Five Year Fix, Five Year Plan

Merlin's_Beard

Bulbs haven't arrived yet, but done a few hours in the front garden and pulled weeds out from around the hedge. Also seen my first birds in the back garden - a couple of pied wagtails. With bare clay soil and just a few weeds and grass poking through they looked pretty disappointed, but hopefully I can make it a bit nicer for them in the not too distant future.

MSE wise in the doldrums of midmonth.

Have received my work secret santa assignment so spending the afternoon watching the F1 and the Crown and browsing gift sites hoping inspiration will strike.

savingholmes

As long as you don't pick up expensive tastes...

I am sure you can make your garden more fun quite quickly 

savingholmes

Sorry the first sentence was about your TV watching and Santa 🎅

Merlin's_Beard

Haha I'm sure it could just as easily be applied to the garden too, @savingholmes !

Luckily work secret santa has a price limit so I'm fairly restricted on budget there.

savingholmes

My fave was 'red, round and nifty for less than £1.50'.

A long time ago now but red Pr1ngl3s made it into the mix for that one.

Merlin's_Beard

Bulbs arrived - bit of a detour to pick them up yesterday but glad I did because the weather's held and I've managed to plant them. Just need to wait now to see how many survive until spring, everything wanted to be planted in nice well drained soil and has got shoved into the claggy newbuild clay so they'll have to fend for themselves!

Was going to look at sheds/storage at local garden centres but by the time I'd done all the rest of my jobs it was starting to get overcast and dark (at 3pm! I miss summer) so I'll put that off until another day.

Slow cooker's on, cup of tea made. Time to relax then.

savingholmes

I'm sure plenty of the bulbs will come up regardless.

Slow cooker tea - what was it?

Merlin's_Beard

savingholmes said:

I'm sure plenty of the bulbs will come up regardless.

Slow cooker tea - what was it?

. An aubergine and chickpea stew. It was solidly okay - perfectly edible but won't be rushing to make it again. I'm trying to up my vegetarian repertoire but I do struggle to find good stuff for the slow cooker - it's just a lot easier to make a nice meaty thing in there!

Merlin's_Beard

End of month update!

surveys: £100.74 - mainly a YLive payout adding to that
cashback: £78.42 - mainly energy bill govt refund
interest: £2.43.

£400 has gone to pension.

£250 to regular savers for the mortgage

£503 to the emergency fund, so that now stands at £11,118,11. Hopefully should hit £12,000 by the end of the year.

£100 spent on the garden, but mainly tools, and bulbs. So money well spent. Also spent money in Black Friday sales, but mainly things that were on my wish list for ages and were a genuine saving, or things I really needed (stocked up on Hemp handcream from the BS at 25% off because after washing my hands every 15 minutes throughout the day they're withered like a crusty old apple)

Pensions have broached £40,000 for the first time! Feels like a bit of a landmark, even if it's an arbitrary marker and it may well dip back under next month. It took me 5 years to get to £20k, then it's taken me 2 years to get to £40k. So hopefully the increased contributions will continue to speed up progress.

Liquid net worth now £-201,520 (cash and pensions, minus student loan and mortgage). Just steadily making gains here, mainly thanks to the pension ticking up.

Merlin's_Beard

Looking forward to December:

I did get some overtime!  I won't get a payslip until the last day of the month, but the money's arrived in my account.

I need to look at my bank accounts - my main is a 123, which made sense when I was storing a house deposit in there, but not any more (especially as my emergency fund is elsewhere).

I think I probably need to look at switching to the new 123Lite replacement.

And I need to look at it in tandem with getting a new Visa/Mastercard rewards card as my Amazon card has just closed.

Reduced my gas/elec DD to £187. SP think they want £195 at the minute but it comes down every time I give them a reading, so we'll see who's right in a few months (they give the rebate via a DD so this doesn't include that).

I think I really need to look at my food budget at the end of the year. I haven't hit it at all for a long time, and with food prices rising I think what I was doing in 2020 just isn't realistic for 2023.

Christmas and professional subscriptions are their own category, and they'll be my biggest spends this month so hopefully the rest of my budget will look fairly peaceful.