Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

PennysIntoPounds

Excellent productivity. Why Surbiton?! Enjoy your pasta, nom 😊

Tescodealqueen

Just to say our local authority has an app for bin collection and my OH gets alerts each week. I am not sure I can cope with the excitement

Sun_Addict

I get an email reminder for bin collections, living the dream 😆

Makingabobor2

Can't wait to hear more about your saving pots goals

Blackcats

Is Project Surbiton a reference to The Good Life?  

Tescodealqueen

Blackcats said:

Is Project Surbiton a reference to The Good Life?  

I would love to think so xx 

Makingabobor2

Blackcats said:

Is Project Surbiton a reference to The Good Life?  

Oh yes....good guess. Maybe chickens will make an appearance. How exciting to live like that if you could

Moorviews

The Good Life was my first thought too! Will it be a case of what Tom and Barbara did next?

foxgloves

Morning all!
Yes, you are right! There will be no livestock, but as 2 fans of that fine funny old series, we thought Tom & Barbara would be good inspiration for our utter determination to rebuild our Savings Pots this year. Why is this so important to us? Well, we would still like to relocate to the coast when Mr F retires. Both our area of choice are more expensive for house prices than the East Midlands, so although our current house is fully paid for, we will require a 'bridge' in terms of savings if we are to achieve the move. Don't get me wrong, we are far too practical not to work on a Plan B if this doesn't turn out to be achievable, but we have talked about Plan A & it is still what we would both like to do.......which brings me back to the Savings Pots. If we don't have viable amounts of money in each one, then we have two options when we are faced with a big outlay 1) Stick it on a credit card. Well, that is just not going to happen these days. During the Spendy Years, both of us have paid quite enough interest on those, thank-you vey much, & we are now extremely debt-averse. 2) Use our general savings. While this would always start out as a 'borrow from ourselves' with every intention of repaying it, the reality might not be as easy, as it would mean that the Savings Pots still need bringing back to a strongly viable level AND the general savings would need to be repaid too. 
So, inspired by our annual watch of The Good Life Christmas Special, we have decided that we will rebuild our Pots this year by paying money in, but using as little as possible of it to buy new things. This should in theory facilitate a strong re-build as the money will mostly be flowing one-way i.e in! Now, we are not intending to go hardcore - I am sure other fans remember their 15p Christmas! We intend to buy things if we need them, but here's a thing. We both feel our house is ready for a damn good spring clean & declutter. Mr F is even raring to go on decluttering the Man Cave!!! I know that once we get going, we will find all sorts of resources which can be pressed into action one way & another to help avoid spending. Yes, Shopping from Home. This will be the key tool in the rebuilding of our Savings Pots. I have already started a list on my desk of various festive bits & bobs which we defo will not need to buy next year. I have written them down because I don't want to forget & then end up buying things next Autumn which would be purchases we simply don't need. It is easy to forget exactly what we have in the festive line when all of that sort of stuff is generally packed away out of sight for a year. 
We've discussed various other ways of increasing what we pay into our Pots & I shall be posting about how we are getting on & more of the boring mechanics of it as we go along. We are both very much on the same page that we have too much stuff & so shopping from home as we declutter & spring clean is expected to be of positive financial benefit. But barring disaster, those Pots WILL be filled. We are still relative newcomers to having savings, having both spent from our late teens to our early 40s with all the debt that goes with a very casual attitude to money during a credit boom. Now that we have some general savings, having to dip in for perfectly foreseeable expenses would be not only highly annoying, but could also end up sabotaging our future plans.
Other stuff today..... ..
*A no-spend day as we decided we didn't need our vaguely planned trip into town.
*Vouchers in my purse ready for tomorrow's city centre trip & a list will be made shortly.
*Baked the sourdough loaf I mixed up yesterday. 
*Still eating up leftovers.
*Fed the garden birds when I popped out to thaw their bird bath. Made their food go a little further with some kitchen scraps  i.e cheese rinds & toaster crumbs. The blackbirds are tucking into the cheesy bits. It's still frozen out there so they are also getting very feisty over who is allowed near the food.
*Took down the Christmas tree & decorations - all packed away & back in the loft ready for next year & a mental note to self that I don't need any more decorations as couldn't fit on all the ones we already own.
*Christmas crockery all packed back in dresser cupboard. Nothing required in that line either.
*Did 2 loads of laundry. Too cold for pegging out but all on heated airer with the dehumidifyer on so should all be nicely dry by tomorrow morning.
*Have almost cleaned the house between us using minimal products & washable cloths as usual. Mr F volunteered for bathroom cleaning & vacuuming & has almost finished & just have the kitchen to finish & a couple of bins to do.
*Free leisure this afternoon as I want to progress my lovely jigsaw & read a bit of my latest library book as well as sort out an error I think I made when I typed out a knitting pattern before Christmas. B-i-L's handknitted socks for NEXT Christmas now finished & put away in presents bag.
Not my cooking night. Mr F is baking some salmon & serving it with Crank's macro rice which will make a nice change from meatier festive fare, I think.
Right, I must crack on as we both got up this morning determined to have done all our jobs done by lunchtime.
Have a good day everyone,
F x

Makingabobor2

Wow, this all sounds very exciting. Can't wait to see how it all develops and read any tips you might have. Its so good you are both on the same page, finance wise.  Think this is my sticking point.  Although DH says he wants us to save and not use credit again, and clear the last of the debts, he doesn't seem to do anything to help that along.  Its all down to me.  His attitude seems to be that he goes to work and doesn't really have any interest in what comes out the account, or when etc.  I keep telling him about the saving pots, but he just says, ok, and then goes back to whatever he's doing. He also doesn't like decluttering. That is all down to me.  I am sure there is loads of stuff in attic/garage/shed that we could get rid of, but he thinks it might all come in useful someday. Whilst I am all for keeping things that really might be useful, I think there is a lot we could sell and make some extra ££.  For example he has a whole cupboard full of "techy" stuff and camera bags etc...how much does one man really need??