2023 Frugal Living Challenge

Madbat60

@Topher I am retiring from nursing because my trust has introduced a 12 half hour shift pattern.  End of September I take my 27 years nursing experience with me as I'm not revalidating.  I think they save money on staffing that way but it's s false economy if you've got no staff as they've left or are sick and you have to employ agency staff.

Madbat60

Just popping in to say hi.  This month I've cancelled amazon prime and changed to a Lebara sim for myphone the minute I was out of contract.  I'm really excited about retiring now.  

RateTartExtraordinaire

@Madbat60 12 hour shifts must be so tiring. I bet you get to a point where time goes slower, with the last 2 hours just dragging. Or are you sometimes so busy the whole shift goes quickly? 
Anyway, wishing you a long and happy retirement! Sounds like a good time to retire to me. 

My own exit plan is not for a few years yet but I have decided I need a spreadsheet. One deferred pension kicks in at age 62, another is in two parts: one bit can be taken age 65 and the other at State Pension Age, except I can now decide to take them both at 65 due to the McCloud ruling. 
   
There are so many complexities to both my pensions now, I find I'm having to teach myself what new terms mean all the time. My head is spinning!

Anyone know of a good road to retirement spreadsheet? 

P.S. I've got the same SIM only contract, too, and most of my family! Great deal. 

Primrose

Yes, planning retirement is very complex because you have to build in flexibility to cater for the best and worst Oct circumstances, ie planning for poor health ewrly on whixh needs more funding than yiu had anticipated, or long life which can bring its own financial pressures, especially in periods of high inflation.

Knowing where the NHS might be going into the future yiu might want to to co sider setting up a Private Health fund and topping it up regularly   If your retirement at some point for example looks like becoming completely derailed by a dodgy knee or hip, yiu might want to have the facility for "going private". Or if yiu have a family member living permanently abroad, an Air Fare pot might be something you,d wish to have.  Sadly there is often never eniugh miney to top up all the pots and increasing your main retirement fund is obviously the main priority but if yiu can afford it some subsidiary savings funds for retirement special spends always takes some of the financial pressure.

it,s always a worry when first retiring, if you,re going to survive satisfactorily on less money so thinking about special issues which will make your retirement worthwhile are always worth planning while working and some spare cash is available to fund them.

RateTartExtraordinaire

@Primrose I'm reading you post and it sounds like I should work out the income I need at retirement, and then double it! 

Primrose

Have been retired long enough now to realise thst many of the things you hope will last out your retirement like your fencing, your double glazing, your car or other expensive household stuff suddenly decide to curl up and die on you.  So yes, even if you think you,ve tried to provide adequately, nasty surprises often crawl out of the woodwork. So always a dilemma whether you use any surplus savings for that expensive holiday of a lifetime or reserve the money to reduce your anxiety abiut funding future needs.

wort

I hope you don’t mind I saw your post Cheryl about your uniform , could you not request additional uniform ? Also do you know you can get an allowance for washing uniform ? I think it is through tax relief. My dd uses a dehumidifier to dry washing, but the other alternatives seem good ideas.

cw18

@wort I'm already at maximum quota for uniform, but as I live alone I only wash it once a week.   Doing 2 half loads would cost me more on both my water and electricity bills - and shorten the life of my washer..

Yes I'm aware of the tax relief, and it's been applied to my code without me doing anything - I assume it was applied automatically because of who my employer is (there are thousands of us qualify for it around the country).

I purchased a dehumidifier through Amaz0n some months ago, but it made little or no difference to my drying time outside of the airing cupboard.  When it arrived, the lowest ambient temperature it was certified to run at was lower than the listing declared - and that took it below where I run my heating.    I returned it as having an incorrect description, but haven't been able to find another that operates low enough.

RavenRover

Well it seems like I am going to have to ramp up the frugality as it looks as though redundancy is coming in the next year.  Going have to squirrel away as much as possible between now and then.  Haven't had a chance to catch a break over the last 3 years.  Hopefully luck might change soon!

cw18

And just when I think I'm starting to get back on an even keel (off work with sciatica pain for almost 3 weeks - due back on Friday).....

On 31st Aug I had a routine 'over 40s' health check.   BP way too high, and non-fasting finger !!!!!! cholesterol count gave serious cause for concern.   Monitor BP at home for 2 weeks, and have a fasting blood test done (not just for cholesterol).

BP readings still not good.  Nurse says should be looking for 120 over something - although a 130 isn't real cause for concern.   My average is 149, though it's regularly 162.  GP says this morning that an average of 140 isn't a concern (unless diabetic), so only slightly up - and I've to redo the exercise in 6 months having made diet changes for cholesterol.   Alternatively I can start on BP meds now.  I opted for diet.

Bloods were taken yesterday morning, and results back in just a few hours.   The sugar count (for diabetes) is only 2 points under a diagnosis, so need to diet change for that.   They reckon my high cholesterol is actually due to a high carbohydrate diet rather than high fat, so unless I want statins (not as a knee-jerk solution thanks) I need to cut back on that for both.  OK says I, and walks out with a print out of a low carbohydrate diet plan.

I've now had time to read the paperwork, and I'm despairing !!   No bread, no rice, no pasta, no noodles, no bananas - all of which are what keep me going at work!  No margarine - but I don't use butter because I don't like it (and have a mild lactose intolerance which means I can't consume hot butter - one of my fastest and biggest triggers).    No biscuits, cakes, sweets (I'd expected that).  No oats !!   So I can't have toast or porridge for breakfast    In fact, no cereals at all.....   No breaded fish or chicken (if I don't have butties for lunch I have cold chicken nuggets, so I'm as lost for lunch ideas as breakfast - has to be cold finger food I can eat on the move).  No grapes (one of very few fruits I eat aside from bananas) or dried fruit.   And all the vegetables I use most often (carrots, peas, sweetcorn) are on the 'limitied' list - as are onions which I add to all my mince meals and stews.   As well as oats I'm on no lentils - so that's both the things I use to pad out mince meals gone!

Blood works to be redone in 6 months.  Nurse said there's no point redoing within 3 months even if I made a full switch in diet today.   So I'm seeing that as I've got about 8 weeks to make gradual (but permanent) changes and get used to them - but I have a lot of 'forbidden' foods stockpiled, so I doubt I'll even have made a full change by the 6 month point!    I can't afford to throw food away - and in any case I need to get my body used to walking 12 miles a day on minimal carbs

As a guide, I've been working on around 3,000 calories a day (I burn more than 1,500/day at work) with two-thirds of those coming from carbs.   1g of carbs is 4 calories, so 2,000 calories of carbs = 500g.   I've to drop to no more than 130g - so that's almost a 75% reduction.  And the carbs are generally the cheap elements of my meals, so it also means my grocery bill is going to shoot up !!

At the turn of the year I gave up my subscripion to a diet and fitness website as I wasn't using it properly - and needed to free up the money for other things even if I had been.    But I think I'm going to have to find the money for that as well, as it's going to be the easiest way to keep a food diary - and it splits down intake by protein, carbs and fats as measurements and percentage of calorie intake.   (I've previously tried a free website that's very similar, but there were enough differences to make it harder work - especially as the food database for the free one seems to be more American.)

I don't think I'll be renewing membership of my local community pantry place, which is due next month.   It's only £3/year, but I rarely get there (their opening hours don't fit around my latest working hours, so I only get there on a week off) and almost everything I've had from there is on the banned list.   They do have some veg, but it's very hit and miss as to what's available when I do manage to get there - and generally needs using that day which means you can't even attempt to meal plan.


I have a few cookery books with recipes for diabetics (was told I was high risk for T2 after both my parents developed it), so I'm about to dig those out and see how well they fit in with the modern lists of approved foods.