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

Karmacat

Oh Cheery! Rats! Sorry to hear this - its now 0907, so I'm hoping you're also on the phone to them? Diarise next year! Rats and drats

Very interested on giffgaff though - my telecoms have to be sorted out.

Cheery_Daff

Nope, still in bed :rotfl: one day policy covers me til tonight :rotfl: but' it'll be the first thing I do oce Mr Cheery haa brought me a cuppa and I'm out of bed :rotfl:

Giffg@ff are great. I like that it's a rolling one month thing, so you're never tied in, and you can set it to recur with the same thing every month, or you can change each month according to needs. Uses the O2 network so I rarely have a problem with signal. Think I've got a code for a discount if you do decide to sign up

Planning a weekend of house stuff after being away last weekend. Already got a plan :j not sure I can be botheref to type it out on the phone thogh Goes vaguely like...

HOUSE
- washing on and hung up
- clothes and bags put away from living room, bedroom, stairs, bathroom (it's been a week of dumping stuff... )
- empty bins/compost/recycling

DECORATING
- touch up various bits of white paint (missed bits on kithen ceiling, slight crack in bathroom wall)
- paint inside kitchen arch ( 2 coats)
- varnish behind kitchen sink
- paint stain on bedroom wall
- attempt to put bathroom door back on... been without one since mid december... :eek:

ERRANDS
- collect tablets from Chemist - FIRST JOB AS THEY'RE SHUT THIS AFTERNOON
- buy some cheery spring flowers and clear a small space amid the chaos

COMPUTER
- banks/ynab (payday yesterday)
- car insurance
- two blog posts

OTHER
- exercise - kettlebells/yoga/maybe a bike ride
- make soup, bread, pizza, treats
- ring mum
- meal plan and food shopping

That's lrobably quite enough for one weekend - especially as i'm not even up yet! :rotfl:

Cheery_Daff

Had an interesting experience this morning...

Last night's quotes had expired, so on a whim I went through the cash back site (although NOT the one I used last time - idiot!) to go straight to the insurers - £44 cash back AND it gave me a quote £30 CHEAPER than anything I got yesterday, including their own renewal quote, and the cheapest they'd offered me through the comparison site... :eek:

So I signed up straight away :j :j £174 for the year for both of us :j

Plus potentially £44 cashback, which I'll believe when I see :rotfl: It was a 'new' policy - which technically this was as mine had expired and I'd had a different one for several hours in the meantime... :rotfl:

So even without the cashback, the £174 + £20 I paid yesterday is still cheaper than the renewal quote :money:

Life is odd sometimes

Me and Mr Cheery had a normalising lunchtime pottering round the charity shops and having a chip butty in a local cafe

Just done banks/ynab - sent £800 to the house fund which is the plan for a normal month :j Could have sent another £175 if I hadn't gone away last weekend but it did me good. And we're plotting a week away at Easter :j :j so I've stashed some in the holiday fund :j should have enough for holiday cottage in there :j :j

Right, painting and house sorting in full force here, best get back to it :j

Karmacat

Good grief on the insurance! That is odd :rotfl: I'm glad the oddness worked in your favour

I might well come back to you for the giffgaff referral code, my contract price is currently creeping up, and I only use about 10% of the services, even with all the emergencies that have been happening the last few months.

And all I can say is, chip butties in a cafe. Yum.

Cheery_Daff

Mmm, chip butties Forgot about them :rotfl:

Poor neglected diary :eek: But fear not - while I have not reached Uber Frugal January levels of epic saving, I also haven't gone on a wild spending spree

Few bits and pieces here and there. I spent an entire day at a different worksite with a friend today and we didn't have access to tea-making facilities :eek: so there were a few trips to the cafe. Took lunch, and a bit of cake, but still spent nearly £7.

Have also picked up bits and pieces of bread, milk etc throughout the week, not much though.

And today I remembered I still had some dosh left on a gift card for John Lewis so spent some of that on some cheery wool for a new pair of socks :j :j

And I also cashed out a sw@gbucks gift card and spent it almost immediately on a book that's been sat in my basket for weeks waiting for me to get enough points for a voucher :rotfl: I'm a very patient woman when it comes to getting things I want (but don't need) for free

Just caught up with YNAB - much easier when you don't spend much :rotfl: End of the month tomorrow, and I *might* have £10 left over to throw at the house budget :money:

Looking to March... Nothing big planned I don't think. A few bits and pieces of socialising, but no big trips.

BUT - we have decided today that I'll take a fortnight off in April and we'll go on holiday :j :j Not been on holiday for two years :eek: Done the odd weekend in that time, but mostly been going mad and focusing on the house. But we are getting towards the end (well, I'll believe it when I see it but we're definitely getting closer!) and also we're just losing touch with *fun* so it's about time we disappeared off on a jolly :j :j

I've been neglecting the holiday fund in favour of house fund, so there's 'only' currently £300 in there. That'll get topped up with as much as we need from March's wages, which means the amount to the savings pot may be, er, somewhat diminished... But we've chucked a LOT at house savings these last few months so I'm not going to feel guilty

And we tend to be pretty frugal once we're on holiday anyway. Accommodation will be biggest cost - we'll go for a self catering cottage so will cook most of our own food, and as you'd expect, most of our spending money will go on tea and cake :rotfl: :rotfl:

Can't wait. Been yonks since I had something big to look forward to :j :j

And on that cheery note, it's probably time for bed :rotfl:

Cheery_Daff

Evening :hello:

Gosh, I'm been very absent from this space lately Trying to make a bit of room in my life and sometimes other things just squeeeeze out of the other end temporarily. But I'm here in spirit! :j

Snagged a load of free food from work tonight :j :j LOADs left and it was literally about to go in the bin :eek: I sent as much of it as I could home with other people (entire trays of sandwiches and the like) but then there were only a couple of us left and the caterers arrived with their black bags so I literally scooped up everything else and brought it back with me :eek:

I've left the sandwiches in the work fridge as there's a chance they'll get eaten tomorrow if we send an email out, but I've still brought home several tubs of salad (green, rice, chick pea etc) and a tub of fruit. That'll probably do us for most of the weekend!

(although tonight I confess I'm ignoring it all and using up the leftover pancake mix :rotfl: )

In other news... er, I don't think there is any other news :rotfl: Did a massive long bike ride at the weekend (32 miles) without any ill effects :j Book I ordered with sw@gbucks payout arrived today :j But other than that... nothing!

Hey ho.

Nowt much planned for the weekend - off on a mini jaunt on Saturday morning, and might have a friend with us Saturday night and into Sunday but other than that valiantly hoping to do some decorating...

(should probably do some tonight actually but since I've only just got in and am now supervising pancakes.... perhaps not....)

Cheery_Daff

Right, feeling in need of a cheery list else the entire evening is just going to drift through my fingers like mist...

9.45-10: PLANNING
* drink tea
* make list

10-10.15: TIDYING
* wash dishes
* clothes out of bathroom
* pick up few things in bedroom

10.15-10.30: PREPARING
* get clothes ready for tomorrow
* get lunch out of freezer for tomorrow

10.30-10.45: INTERNET
* banks/ynab
* post blog post (already written)

10.45: SNOOOOOOOOZE
* hot water bottle and sofa time

Would love to fit some exercise in but I have already cycled to work and back today and sometimes a rest is more important!

Right, ready, steady... GO!

Cheery_Daff

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

9.45-10: PLANNING
* [STRIKE]drink tea[/STRIKE]
*[STRIKE] make list [/STRIKE]

10-10.15: TIDYING
* [STRIKE]wash dishes[/STRIKE]
* [STRIKE]clothes out of bathroom[/STRIKE]
* [STRIKE]pick up few things in bedroom[/STRIKE]

10.15-10.30: PREPARING
*[STRIKE] get clothes ready for tomorrow[/STRIKE]
* [STRIKE]get lunch out of freezer for tomorrow[/STRIKE]

10.30-10.45: INTERNET
* banks/ynab
* [STRIKE]post blog post (already written)[/STRIKE]

10.45: SNOOOOOOOOZE
* [STRIKE]hot water bottle and sofa time[/STRIKE]

Not toooo bad an effort, and I changed the sheets on the bed too :j :j

Karmacat

Oh thats very good! I've never seen a list of yours where almost everything has been ticked within the time frame! Go Cheery, Go! :j

rtandon27

A lovely little list!

Must say the snooze with warmth part appealed to me the most!;)

Good to 'hear' all is well with you!

The free food sounds amazing! What a score!

What a faff with the insurance & quite amusing how it worked out in the end!

Off to do a little budget tweaking myself!

(must be an exclamation mark kinda day - lol)