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

Cheery_Daff

Just done YNAB after ignoring for a couple of days - not too bad as most of my spendiness was today :eek: :rotfl:

All sorted now though NOT liking the bit that's glaring at me in red - I paid for a race entry and was going to put my £2 coins in the bank to cover it but never made it into town. So the dosh is there, but not in the bank yet. Don't like seeing a red box though! :eek: :rotfl:

Never mind - payday on Thursday so I'll cover it out of the normal wages, and then when I finally get round to putting the £2 coins in the bank, it'll be a nice bonus

Ooh - had a letter from the credit union today. I had an account more to support them than anything and apparently I haven't used it for a year :rotfl: However, apparently this means I now have to go into the credit union in person and take ID and proof of address :eek: Yawn. It's right down the end of town with really odd hours, so I'm afraid it's possible that I'll just never get round to it

Ah well It's not a particularly convenient account for me anyway, I only opened it because I went to a talk and they were really keen to get some people who would save with them, not just borrow. BUt clearly I've actually done neither of those things :rotfl:

Cheery_Daff

Morning money-saving chums :hello:

All cheerful here Had a good evening's packing progress last night :j a good sleep, and I lay in bed until about 10 minutes ago reading a book for hours and hours, which I've not done for AGES and which I LOVE :j :j

Woke up with an absolutely banging headache though, which reading did NOT make better :eek: Hoping it'll pass with liberal doses of caffeine and painkillers (what, were you thinking I was some kind of nature-loving hippie-type?? :rotfl: )

Sun's shining, and I'm feeling all positive and fired up to do housey things :j :j

First though a bit of money-laundering - I've transferred a wodge into the joint savings account so it matches the amount YNAB thinks I have in the savings account :rotfl:

I have an ambitious plan... I want to cover ALL house moving expenses without adding any of them to the future mortgage :eek: Hard to know exactly how much everything's going to cost though... but we've got £7500 in the ISA so I'm hoping that'll cover most of it (biggest uncertainty is stamp duty, which will vary wildly depending how expensive the house is...).

Added a new challenge this week - I want to cover all expenses WITHOUT dipping into the ISA :eek: So the aim is to get the joint savings account (currently at £1970 - and I don't know why I haven't added another £30 to round it up! :rotfl: might do that now)

Anyway, aim is to get savings account up to the same level as the ISA before we move... :eek: Possibly ambitious (although the rate we're going, it'll be another year before we sell so no problem :rotfl: )

Should be possible - this is the money that, once we've moved, will have to pay the mortgage - so if we can't save at least the amount we'll be paying on the mortgage each month well be in trouble! :rotfl: :rotfl:

Right - off to organise my sister to get over here for a painting party next weekend

Pippilongstocking

All sounding pretty good cheery, I hope your sister agrees to painting parties. One step closer and all that. We have to empty the eves in the bedrooms at the flat soon. not looking forward to that. Peaked head in there the other day and found DS scaletrix - how long has that been in there!!!!

Cheery_Daff

Ha, bet that's been packed away for a while! Sling it in a skip

Sister agreef and is coming Friday night :j attic VERY nearly clear now :j so we can get the whole thing painted next Saturday and then we'll have an entire room done :j :j

Cheery_Daff

<flounces in in a strop>

Well I FINALLY got round to sorting out the car insurance :rotfl: Runs out tomorrow

All sorted now though :j Goodness me I HATE all this comparison site nonsense! Had a right old fiasco with internet going down, comparison site refusing to remember my details (then insisting I was two different people - with a bizarre combination of mine and Mr Cheery's details), then went to the attic to plug the internet in and the blithering battery on the laptop went! :eek: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Still, an hour later I've done it :j :j £231.05 for both of us for the year, which isn't bad at all :j I did TRY cashback, honest but I had to clear the cookies, which then lost my previous quote, and the one that came up through the cashback site was only £10 cheaper and had more of an excess and I couldn't get it as cheap as the original quote so I abandoned it altogether.

Still, all done now :j :j and I've uploaded proof of no claims and now I'm NOT doing anything else useful tonight :rotfl:

rtandon27

Wow - just exhausted reading that!

We've been so lucky that for 9 of the past 10 years the insurance OH uses has always matched or better the best quote we've found on the internet! (Personally I think it's cause he's a grumpy old s@d and they just want him off the phone as quickly as possible - but hey whatever works right?)

Cheery_Daff

Indeed RT :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: Sadly some kind of technical glitch at last year's insurer meant they couldn't offer us a renewal quote so that wasn't an option this time! :rotfl:

Not much to report money-wise. Had a really cheery day at work, read some interesting stuff, planned some interesting stuff to do tomorrow, and had a couple of interesting meetings, then went to the pub :j :j Love my lovely new job :rotfl:

Payday tomorrow :j :j Also like having a mid-month payday as it means two lots of YNAB fiddling - when I get paid, and again at the start of the month (unnecessary, but unavoidable ) Looking forward to a bit of fiddling, and should get my tax refund too so savings account should go up nicely! :j

Other than that, just £1.50 into the tea kitty, and £1.50 meeting donation and raffle (but I did get 2 pieces of chocolate cake in return for that :money: :rotfl: )

Hope you're all good and jolly :j

Cheery_Daff

Woo hoo - payday :j :j and with extra tax return :j :j Will check how much was tax and how much ordinary pay when I get to work :rotfl:

So - YNAB fiddled with :j and all looking good :j

Rounded up savings account to £3000 :eek: so all on track to pay all moving expenses from there in a few months if I can keep on at that rate (which I hope I can, cos that's the money that will have to pay the likely extortionate mortgage :eek: )

All other pots looking good too

£150 in car maintenance (it was making some dreadful noises the other day but fortunately seems to have stopped when I got my mum and auntie out of the back :eek: :rotfl: )
£150 in house maintenance (mostly this is going on paint and boxes at the minute!)
£63 savings for Christmas :rotfl: Let's see if I can not steal them this year!
£161 in No Quibble fund - Might try to get away for a bit over Easter :j
£395 in holiday fund - haven't got a plan but we'll likely try and go away for a fortnight in the middle of summer, so I'm working towards that. Will depend on house move I imagine!

Plus assorted other pots for various bits of insurance/annual bills etc that are being saved for :j

I like the new goals feature on YNAB - you say 'I want to save £x by y date' and it divides that amount by the months you've got left, and goes orange (rather than green) if you don't add enough each month :rotfl:

Anyway, all healthy for which I am ENORMOUSLY grateful. I'm always wary of posting this type of update because I know so many people are still struggling but I keep reminding myself it's only a few short years since I was counting every single penny myself (actually, I still do, but not for the same reasons :rotfl: ), not too long since I was struggling and so this seems like some kind of miracle. I don't take it for granted - I try to save as much as I can because I know how easily it can all just vanish again and I NEVER want to be in a position where I don't have a safety blanket every again! :eek:

Anyway, enough waffling, I should have been at work half an hour ago and I'm still sat in the kitchen :eek: :rotfl:

Cheery_Daff

Just noticed my signature still referred to NSDs in October :rotfl: Changed it to keep track of house move dosh :j :j

Reminded me to mention I'm no longer counting NSDs (I was always rubbish at them anyway ) and I've also stopped putting spare change in a jar :eek: That feels VERY wrong, but with YNAB I was having to count it every day and keep track, and it just felt too arduous. I still put in bits I find on the floor (both inside and outside the house :rotfl: ).

Also not doing VSP any more for the same reason :eek: Shame cos part of me really liked the VSP paying for tea and scones money But perhaps I should reinstate but just round the bank account once a month to the nearest £10 or whatever? Might do that

Still saving £2 coins though, just can't bring myself to spend them even though it's a right old pain taking them to the bank in town and I don't mange it very often :rotfl: Think I've got nearly £80 sat in there waiting!

And now - MUST go to work! :eek:

Cheery_Daff

Morning chums :hello: Hope you're all enjoying this rather grey weekend :j

My sister came yesterday and we got the entire attic painted, and finished off the textured paint on the landing and stairs :j Which makes it sound like it didn't take us several hours and lots of squabbling and having to do the same thing three times :rotfl: :rotfl:

Also did the parkrun, which apparently I haven't done (or any other running) since November :eek:

Feeling rather achey today :rotfl: but started off with 30 mins of yoga :j and will do another 30 mins tonight so that should sort me out :j

Plan for today...

* get dressed
* fill holes in 118 year old landing ceiling without bringing entire ceiling down on myself :eek:
* scrape bits of flaky paint off rest of ceiling
* textured paint on bits of filler in spare room
* 1st top coat on entire stairs and landing
* coat of white in spare room
* sand down wooden cladded wall in spare room

That should keep me occupied for a bit :rotfl:

Have a good one, whatever you're up to :j