Happy new year to all and welcome to the many new people! I’ve been on this thread for almost 10 years but I’m not very active (either at posting or actually being frugal 😳) so aim to do better this year. Really glad to see more traffic here than of late as it helps to inspire me!
we’re coming to the end of a big renovation and it’s absolutely decimated our savings. We’re not quite finished and there’s some stuff I’m not happy with so we may end up in a dispute 😬 which I’m hoping won’t cost me too much in fees /advice. Sigh. the other big thing coming up for us is our DC1 is due to start secondary school in September. He has significant SEN and will not be able to cope with mainstream, but I have very little hope that the LA will offer a sensible option, so I’m expecting to need to appeal (and pay for legal advice) and even possible tribunal costs there.
Other things we’d like to do: we need to replace our ugly front door and would like something naice and original in style, but that will be £££. Our car is also getting on a bit so we really need to start saving for a replacement in a few years, once it becomes unreliable /a money pit (we don’t do high mileage so am hoping we can eke a few more years out of it). We’d also like to save for a couple of memorable family holidays - I’d like to take the kids to Lapland and in a few years when DC2 is older I’d like to do a US or Canada road trip. I travelled a lot before kids but my disposable income is now much lower, travel costs are higher and we have to pay for the kids, so this will be a big stretch! And we need to build up our savings again. We also probably need to do more retirement planning and look again at our life insurances /critical illness, as we’d be screwed if one of us couldn’t work.
im a higher earner, DH is a middle earner, but we live in London so our costs are high. The list above is a lot of ‘priorities’ and we won’t be able to do them all to the extent I’d like! I need to bring down food costs a lot so this year I’m really trying to reduce food waste, as we’re a bit slack with that, and also eat less meat (a battle with DH, who is stuck in the 1950s). I want to eat less processed stuff too, I cook our main meals from scratch but still think there’s too much rubbish creeping in around the edges especially chocolate and I’ve gone right off processed bread too. I also need to buy less stuff - we’ve had to declutter a lot for the renovation and it’s been disgusting how much stuff I’ve thrown away /sent to charity /sold. And we still have too much.
Right, today I’m going to finish painting the box room, which will be my home office (following bedroom reshuffles), and attempt to organise some of my belongings. I need to buy a bookcase for it, I would like real wood but will probably be sensible and buy ikea! Need potatoes for soup and cottage pie tomorrow but that’s all.
I started a sourdough starter 5 days ago and it was looking lively on Saturday but is now very flat. I may have killed it but shall persevere. Hanging out in my lovely light new kitchen is one of my greatest pleasures, and reminds me that the huge upheaval of 2023 was worth it!