Building The Burrow!

apple_muncher

Going abroad sounds lovely!

And maybe hire a village hall for an afternoon tea bash, so people can travel there and back in one day if they so wish. Or, decide who you really, really want to be there, and fit it around them. Or have a chippy supper in a field. Or picnic in the park.

But do ensure it makes you and Mr M happy and will be something you will both enjoy.


xx

Pearla*Merle

Righty, MFW-moments of late!

Been madly busy with work (three big projects at once - was working hell for leather!) and then with family and friends visiting it's only been the last couple of days I've come back down to earth!

Work still going well, am ever thankful of this fact!

Had a super lovely time with visiting friend, who I hadn't seen properly in a few years. We hopped & skipped around London Town, which was a tad more expensive than I was used to (a few drinks & munchies out and about) but given this is very much once in a blue moon, it was nice to be able to do it and not freak out about pending pennies.

:www: MFW Wonderment: used railcard for discounted travel cards to Londinium and Art Fund card for 50% discount entry to the Georgia O'Keeffe exhibition. Resisted buying a beautiful book in the gift shop at the end :A

£5 amazon voucher to add to the pot, awaiting a bit more TCB as well.

Epic £8 saving at Boots recently (combination of offers & extra points). Ended up with £20ish of points, which paid for some other bits.

Equally good time in M&S - £20 voucher, so picked up a bag which was in the sale (figured this was healthier than buying booze for Christmas - plus we have loads to get through here anyway). Then bought lots of undercrackers in the sale, which was on my list anyway so very happy to unexpectedly save quite a chunk on those. :T

£160 of dental treatment paid back almost instantly from insurers :T Has worked out great so far. Glasses almost decided upon, and will get monies back from those too. :T Though will probably have to shell out a little extra on the teeth, just waiting to hear back from dentist. Left things a bit too long Though apparently I have "amazing" teeth generally, so feel like I got off lightly tbh :rotfl:

Just need to get my feet looked at next. Have been getting pain in my right foot & hip, think I've been rolling over on my foot when I walk, so probably best to go and get looked over.

Can't remember if I mentioned this before, but we've been thinking of getting rid of Virgin! :T We're quite stuck here as it was the only TV/broadband we could get in this building, but that has finally changed so we're thinking of ditching the TV altogether. Virgin haven't helped themselves with their £3 rises every month :eek: We're supposed to be on a friends & family rate as well - it's gone up by about 100% in two years! Unreal. We're unlikely to get bored with netflix/iplayer, and of course we've been dialling down TV watching anyway. Quite excited!

Saved another £400 this month :A

Finally opened my S&S ISA! It's only been now that I've had any decent funds to put aside into such a thing. Shall attempt to direct around 10% of my monthly income there for the next several months, then I should be able to increase the amount. I figured something was better than nothing for now.

Looked more deeply into Lifetime ISAs and flipping heck, they are just utterly pointless for house deposits. Can't decide if it's worth doing for retirement savings - I guess so? But who knows when the plug will get pulled on it... really hard to work out best way forward sometimes. Especially when you realise that to get a fairly basic terraced house is still £100k+ more than we'd qualify for mortgage-wise around here. :eek:

In other plots & plans: the idea of a trust fund that owns a property has piqued our interest. My parents had wanted to help us before and this might be a neater way of them being able to do so. They're visiting soon, so we'll have a chat with them about it and try and do more investigating in the meantime.

:coffee: Simple Pleasures: have been getting back into my Futurelearn courses. Finally almost finished my second and have quite a few still waiting in the wings. It's so lovely learning new things

There's been a sudden whoosh of new plants in the garden - I must have planted Autumn flowering stuff without realising :rotfl:

Have done some lovely free sights & museum-hopping recently. Must remember to just get up and GO! It's the getting out the house that's a nuisance, once I'm out there I love it so must be more ruthless with myself as I feel so much better for it.

:heartsmil Burrow Building: Mr M had a sort through of his wardrobe and has put together FIVE bags of stuff (mostly t-shirts :cool:) for the charity shop. :T I've got rid of a few skirts & tops too.

Spent a nice time on Saturday morning perusing pinterest for interiors ideas (inspired by our lovely new rug - it's so dreamy!). Must get my DIY-self back into action as a few pretty things (even just arranging things differently/with more intention) can make such a difference.

Pearla*Merle

apple_muncher wrote: »

Going abroad sounds lovely!

And maybe hire a village hall for an afternoon tea bash, so people can travel there and back in one day if they so wish. Or, decide who you really, really want to be there, and fit it around them. Or have a chippy supper in a field. Or picnic in the park.

But do ensure it makes you and Mr M happy and will be something you will both enjoy.


xx

Ooh, lovely ideas Apple :smileyhea Thank you :smileyhea

Pearla*Merle

Forgot to say - managed to last until one hour and ten minutes until the 1st of October to replace the sheet on the bed with a duvet. What a long summer it's been! :T However, have dived straight into fleecy socks and hot water bottles as it's been so flipping cold at night.

Not heating on yet. But wish downstairs would do the decent thing and put theirs on...

in_need_of_direction

You've been so busy, I'm worn out just reading about it. Well done you.

misscousinitt

Hi PM

Loads going on as usual for you.

Don't forget to take a breath every now and then lol

MCI x

Secret_Saving_Squirrel

Good luck with all the planning, and remember that the wedding is for you, not for the convenience of people who may or may not bother to come!

misscousinitt

Well said Squirrel...

MCI

greent

I'd echo Squirrel's comments - it's your day, so do it your way xx

Pearla*Merle

Thank you, folks. You're all so right, I was probably overthinking things... I'm definitely one for falling into the trap of trying to please everyone. Still no further on, haven't really given it much more thought really. I'm the wedding industry's worst nightmare :rotfl: Am not particularly interested in losing my head about perfect things for all this 'best day of our lives' nonsense at all. Suppose it's good that most days are best days?

Literally don't know where October has gone - mostly racing about with visitors and racing about at work. Have been trying to get things together before we head off on holiday (next week :j) and also getting things in order for when I get back (four major pieces of work happening in the weeks I come back :eek:). Literally chose the worst time to go gadding about. :rotfl:

Work has been fab though, have had some super feedback and omg a RAISE! Which amounts to around an additional £200 a month! :T Happy, happy days. It means my first lot of saving up (replenishing and shoring up rainy day fund) should be ticked off by April time (3 months sooner than I had planned).

Then I need to think what to do with the extra pennies - have been mulling over opening a SIPP, which when all is said and done is probably a generally good idea. (NB: I'd need to put around half my monthly earnings in a pension to make up for all the years I've lost in not having anything but it seems like a good idea to get something going, even if it's basic). Just really hard to work out if it's worth it when I don't even have a bought & paid for roof over my head. Anything less than half my wage going in every month would only net me around £50-100ish extra a month come pension time. Which does seem pointless, especially if I effectively end up paying more than what I would gain on any potential mortgage interest as I didn't have the spare cash to overpay, if you see what I mean. Hmm.

Possibly I'll mix the above with upping contributions to S&S ISA and saving a portion as originally planned for our deposit/cash available for a to-be-decided money-making scheme (ideas mulling about: buy land or mooring to rent out, or a cheap BTL, or simply build a sizeable deposit so we could potentially buy land, build two houses on it and flog the spare).

Hmm... think that getting some sort of financial advice might be a plan for next year as well.

PS. 25p into the KittyBank and I forget all sorts of other MS things, but I know there have been lots as we've pretty much been tootling along as usual.

:coffee: Simple Pleasures: cosy socks; copious cups of milky coffee; an evening or two experimenting with new art materials; the garden birds are starting to return to our balcony now it's getting more nippy, love watching them hop about; reading FIRE blogs and oh, we've been watching Merlin on Netflix, such fun fare

:heartsmil Burrow Building: Mr M has got rid of another couple of bags of stuff, and I've done a bit more decluttering myself (forget what but I know I go rid of something or other :rotfl:). Looking forward to cosy nights in and doing more house-sorting.

I've managed to remember to switch things off and have some earlier nights - and read my books! Love that I'm making some decent progress with my To Read pile, and the days & nights seem somewhat more well-spent. Am reading Villette at the moment (& Black Beauty previously - all so very culture vulture :cool:)