Cheery's buttling diary: tea in one hand, plant pot in the other, running shoes on

Cheery_Daff

Sniffles getting better and I predict perfectly gone by tomorrow :j :j

I'll be parkrunning in the morning hopefully :j but no other plans. Mr Cheery's going to start cladding the bathroom soon!

Cheery_Daff

Parkrun done :j :j Not too easy when I was still snuffling and huffing and puffing getting out of the car... :eek: but I made it round and may even have scraped in under 40 mins :j

Made the mistake of coming back to bed with a cuppa afterwards though and I'm still here :rotfl:

Day of buttling here I think :j :j going to finish putting my stuff away from my trip and also do some hoovering, and I *might* even take the branches to the tip, that'll make the garden look a whole lot better :j Might even be tempted to sit out in it! :j :j

Mr Cheery's started the process of cladding the bottom half of the bathroom, which means I'll have to start thinking about plastering the top half soon... not today though!

Today might do some more packing in the attic, or start scraping the sealant off the bath :eek: I did it dark green to match the tiles - then stripped all the paint off the tiles and now it just looks stupid and needs to be white :rotfl:

But none of these things will be done if I'm still in bed at lunchtime! :eek: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Cheery_Daff

Finally out of bed - but only because Mr Cheery came and booted me out - because he wanted a nap himself :rotfl: :rotfl: Oh dear! :rotfl:

Still, I had a merry old time reading back the start of this diary :rotfl: Nice to see my budget has improved somewhat from January 2014! :j :j

(This is just monthly bills, I'm not going back over everything, just found a handy list!)

£150 gas and electric - now £75 for both
£35 BT - now usually £15-20
£25 internet - same (and happy with this)
£50 water - same (only 8 months, so works out average of £35 ish a month)
£116 council tax - now spread over 12 months so £99
£140 mortgage - completely paid off so now £0 :money:
£60 mobiles - now £17.50 for both :money:
£7 web provider thingy - this has changed entirely now
£12 national insurance - now put aside £14
£20 union - same
£3 wildlife trust - same

TOTAL = £618 - new total £323 :j :j :j

Of course that's mostly from paying off the mortgage and cutting the gas/electric in half but even so :j :j

It works, this MSE diary business :rotfl:

Cheery_Daff

Oh darn, what happened to my lovely formatting?! :eek: Oh well - eggs are ready now so off for lunch instead

Chocforever

The cost savings you have achieved are amazing. You have done really well. I was also parkrunning this morning. My 96th so almost reached the 100 club! See what you mean about the formatting so I'll stop now!

rtandon27

Wow Cheery - Impressive cutbacks! - 50% down in your outgoings! (When I grow up I want to be like you!)

I've been looking at our budget in earnest this morning - good news is we are making enough to cover all of our bills! - what a change from this time last year!

Bad news - if we can really call it that is more money spent on food as we spend 12 hours a day out of the house & in order to eat healthy meals often have to rely on convenience food. We still want to fuel ourselves with good food & not junk so it adds up!

This afternoon's "chores" include OH watching the Rugby & me tackling paying off our credit cards as much as possible - a little review of statements first to make sure I don't have any outstanding work claims to make!

Cheery_Daff

Don't get too impressed RT - it's only that much cut back (a) because those are only the monthly bills (there's plenty of other spending that hasn't been cut at all), and (b) because some of them were so ludicrously extortionate and wasteful in the first place!! :eek: :rotfl: But thanks

:j :j yay to you making enough to cover outgoigs, that's brill! :j :j :j Do get back in later and tell us how you go with paying off credit cards :j :j

Know exactly what you mean with food...

Cheery_Daff

Sorry, got distracted!

I do sympathise, it's so difficult to plan and make enough food from home when you're out over more than one meal, especially if it's more than one day in a row. I struggle enough being out two days for 12 hours, never mind the whole week! Sadly I often end up resorting to junk food and cake though

On a bit of a mission this week though after standing on the scales yesterday and realising I've now put on two whole stone since I did the marathon last October :eek: two stone in less than a year :eek: :eek:

REALLY don't want to go back to slimming world AGAIN so taking myself in hand with more running and healthy eating. Going to aim for a batch cooking afternoon each weekend too to save me just coming home from work and eating porridge for tea Mr Cheery cooks a lot but he's doing so much packing etc at the minute that he often ends up distracted so we go and buy pizza

Started off well today by, er, boiling up a load of windfall apples into apple sauce, and chopping a load of damsons my friend gave me yesterday and putting them into a couple of bottles of white rum

That'll come in handy when I'm looking for some dinner on Monday night... :rotfl: :rotfl:

Then caused a.commotion in Poundland by trailing a broken bag of sugar round the shop and then then cashier disn't notice either and half of it ended up in the till Replaced it, but when we got home that had split too and everything here ended up covered in it too :rotfl: :rotfl:

Ah well, there's enough left to make some gooseberry jam which is what I wanted it for! :rotfl:

rtandon27

:wave:surfacing to report in...

have balanced my credit up to December of last year - yeah!:j:j:j

diving back in now to see how many months of this year can be balanced & checked off!

must remember to put work claims back to the credit card - instead of letting them sit in a no interest account;););););) - 1/3 of those payments were refunded to me back in April!!!:o:o:o

Cheery_Daff

:hello:

RT that's brill news, well done you! :j :j :j :j Come and report back for the rest of it - and get those work claims put on the card! :eek: :rotfl:

I've spent a happy (but lazy) few hours reading back at the start of my FIRST MSE diary :eek: Goodness me :rotfl: 2010, I'd been in this job for a week and was earning a whole £780 a month (just working 2 days) - and it felt like loads cos I'd been managing on less than that :eek: :rotfl:

Setup rather different back then with bills etc, but it's interesting that I'd allocated myself £15 a week 'unnecessary spends' (tea shops, clothes, buses etc) and seemed to be managing fine - that's a max of £60-75 a month - now I can barely keep it under £200 :eek: :eek:

So some improvements to be made!! :eek:

So lazy so far today But I'm in Buttling Mode now :j Washing is on, I've ad breakfast, and the sun's shining :j :j Off out to a little event on an allotment site this afternoon to take cheery pictures and gather inspiration so a couple of hours of house pottering, putting things in boxes etc before I do that :j :j

Not planning on spending any money today :money:

Hope you're all having a cheery one :j :j