More WIRE than FIRE, simplifying, saving and savvy spending

ShyAndRetiring

Hope everyone is OK and having fun festives!

A little Twixtmas update ...

Spending

• Been a tad busy with visitors and festive malarkey so I'm happy to have achieved 5 NSDs from 23rd to today. Have resisted all sales emails and not surfed sales online 

• Have scooped up the remainder of December’s grocery budget and topped it up with the remainder of Xmas budget. We have more house-guests staying from tomorrow to 3rd Jan so this will help fill any gaps in meal plan or guests’ dietary requirements. Overall, this should balance out so we won’t have gone over budget this month.

Saving

• Looks like we will be accepting renewal quote from car insurance as it’s gone down from last year and OH hasn’t found a better option. It’s not a massive monthly saving, but it’s something. The slight frustration is that I was trying to save up to pay for the full amount this time around, but the recent car breakdown / recovery / repair cleaned out the £200 I’d saved so that money’s not there now. Unless I can wangle it with another pot shuffle, we’ll be paying by DD. But despite the small extra this costs, it’s still less overall than last year, so something of a saving.

• We sometimes sign up to Netflix for a month or two in Dec / January to help the dark evenings pass. However, we both want to get back into reading and have received books as Christmas gifts, so we’ve decided not to sign up this time around and just enjoy our books instead.

Sorting

• I’ve started to sort out some goals and plans for 2025, for house, health and all things financial! I’ll put some of these in a separate post in the new year. In the meantime, I’ve scoped the boards for a few challenges to sign up to and will probably include these in my posts, just to keep me accountable.

• I have a shed in the garden which is my WFH base. I started a bit of a sort-out before leaving my role, as I needed to return / donate things. I’ve spent a short while today in there, just sorting through some more paperwork and thinking about how I want to organise my space for 2025. There will definitely still be a work-zone for the WFH down the line, but it’ll be good to sort some hobby and ‘self’ space too! I’ll certainly be adding a decluttering challenge for 25 I think, in order to make the most of this space. 

• I also have lots of house / health / financial paperwork stored there too, so it’ll be good to sort through some of that also. There’s definitely some pensions paperwork I’ll need access to over the coming year.

• There's a semi-useful article in the Guardian online today, about monthly actions to stay on top of finances in 25, so I'm taking some of that in the context of our needs and situation, to create a personal version to help keep the money side of things sorted in 25.

Simple pleasures

• We’ve been incredibly fortunate with Xmas gifts which included 4 hampers of different sizes and contents, so we will take pleasure in enjoying some lovely extras for meals and snacks throughout January.

• Still enjoying walks, feel very lucky that it’s been so mild here over Xmas so it’s not felt like we’re schlepping around in all weathers to walk the dog, it’s been lovely.

• Also enjoying bird feeder activity - Coal Tit is now a regular visitor and seems to be bringing a whole chaos of Long-tailed Tits on most visits, such fun to watch them.

• Spending time with family over the festive period has been great and we’re very lucky to have been able to catch up with so many. 

That’s everything for the time being. I’ll be back again in the new year once our next round of visitors have left and by then it will be 2025! Wishing everyone the very best of health, happiness and all things financial for the new year and thank you again for all the support in 2024. 

S&R x

Organgrinder

Just a thought. If you have time before the renewal, why not apply for a zero interest purchase credit card? Pay for the insurance on that and pay off in installments.

Humboldt

Hi @ShyAndRetiring I enjoyed reading your latest update.  Thanks for highlighting the article in the Guardian, it was worth a read. We were also fortunate to be gifted a couple of food hampers, and several food items which have now been unpacked.  Many of the contents have lengthy 'use by dates', so we can enjoy the treats over a period of months.  Sorting/decluttering will also feature on my to-do list for next year.

Wishing you a very happy and healthy New Year. 

ShyAndRetiring

Organgrinder said:

Just a thought. If you have time before the renewal, why not apply for a zero interest purchase credit card? Pay for the insurance on that and pay off in installments.

@Organgrinder happy new year and thanks for a great idea there re: credit card stooze on the car insurance.    We probably won’t take out another card though as OH doesn't want any in his name so I have everything in mine and now I'm not earning I don't suppose I'll be able to get one.

However, I like the idea so I adjusted December's payment of the current CC so we can make the whole car insurance payment on it (this will take us to limit). We can then pay this off at a bit more than the DD rate would’ve been, all the time the CC is 0%. If we want / need to pay it off more quickly we can use the £ from the CT payment we don’t have to make in Feb and March. We'll also have a bit more to play with now as the Klarna payments for furniture purchase last summer finished in December.

Thanks for the inspiration ~ appreciate a cheeky stooze to avoid paying extra via direct debit! 

S&R x

ShyAndRetiring

Humboldt said:

Hi @ShyAndRetiring I enjoyed reading your latest update.  Thanks for highlighting the article in the Guardian, it was worth a read. We were also fortunate to be gifted a couple of food hampers, and several food items which have now been unpacked.  Many of the contents have lengthy 'use by dates', so we can enjoy the treats over a period of months.  Sorting/decluttering will also feature on my to-do list for next year.

Wishing you a very happy and healthy New Year. 

Hi @Humboldt ~ happy new year to you too and thanks for the good wishes!

I like articles like that as they're a great starting point for getting me thinking about what I need to prioritise (and not forget) to do, and it's easy to take out the actions which aren't relevant and personalising it with something that needs our attention instead. Glad it was useful.

You're right about lengthy 'use by dates', it's nice to keep a few items back (for example chutneys) as extras for summer picnics, so it's a gift to enjoy for quite a time.

I shall follow your decluttering with interest as I need all the inspiration I can get 

S&R x

ShyAndRetiring

 

Happy new year, hope everyone is well and has had a great start to 2025!

We're finally visitor-free, the last houseguests for the festive season left at lunchtime, so life can start to return to the new normal.

Spending

• We've stayed within budget for food, including for visitors. Plenty of treats have also been had (largely due to hamper gifts) so all has been enjoyable and very welcome.
• My NSD goals for this week (Sun to Sat) has been 4 and I'm on 3/4 NSD so far. Today I'm deviating because I received some money for Xmas and am buying a couple of things I'd like for my work room, to help me rationalise things in there a bit, now that I've hand to bring lots of my items back from the work office (although I did donate some stationery items which will benefit them). However, now all the other stuff is back at home I'm absolutely not going to buy additional storage - I need to get items out (repurpose, reuse, recycle, rather than dump) to create and enjoy the space, rather than store more stuff so please hold me to this! 

Saving

• Nothing consciously saved yet, although I have set up a couple more savings pots (spaces) in my Starling. 

Sorting:

• I've begun sorting the fridge to see what we have left in there to create a bit of a meal plan for the rest of the week / weekend. I believe cheese may be a feature.
• Upcoming is a goals post for the year, which sounds very organised but is actually a brain-dump of everything I'm thinking about trying to achieve this year. I'll put that up as a separate post as I'll want to come back to it throughout the year, I think.
• I've started sorting the space in my workroom (as mentioned above). I know I have a basket of seeds in there somewhere so I can also start to sort my 'Grow-Me-Own' plan!

Simple pleasures

• Spending time with family.
• Actually managing to get washing out on the line today, including all the wet coats from walking the dog in yesterday's absolute hoolie
• Christmas flowers still going strong.

Wishing everyone a happy evening, S&R x

ShyAndRetiring

2025 GOALS

The following is a joyful combination of careful thought and an absolute brain-dump ...

FINANCIAL (general)

• Survey side-hustle goal of £50 a month. I’ve worked out that this should cover my personal direct debits (Phone contract, prescription prepayment certificate) plus allow extra money for a monthly coffee treat in town when using the library. May also include Stoozing, Cashback and 'free money' in this goal, just so I can measure it for a change!

• Pay off credit card debt by Dec 25 This will be £500 debt by the time I’ve added the car tax to it.

• Find something I’d like to do part time, working from home (if caring responsibilities and health permit this as the year progresses).

SPENDING

I’ve always budgeted closely but have now reset budget for 2025 to take income drop into consideration. Overall goal isn’t just to survive, it’s to thrive this year. I'm a bit prone to anxiety so I want to focus on the positives: reduced income = reduced stress + increased wellbeing!

• Keep tabs on spending: review spending pots monthly and stick to them!

• Play around with the pots: pick one spending pot each month and experiment with trying to live below it for the month. The aim of this is to create a bit of surplus and prompt some practice at being extra good!  I’m already kind of doing this with the clothing budget plan, but feels like it’d be good to practice it with other pots too. This isn't just because it might help save us a bit of money for treats across the year, but because I’m keen to learn from our new normal, for instance, finding out what’s manageable on minimum and maximum spending /affordability levels within the budget. I think this will help me as I head towards accessing occupational pension pots in 26, so I can truly find out if I need to be strident about finding something part time or whether I can actually fully retire!

• Weekly NSD goals, to help keep track of spending. This is MSE-style no spend days, meaning no unbudgeted spending.

SAVING

• Don’t let anything auto-renew, use the extra time this year brings for finding best deals and making the most of cash-back etc.

• Save £750 by end September, to pay for weekend trip for a family wedding in October.

• Repurpose, reuse, recycle where possible.

SORTING

• Pension prepping: track down little old pension pots (at least 2, I think). Schedule in time for pension paperwork (see Life Admin section also).

• Focus on the garden and growing our own more in 2025. We’ve had a couple of successful years at this in the past but have lost the thread of this with two manic years. 

• 365 in 365 items out of the house / garden, getting decluttered a bit! Ideally this is through passing on to others, selling or donating, NOT dumping, very conscious about our environmental impact.

LIFE ADMIN

• Sort out a proper Life Admin folder - address one aspect each month, so that family have everything in one place if they need it. Also, this is to do with the fact I've been so unwell and my OH is also due to have surgery at some point this year. We're not being morose but there are lots of £££ aspects OH doesn't bother getting involved in and he'd be stuck if I was unable to do it for a bit. Ditto with some of his £££ and life admin, so it makes sense to start sharing this info with each other a bit more. I'm using the Big Book of Everything as a bit of a starting point, but adapting it to UK and us, and having a physical folder for documents and paperwork too! Ideas so far (I'll flesh this out more later)

• JAN: ID, passports,driving licences check dates / renewals / numbers etc

• FEB: Medical info all together, inc GP, scripts, medications and dosage

• MARCH: £££, accounts and assets info - what’s where, who can access it!

• APRIL:  Important documents - Will, birth certificates, marriage cert etc

• MAY: House documents

• JUNE: Contacts and updating these

• JULY: Pensions #1- general paperwork and contact info etc.

• AUGUST: car paperwork - MOT is due this month so it’s a good month for getting it all together

• SEPTEMBER:

• OCT: Pensions #2 - managing / updating paperwork/spreadsheet/providers for pensions starting in 2026.

• NOV:

• DEC:

RANDOM

• USE-UPS:

• #1: buy no yarn this year, but use up my stash! This will help declutter my room too. 52 balls of yarn in 52 weeks feels like a good number to aim for. Yes, I do have this and more stashed away! 

• #2: use up toiletries - wear my perfumes, slather those creams etc! This is also a bit of a self-care goal, as using them up means focusing a bit of time and care on myself, something I've not done for a while really.

• Identify viable seeds from stash (flowers and veggies) and use these up first before buying any seeds or plants for the GYO plan.

Right, stopping there for the moment, as I think it may become goal-overload otherwise all feedback welcome - particularly in that Life Admin schedule as I'm sure there are important things missing.

Thanks, S&R x 

Katiehound

Wonder if this one is a possibility

• Save £750 by end September, to pay for weekend trip for a family wedding in October.

using Principality BS
They have 6 month RS- max pay in £200 pm paying 7.85%

https://www.principality.co.uk/home/savings/savings-accounts/6-month-regular-saver 

ShyAndRetiring

Katiehound said:

Wonder if this one is a possibility

• Save £750 by end September, to pay for weekend trip for a family wedding in October.

using Principality BS
They have 6 month RS- max pay in £200 pm paying 7.85%

https://www.principality.co.uk/home/savings/savings-accounts/6-month-regular-saver 

Thanks @Katiehound that looks promising, will investigate that one tomorrow!   

Just looking at your signature again, you did well with your needlecraft makes in 2024 … do you have stash-busting goals for 2025 too?

Organgrinder

Katiehound said:

Wonder if this one is a possibility

• Save £750 by end September, to pay for weekend trip for a family wedding in October.

using Principality BS
They have 6 month RS- max pay in £200 pm paying 7.85%

https://www.principality.co.uk/home/savings/savings-accounts/6-month-regular-saver 

Gosh that's a superb rate, even if only for a short while and limited amount. Thanks.