Prosperous soul, mortgage neutrality & creativity Year 2

savingholmes

I have a number of MSE tasks to complete

1. Return cushion for £20
2. Return router to avoid £40 charge
3. Return towel holder for £9.50
4. See what garden flowers I can use instead of shop bought to reduce costs / look for more YS flowers
5. Buy what I want to eat instead of filling fridge with what I should eat and wasting it. 
6. Reduce eating out - gone a bit mad on that recently.
7. See what is ripe in garden too e.g. garlic and any soft fruit. I don't always mention it but I've been having strawberries and cherries from the garden. The plums and apples are growing well in the back garden but not the apple tree in the front (I don't think it had enough water and it had too much competition). 
8. Make a veggie pasta to use with the special cheese I bought.
9. Use up half a pizza from Friday with some of my aspirational salad
10. Hang washing out on my new washing line!!

In that vein - I went to cancel KU as haven't had a lot of time to read recently and they gave me 3 months for the price of one - so saved me £19. Very happy with that as I do love reading.

I have 4 credits on Aud*** too so need to consider what to buy with those. I've already used my once a year pause allowance on that... I think because of their + category of free books / podcasts I've bought less.

beanielou

I am only a quarter a million

Merlin's_Beard

I'm only a paper tenth of a millionaire, so plenty of work left for me (in both senses of the word!)

I think it's good that you're figuring out what you don't want and aren't willing to move for - narrows everything down much more. And I guess it means you can not worry about the buyers as well if you haven't found anything you like more than when you live now!

SandyShores

I'd love to do this.  I found this on SuperSecretSquirrels thread: "our combined NW excluding SP".  NW = Net worth, does SP = State Pension?  We are at least 1/5 millionaires jointly - sounds impressive in those terms.  What about a FS pension - does that get included at the pot value?

savingholmes

Yes SP is state pension.

I used 25 * annual final salary pension or equivalent 

savingholmes

beanielou said:

I am only a quarter a million

Hi Beanie

That's pretty good going. Your mortgage free - which I am far from. Most of my wealth is in my pensions which if I don't live long enough for - my kids wont get that much benefit.

Merlin's_Beard said:

I'm only a paper tenth of a millionaire, so plenty of work left for me (in both senses of the word!)

I think it's good that you're figuring out what you don't want and aren't willing to move for - narrows everything down much more. And I guess it means you can not worry about the buyers as well if you haven't found anything you like more than when you live now!

Hi Merlin

I get the impression you are quite a bit younger than me so it sounds like you are doing pretty well to me. 

I am only a week in and I'm already a little disheartened by the selling process. I wonder if I've pitched my price too high - but going with it for now. The house I liked best was up for £310K so if she has removed it from the market rather than sold - I need a decent offer to tempt her to sell. I felt that the market suggested she was more like £282 value though so tricky - as I don't want to have problems when I come to sell.

SandyShores said:

I'd love to do this.  I found this on SuperSecretSquirrels thread: "our combined NW excluding SP".  NW = Net worth, does SP = State Pension?  We are at least 1/5 millionaires jointly - sounds impressive in those terms.  What about a FS pension - does that get included at the pot value?

FS - is what I called DB defined benefits. Mine is part final salary and part average salary and then I have my AVC pot and an old tiny pot.

savingholmes

savingholmes said:

I have a number of MSE tasks to complete

1. Return cushion for £20
2. Return router to avoid £40 charge - I've packed it - just need to find some tape to seal it and then need to drop it off
3. Return towel holder for £9.50 - still need to find where I put it!!
4. See what garden flowers I can use instead of shop bought to reduce costs / look for more YS flowers
5. Buy what I want to eat instead of filling fridge with what I should eat and wasting it. 
6. Reduce eating out - gone a bit mad on that recently.
7. See what is ripe in garden too e.g. garlic and any soft fruit. I don't always mention it but I've been having strawberries and cherries from the garden. The plums and apples are growing well in the back garden but not the apple tree in the front (I don't think it had enough water and it had too much competition). 
8. Make a veggie pasta to use with the special cheese I bought.
9. Use up half a pizza from Friday with some of my aspirational salad
10. Hang washing out on my new washing line!!

Yesterday I made some loaded potato skins with red onion. I intended to add bacon to it but forgot. Will need to grill the slices later and then perhaps use kitchen scissors to sprinkle over so they are ready when I reheat them. I also forgot to add some worcester sauce and salt before cooking... It definitely affected the flavour but still liked it. Have some left which I'll use with my aspirational salad!! Also ate some corn on the cob yesterday.

Yesterday I hung stuff on the line just as the heavens opened and it started thundering. Left it out overnight - hoping for better luck today. My parents are calling in tonight as they want to see my house in its current glory. I have cake in ready for my parents' visit. Should put the washing away before they come.I found my watch charger - I've been looking for it since last Wednesday!! It had snook into the router return - not sure how. My watch is now on charge. I want to go back to wearing it as I do more steps - even around the house - when I have it on. 

The handyman is due back Wednesday if the weather is kind - but I already have the cash out for that. I get P1p tomorrow and get paid Friday. I currently owe close to £1080 on my CC. After tomorrow though I should have close to £800 in my bank accounts so it's not quite as bad as it sounds. I started the month owing about £500 though so it shows what a slippery slope that can be - although in fairness I've had:

• £65 EPC 
• £95 Photos 
• £11 Floor Plans 
• £300 RM Advert 
• £125 Decluttering paid to DD
• £250 Handyman and new lock. This should include replacing two boards on my shed and refelting the roof
• £44 new door handles
• plus some plants and general home staging

so £471 in 'unavoidable' house selling related costs plus £420 in decluttering and home maintenance plus plants and staging.

I have had value from my spend and my savings are currently intact so it could be worse. I should be able to clear around £565 from my pay and benefits, plus say £200 if I get the gas refund in month. I'll probably need to carry over £300 in debt into the following month - unless I use my savings. One matures on the 14/7 and one on the 15/7 which is probably what I will do so I have a blank slate again.

Have a good day all.

SuperSecretSquirrel

SandyShores said:

I'd love to do this.  I found this on SuperSecretSquirrels thread: "our combined NW excluding SP".  NW = Net worth, does SP = State Pension?  We are at least 1/5 millionaires jointly - sounds impressive in those terms.  What about a FS pension - does that get included at the pot value?

Hi SS 🙂 I work our net worth out as house and car values, minus any debts (including mortgage), plus any savings and investments and DC pension balances, plus 25x the annual forecast of any DB pensions.

I think Ed (@edinburgher) includes, or did at one point, SP (state pension) in his calculations, but it wasn't helpful for me to do so - we'd manage on just two state pensions with no personal provision on top, so it skewed things too much for our purposes.

It's all a bit of fun really. I also calculate a value that's a bit more useful to me that I call "interest accruing assets" (its not really accurate, investments don't earn interest as such), basically the same as NW but with house and car values excluded. Assuming we'd want to live in our house and keep our cars, the IAA amount can be used to work out a rough annual allowance for covering living costs (IAA/25) if we retired early.

None of this takes into account state pension, so I have another spreadsheet that I update annually with various pots being drawn on over time (first savings and investments, then personal pensions, then state pensions). It's all quite rough around the edges and rule of thumb-like, but it helps keep me out of mischief I suppose 😁 I know I'll need to work another 10+ years to qualify for the full state pension, so there's no need to get too clever about things at this stage, I intend to carry on working for quite some time regardless.

savingholmes

I have another viewer Saturday 

beanielou

savingholmes said:

I have another viewer Saturday 

That’s good 😊