One step at a time

sunshineli

I had a really nice day yesterday as I was off work and finally feeling well enough to do a bit more. I started the day with a meditation followed by a gentle yoga stretch. I then went for a little walk into town. The sun was shining and it was so nice to walk around and admire the poppy displays for Remembrance Sunday. I bought some incense and herbal teas from the local health food shop, and a christening card for my best friend's son. When I got home I had a very relaxed afternoon reading my book. I then had an MSE dinner eating lots of leftover veggies from the weekend. I had a delicious pasta dish with courgettes, tomatoes, olives, garlic, chilli, feta and a side salad. It had at least 5 portions of veg in it!

This evening I have officially made my mortgage overpayment tracker! So I am all ready for making the first mortgage overpayment next week.

Sammie_1985

Yay for making an overpayment next week 😀 it becomes addictive when you see the numbers coming down! 

What book are you reading? I love reading so always up for recommendations! 

Have a great weekend. 

sunshineli

@Sammie_1985 I am reading a book called ‘The Witching Hour’ at the moment which is a collection of short spooky stories. The short stories are written by several different authors but one of them is my favourite author Stacey Halls (who wrote The Familiars). It’s been the perfect book to read around Halloween.

Thank you, I hope you had a great weekend too.

sunshineli

I had a long weekend with Friday and Monday off, but it ended up being a bit up and down. On Friday we were celebrating DH birthday and went out for lunch in our local town, then had a movie night. On Saturday I started to feel unwell again with similar symptoms to what I had when I was unwell on holiday. I am still no further as to knowing what’s wrong with me but waiting for some test results from the hospital. 

Unfortunately this meant I had to miss my best friend’s son’s christening on Sunday, which I was really upset and felt guilty about. 

Today I was also off work (my non working day) and it went better. Although I’m still not feeling great I managed to get a few things done around the house which made me feel better. I did the online food shop for this week which is only costing £38. This is because I had 5% cash back and also an £11 voucher from unavailable items being refunded last week. I’ve prioritised simple meals for this week to keep things easy. 

Last week I spent too much money on top up shops at the supermarket, and also ended up wasting food which is not usually like me. This week I am determined to stick to my meal plan and not do any top up shops until Friday when I have budgeted £6 for some more fresh veg. 

sunshineli

Had a NSD today! 

I was back at work after the long weekend which didn’t go great. I ended up having a bit of a wobble in the middle of the day feeling completely overwhelmed by everything. So I took my lunch break early, lit the ‘positive vibes’ incense and had a ‘positive energy’ cup of herbal tea 😂. I did feel a little better afterwards.

I do feel a bit nervous about the future of my job in today’s world we live in. I’m considering doing some training in another industry to build my skills should my job cease to exist in the future. That being said I have no idea where to start with it or what I would want to do. 

For tea we had a bonfire night themed veggie hotdogs (one day early) and now I am finally relaxing and going to play some video games. 

Tomorrow I am in the office so hopefully that will just be a £5 spend for the train and I will take a packed lunch.

seventh88

Hi @sunshineli I’m just catching up with your diary. So sorry to hear you’ve been ill and you’re still recovering - how are things now for you? It sounds like you’ve been doing great with the savings goals and looking at over payments soon too. Take care 

sunshineli

@seventh88 thank you for checking in. I hope you are doing well. 

Once again it’s been a while since I last posted. Illness hit our household in November and early December with DH having a bad bout of the ‘super flu’. For someone in his early thirties and no underlying health issues it was frightening to see how incredibly unwell he was. Alongside this I was suffering bad with my arthritis and chronic fatigue so the past few months has very much felt like ‘survival mode’. 

Luckily towards Christmas he improved, and my chronic illness flare subsided a bit, and so we have managed to have a really nice Christmas with family. We spent a few days at my in laws and then had a Christmas dinner at my mums yesterday which was lovely. I’m feeling very grateful for this time spent with family, and my thoughts are with those who find this time of year difficult. 

We’ve also managed to have a few outings, such as a cinema trip and we visited a stately home for their Christmas event. 

Now that the Christmas celebrations are over I’m ready to get back to a calm routine, simple meals and less alcohol. 

Recent financial updates

• I received a 2% pay rise at work. It’s not much (only £27 per month extra after deductions) but I’m happy with it, as I wasn’t expecting any pay rise this year. It would be wise for me to set up a mortgage overpayment DD of £27 per month, but I may just add it to savings.
• In December we had our usual yearly car payments where we had our MOT, service and paid for car insurance, breakdown cover and road tax. This all came to £980 in total which came out of our savings.

Later on I will post my 2025 review and goals for 2026. 

sunshineli

2025 financial review

Looking back at my diary from January 2025, my main financial goal was to build an emergency fund of around £12,000. I was then aiming to save £7,000 of this in 2025. I’m pleased to say we are ending 2025 with just shy of £9,400 in our savings which I feel really proud of. My initial goal was to make sure we had 12k of savings before we started making mortgage overpayments, but I decided to change this and we made our first mortgage OP this year! It was just £100 so far, but I am aiming for these overpayments to increase next year.

Having this diary has really helped me stay accountable and on track with my goals this year. 

In addition to my financial goals, I was aiming to ‘manage my stress and eat well on a budget’ in 2025. This is a bit of a work in progress and I will continue working on this in the new year.

2026 goals and intentions

Financial

• Overpay the mortgage by at least £1,200

• End 2026 with at least £7,000 in savings

House & garden

In 2026, we would like to get some work done to our house and garden which will use quite a chunk of savings. We are hoping to get new windows in the spare bedroom, office and kitchen. These are the only old windows in the house and these rooms are considerably colder so we are planning to have new windows by next winter to help keep the house warm. Luckily the rest of the windows were replaced 4 years ago before we moved in.

Additionally, we need some gardening work doing such as trimming some large trees and bushes. I would also like to look into having some decking in our garden so I can have an enclosed space for my dog to roam. Currently the garden is not secure and she can’t be in the garden off lead. The garden isn’t easy to secure due to the way lots of gardens join together, so I think an enclosed decking with a gate will work best. I know this won't be a cheap job, and I will do some more research on it in the new year.

Personal

In 2026 I would like to focus on my hobbies such as reading, and crafting when I feel up to it. This helps my mental health when I don’t have the energy to go out, and it will also hopefully help stress levels rather than scrolling on social media.

In terms of eating well on a budget, I want to try and do some more batch cooking on days when I feel well enough, so I can easily defrost and eat something nutritious on low energy days.

I’m keeping my personal goals pretty simple this year. I don’t want to overcomplicate things and set myself goals that are impossible to achieve.

Happy New Year! We are having a nice simple NYE at home, playing games and watching a movie. We are also making homemade pizzas and drinking some Lidl prosecco! See you in 2026!

sunshineli

This is my first post of 2026. I’ve taken a slow and gentle approach to the new year and haven’t spent much time online, which is why I haven’t posted until now.

Just before Christmas I deleted most of my social media, and a couple of weeks ago I deleted my remaining social media apps and I have felt so much better for it. I now just use a few forums and watch YouTube, which is working well for me. 3 weeks ago I also stopped reading the news. I know this is a bit controversial because it’s important to remain informed, but it was just getting me down so much that I decided to stop reading it at least for the foreseeable. 

January was spent resting and reading a lot which was really enjoyable. Most of these books were free e-books using Amazon prime reading, and I also bought a few 99p kindle books. I also did dry January, and although I have reintroduced a small amount of alcohol I really don’t feel very bothered about it anymore. 

Finances wise, I haven’t made any mortgage OPs yet this year but I will be looking to make one at the end of February. We also spent £460 getting the garden sorted and a big hedge cut back.

Health wise I have been struggling quite a bit recently and had a really bad flare. I’m now starting some new medication next week so I hope this works for me. Due to my health I will be working from home all of the time for the next few months.

There are 2 weeks until our next payday when our monthly budgets are reset, and I still have £123 in the grocery fund. I expect to do 2 more weekly shops of £60 during this time so it should be manageable. Tonight we are having 3 bean chilli from the freezer in some wraps, and chips and salad. A nice frugal meal which will be followed by watching tv and reading. 

South_coast

Sorry to hear you've been struggling health-wise, fingers crossed for the new meds 🤞

Ref the news, I watch a 30min broadcast every day and nothing more. That way I feel informed, but not overwhelmed