Busy Mee's Last Leg

Busy_Mee1 · 4 April 2018 at 7:31AM

Hello Beanie, Pinky and MadVix:wave: Thank you for popping in.

So we are off and running on the 24 month challenge. My mission is to have saved £100k towards paying our mortgage off ( more if we can manage it)

We currently have £65k saved and therefore need to save another £35k in 24 months. This equates to savings of £1458.33 a month. However my earnings are due to drop by £300 a month from July when my current role finishes, so I am going to try and save more during the period up to the June.

I am setting myself a target of savings of £70k by the end of June ( I told you I like round numbers) which equates to saving £1666.66 a month.

This is going to be tight, as we are going on one of our "proper travel" trips in May and need to find some spending money (emergency pot and holiday fund are a bit depleted at the moment).

On the plus side we have a three regular savers that will mature over the next few weeks, so there is some additional interest due. I am currently working through a big list of financial actions to shuffle money around my accounts and set up regular savers for next year.

I have also downloaded an app to track our spending I figure that if we are going to retire and live on a much reduced income we need to understand our spending. It has been very enlightening already :eek:

shangaijimmy · 4 April 2018 at 7:43AM

A challenging but exciting time ahead. Have you got any spare kidneys going

try_harder · 4 April 2018 at 11:00AM

Huge monthly targets but i have no doubt you will make them and easily .

Great to see you on here more often

michelle09 · 7 April 2018 at 6:21PM

Shiny new diary.

Good luck Busy Mee, I'm sure you can manage it. You certainly know how to get the best interest in the market.

Where is May's trip taking you?

newgirly · 8 April 2018 at 8:35AM

Hi busy mee, just spotted your new diary and wanted to wish you luck

Busy_Mee1 · 8 April 2018 at 12:00PM

Thank you everyone for popping in.

Jimmy - I am hoping to achieve this without selling any body parts. I might need them in retirement :rotfl:

Blimey life seems to have really stepped up a gear this week. Work has been really busy this week, there has been lots of financial stuff to do at home and the elderly step-parent has been admitted to hospital again. Cue much tearing around.....anyway I am hoping for a bit of breathing space this afternoon. Mr Mee and our son have gone to visit the out-laws ( I got a pass ) and our daughter isn't back from a weekend away.

I need to set up the new HSBC accounts, set up standing orders and open regular savers. I have already set up new NW and S@ntander regular savers this week and opened a new fixed rate ISA with V!rgin for Mr Mee. He was quite pleased that I was giving him £20k in his name, until I pointed out he doesn't know any of the passcodes ( cackles to herself ). He does really, I just used all his usual ones so if I get run over by a bus he will be fine :rotfl:

We have been shopping this morning and I avoided M&S and just shoppied in H@mebargains and @ldi. I must just mention H@mebargains. I normally shop in there for toiletries, cleaning products and dry goods, but their fruit and veg selection is getting better and better and is actually cheaper than @ldi ( unless on super 6). I started off tentatively buying carrots and potatoes and am now buying fruit too. Everything we have had so far has been great. I also bagged some more 50% off bargains in @ldi, including a whole spatchcock chicken for £1.90.

We have spent £76.28 so far in April on groceries ( two weekends) which I am pleased with. It really helps that we didn't do a "big shop" last weekend.

I have one bad MS confession to make, I have just got a new IPhone 7. I have gone from a SIM only deal of £10 a month to paying £33 a month for 2 years :eek:
This was the best deal I could get and my old phone was quietly dying ( an IPhone 5 which was one of the kid's cast offs) I desperately wanted a better camera, as I use my phone for taking pictures all the time.

It is great and I had a very happy walk yesterday morning taking photos in the spring sunshine

. I know some people say that you shouldnt live your life behind a camera, but I find I see such a lot more and take more notice of things when I am taking photos .

Enjoy your Sunday

beanielou · 8 April 2018 at 8:21PM

Enjoy your new phone

shangaijimmy · 8 April 2018 at 9:20PM

Being a MFW allows you to have the luxuries of a new phone! So enjoy. Busy busy account times ahead!!

Busy_Mee1 · 13 April 2018 at 6:51AM

I am very thankful that it is Friday this week - it has been a really busy week. I am working from home today and hoping for an early finish, but we will see....

In financial news I have spent quite a lot of time (more than I would like) setting up my online banking for the 2 new HSBC accounts.

I think HSBC could beat the C@@P For the title of "worse online banking 2018". Talk about complicated, so many different passcodes and a very wobbly service too. I had to spend 40 minutes talking to a very nice girl in the Philippines to get my account set up. Luckily Mr Mee's went a bit smoother, and luckily he didn't have to do it or it just wouldn't have happened. :rotfl:

I now understand why HSBC offer you an extra £50 bonus if you stay with them for a year, in addition to the £150 initial bonus. Anyway I will stop moaning because I will have 2 x £150 coming to me shortly and then 2 x £50 in 12 months time and 2 regular savers @ 5% :j

The other good news is that N@t West have just paid their switching bonus of £125 :T....thanks N@t West and sorry I am now on my way to FD....account opened with them this week, so just need to activate the switch and another £125 switching bonus and another 5% regular saver

That is probably the end of all the switching now, I could set up another dummy account for Mr Mee to switch to FD but I think I have run out of steam for now...

We will be keeping all the accounts we have now as they all have regular savers attached to them.

In other news I have resurrected my "odds and sods" account, so that I can keep a running tally of all the "free money" I earn. So far since the 1 April this has totalled £201.02. This includes rewards, interest from the the T@sco accounts, £22 from TCB and the N@tWest switching bonus. I will also include any Tilly Tidies, which is not strictly free money but feels like it. It is really motivating to see how all these small wins add up

It has generally been a low spend week this week, only a couple of days car parking for Mr Mee and a £4.75 in B&M for me.

I did used my JL free £5 gift card this week as I was in the city. I just used it to buy some birthday cards I needed, so another win.

I think that is all my financial news. The weather is absolutely dire here, it is foggy and pouring with rain, I just hope it brightens up for the weekend.

I am shopping with DD tomorrow for a dress for a wedding she is going to :eek: Wish me luck :rotfl:

try_harder · 13 April 2018 at 10:45AM

Morning Busy Mee1 .

I had to laugh when i read the comment about The Coox Bank .I bank with them and there is rarely a time that i can actually get online to see my account .It is especially annoying when i have to send money to another of my accounts by the following day and i spend hours constantly trying to log in usually with no success and have to resort to calling them yet again .Hopefully things will settle down with HSBx now that things are up and running .

What an amazing amount you have saved in just 12 days ,i cant remember what mine is now but it hasnt advanced since last week ,i put whatever it was in the bank to OP my sub account two which will soon be below £10,000 ,its great though isnt it when it appears to be free although its not really .

What a great week you have had you really are taking this money saving business to a new level ,so inspiring as always .Hope you are having a good day at home ,thats a great start to the weekend

Busy Mee's Last Leg

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