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

Cheery_Daff

That recipe had no water in - literally just butter, sugar and flour (at least I didn't put any water in it... :eek: :rotfl: )

I tell you what though, they were flippin delicious And once they cooled they had a surprising amount of structural integrity

Brought some frozen pasta type stuff out of the freezer for lunch today. Not even sure what it is :rotfl:

Cheery_Daff

Morning MSE chums :j

Well, the bulk of the Christmas presents are bought :j Not wrapped :rotfl: I'll save that for a Christmas film when I've finished work

Just done YNAB - I've been trying to make a conscious effort to enter things as I spend them and it's made SUCH a difference to how easy it was to sort this morning. Although I did confuse myself somewhere because I had to alter the budget fiddling account by £16 - had more left than it said I should have done :rotfl: :rotfl:

So, three days left at work :j and also :eek: because there is SUCH a lot to do - the whole place shuts over Christmas and I really don't want to go back before the 4th, but there's a deadline on the 8th so the more I can get done before then the better... And I'd like Friday off. Gosh - isn't it annoying when your desire for an easy life runs up against having to go to work?? :rotfl:

Still, I am forever grateful that (a) I get to choose (on this occasion at least) when and where I do the work and (b) that I get a fortnight off over Christmas, and can choose which days I want off :j :j Blessings indeed :j

Apparently our new house is being professionally cleaned today :j For the last time, as it'll never get that on my watch :rotfl: :rotfl: Still, I am grateful because I could have knitted with some of the cobwebs decorating the walls :eek: and while I threw out the dead mouse myself last time I was there, evidence of it was scattered all over the bedrooms...

Apparently the new person at the bottom of the chain is having their survey done this week too, so things are progressing on that front too :j I don't envy them having to wait til after Christmas for their mortgage offer (but who knows, they may get it on the 22nd??) Estate agents are hoping for a January completion, but I think they're optimistic as I don't know whether the searches have been started yet... Also I confess at this stage we'd be happier with early Feb, as it would mean the first mortgage payment wouldn't be til March...

Right, best get a shift on - that work isn't going to do itself, and Greying has just reminded me that I need to toast some bread for lunch

Ooh, Mr Cheery picked up a kind of stained glass holly wreath in a charity shop yesterday - it looked pretty last night but looks glorious this morning with the morning sun shining through it :j :j :j Might just be my current favourite decoration :j

Have a good one folks :j

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, and I've just had a house insurance renewal for £163 - apparently I paid £156 last year so not too bad. Not sure what to do - it's due on 12th January, and we're likely to be moving house not long after that... Might see what their penalties are (although I suppose if we moved and took them with us, they shouldn't really be charging a penalty!)

Suspect the new house is going to be rather more costly to insure... :eek:

Cheery_Daff

Afternoon MSE chums :hello:

Well, I have finally finished my Christmas shopping Mr Cheery is completely on top of the food (which isn't too far from our normal food but there are a few chestnuts thrown in an a quorn roast :rotfl: ) and we are all set. Just need to clean the house now - as my mum always said 'clean sheets for Santa!' :eek: :rotfl:

Got a friend coming in a bit, popping out to a neighbour's house for a couple of hours later, and then I'll sit in front of a Christmas film and wrap Mr Cheery's presents :j Tomorrow I *might* go to the parkrun, meeting a friend for lunch, then I might sit and wrap everyone else's presents Christmas eve we're off to see Mr Cheery's family for the evening so need everything wrapped and sorted before then :j

Need to do YNAB again - only did it the other day, but done a bit of purchasing since then Need to also have a proper think about Uber Frugal January! :eek:

Cheery_Daff

Oh, and I've just had an email from our seller's estate agent and our solicitor saying the insurance at the house is up for renewal, and because it's empty, they've got to drain the heating system. Understandable of course, we don't want a burst pipe after all :eek: but it does mean the whole place is going to be rather cold and damp by the time we get there...

Their solicitors are also asking for an estimated completion date - er, I'm not bloody telepathic!! :mad: How's about 'as soon as the person at the bottom of the chain is ready' - same as it has been for the last few weeks... Our solicitor forwarded the email he'd received from their solicitor, and it sounded SO shirty and cross - honestly, I don't know how they deal with reading emails like that from each other all day every day. Is there any need to sound so rude?!

The seller's estate agent, as much as she has annoyed me in the past, told me pretty much the same thing in normal, polite language.

Grr. I'd forgotten over the last few weeks what it was like dealing with all this nonsense

starnac

I've been watching Suits on N3tflix. I don't know if you've seen it but basically about laywers and last night one of them was giving advice to a new guy and told him that "law is all about power" and basically the way to win a case is to get the power from the other party. Maybe that's why the solicitors are being shirty with the other solicitors? A case of "we've done our bit and are only being held up by YOU" maybe??

Hope it's not long for you now

Cheery_Daff

I think that's probably it Starnac! I shall be most glad to have both solicitors and estate agents (and mortgage brokers) out of our life for a good long time! :j

Had a lovely day today with four generations of Mr Cheery's family (because of the age difference it seems I'm officially part of the second from top generation :eek: :eek: same in my own family I suppose but there's only one layer after me there, not two!! :eek: :rotfl: ) anyway, a jolly and festive time was had by all and everyone was very well behaved

I am tired and off to bed now, leaving Mr Cheery to wrap my presents Merry Christmas all! :j

Cheery_Daff

Afternoon all :hello:

I wrote a big waffly post while we were travelling yesterday then lost reception and it vanished! Hey ho. I'll let you imagine it was witty and insightful, not the usual load of gibberish

So, today I have done my final YNABbing of the year, and now have enough data to compare 2017 spending with 2016

Spent a good few minutes being shocked at how we had managed to spend £5500 more this year :eek: :eek: until I realised that included paying off the student loan in one go (that was just over £4000) - the actual difference between this year and last year is £1150.78, which isn't tooooooo bad.

My wages have actually just about gone up enough to cover this, but some of it is us increasing discretionary spends, not just increases in bills etc. Plenty we can do to cut down if necessary. And I have actually nearly halved my personal fun spending this year! :eek: :money:

Can't do toooo much planning for next year just yet as obviously we'll be moving near the beginning. I do know it's going to be rather more expensive in our new house, although some things won't be.

MORE EXPENSIVE THINGS IN NEW HOUSE
* mortgage - currently £0, will be £900 :eek:
* house insurance? House is rural, trees nearby, not sure how much that will increase things yet
* car/travel - we will have a second car, and will be commuting, so we'll have double the car costs and extra insurance etc as well as more diesel (although this may even itself out as we'll only come to the city 3 days a week, and we spend a lot of time going OUT of the city now anyway!)
* gas? - we will have an LPG tank, not mains gas. However, the boiler is far more efficient so may offset this!

THINGS THAT MAY NOT BE MORE EXPENSIVE
* utilities - gas is LPG but electricity should be roughly similar
* water bill will reduce as we have a septic tank - but there will be costs associated with that...
* food? We have plenty of space to grow everything we need (although this will obviously take time and effort!)
* takeaways - there's nowhere to get one from :rotfl:

We'll see...

rtandon27

Happy New Year Cheery!

Wishing you Health, Well-being & Happiness for 2018

Karmacat

rtandon27 wrote: »

Happy New Year Cheery!

Wishing you Health, Well-being & Happiness for 2018

From me too! Living Long And Prospering, and all that :j