January 2024 Budget

This first month of 2024 has been a pretty good month when it comes to our finances and we have managed to reduce our spending in the way that we had planned we would by changing some of our behaviours, and not necessarily specific behaviours connected directly to finances.  We did have one big event this month which made our spending a little unusual for this month, which was our nephew's 18th birthday.

For my own health, I've decided to greatly reduce the amount of sugar that I have been consuming throughout the week.  I've not cut it out completely, it's nice to have some treats, but I no longer have it every day.  Reducing my sugar has meant that we no longer do regular trips to the shops to get it and this has ended up reducing our shopping bill by about £40.  Which is ridiculous when you think about it.  I've also made our meal plans a lot simpler so that I can meal prep all our workweek meals on Sunday.  This has meant that we now eat a lot healthier, it saves money on our grocery bill, and as it's already made we are a lot less tempted to order take-away.  We knew that we would be spending a little bit more in the last week as that's when we'd be travelling for our nephew's birthday, but what we weren't expecting was to both be ill which did mean that we ended up spending more on food than we originally hoped.

Due to how we've set up our bank account now, we were able to buy our TV license for the year in one go.  This was quite a big expense but it was also nice to know that we don't have to worry about it for the rest of the year.  This is something I'd like to set up for the other bills in the future, but that's once we've reached our saving goals first.  The rest of the spending has been pretty similar to previous months.

Our personal spending has also been down this month, mostly because we've been a lot more mindful about spending.  I've made a list of things I would like to buy in the future and the amount they'll probably be so I know how many weeks I need to save up first before I can actually get them.  Ed is also doing the same thing, so this should keep our spending in budget throughout the year.  We've also managed to put a good amount towards our Christmas sinking fund and saving goals, which always makes me happy.

So it's been a good start to the year and our new habits are doing well.  We plan on carrying on these for the rest of the year and, if we do, we should be able to reach our financial goals pretty quickly.  In the past, we worked out to set up the base for our finances, and now that means we can build on them.  Hopefully, by the end of this year, we'll have gotten much closer to being able to fully enjoy the money we earn. 

Walking: Aircraft Crash Hunting (or planning to but not actually making it in our case)

This is a walk that I actually did with others, my husband Ed and a friend of ours, but to say that it didn't exactly go to plan would be a complete understatement.  The plan was to do a route I had found on my OS map app which was supposed to take us by a WWII plane crash site and then pass a lovely waterfall that I thought would probably look quite pretty at this time of year.  However, this is what actually happened.

We started off from the car very near a pub just outside Glyntawe, which would hopefully have meant that we ended at a pub as well.  Then it was up towards the Black Mountain (though that wasn't our final destination), past a farm, and onto the mountainside.  So far so good, but then I managed to take us on a wrong turn which meant we were heading uphill a lot sooner than we should have been. However, it did mean that we missed a river crossing that looked a little tricky when we looked at it later on and a really steep walk up which we later walked down at the end.  Whilst a bit of a mistake we decided to just carry on up, joining onto the Beacons Way path that is on the route and doing the walk backwards instead.

Once we had gotten back onto the path we did have a really good view north, where the clouds were rolling over the hilltop, and to the east where you could see some signs of old settlements on the other side of the valley.  A little reminder of how different things used to be.  We then followed the route off the main path and southwest towards the waterfall, stopping off at the remains of a shepherd's hut to have our lunch sheltered from the wind.  The waterfall was definitely worth stopping to have a look at, especially with the icicles that had gathered around it, and we spent a good few minutes just staring at it despite it being a little bit chilly out of the sun.  

The guys didn't want to take the route recommended on the app to cross the water as there was a lot of vegetation in the way, it was very boggy, and they weren't wearing wellies like I was.  So, we found another route that took us above the waterfall to find a crossing there.  Then we carried on southwest, weaving our way around all the shake holes there until we hit an actual footpath again.

Once we were on that we had a look at the time and the amount of daylight we had left to explore and decided we didn't really have time to safely go looking for the crash sites.  There wouldn't really have been enough light to see it properly anyway.  So instead we headed off to a rocky outcrop to have another look at the landscape from there before heading back to the footpath and down the hill past the largest crab apple tree I've ever seen to the car.  

So, not exactly as I had planned, but still a good walk.  And if I'm being entirely honest, if I was to pick which one I would rather see it would have been the waterfall, so I'm glad that we ended up doing the walk backward.  Will definitely be back to try and actually find this crash site next time around, though it'll probably just be a direct up and down that time.  One thing I did learn on this walk was that though it is nice walking with other people, I definitely prefer walking on my own.  It's much more relaxing, there's less pressure, and I get to walk at my own pace.

Crafting 2024

Despite a number of other hobbies I want to focus on this year I am planning on carrying on with the crafting, especially some of the sewing projects I have on my list.  However, I'm not going to set any specific goals for myself this time.  Instead, I'm going to just work my way through my list, with no time scale planned, and see where I end up at the end of the year.  This is partly because of the previously mentioned other hobbies, but it's also because I don't want crafting to become a chore.  

Here is a list of the projects I'm hoping to work my way through over the next few years (though obviously there are many more on top of that):

• Quilling Christmas cards
• Finish knitting the Maggie Jumper
• Sew the Field of Fucks cross-stitch
• Crochet a crop top with leftover yarn
• Re-knit the Icelandic jumper in a larger size
• Knit matching mittens to my hat
• Sew a left-over fabric top
• Sew the Welcome to Erebort cross-stitch
• Sew a Grogu fabric top
• Sew the cropped trousers
• Crochet a long-sleeved top
• Sew the cut embroidered dress
• Sew an apron
• Knit the Underwing mitts
• Knit another vintage cardigan in simpler yarn
• Start crocheting a leftover yarn blanket
• Start sewing a leftover fabric quilt

It's quite a long list and there's no way I'll get them all completed by the end of the year or even the end of two years.  There are also a lot of sewing projects on this list, which means that this year will be a year of sewing, whereas last year was more about knitting.  It'll be good to get back into sewing as I feel like I have lost a little bit of skill on that front.  And that's it really.  This isn't a particularly long post, but then it didn't need to be.  I'll keep you updated on what I get done as the year progresses.

Goals 2024

The goals this year are going to be pretty much the same as last year, mainly as our long-term goals haven't changed.  There are a few ones that I've added at the end, but I will put less effort into those ones.  It's not that they are not important, it's just that we are trying to concentrate on our finances first so that we have more freedom to do other things in the future.  This is what we'll be working on this year.

Financial Freedom.

• Saving another third of our four-month emergency fund - we did really well last year with saving up for this, but that was partly helped by the money I got to keep after doing my taxes as a self-employed person.  However, I'm not self-employed anymore, but hopefully just means that I can put aside that additional money straight away with each wage I get.   So that'll be £2500 into savings in 2024.
• Sinking funds - we need to save up for Christmas again and this will be one of the priorities at the start of the year.  It works out at about £73 a month to get us back to where we can have a financially stress-free Christmas, but I'm hoping we can put more in at the beginning to get us there quicker.  We also want to start saving for a holiday abroad, something a bit bigger than what we've been doing before.  It possibly won't be this year, but hopefully next.  We're still working on where we want to go and what we would like to do, but once we've worked that out can calculate how much we'll need to save and start putting money aside for that.
• 12.5% of earnings towards my pension - this is basically the same as last year and I'll need to see if I can do it all through my work or if I'll need to keep putting away additional sums as before.
• Secondary income - this is the same as last year as well.  I'm starting to form more of an idea about what I'd be comfortable doing so we'll see what happens.
• Changing my bank account - yep still haven't done this yet.  To be honest, it's not as high on my priority as it probably should be.

Learning New Skills.

• Skateboarding - this is still something that I want to learn to do and what I've learnt over the last couple of years is that I just haven't been very disciplined when it comes to sorting this out.  I plan to practice at least twice a month, usually with my husband who wants to get back into it.
• Surfing - now that we know that we don't need any more lessons just yet but just need to practice we can just hire some surfboards, which I can book in advance when I know what Ed's work hours are.  Again we just need to be more organised and disciplined so that we do this whenever we're both off.
• Drawing - this is something that I wrote about in my new hobbies blog.  It's really just for my own enjoyment and to keep my brain nice and healthy, but there is a possibility that it could play some part in getting a secondary income.  I'd like to practice at least once a week.
• Flute playing - again this was in my hobbies blog and this is also just for my own enjoyment.  In fact, there is absolutely no way I'm playing the flute in public.  This isn't high on my list of things to prioritize but I would still like to do this once a week if I can.
• Reading - another thing that's just for my own personal enjoyment.  I plan to do a little reading every night, just before bed - at least on a weekday.
• Learning another language - this is something I've put in but I haven't really made any decisions on or plans yet.  Ed has said that whatever I learn he would like to learn with me, but what language that is I'm still not sure about.  Sometimes I think it would be good to learn French as some of the countries we want to visit have it as their official language, there's also the possibility of learning Welsh seeing as we are now in Wales, but it would also be good to get back into learning British Sign Language again and that's more where I'm leaning.  There's no way I'd be able to learn multiple languages at a time, so it'll just have to be one for now.  We'll see.

So that's all of them.  There are quite a lot that I've written down, but as I said we'll prioritize the top ones to begin with and see how the year goes.  In a way, it's good for the way my brain works to have a few different ones going so that I spend my time bouncing between things the way my brain does.  I actually find it hard to concentrate otherwise.  I wasn't really that organised with my goals last year and I feel like that showed in the outcome so I want to be more organised this time around, starting by breaking the goals up into quarters again.  Having something more concrete to work toward means I'll be much more likely to accomplish them.  Let's see what we can actually do this time around.