Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

@Blackcats - Yes, I am thinking along the same lines regarding my work pension.

@Makingabobor2 - As we are fine on Mr F's salary, my thinking is that everything from my work pension would go straight into Savings for a few years. I am still some years away from my state pension & Mr F is 5 years younger than me so he is years away from everything.

@BrilliantButScary - I've had a cursory look at this before & thought not, but I will be investigating more thoroughly shortly as part of the fact-finding process.

@KajiKita - I don't really know offhand, but intend to ponder your question, as I am intending to start work on February's master meal plan later this afternoon.

@ziggy2407 - Welcome back! Hope you are ok x

KajiKita

Thank you foxgloves, I look forward to your musings on this …

KK

foxgloves

Hello Diary Readers, WHAT a soggy day….so you will understand how surprised I was when a large truck rumbled up outside our house first thing & the scaffolding was taken down as soon as the rain slowed from downpour to reasonable levels. It was supposed to be my Big Budget Day today, but with all that going on, I decided to defer it until tomorrow.

Decluttering is still going on apace here. As we had to empty the loft, it's been a perfect time to assess everything thoroughly because as I said to Mr F, keeping things 'just in case' is one thing, but having the same conversations about the same items in 2, 4, 6, years time is just time wasting. Am pleased to report that both of our heads are in the same space atm where decluttering is concerned & he happily did another tip-run on Sunday. We asked ourselves why we were hanging onto all our camping gear (minus tent which you may recall I fell through on our last camping trip before Lockdown put a stop to things) when we have decided we won't camp in future but will instead, book the weather-proof en-suite hostel rooms we like at our fave campsite. We couldn't think of any good reason except we loved our camping trips & neither of us wanted to draw that final line under them by getting rid of our outdoor stuff. We agreed that it now makes sense to do this as even if we stayed on other campsites, we would (for several reasons) be looking to book a pod or similar, so would only need to take fairly general stuff with us. So there's a good pile of things heading for the charity shop. There's also been a great opportunity here for shopping from home. We always took a big plastic box on camping trips filled with everything we needed - our tent was always a bit of a home from home, fairy lights, bunting, etc - & sorting out the contents liberated lots of useful things:

A trivet, food cover, a sieve, tablecloth, 3 kitchen hand towels (which coincidentally I'd only been looking at in town that same morning), 1 loo roll, 1 kitchen roll, 3 bowls (perfect for cat bowls, esp. as I smashed Ash's bowl on our unforgiving Belfast sink this morning), teaspoons, a substantial amount of tealights, matches, 2 strings of handmade bunting, a string of fairy lights, emergency sewing kit in a pretty tin which I have put in my going away bag & the crate itself has been repurposed for storing vintage linens including a hand stitched patchwork bedspread which my Mum made for me in 1983 when she saw how horrid the provided ones were in my halls of residence.

In addition, the following items will be added to my soon-to-be upgraded power cut emergency supplies box - camping gas stove, gas lamp & 3 extra tealight glasses. Instead of a slightly sad sort-out, it actually turned into a very positive shopping from home experience. I have also saved an elasticated curtain I made to go around our camping shelving unit because I know I made it from 3 £-shop tablecloths & they are definitely pretty enough to use as a nice summery table-runner once I have unpicked the casing & removed the elastic. Our tent wouldn't have been everyone's cup of tea, but it was as near to glamping as we could get with a very much NON-glamping budget at the time!

Lots of the stuff we didn't need to keep has been packed ready for the charity shop….Oh & I added those earrings which I took to be tested as had a niggle in my mind that they were actually bronze instead of gold. They ARE bronze, with a malachite drop under the knotwork. They will be going to the charity shop too. I could tell that the assistant was hoping they'd be gold (& that I'd cash them in) - just for info I will add that she told me the daily gold rate for those earrings (which were not that big) was £138 !! Yes, It's have been nice to add that to our EF but I was so sure by then that I had remembered them being bronze from back in the 1980s when I was given them, that it wasn't the disappointment it might have been. I considered selling them online, but we all know it's a time-consuming process & my time is money too. Yes, I am always saying 'it all adds up' & it does, but I have to balance making a few quid for a faffy amount of effort against other things I could be doing which also save us money, such as batch cooking, batch-baking, prepping the veg garden & growing food & making things for presents. Also survey-doing time, of course. Hope someone spots them in the charity shop & loves them!

I am going to see if there are any surveys, wrap a birthday present, then I shall head to the kitchen (where I shall doubtless be ambushed by the rascals wanting their afternoon treats) to make a concerted start on February's meal plan.

Supposed to be less of a soggy day tomorrow, although I shall be spending a fair bit of it number crunching.

Love F x

EssexHebridean

I'm quite pleased with myself for having already got my meal plan to the middle of February I must admit - and I plan to add the following couple of weeks quite soon. Although a lot of what is on it might be somewhat "mobile" in terms of when it eventually gets eaten, it's nice having it in place to reduce the mental load!

Well remembered on the earrings, although a shame they didn't add a nice chunk to the EF!

Makingabobor2

Excellent news on the decluttering and shopping from home. I have done a bit more decluttering today as well, just 2 drawers while cleaning the bedroom, but it all adds up….little and often is the way to go.

Dakota_Rose

I hope you don’t mind me stopping by Foxgloves. I’ve been a long time reader, but have only just moved onto the forum myself. I owe you a big thank you as over the years I have followed your diary and taken much inspiration from it. We also live on one salary and have had to adapt our money-saving ways to make that feel like a more of a comfortable life than a struggle.

The camping declutter really made me smile. We have a very similar stock and each year it feels a little like Christmas morning seeing what treasures we packed away the year before. There’s always a loo roll! We have a bell tent that we almost considered giving away, after a few years ‘out’ starting during Covid, but decided to try again last year. We enjoyed it so much that we booked a second campsite. (We finally indulged in electric hook up and it was a game changer) Like you, I think it will feel like the end of an era when it’s time to say goodbye to it all.

foxgloves

@EssexHebridean - You've made good progress on February's meal plans. I haven't finished ours yet but useful progress was made yesterday.

@Makingabobor2 - Yes any decluttering is good & a little & often approach can also make it feel less daunting.

@Dakota_Rose - Hello, & welcome! One never really knows on here how many non-participating readers, aka 'lurkers', one has, so it is always nice to see a new person chipping in. I was touched that you have found my diaries inspiring. I was a silly spender for very many years, but there comes a time where you just think, "Enough, I am cleverer & more sensible than this!" One of the things I found most useful while debt-busting & learning how to budget (in my 40s as hadn't bothered before) was that if I have to put it on a credit card, add it to my overdraft or take out/increase a loan to buy whatever it is, then that is somebody else's money, NOT mine. This became a kind of mantra….in fact, it was in my diary signature for a long time & I may re-instate it. One thing that budgeting underlined for me is that the money we have coming into the bank each month is OUR money. There isn't any more, therefore everything we buy & save needs to come within that parameter. Sadly, coming of age in the credit boom has been bad news for so many people. Back in the Spendaceous Era, if we were thinking of buying something, Mr F would often even say, "I've got 3 grand"….when of course, what he actually meant was that he had a card which was 3k under its credit limit. I couldn't go back there again! Keep plugging away at it, Dakota_Rose because getting & maintaining your spending to within your income is an empowering thing which increases your security when life lobs you a lump of ordure……or several, as that's what our recent roof situation felt like! I have also learned that there should always be some treats along the way, but are they still 'treats' or have they just become habits? "Discuss….." (Sounds like an essay title!)

F

foxgloves

Hello Wednesday Pence-Wranglers,

Today has been my Big Budget Day so my ample backside has been glued to my desk chair with the stickiest of glue for quite a lot of the morning. Usual procedure (because it works for me) - Reconciled January's budget then set February's. Nothing untoward lurking. I remembered to include a bulk buy of 2nd class stamps in the budget & an 18th birthday gift for our nephew. Car tax due so paid for 6 months only as we will be changing the car in the next couple of months & will need some of that refunded anyway. Grocery Budget & Personal Spends received the same amount as usual & both credit cards were paid in full, as they are every month since the dawning of the LBM all those years ago. And thank goodness it DID eventually dawn!

Then, as per every Big Budget Day, I did the number crunching to best allocate money between various savings. Have paid our Regular Saver, Car Fund, bought this month's Premium Bonds & sent £100 to the Emergency Fund. Have also paid into 7 of our 10 Savings Pots (the remaining 3 are already at agreed max. holding). As we decided during our at our recent Money Summit that we would aim to leave the Pots intact as much as possible this year, the idea is that as more of them reach their agreed max. amount, more money will be diverted to rebuilding the Emergency Fund. The Dentist/Optician/Medical Pot is full as of today, but I do know that Mr F is intending to visit an indie optician soon as his current glasses from a year ago are already not up to the job….though I wonder if they perhaps ever were tbh. That will probably be costly but he uses a lot of screens, close-work for his job, as well as a significant commute, so his eyes have to be right for driving. Anyway, it feels good to have got February's budget set up & ready to go. I shall do my usual mid-month check-in around the 15th to make sure nothing peculiar has erupted & apart from that, it will just be my regular Monday morning updates as I like accurate current figures.

I think that's it for money stuff today…..I did do a few surveys though & cashed out another £5 coffee shop voucher. I must keep at it as I could get used to not paying full price!

Cheers, F x

Dakota_Rose

…and a very interesting essay it would be indeed 😂. Lifestyle creep is definitely a thing that can happen so subtly.

I did lurk rather than ‘engage’ for so many years after my lightbulb moment as I was convinced I’d sort out the debt mess and move on, leaving MSE forums behind really. However, what I’ve come to realise is that this has to be a way of life and not a fad. My debt was what it was because my adult life was ingrained with poor financial understanding/choices (and I’d like to think I’m a fairly sensible person). Changing that mindset and keeping us in the clear is going to be a long haul. I was definitely in danger of trying to run before I could walk by trying to pay everything down and save for everything we need and want overnight (still am to be honest).

Your diary, and others, are genuinely making a difference to those following/reading in the background. I think that really is a wonderful thing.

PennysIntoPounds

Wonderful shopping from home, think you can feel justified in not giving yourself faff with the earrings when you rediscovered such a big pile of mse goodies!