First Week Of Using #DaveRamsey Envelope System

Pay day has come around, and the budget is done, so now I'm taking out my cash requirements for the month from my account. My DH (Dear Husband) has been constantly taking the mickey out of me for writing everything down and budgeting to the nth degree. Constantly following me around the house shouting "WRITE IT DOWN!". 

Here's my envelope breakdown for the month - bearing in mind that everything else is on direct debit:

• Entertainment - £300. That sounded a lot to me. Having worked out average spend per month on meals, going to the pub, date night once a month - that was what I budgeted for. And I KNOW Dave Ramsey would shout at me "eat rice & beans, beans & rice" - but I neither like rice, nor do I want every meal to be monotonous.  And if I didn't go out, then I'd be a miserable moo.
• Petrol - £160.
• Food - £300. I'll refer to the rice and beans note above. Although I have bought a lovely case of Branston baked beans for breakfast. 
• Me, Me, Me Fund - £300. Us ladies, in general, aren't used to spoiling ourselves and I'd say this was a huge amount to spend on me. I'm not used to putting away money, just for me. So, at the end of the month, I'm hoping that I've either learnt how to spend on me (doubtful), or this money will be a lovely bonus at the end of month. For popping on the mortgage...hopefully.

I went out for the first time a couple of days ago - just with money from the envelopes - no debit card. And it felt WEIRD. And I got ever so slightly panicky. 

"What if I wanted to buy something?" YOU HAVE MONEY IN YOUR ENVELOPES.

"What if I needed a "big" shop?" YOU HAVE MONEY IN YOUR ENVELOPES!

But an added side effect that it did have was that I really thought about what I was spending. No more wandering around the farm shop, picking up artisan sausage rolls for £3.50, or a rosemary and cheese topped focaccia. Oh no sirree Bob. A chicken, some broccoli, potatoes, carrots and asparagus were all that went in the basket - for a Bank Holiday roast tomorrow. I'll let you know what I did with the giblets later (bleugh - giblets!).

I'll let you know how I get on with those envelopes in a post at the end of the month. Has anyone else found any other positives coming from using this system? Are there better ways that you have found to do your budgeting?

Replacing my old mobile phone

Last week, I was carrying too much into the garage and dropped my phone. Smash goes the screen and a bill from the good old market man for £70 to replace it.  Or did I have to do that?

My DH had replaced his phone a couple of months and did a comparison of how much he'd get to recycle his old phone. You can compare yours here. After being quoted £80 to have it recycled - he then received an email saying that they would give him £22 so the phone has come back to us, and is sitting forlornly in the hallway.

I'm sure you know this already - when you get a new contract for a phone, it usually contains an element for the purchase of a new phone. For example: if you buy an iPhone 6 - the price of the phone might be £300 and the monthly rental is £15 per month. You pay off the phone as you would with any hire agreement ,and pay the £300 over 12 - 24 months. 

Because I had my DH's iPhone - I didn't have to shell out for a handset. Using MSE's (#moneysavingexpert) great guide to switching tariffs - that can be found here, and using their money saving code, I am now paying £17.00 per month with EE. I didn't have to switch my PAC code (bonus) and saved a ridiculous £18.13 per month. 

Needless to say - I've called up my lovely bank again and asked them to increase the automatic mortgage overpayment by £18.13 per month. 

Total May 16 Mortgage Overpayment (adding in last week's "easy" savings) £810.70* + £18.13 = £828.83

* see last week's post on how I scrutinised my monthly outgoings to get the £810.70.

Top CashBack Savings

I've recently starting going away occasionally for work and sometimes have to book myself into hotels. I'd got out of the habit of going via Top CashBack (#topcashback) to book or buy anything, even though last year, I received £190 back from purchases.


Top CashBack is easy to use - even if you are doing supermarket shopping. Go onto the app before you shop and see if there are any offers on there that you'd normally buy. If so, buy it and keep your receipt. Then all you have to do is snap the receipt - using your phone - and upload to TopCashBack. 

The money usually comes through within a couple of weeks. I now save it up to the end of the year and cash the money into my bank account or, if there is an offer on, you can sometimes get an additional 10 - 25% by converting into shop-specific vouchers e.g. Argos.

And now for the Frugal Recipe

Yum. Yum. Giblets out of the chicken I bought earlier. DH shouts from the lounge, after he's been asked what I should do with them "chuck the buggers away!" There must be something tasty I can do with them? The bag contains a slightly mushy bag of heart, liver, gizzard (stomach) and neck.  And some of my friends - who love eating lamb hearts and kidneys, would practically be salivating  over this bag of awesomeness.

What to do with them?

Google is awash with lots of Paleo recipes but frankly, they make me want to be ever so slightly ill. What I'll do tomorrow is put the giblets with the chicken carcass, bay leaves, celery, carrot and onion in a big slow cooker and hope that it adds to the flavour of the stock. 

And then just not tell DH when we next use the chicken stock....


That's all for this week. I'd really love to know how all of you guys are maintaining frugality and paying off your mortgage early.  Have a wonderful week. Sarah

Starting the mortgage snowball to pay off the home early

Starting with Dave Ramsey

Can I pay off the 23 year mortgage in 5 years? All £221,000 of it? Can I start a private pension, paying in 15% of my income AND then put some aside for investing? And write it all down to be accountable? There is part of me that thinks a resounding "NO!" But there is little part of me that is every so slightly excited. And nervous as hell that nasty internet trolls will spam my inbox. But hey - I'm made of stern stuff. And the thought of being mortgage-free is enough to get the old creative juices flowing.

So, back to #daveramsey and his baby steps. I read his #totalmoneymakeover on holiday and then subscribed to his podcasts. Getting my ducks in a row was the first port of call.  Luckily (or unluckily), I'd recently been made redundant and so had some money to put aside to start the steps. Here they are, if you haven't read the books:

£1,000 to start an Emergency Fund – An emergency fund is for those unexpected events in life. Cool - I could luckily do that. Look at me - this was easy (or so I thought). Baby step 1 done. 

Pay off all debt using the Debt Snowball – List my debts, excluding the house, in order. The smallest balance should be the number one priority. Our only debt was the car payment and I could pay that one off, using some of the redundancy money. Job done. Oh yes, I was flying.

3 to 6 months of expenses in savings – Once you complete the first two baby steps, you will have built serious momentum - says Dave. Oh gosh. This one was HARD. I did my income and expenditure budget and came up with the monthly figure that would meet my NEEDS, not my WANTS. And then I put it into Premium Bonds. I am so grateful that I was able to do this quickly. And I fully appreciate that others can't and therefore have to save up.

That was all of my redundancy money gone  and I must admit that I felt a little panicky. Even though the money was sitting in the NSI account, I felt a bit exposed and...ever so slightly poor. But... I also felt a certain amount of relief knowing that 6 months of money was in the bank - just in case the world went belly up and I had to go job hunting again.

I'd planned on using some of the money for a lovely holiday to California but what does Mr Ramsey say "live life like no one else now, so you can live like no one else later."

Invest 15% of household income into pre-tax retirement funds – When you reach this step, you’ll have no payments—except the house—and a fully funded emergency fund. 

There was a little devil on my shoulder saying "really, 15% - that's A LOT of my income - what if I die before I can take that money?" Which then made me think - "um - maybe you should start living a little healthier". So, I called up #HargreavesLansdown and asked them to set me up with a private pension, at £X per month. I asked for flexibility in the payments (as I'm now self-employed) and I wanted a pension that transferred to my spouse (or others) upon my death. 

College funding for children – this one doesn't apply to me as I don't have children. 

Pay off home early – Now it’s time to begin chunking all of my extra money toward the mortgage and getting closer to realising the dream of a life with no house payments.

Build wealth and give! – It’s time to build wealth and give like never before. Leave an inheritance for future generations, and bless others now with your excess. It’s really the only way to live! Dave's words, not mine.

Pay off the home early

Paying off the home early is where my main focus is now and there are such good Twitter feeds from lots of great people who are focusing their energy on doing exactly what I'm doing. Type in #paymortgageoffearly and you'll come up with hundreds of results. I am also an avid user of Martin's (MSE) Overpayment Calculator that shows how regular payments make all the difference to the end date of your mortgage.

So, here's how I am trying to get extra payments into my mortgage account. Every month, the day after pay day, I have a budget meeting - with myself  which might seem a bit weird. Every pound that I earn is allocated a name e.g. monthly food, entertainment, Sarah's wants, etc. Dave Ramsey advocates putting some money aside for yourself as all work and no play certainly does make Sarah a dull girl.  You can click on this link to go to a basic budget calculator. I like to use my own excel spreadsheet. 

I tried to explain to my lovely husband that "every pound has a name" and he said he does this as well: "Paul's money, Paul's money and Paul's money". Bless his little cotton socks. 

I look at everything I am spending money on and try to trim what I am spending & cut back out superfluous items:

• Coffee at the station every morning and my newspaper. £2.85 per day @ 22 days per month = £62.70. Just that staggered me. I had a perfectly useable IPad that I could read the news on FOR FREE. What was I doing buying a newspaper? I also had a travel mug in my cupboard and therefore PDQ starting making my coffee every morning.

• Smoking - yep - oh god - when I added this up, I was spending nearly £200 on fags. I was literally burning my money away so am now puffing away on a vape at a cost of £6 per month. That figure made me feel a little bit nauseous as I could have saved that money over the last 20 years and had...well...had a lot of money. Woulda, coulda, shoulda.

• Lunches - oh, and the occasional bacon butty at the canteen. They were setting me back at £5 - £8 per day (Total = c. £200). I used to say - "but I haven't got time to make my sandwiches / soups in the morning". Now, I do a batch cook every Saturday or Sunday morning and have lost weight during the process. OK - you've got to shell out for the ingredients - but the savings are tremendous. I now put £100 into an envelope and that's my lunch money to go to the supermarket with. I'll get to one of my recipes at the bottom of this blog post. 

• The car payments are now paid off so I take the £182 that I was paying per month and asked my bank to automatically put that into the mortgage account. I didn't miss it, and making it automatic means that I didn't feel aggrieved when I had to hand it over.

• The gym - £50 per month. I went twice a month (ok - once a month). What a waste. Now, if I want to do a yoga or pilates class, I go onto Meet Up and look up where there is a free class. That site is amazing - from yoga classes, to wine appreciation, to dog walking companions - fantastic!

The total that I could, and do, now overpay is £594.70. Using the MSE calculator, that works out at a whopping 10 years taken off the mortgage. The aim is to take 18 years off the mortgage. I called up the bank and asked whether I could be put onto a better deal, as my initial 2-year fixed rate was expiring, and the lovely people that they are have reduced the interest rate on a 5-year fixed by 1.2% meaning that I am paying a whopping £216 less per month. 

Applying the £216 saving to the mortgage snowball of £594.70 now gives me an overpayment of £810.70. Applying that to the MSE calculator means that the mortgage is paid off in 11 years and 9 months. 

Now I just need to find a way to overpay that by more to bring the term down. If you have any ideas, then I'd love to hear them. 

Butternut Squash Soup (makes for 4 - 6 portions)

Here's one of my recipes for my lunches this week. This is a really delicious and warming soup that has an added kick of ginger loveliness.

The ingredients sound a bit "meh" but when added together and blended lead to one of those meals that are the food of the Gods.

2 carrots (10p)

2 sticks of celery (40p)

25g butter (25p)

knob of ginger (I love ginger - the amount is up to you - about 5cm square should do) (40p)

1 butternut squash (£1)

A splash of olive oil (20p)

1 sprig of rosemary (from the garden)

Salt & pepper (store cupboard item)

1 onion (20p)

500ml Home made chicken stock (I make this myself - dead simple to make)

 

Total = £2.55 - that's about 50p per portion. Prices found on My Supermarket. 

How to make it:

1. Cut the butternut squash up into chunks - making sure to take off the outer layer. You'll need a sharp knife as they are quite difficult to cut. The seeds can be taken out by using a spoon so that you don't waste any of the squash. 
2. Put a little olive oil into a oven proof dish and then whack the squash in. Give it a liberal amount of ground pepper on top, and a touch of salt. Pop into the oven at 180C for about 20 minutes. Take the squash out when it is really soft.
3. Meanwhile, cut up the carrots, celery and onion and grate the ginger.
4. In a large pan (frying pan, saucepan, wok - whatever you've got), put the butter and melt it. Don't burn it as burnt butter tastes rancid.
5. When that's melted, put your carrot, ginger, celery and onion in and leave to soften for about 8 minutes. 
6. Then pour your chicken stock in and your rosemary.
7. Bring up to a simmer and then pop a lid on it for 20 minutes. We want the vegetables to be nice and soft.
8. When your butternut squash is done, and your veg are soft, put all of these into a blender and blend. If you don't have a blender, because the ingredients are so soft, you can use a potato masher and that'll do the trick.

This recipe is so good, you can even see my fingerprints in the soup where I kept on dipping and tasting. 

I freeze these in containers bought from the pound shop. You can get 9 plastic containers for....you guessed it....£1.

If you want to make your own chicken stock, it's really simple. Put the carcass of a chicken into a casserole dish (or slow cooker) with an onion, some celery, a chopped up carrot, bay leaves and pepper. Cover the chicken with water and leave to simmer for a couple of hours - more if it is in the slow cooker.

Well, that's my first blog post - please do let me know if you've got any great recipes that don't cost the earth or what you're doing to pay the mortgage off as quickly as possible. I'd love to hear from you.

1st Indian Cookery Class - Naan Breads - soooo simple & Cheap

Tuesday was my first Indian cookery class. Bit nervous - making friends and meeting new people always seems easier when you're a child. I needn't have worried - all the girls were down one end and all the boys down the other end. And what a great mix of people.

I don't know what I expected but everyone was very welcoming - washing up each other's pots if someone fell behind and then helping to knead and punch the dough, when people's arms were tired. A really welcoming experience and can't wait for next week's class.

Nasim - the sweet teacher - was helpful, knowledgeable and very funny. 

Here's the naan bread recipe which took about 40 minutes to make and was a hit in the pub afterwards. Any leftovers can be frozen.

• 1 1/2 cups of warm water
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups of flour, plus a few tablespoons for your work space

Directions:

If you want to add any further ingredients e.g. coriander or cumin seeds - add them at step 2
.

1. Combine warm water, sugar and yeast in a bowl. Let it stand for 5 minutes until foamy.
2. Add salt & flour. Mix thoroughly. Knead dough on a floured work space about 20 times and form into a tight ball.
3. Put in a warm place to rise for 30 minutes. The dough doesn't rise much, but it doesn't need to.
4. Turn the dough onto your floured work space. Divide into 8 pieces and roll out with a rolling pin to about 1/8 inch thick.
5. Grill naan pieces on a frying pan, or on the grill, and for 1 - 2 minutes each side.

We served it with a gorgeous potato curry - which I'll make for my lunches this week and pop onto here. 

Oh, and PS: How cute are these? Found this idea whilst browsing etsy and going to pinterest them for use with the nieces and nephews. So easy to make and free - well, that's if you have some cress seeds. 

Enjoy. And have a good weekend.