Building The Burrow!

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Hope you slept better and today heralds more fun things x

Pearla*Merle

Wish I'd never tempted the universe about sleep, got my comeuppance by not sleeping til 2 then frequently (frequently)) waking up. :eek:

Am somehow alive and will no doubt survive today on pure adrenaline (and coffee).

Feeling bizarrely chipper despite all this though... could be due to mania-inducing fatigue....

misscousinitt

I get like this sometimes, so I really do sympathise.

Hope you manage to get so good quality sleep soon - carb rich meal might do the trick??

MCI

Pearla*Merle

Good thinking! I had a sandwich for lunch and chips with tea, I wonder what else I can find....? Toast and hot milk for supper? (Ooh, yum)

Literally don't know how I managed today. Felt great til 4pmish when I crashed, but luckily I had enough mundane tasks to busy myself with so survived til home time.

Mr M is late back, he went adventuring into London Town and has managed to get himself a free swag bag from some shop (filled with tshirts and socks and things apparently!)

Saw loads more goslings today :T

Quiet weekend ahead, can't wait...

Pearla*Merle

Have had a lovely couple of days chilling out (well, recovering from super busy time at work!). Today was all about getting my money's worth out of the netflix subscription (Miss Fisher Mysteries - got to the end of the first series) with sporadic whirlwinding around the house tidying it up. I don't know how we manage to produce so much rubbish and general mess.

:www: MFW Wonderment: had serious trouble with the main shoes I use for walking (they were so battered that they were starting to injure my feet). New shoes acquired (in the sale and with an extra voucher off :T).

Lots of freezer/basic pasta teas lately. Cheap but very boring! Going to have to crack open the recipe books soon.

:coffee: Simple Pleasures: free beer drunk in scenic environs; watching the most amazing stormy clouds bloom across the sky at golden hour; beautifully made bread and butter.

:heartsmil Burrow Building: have been mentally noting a few more things to dispatch to the charity shops. Life is so much easier without physical stuff to deal with - must keep remembering that! And be ruthless with the clutter!

greent

Just caught up - holiday sounds lovely


I'd love to be minimalist - can't manage it with my mob, though! Maybe one day..........


x

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How are things going? Xx

Pearla*Merle

Hello! :wave:

Oh dear, how has so much time passed?

I managed to have one type of nasty malaise after another and have only just come up for air again.

You'd think I wouldn't have much to report, but to celebrate feeling normal again, yesterday I went on an epic Sorting-Out-Finances mission!

PS. Greent - ha, not much chance really of minimalism here really, we are major pack rats. I know how much easier things are when there's a vague amount of order though... so am trying to change my ways...!

:www: MFW Wonderment: 40p into the kittybank - saw a 5p on the floor of a train the other day but someone sat with their foot on it before I could get to it.

Have been doing well eating out of the freezer, and also bringing salads into work. Bought two more good plastic tubs to use for work lunches - so no excuses - either salads or couscous (or similar) & veg concoctions every day henceforth!

Beef stew in the slow cooker yesterday - got five meals out of it! Three into the freezer - getting hungry just thinking about it. Slow cooker is back on today - using up random veg to make a huge vat of veg stew. Will keep it quite chunky so I can use it as bases or sauces for other things (i.e. add beans and have it with pasta etc).

(The reason for being super healthy is thanks to eating total rubbish and making myself ill doing so! Oops! Lesson learnt (again), so back on the truly straight and narrow once more).

I've done a bit of sorting out my spending diary/relooking at my piggybanking budget. I think I'll stick with it as I have it now - always worth reviewing though.

Great news is that I got another 0% CC. Shall be stoozing as much as possible on this and putting what I've 'spent' into the highest interest rate account I can (have got a 5% one at the mo - will look into how I can get various accounts working better for me now I have more energy to sort these things out).

Best thing about the 0% means I can get myself a decent laptop now I can manage the spend (was going to buy one anyway, had been dithering between something cheap that may last a couple of years and something that'll last a long time). I find my iPad has worked for many things, most notably using the internet in a more minimalist way/concentrating on one thing at a time etc, but there's still lots I can't get done on there, despite having a separate keyboard. So it was a worthy experiment and has definitely changed the way I do things, but time to get a laptop again if I want to achieve certain work things. Hopefully it'll help keep me more uptodate on here too - am using Mr M's laptop at the mo.

Phone contract ended, so have got a new sim-only one at £11 month (+£30 cashback). Saving myself about £250 a year! :T Which also helps pay for laptop/save for new phone. I had looked into getting a new phone (apps are going to stop working on my current one in around a year or so), but figured I'd get another year out of this if I'm going down the laptop road.

Home insurance sorted at last, saved ourselves £85 a year! :T With the exact same insurer as well, madness. It would have been less as well, but a few more bits got put on there.

Sorted out electric/gas. Paying the same but fixed for two years. Effectively got a month free as £30 cashback was available. Think I'll give a month or two and then see if we can reduce the monthly amount - always worth a try.

Haven't managed to eBay yet - was literally about to list stuff then realised I'd be away when it finished so no time to post. Shall look at my diary and work out when I can actually get it done(!)

Upshot of all this is - have had a very frugal month, and shall continue on doing so this year. Money has definitely been quite all over the place thanks to illness last year/new job etc, and as I have more money coming in I'm paying for more household things now, but it's all beginning to settle down and get into a rhythm at last. It'll take a few more months for the hardcore saving to build up in any significant way, but I'm hoping by September time I should start to see some real reward for sticking to The Plan. :T

:coffee: Simple Pleasures: I'm getting a goodly-sized posy of sweet peas every week now. Absolutely loving having them dotted around the house.

Have developed a serious addiction to Gardener's World. And not just because it's becoming increasingly hilarious seeing Monty building raised beds or shelters one week only for him to show up the next with yet another chunk taken out of his forehead. Poor fellow! I do love him. I'm living vicariously through it, I can't wait to have a tiny patch of garden - it's going to be full to the brim with random things.

:heartsmil Burrow Building: still doing quite well listening to music/switching off the TV in the evenings. We've even managed to get rid of a few boxes of random bits that have been sitting around since we moved in, oops. Absolutely determined to get rid of more stuff though, really really really getting to the end of my tether constantly tidying and sorting things out. I'd so much rather be reading a book.

Hope everyone is doing well! Will catch up with you sooooooon! :beer:

Goldiegirl

Sorry to hear you haven't been well - but you've achieved loads on your sorting out day! Welcome back:)

Pearla*Merle

Thanks Goldie I know, I'm in shock that I managed to tick so much off the list :eek:

I've gone and done more sorting out today and finally bought my National Art Pass. My parents gave me money to buy it for my birthday last year, but what with everything going on it's only now that it's been worth finally buying it. I'll have to make sure I track how much I save with it.

Weird end of the day yesterday - had a mini-meltdown re: state of the house/amount of stuff. Decluttered a few things and tidied a bit which has helped.

Decluttered: heavy hardback craft book, more dvd cases (DVDs now in multi-disc case), some mags & random toiletries that I can't use (am not great with certain perfumes)... am about to grab a bag for life and roam about the house with the intention of filling it!!

Hoping to do some :j :j :j later. Lost 6lb this month (only due to cutting out sweets/crisps). Need to crack on and get my fitness levels back up now.

Meerkats are taking us to the cinema tonight. :j