Our Goals Board

If you are a regular reader of this blog you will know that I'm pretty focused on achieving our goals, very focused, sometimes I think it borders on obsession. We have constant reminders of our aims and goals all around us, a laminated copy of them near the computer, a handwritten copy in our account book, Algarve reading by the bed, a mortgage overpayment piggy bank on the dresser, and the visual goals board above. Everywhere you go in our house you can't escape the fact that we want to pay off the mortgage and move to Portugal. Some may think this is too much, I think it keeps us motivated to achieve our dreams.

When we first devised our plan dh and I both wrote down our five main priorities in life after family and our health. These are a given. These priorities could be anything, however silly they may seem. Mine were, in no particular order, to have financial freedom, to be in the sunshine, to travel (I love America), to lead a simple life and to read good books. If I achieved or could do all these things I would be a very happy bunny. Dh's were very similar except he included play golf! What is it with men and golf? :)

Further Reading:

Recommended Reading - Your Money or Your Life

Renewal of passport - How much?

There is no way to save money on this, unless you never want to travel, £72 to change the name on a passport, I thought it was £55 but it appears to have gone up!

Organising: Our housekeeping schedule

Lizzie from Lizzies Homeworld gave me the idea for this week's organising post. Having seen the photos of my house she assumes that I clean a lot, lol, oh if only you new the truth Lizzie :)

I don't clean a lot but I am very tidy. I'm very ruthless about clearing the clutter as soon as it hits the house. I spend about ten minutes in the morning before work, after the kids have finished their morning rituals, and then ten minutes before bed at night. The only cleaning I do mid week is a quick wipe down of the kitchen and bathroom. At the weekend, usually Sunday morning, dh and I both spend an hour cleaning the whole house, he will hoover and dust upstairs while I sweep and dust downstairs, dh will then clean the floors downstairs while I blitz the bathroom.

Once every three months we 'spring clean', this means go behind cupboards and beds, hoover the blinds, clean the windows inside and out, clean out all the kitchen cupboards etc. This takes about 4 hours.

To keep paperwork clutter down I deal with the post delivery daily, I sort it and put it on the dresser for dealing with on a Sunday morning.

This routine works for us and keeps the house reasonably clean. It also never takes priority over doing something else ;)

Project grocery bill

Another post about grocery costs, meal planning and my constant frustration with it all!

I need to get serious about the amount we are spending on food. I was allowing myself a budget of £200 a month for the five of us and this was proving impossible due to the rising food prices. I've overspent every month this year. Now that my eldest daughter is away until June I should be able to feed the four of us in May for £200, with a little planning.

As well as lowering my spending I'm trying to provide healthier food, I've slipped back into oven chip mode, which is not good. One of my goals this year was to provide healthier food for my family and its got better, however there is still a long way to go.

May goals:

• Go to the farmers market once a week
• Stick to the meal plan
• Batch cook this Sunday
• Provide one vegetarian meal a week

I'm going to post my grocery spending on this blog to make me accountable.

Spent so far: £41.75

Organising: My meal planner

I'd love to do a post about how I use my meal planner without fail every week, always sticking to it, always following the meals, but I'd be lying. I probably stick to it about 60% of the time.

When I do stick to it, it definitely saves me money, when I don't it sometimes saves money, sometimes costs money. Take last night, I went shopping only buying things on offer and have then done a quick menu plan for next week to fit around them.


My meal plan folder contains the following:

• 12 weeks of meals on a 4 week rotation
• Recipes, cut from magazines, MSE, anywhere really
• Weekly shopping list for every weekly plan
• A monthly shopping list for basics

I also do the following:

• Stock up on BOGOF items (if I use them only)
• Shop at all supermarkets (Aldi for tins, eggs etc)
• Use coupons (which I keep in my handbag)
• Adapt the menu's for food on offer
• Use a price book

My menu plan took about 3-4 hours to set up, however was time very well spent. If only I could stick to it 100% :)

Further Reading:

Living frugally - saving money on grocery

If you liked this post them please subscribe by email or RSS to receive regular updates.

The great mortgage payoff

The May direct debit payment has gone through and I've sent the overpayment check, so the new balance on our mortgage as of today is £129,438.

The percentage figures now stand at:

Abbey own 69.97% of the house. We own 30.03% of the house.

We've now made £3,116 in over payments this year.

The target date for owning 50% of the house is 31st December 2009

Edited as I forgot the £16 extra from January

Retiring early? - No not me

I've received an email from a reader asking if I'm looking to retire when I move to Portugal. The answer is no. I would go out of my mind with nothing to do all day apart from cook and sunbathe. That's not to say I want to work like I do now, I'm looking along the lines of part time, with my own small business. I just want a more simpler life. DH is going to be working full time, he's still quite young and isn't ready to quit the rat race yet, that's why he's learning the language so intently.

There is a post on one of my favourite blogs, The Wastrel Show about retiring at fifty. Check out cinzea's post, it's certainly gives you something to think about.

We spent the day weeding the borders and cutting the grass in out little garden. Well dh did, I supervised :)

We are getting some free cuttings from our parents soon, so this will add some colour and we plan to paint the fence at some stage over the summer. I'm waiting for the paint to be on offer before I buy it.

It's been a quiet week in the mtp household, two children are busy revising for exams and one child is on some tropical paradise island. This should be reducing the food bill, but due to the ever increasing prices it doesn't seem to be.

I've gone through our cd collection again and listed some more on Amazon. I'm hoping to make around £25 if they all sell, not much, however less clutter and a bit more towards over payments. We are at the stage where there is not a lot left to sell in our house apart from the car boot stuff.

We are starting to look at ways to increase our income now, as our living costs are reduced by as much as we feel comfortable with.

I'm in the process of a website being made for a business idea, its in its fledgling stage, so not much to report on yet.

Further reading:

Ten tips for Car Boot sales
Spend less than you earn - the wrong way to think @ Brip Blap

The sun is shining - at last!

I want one of these, not need, want!

They do cost the same as one months mortgage overpayment, so I will have to go without.

A towel on the grass is much cheaper :(

The #149 Carnival of Personal Finance

This week Frank at The Happy Rock presents the 149th Carnival of Personal Finance - Chasing Dreams Edition.


My post Organising my Paperwork was included along with 85 other posts. Please visit the Carnival, there are some great blogs to discover.

Thank you to Frank for running the Carnival, and for including my post.

This post was also linked over at Brip Blap, one of my favourite blogs. Steve at Brip Blap covers personal finance, wealth building, self improvement and all sorts of other things.


Other reading:
The #140 Carnival of Personal Finance

Organising: My paperwork

This is the simple method I use to keep all our paperwork/bills organised and paid.

When anything arrives in the post during the week it goes on top of the boxes under the pig, then once a week on a Sunday morning I pay it, file it or shred it.

We have a file for each personal account, a file for the joint account, a box for insurance policies etc and a box for the children's finance stuff.

There is also an A4 book that I use for keeping a written monthly budget, this also has our annual goals printed at the front.

We have gone paperless on most bills but not all companies offer this service. I like to be organised, it saves time and it can save you money. Who wants to pay late payment charges to a bank or company?

Health cover in Portugal

I'm currently building up a picture of what our budget will look like when we are eventually living in Portugal. One of the things we need to budget for is health care cover. At the moment we are both covered by our company Private Health Plan which costs us next to nothing every month. I've put some quotes into the BUPA website tonight, and this has given me a variety of options and costs to think about.

For the fully comprehensive cover the cost is £3,732 for the two of us per year. If you have an excess of £1000, this then reduces to £1,879 per year.

The cost for basic cover, just hospital in and out patient care, is £2,021 a year. Obviously this would reduce if you had an excess amount on the policy.

We would be looking for the fully comprehensive cover, as you never know what is around the corner, however would have the excess of £1000 and self insure ourselves for anything up to this amount.

Dentist treatment is also expensive in Portugal and I read somewhere that its better to keep your dentist back home and visit them when you come back, however this is no good if you need emergency treatment, so we will need to make sure we have money to cover this eventuality if it happens.

Further reading:
BUPA Website
Preparing to move or retire abroad

If you liked this post then please subscribe to my posts by email or RSS reader.

Holiday week update

Things are progressing along nicely with a business idea I have. I'm sticking with what I know and that's how to organise things, I'll let you all know more when its up and running.

The new washing machine is installed, with the plumbing all done by 'move to Portugal' plumbers, me! It wasn't as easy as it should of been as the outflow pipe didn't reach the under the sink bit (a good plumbing term) and so I had to connect an extra bit. So far no leaks.

The garden is now ready for the summer, I know that it'll be here soon. We aren't buying any plants this year just living with what we already have. I would rather put any money towards the mortgage.

My eldest daughter is off to Thailand in the morning for nine weeks and I have to drop her at the train station at 4am, so I need an early night tonight. I wish I was going, I know the weather is good there!