Arrietty's Acorns

Arrietty

Hello,
it is both Sunday again and raining again!

The tree and some simple decorations were done on Monday and during the process I added some no longer required bits to the charity donation bag. Tree is pretty and having the twinkly lights on in the evenings ( and all day at the weekend) is a nice antidote to the grey skies, dark evenings  and rain.  I discovered I have plenty of cards, gifts wrap and ribbons etc and have already got a few gifts sorted. 

Tuesday was a lovely sunny day and after my hospital appointment where I had to pay £4.50 for an hour and half parking  I went to get some new eyedrops which were £11.50 but have already made a difference so well worth the money. I was motivated by the sun ( and aware of impending service & MoT) so emptied the car of horse stuff and took it to be cleaned. Inside and out clean is £22 and I usually give them £25 but it was so diabolically filthy that I gave them £30 which they were most appreciative of.  This money came from my cash fund that I withdrew on 30th OCTOBER! but I haven't spent anything on lessons for weeks; I think instructor has either forgotten me completely or remembered that  I hate lessons in the rain.  Even after paying £30 for car cleaning, I still have £75 in the cash fund so no lessons and not needing to buy hay makes a huge difference! Had a nice ride on HRH and felt fully restored when I returned to work on Wednesday.

NSD's on Thursday and Friday which was good.  The shopping trip provided me with decent packed lunches and having good meals to come home made a difference.  I still have 4 meals in the freezer and today I'm going to cook up a large pot of leek and potato soup and have planned a couple of other meals.  I'm not a great cook; to me food is mainly fuel and when I get home after work and yard I am HUNGRY and want to eat something tasty and filling but I don't like to eat too much processed stuff and would rather have a jacket potato than a ready meal.  

Yesterday I  relented and used the tumble drier for towels and bedding  I'm using the heated pod thing every week and it's great for clothes but the thought of having towels and bedding hanging on airers all weekend did my head in.  It makes me feel as though my entire weekend revolves around laundry so I just popped them in the drier and it was a couple of hours and done! As the temperature is still mild, I'm not boosting the heating outside of the timer so feel absolutely justified to use the dryer for a couple of hours a week. 

I went to collect my prescription so that was £19.80 and then headed to yard where HRH was rather reluctant to actually come down to the yard. He just kept stopping and looking at me. No signs of injury or illness but after the third time of stopping, the heavens opened and he just looked at me smugly as if to say " I tried to warn you"!
I reassured him that his feed was down on the yard and he needed to move if he wanted it. The rain stopped once we got down to yard and we did have a nice 30 minute ride. HRH decides when the 30 minutes is up and there's no re-starting him once he's stopped but he got his nice warm feed and an apple so it was worth his effort!

To the money:

I had a nice little end of year win on the Premium Bonds which has boosted my Trips & Treats Fund. Overall my PB wins are down by £500 this year compared to the last 2 years and I did say I was going to review keeping them if that happened.  I have reflected and although I could potentially earn more money from them in my stocks and shares ISA or in my pension, I could also potentially lose that amount and as long as I do have them, that  capital is secure, easily accessible in case of an emergency and more importantly, I won't win anything if don't have them.

So I'm keeping them but I am going to change what I do with the winnings. Now that I'm back to funding the Trips and Treat Fund each month, I shall send any PB wins to the ERF in 2026. There, they will earn more interest than in the T&T fund and will also hopefully hasten that 4 day week!  
Trips and Treats Fund = £1575

There hasn't been much spending this week so consequently only a few pennies have ben sent over to my linked savings account.
Standard saver = £ 1412.85


The NSD's have also had an effect on the scoops to the ERF. I have been averaging £30 for the last few weeks but this week it was only £ 18.54.  Of course, I did my two supermarket spends on my CC so that probably took a toll as well. Hopefully, adding any PB wins in 2026 will make up for my reduced spending elsewhere.  To be honest, as long as I see the balance increase each week I am happy.
Early Retirement Fund = £9512.78

If I stick with the date of 31 March 2028 then it's another 121 weeks to go 
I much prefer 31 December 2027 which, although better, is still 108 weeks   and bear in mind this is not for full retirement, this is just to drop one day a week! 

I'll be honest and say that  despite what finance experts may say, I am gunning for 31 December 2027 which was my original target.  By the end of February next year that will already be down to double figures remaining and that motivates me. This time next year I'll be saying that I only have a year to go !

I think I said I needed £15,000 - £20,000 to drop that one day a week but I'm aiming for £20,000. That's the number in my head and £15k just won't do!  I'm almost  half way there and by my basic calculations to hit the target by end 31 December 2027 I need to save £437.50 each month. 
I really don't think I can achieve that just by frugalling and saving  each month - and anyway, too much frugality makes me counteract with spendiness -  hence the inclusion of PB wins to the pot.  I've not counted any interest payments in the £437.00  required so they'll be a bonus.

The only spends from my budget this week were £4.50 on parking, £11.50 on eye drops and another £19.80 for my prescription eye drops. I have included my grocery shopping in my total budget although it was on my CC. There is also a bit of money to come back from the gifts pot at the end of the month. 

Total Spend for December = £263.73 from £400 budget 
Total remaining = £ 136.27 and 17 days. 

I'm away to brew up my soup.
Have a lovely day 
x

Skint_yet_Again

Glad the eye drops are helping.  Your finances look great and the countdown is on for (edit) partial retirement day of 31/12/2027 ☺️

Arrietty

Hello,
it's bright and sunny here this morning which is very cheery and a nice change.

Thank you for the encouragement @Skint_yet_Again. Overall, the finances are looking good but reading your diary has reminded me die that I need to get back in the habit of topping up specifics savings pots!

 I've paid for Christmas gifts out of my trips and treats pot which is ok as I've not gone in to debt but the budgets I had went sideways as I lost the list of spends on things I'd already bought so when asking people what they would like (silly me) I've probably spent considerably more than my budget per person.  

Tried having conversations with both ED and YD about setting spending limits and I appreciate it may sound mean but ED is now in a family of 4 so what I used to spend on her cannot be multiplied by 4.  She and her fiancée love to shop and that's fine for them but between them they earn 5 times my salary and their outgoings are about half mine and I'm trying to save for retirement! 
YD fully appreciates the situation and is on board with having a limit as her essential outgoings are quite high too.
I also have a Secret Santa at work to buy for and we do the same thing for birthdays and I got the person whose birthday is on 22nd December   

MoT is happening on Friday, Road Tax is due 31st December and Car Insurance due 15th January.  I will search for that tomorrow and pay for it before the end of the year so I can start 2026 with everything paid for. 

I have savings to cover all this but I have not been contributing to each pot on a regular basis and I need to reinstate that as from 1st January. Never mind the trips and treats which has been funded by Premium Bond wins and TopCashback earnings - this has made me both lazy and complacent. What I need are specific savings pots for Gifts & Christmas and Car Costs which I add to each month and then if there is money left at the end of the year, that can go in the ERF.  I think this means that I will have less to add to the ERF each month, but I'd rather have the specific pots I think. I will work out what I need for each pot and then decide which saver to put it in. 

HRH lost a shoe on Tuesday so had to have the farrier out on Thursday! He lost a good chunk of hoof with it and we decided that rather than try to refit a new shoes we'd take the other one off and see how he fares barefoot.  He used to be barefoot at the previous yard and we only put fronts back on here as he was struggling a bit with the stony areas. Farrier is a big advocate of being barefoot where possible so I'm treating his hooves to stop them going too soft and hoping he'll be ok. Should make farrier visits a bit cheaper in the future and definitely quicker and less stressful for HRH as he's never been a fan of having his feet tapped with a hammer. 

I've already booked in the vet visit for his teeth and vaccination in February but that is covered under our horse programmes with them so no cost.

To the money...

I've paid off my CC as it was getting a bit scary and I've now pretty much finished my Christmas gift shopping so the Trips and Treats Fund is somewhat depleted:
Trips and Treats Fund = £ 1100

There have been just 97p of pennies scooped over to the linked saver as I've been using my CC but also took £100 from there towards paying the CC bill so this account is a bit less than last week.  I'll use this account to pay for the car costs as well so it will be further deleted by the end of the year!
Standard Saver = £1313.82


There were £24.92 in scoops over to the retirement fund as  realised that if I use my CC then my current account is static unless a bill goes out and I don't get any scoops ! 
Early Retirement Fund = £9537.70

There has been a horribly high amount of spending this last week - make me feel quite giddy but I am still within the £400 budget I set myself - just. It's not exactly a frugal budget for one person - and I have applied to join the Frugal Living Challenge for next year - but if it's a realistic and achievable one and I have money left at the end of each month which I can then send to savings then it will work for me.

I made myself 4 lunches for work last week but then ran out of fresh fruit and steam so had a naughty lunch on Friday.  It wasn't a cheap on either as I didn't like the soup on offer so spent £5.60 
I also spent another £13.92 on stamps - bought 2 lots of second class and just hope cards get there in time.
Met friends for dinner and catch up one night which cost £25.31 and then yesterday I spent £56.64 on groceries and household items (including £10 on multivitamins  - own brand as well!) This shop did include some yummy treats for Christmas like a selection of cheese, some chocolates and shortbread but I sill need to buy a few other bits at Waitrose next week., including some puddings to take for Christmas meal at ED's. I also bought a few gifts while in there and was pleased that the original £158 bill was reduced to £128 by using my Nectar points. 

Total Spend for December so far = £365.20 from £400 budget.
Total remaining = £34.80 and 10 days.

My dining table is no longer visible under the pile of gifts to be wrapped and packed into baskets and it's starting to stress me out a bit so I think I shall try to do some each night this coming week. Once they're all done it will look organised, festive  and pretty rather than the current clutter and chaos! 

Have a lovely day 
x

Arrietty

My goodness,

it's already been 10 days since I last updated my diary! I did start typing at my usual time on Sunday but then realised I needed to make a couple of phone calls, field laundry, prepare food for work and tidy up all before meeting YD and heading to the yard so I gave up.

It's been a very densely packed few days since my last update and I'm feeling tired now.. Work has been incredibly busy,  I did my speed awareness course, my car went in for it's annual service and M0T and  I had to finish off my gift wrapping, search for new car insurance, do some food shopping and get up to date with my finances. 

Food shopping was £83 in total but l lost the receipt so couldn't be sure how much was on gifts  - bottles of port and wine, coffee beans, cake) and how much was regular groceries.  I reckon I ended  up being about £8 over my monthly budget. 

The service and MoT came in at £411.12 which was more than I'd hoped for but meh - it's done now.  The insurance, however, came in at just £177.81 ( I got very fed up with current providers stupid chatbot and trying to get a renewal price so just cancelled the DD) and I will be getting £45 cashback so I'm assuming this is the benefit of getting older - but not too old - and having a mundane job in a safe sector ! 

Full marks to contents insurance provider for emailing me the renewal price 4 weeks ahead of due date and also for offering a £5 discount if I renew online - sold for £68.53!

It's been a rather expensive few days but all my car costs aside from the road tax at £20 are paid and sorting the contents was a big bonus too so January will now be purely regular living expenses.  

I got paid on Monday which allowed me to make all the above payments and I have cleared the balance off my CC despite the bill not being due yet. I like to end the year with financial clarity and nothing outstanding.  Some savings account have been severely depleted in order to do this and lessons have been learned.

Time has been spent considering how to proceed with saving for both regular and annual costs ( Birthday gifts, Car and Christmas) and also my Early Retirement Fund.  Realistic budgets have also been pondered over and an understanding of what's required to achieve this has been accepted.

I am not going to call it my Early Retirement Fund anymore, because it's not. There are sadly, still many years to go before that happens so I'm renaming it my Four Day Fund. 

HRH is well (fat and happy) and it will be nice to spend some more time with him over the next few days and explore some of the summer fields we don't often get to use due to daylight restrictions. Both YD and I have paid into this account but livery not due out until next week so it's looking temporarily bountiful.
HRH pot = £404.02

I've started using a dormant account to hold the Car and Christmas pot as it has an ok-ish interest rate as long as I don't do more than 2 withdrawals a year and will be paying in £50 a month for each but have started it off with a bonus payment. 
Car & Christmas pot = £200

I took a bit out of the trips and treats fund to help clear the CC and haven't come up with a figure to add to it each month so for now it will just sit there until I work out how much.
Trips & Treats pot = £1000

The savings account linked to my current account has also been depleted but I will continue to pay into this one each month for my water bill and pennies are rounded up and sent here. 
Standard Saver = £777.77

My calculations are that I need to add £437 a month to achieve my target amount by 31 December 2027 but at the moment I can only deposit £200 a month on a regular basis. I will get a regular interest payment and hopefully some Premium Bond wins to boost that and of course any cash back money... but otherwise I just need to spend as little as possible for the next 2 years to achieve this. 
Four Day Fund = £9766.54


Have a lovely festive season!
x