Five Year Fix, Five Year Plan

Merlin's_Beard · 30 December 2025 at 3:16PM

For 2026, here's what I want to do:

⭐Buy a car
⭐Go to Sweden for midsummer festival (have booked the time off, will be visiting a friend but not staying with them, so a full cost holiday)
⭐ Maybe travel to see other people again? (TBD, not entirely down to me, Prague has been floated)
⭐Continue board game club, and 2x book clubs
⭐ Write a little more - short stories? Try and submit them
⭐Practice piano (nearly) every day
⭐ Book something for my 40th birthday (Jan 2027) - have a pot in my YNAB for this already
⭐Main bedroom plans: paint it, get a fitted wardrobe. figure out what I'm doing with it (this is a post-car plan)
⭐Date (well, what I actually want is someone beamed into my living room with a pre-existing comfortable relationship, but I begrudgingly accept that I need to leave the house and put in effort to find that). Not with any set limits of what I want to find, because lets not do that, but mindfully putting in time.
⭐Exercise (this has fallen off the wagon BIG time)
⭐Try and improve MH - continue counselling, keep trying to find that elusive balance
⭐finish the year with less undone crafts than I started it with
⭐finish the year with less unread books than I started it with

Continue:
⭐Paying into pension at same rate
⭐Restart the mortgage OP pot once car has been bought
⭐Paying down that mortgage
⭐Reinforce the friendships and relationships I've worked towards in 2025 - arrange to meet up with people, offer to do things with them

Humdinger1 · 30 December 2025 at 3:23PM

@Merlin's_Beard I too have struggled to tell myself that I'm not just a money-making machine! It's finally bedding in at least sometimes because I'm combining paid and voluntary work and it's reframing my self-view. Very impressive achievements in 2025 and I'm sure 2026 will be even better for you. Love Humdinger xx

Merlin's_Beard · 31 December 2025 at 8:48PM

Thanks @Humdinger1 and @rtandon27 !

I think the dropping hours/earning parts of it is as much about mourning the things that I won't be able to do (pay the mortgage off faster, travel more, retire a bit earlier) as much as it is about the dropping hours in itself. And having to pivot plans that were half formed in my head as well.

But also accepting that the journey has to be bearable as well? And that things like travel are never going to be achievable unless I have energy to do them. Waiting to start my life until I retire isn't a realistic goal.

(And I think there's always a nagging thing that I should be doing better than I am - but I have to accept that a) I'm single, so my costs are increased and b) inflation means that the number that somewhere in my head I think is big and should make life easy isn't as big as I actually believe.

And also that by many metrics I'm not doing badly - I have a house, I pay my bills, if I want something I can make it happen.)

So once again it's back to the "I can anything but I can't have everything" - I've had to give up some of those things, and some of those timelines, for my own sake. But it still sort of stings.

Merlin's_Beard · 6 January at 1:26PM

Hmm.. dentist this morning and put the brave girl pants on and asked about invisalign - have an appointment booked for a free consultation. Maximum cost should be £4500, will see what they say when I get in. Also see what they say about payment plans as well - if they offer 0% credit I might for the first and only time in my life, take them up on it.

Maybe this is me getting overconfident with my budget, but also this is a thing that really does bother me (both in a smiling way and also in a "it's really hard to clean some of the crooked teeth and they occasionally create ulcers" sort of way, so I figure, it's time, even if it sets the house back a bit.)

But I do know if I want to do this I have to:
get control of the food budget
get control of the "ooh I fancied it" budget
actually do some surveys to earn some extra, make sure all my money is in the highest savings rates etc
get control of things like utilities again, because I've slipped off that and I'm still on the capped rate I think.

Also updated my signature with unread books (straight up total according to storygraph) and crafts (given I don't really know what I've got lurking in corners, I'm measuring acquired and done rather than totals).

+1 is a diamond painting but I don't have one in the house and it is my birthday present to myself (excuses! never mind!)

Merlin's_Beard · 9 January at 9:58PM

SO much snow here. Very dicey on the way to the work, and very thankful I don't have to work this weekend.

Merlin's_Beard · 17 January at 7:16PM

Went out to a concert last night, with some planned spending on the way - I like to have at least one band t shirt for everyone I see. Good fun, good to see a friend (score one for the social aspect!)

Quiet weekend this weekend - it is my birthday, but being out friday and monday means I'm quite happy to potter around in the peace actually! I'm going to try and submit a pitch for a short story - I don't expect anything will come of it, but it's the first step in trying.

Have played some online board games with friends (more social!) and done some diamond painting (the latest craft) while I watch TV, as well as played the piano.

Doing okay at playing every day, and making sure that the practice is mostly mindful and targeted, so I'm calling that a win.

Have started the craft that I bought - also a win.

And the book that my book club has chosen is one I already own, a surprise win! (a Jeeves and Wooster novel)

Financial-wise we're doing okay so far. I'm out again on Monday at a talk, already paid for, and I've arranged to go to the next talk (£15) - but I'm going with a work colleague that I would like to be a proper friend, not just a work friend, so it feels like a worthwhile investment that hits several things I want to do and builds a habit of us seeing each other outside of work.

I have booked! A holiday for my birthday in 12 months time. I kept visiting the site enough that they sent me a 10% discount code, and I umm-ed and ahh-ed about it enough that a flash sale for 15% off came up and I snatched it up. Sri Lanka here I come!