Five Year Fix, Five Year Plan

Merlin's_Beard

South_coast said:

I am re-framing your chocolate comments as: 

"From 1 January my body is a temple and no chocolate will be eaten, therefore I am eating it now so it doesn't get wasted" 😀

(That's what I am telling myself about cheese 😳!

 I regularly sacrifice chocolate (and cheese, and biscuits, and cake) to this particular temple, and on a regular basis too. Definitely not a festive thing! 

There's no way on earth I can kid myself about that!

astrocytic_kitten

Merlin's_Beard said:

 I regularly sacrifice chocolate (and cheese, and biscuits, and cake) to this particular temple, and on a regular basis too. Definitely not a festive thing! 

There's no way on earth I can kid myself about that!

They do say eating all food groups regularly is important, and that seems a pretty balanced diet to me! And presumably you spend a lot of time at work on your feet, so really you need the energy…

savingholmes

Love seeing the food we offer ourselves as a sacrifice to our temple!

FlacosFloozie

Right now my body is a temple- old, crumbling and will one day be uneartherd by archaeologists.....

Our work is not conductive to a healthy diet. You run round all day, hit 4.30pp, realise you haven't eaten but there's some thank you chocolates in the back office that will keep you going through evening surgery. You will spend at least one consult discussing healthy nutrition feeling like a total hypocrite as you remeber the fridge is empty but the take away is open.

Merlin's_Beard

FlacosFloozie said:

Right now my body is a temple- old, crumbling and will one day be uneartherd by archaeologists.....

Our work is not conductive to a healthy diet. You run round all day, hit 4.30pp, realise you haven't eaten but there's some thank you chocolates in the back office that will keep you going through evening surgery. You will spend at least one consult discussing healthy nutrition feeling like a total hypocrite as you remeber the fridge is empty but the take away is open.

Were you watching me eat the cake at 5pm? 

Merlin's_Beard

December financial round up:

Extra income:
Surveys: £18 - a bit rubbish, but illness has made me a bit bleugh about this. I'll do better next  month
cashback: £79.25 - mostly energy rebate again. Some amazon vouchers from the amazon mastercard closing.
Interest: £2.22 - just from what's ticking over in my 123

Pension - still above £40,000! Pensions are standing at 118% of December 2021 totals. This will be a loss when you compare to contributions, but, long term picture.

Emergency fund now fully funded at £12,000! Very happy about this.

£188.80 left over - I'll call this the Sort My Home Out Fund. A start!

Liquid net worth £-199.943.93. Under £200,000 -  seems like a milestone to end the year with.

Mortgage stands at £239,520.05. Overpayment fund stands at £500.

Student loan is chugging away at £18,207.09

I think financially I've got to call it a successful year. Finally bought my own place, full safety net in place, long term future being planned for. I don't think I can overemphasise how much of a relief it is to be able to have long term plans in my own home, that I am secure in, and no one can send me a letter asking me to leave in 8 weeks. It still feels a bit like an empty shell at times because there is so much I need to sort for it, and I'm still treating it a bit like a rental property (very scared to put holes in the wall!), but I'm getting there.

South_coast

I would definitely say you've had a successful year 😀! To have moved and got back to a full EF is a brilliant achievement!

I love the idea of the Sort My Home Out fund - sounds much better than my boring "refurb" 🤣!

FlacosFloozie

Happy New Year! I think you've had a brilliant year @Merlin's_beard.

I have a category in YNAB called home maintenance but I may need to pinch 'sort my home out fund

savingholmes

Happy New Year Merlin!

You are doing amazing. I'd love an EF of £12K!

Good luck for this year's goals.

Merlin's_Beard

Happy new year to everyone! I hope everyone has a successful 2023, whatever that means for you.

"Refurb" sounds like I have a plan @South_coast instead of just wandering around wishing I had a garden, a dishwasher, and a coat hook!

Plans for 2023!

1. Sort my home out! Prioritising the emergency fund has meant that I've not really done a lot with anything. I'm going to leave this as really open ended, because it's such a wishy washy thing that I have no idea what I need to do beyond a general idea for most of it. Get quotes for the garden now the e-fund is back up to scratch is step one.

2. Read more books than I buy. I spent £82.63 on these books which isn't bad in the grand scheme of things, and I have a nice system where I get alerts for kindle deals on my want to read list. However. I bought 60 books and read 40 last year. I either need to swap those numbers over or find the key to immortality purely for extra reading time.

I think on the other hand, most of my other financial goals are: loosen up a bit. I've spend most of the last few years being really strict and saving for a deposit, then trying to rebuild the emergency fund, and between pandemic and moving area and the saving I've slowly managed to lose most things outside of work, and that's not great for my mental health and it's not great that I'm quite isolated in my area except for family.

So I need to, within the next few months, re-find 3. a fitness class and 4. a non fitness thing I want to do regularly. Running club is out because I constantly re-injure my bad knees and spend weeks/months sidelined, so will look for a yoga/pilates type thing.