesting exercise: I've spent around £90 over the year on clothes that I'm slightly meh about and didn't really need to buy. They still get worn but will probably make it into a charity shop bag in future declutterings. Interestingly, this is mostly things around the £9 spot that I bought in a sale or to bring postage up for free delivery etc. On the other hand, the most expensive single item of clothing was a £93.50 wool jumper that has been worn much more (and will last much longer) than any of the £9 'bargains' I could have done without so was a better buy despite being more than I've ever spent on a jumper before. I have assurances the sheep that provided the wool were extremely happy sheep though!

I guess I'll always be a work in progress on clothes. For 2023 I'm going to aim to not have any cheap buys that I end up not loving and would have been better off not spending on. Ideally no expensive buys I don't love either Wildly overambitious, but we'll see how I do! And I'd like to bring the total amount on clothes down a fair bit - other than needing some knee high socks I'm now pretty well stocked for warm clothes and that seems to take care of 10 months of the year, so we'll see.

So my very rough plan for 2023 is to not go higher on any of these categories, ideally cut clothing and home spends in half, and maybe trim elsewhere a little bit if possible. 

savingholmes

Happy New Year. 

You've done well keeping track of spend by category. I fall short there.

Merlin's_Beard

Happy new year!

Which places do you go to look for ethical clothes? I need to lean more in that direction but I get really confused over which brands are actually ethical, which are show-ethical for the marketing, and then which are ethical and actually good quality.

astrocytic_kitten

Merlin's_Beard said:

Happy new year!

Which places do you go to look for ethical clothes? I need to lean more in that direction but I get really confused over which brands are actually ethical, which are show-ethical for the marketing, and then which are ethical and actually good quality.

It’s a minefield! And I have some experience in sustainability and it’s still a minefield, greenwashing is rife, anyone can call themselves sustainable, there’s about a million different ways you can or can’t be ethical. You can have extremely eco friendly fabrics but use sweatshop labour, for instance. And even within the industry there’s tons of disagreement - some guides or places won’t consider wool sustainable because it’s from an animal, but as long as the sheep are well taken care of I’m ok with that. 

My amazing big cosy jumpers came from Finisterre, they mostly do outdoorsy stuff (and I’m very much not an outdoorsy person) but it’s good quality and they have great sales. The jumpers do bobble a lot (apparently this because they’re pure wool, blending with manmade fabric would stop it but then blended fabrics are near impossible to recycle which is another thing to consider 🙄) but anyway, they feel like a big hug and I’m ok with debobbling every so often. Rapuni is another small brand that does basics, I have a couple of summer T-shirts from there. I also have some basic tops and leggings from Thought clothing that are much thicker cotton than you get most places nowadays - most of their stuff really isn’t my style though. I haven’t bought anything from People Tree recently but I have some of their stuff that’s a decade old and still going strong. I keep on seeing Seasalt mentioned as ethical too but haven’t looked into it, but I do really want one of their big cosy waterproof coats when my current one wears out.

Finding ethical + affordable + fits well + your particular style is a real challenge, I’ve only needed casual type basics in the past couple of years and I’ve had success with that. I really don’t know what I’d do if I was still going into the office and needing businessy clothes. For starting points I like the moralfibres blog which covers more than just clothes. I also used Goodonyou.eco which has a brand directory when I was trying to find new brands. 

astrocytic_kitten

savingholmes said:

Happy New Year. 

You've done well keeping track of spend by category. I fall short there.

Thanks SH, I really don’t know what I’d do without YNAB. Along with this forum I think it’s the one thing keeping me on track financially and not spiralling into old habits 

Merlin's_Beard

astrocytic_kitten said:

Merlin's_Beard said:

Happy new year!

Which places do you go to look for ethical clothes? I need to lean more in that direction but I get really confused over which brands are actually ethical, which are show-ethical for the marketing, and then which are ethical and actually good quality.

It’s a minefield! And I have some experience in sustainability and it’s still a minefield, greenwashing is rife, anyone can call themselves sustainable, there’s about a million different ways you can or can’t be ethical. You can have extremely eco friendly fabrics but use sweatshop labour, for instance. And even within the industry there’s tons of disagreement - some guides or places won’t consider wool sustainable because it’s from an animal, but as long as the sheep are well taken care of I’m ok with that. 

My amazing big cosy jumpers came from Finisterre, they mostly do outdoorsy stuff (and I’m very much not an outdoorsy person) but it’s good quality and they have great sales. The jumpers do bobble a lot (apparently this because they’re pure wool, blending with manmade fabric would stop it but then blended fabrics are near impossible to recycle which is another thing to consider 🙄) but anyway, they feel like a big hug and I’m ok with debobbling every so often. Rapuni is another small brand that does basics, I have a couple of summer T-shirts from there. I also have some basic tops and leggings from Thought clothing that are much thicker cotton than you get most places nowadays - most of their stuff really isn’t my style though. I haven’t bought anything from People Tree recently but I have some of their stuff that’s a decade old and still going strong. I keep on seeing Seasalt mentioned as ethical too but haven’t looked into it, but I do really want one of their big cosy waterproof coats when my current one wears out.

Finding ethical + affordable + fits well + your particular style is a real challenge, I’ve only needed casual type basics in the past couple of years and I’ve had success with that. I really don’t know what I’d do if I was still going into the office and needing businessy clothes. For starting points I like the moralfibres blog which covers more than just clothes. I also used Goodonyou.eco which has a brand directory when I was trying to find new brands. 

Thank you! That's some really good starting points. Thankfully I don't need office wear so I mostly live in casual anyway (have uniform for work)