Arrietty's Acorns

Arrietty

Good morning,

it's a sunny and breezy day here but is due to cloud over later. I'm having a relaxed morning today having been super productive yesterday and got all my chores done as well as popping to Waitrose and the chemist to collect my prescription before I went to the yard.

It's been another expensive week - but this time just keeping myself and the homes supplied with groceries and household essentials. I went to Sainsbugs to do a BIG shop on Thursday evening - my first visit after I had a full stop and search in April which really annoyed me! Well it was certainly BIG in terms of cost … even with various offers it cost £119.61 😮

I picked up a couple of cleaning products but bear in mind I don't buy loo rolls from the supermarket and I don't buy any beauty products there either so it was just a couple of packs of bathroom wipes, bathroom cleaner, bleach and a pair of gloves… the rest was food! I stocked up on pantry items and noticed that they no longer had the 1kg packs of spaghetti but the 500g pack was £1.50. A bag of Demerara sugar - I use that for everything and it does last a long time but it had gone up from £3.50 the last time I bought it to £5.25!!

My favourite quiches were on offer again; 3 for £8 so I got those to put in the freezer and also got 2 packs of rolls for work lunches and some frozen veg and fish fingers for my lazy dinners. I bought a few different cheeses and big blocks of Cheddar and Red Leicester as I use it a lot in cooking (or just for eating) and their dates are pleasingly long. One bonus is that my mini-cheddars habit was rewarded as the packs of 12 were on offer for £2 so I bought 2 bags and mentally calculated that that was 6 weeks worth of packed lunch snacks!

An interesting and previously not-thought-about benefit of leaving work at lunchtime on a Friday means I'm only having to make 4 packed lunches a week which actually works out really well. I tend to do 2 at a time and having an odd one at the end of the week was quite annoying but not anymore - it's the little things 😆

I popped to Waitrose yesterday morning to get a few fresh bits that I prefer to buy there and that was another £32.67 gone - yes, that was partly due to my ice cream and chocolate habit but I'm stocking up while things are on offer. Then to collect my prescription and that was another £19.80 gone.

So a total of £172.08 spent in 3 days, to sustain just 1 person. No meat or fish other than fish fingers was included in that shopping. What I'm struggling to work out is what it costs to sustain me for a week or day. I know I over buy some times because I don't like running my stocks down to nothing and although they're adults and no longer live at home, I always like to have enough in to feed / supply my children if necessary! I also think that if I'm taken ill or can't get to shops I can still feed myself.

HRH on the other hand has for once been completely cost-free this week 😁 He's been an absolute joy as well which is great because that means he's feeling really well in himself and no extremes of temperature have affected him. I rode two days in a row during the week which he accepted without a murmur and then had a day off and then walked him in hand one day and had an excellent ride again yesterday. I try to vary the routes we do when hacking mixed in with letting him choose where we go sometimes and he was really forward and sure-footed so clearly putting shoes back on was the right thing to do for him. I'm happy to take them off over winter as per the farrier's suggestion but next year will have them put back on a month earlier.

To the money …

No changes to any of the accounts other than the new one. I added the £25 Premium bond win when it appeared and 2 scoops totalling £9.07.

Emergency Fund = £49.95

I'm currently taking part in an on-line finance course and gradually coming to terms with the fact that I need to streamline my accounts and do investing rather than saving. I know in my head that that's the only way to really 'grow' my money which is the whole reason I'm here and hence the diary being called Arrietty's ACORNS but I'm still struggling with the concept of having "too much cash" and then when you add in the making choices between stocks & shares ISAs' and SIPPs and the tax implications of it all … well, it just blows my not very mathematical brain and I am struck with inertia!

I fully appreciate that I'm very fortunate to be able to even think about these options but sometimes, just sometimes, I feel that life was much simpler when I had income, essential outgoings, a tiny savings pot for future expenses and everything else spare was thrown at clearing my debts!

Have a lovely day x

Arrietty

Another little update - well, I say 'little' but it will probably turn into a lengthy ramble as I tend to do a lot of musing on here.

It is already very warm and due to be alarmingly hot over the next few days. I leave for work at 6:40am so it's not too bad then and my office is in what is charmingly referred to as 'Level 1/ Lower Ground Floor' but to you and me 'tis the basement - there are no windows so the temperature remains fairly constant throughout the day but leaving work at 3:30 is always a shock!

The sheep fields are now open and a track has been cut through them so HRH and I had a lovely wander round there on Saturday but I don't expect to ride for the rest of the week so I will be mainly performing feeding and hosing down duties and trying to get him to stay in the shade.

A lot more decluttering was done over the weekend; 2 bags taken to charity shop and some old and rickety furniture pieces from YD' old bedroom dismantled and put into shed ready to go to the tip next week. I truly believe that deep inside me is a minimalist and whilst I've been decluttering for years now … I suspect that my primary skill has actually been clever concealment. I'm fairly tidy and I don't like ornaments per se, but what I realised over the weekend is that I've been gathering things like candles and candlesticks which essentially perform the same duty as an ornament and who, in their right minds, is lighting 8 taper candles of an evening, as well as a scented one in this weather 😄

No changes on the money front other than I've done a few scoops over to the new emergency fund and now have a total of £79.50 in there. Payday on Friday so all the shuffling and sharing will be done then.

I have now accepted the fact that investment is where I need to focus my money in order to maximise it and possibly think about retiring a couple of years early or at least significantly reducing my hours, however, I've filled a cash ISA for a reason this year and that amount is staying put!

I'm still focused on building an immediately accessible emergency fund but I'm now also thinking that perhaps I should continue with saving as much cash as possible until April next year, at which point I can then pour a decent amount into a Stocks and Shares ISA 🤨 I know I could be putting that money into a SIPP now instead, but I'm still not fully understanding how they work in terms of withdrawals, tax, annuities etc and I think they are probably far more complex than is necessary for my modest means!

There won't be any major changes to my plans until August now as decorators and wedding costs are my main focus, but from then on it will be full steam ahead 🚂

Have a lovely day

x

Skint_yet_Again

Hope you both stay cool with the hose Arrietty 🥵

Stock & shares always scared me as they say your money can go down as well as up 😨 I’m very risk adverse. I hope it works out for you as I’m sure that’s where the big bucks can be made 🤞