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

Pippilongstocking

What they all said my lovely! x

And well done on that budget.

I wish everything in your garden to grow abundantly and chickens to roam freely.

Cheery_Daff

Thank you lovely people :kisses3:

Uber frugal month has started, er, not too frugally had to replace several toiletries (shampoo, deodorant, face moisturiser, nothing extravagent and they all came from budget shops). Met a friend at a nature reserve and it was SO wet and vile we spent most of the time in the cafe (but lunch, tea and cake cost £8 so not tooo bad).

Me and Mr Cheery took the treats budget to the cafe for my last morning off work so that was another £8. I finally found a five year diary which I've been looking for everywhere for months so snapped that up too. And I paid upfront for an activity while takes place throughout the year - it'll save me a bit but didn't feel particularly frugal! Oh, and I had to compost a bag of stewing veg I bought reduced to 10p on boxing day as they'd gone all slimey.

Oh dear!

Still, there have been a few food related bargains, including 8 yogurts reduced to 20p :money: I also bought a swimming costume in a charity shop for £1 - my current one is rather see through :eek: and I don't want to shell oht good dosh until I've shrunk a bit :rotfl:

Hey ho. Breakfast lunch and snacks are all prepared for tomorrow and I shouldn't need to shell out anything at all, hooray! :money:

Cheery_Daff

Morning MSE chums :hello:

Trying to get into the habit of posting more regularly since it's uber frugal January!

Just sorted YNAB and bank :money: All looking ok, nothing much to report. Got a couple of professional memberships up for renewal soon - need to work out what to renew and what to leave... I've got two at the minute

(1) I would drop, but I got a small pot of funding from them last year that I haven't spent yet and you have to be a member to use it, so I'll have to keep that for this year.
(2) I would keep, but they didn't give me a space to speak at their conference so if I need to drop one, it'll be this
(3) I'm not a member right now, but want to do some work for them so I think I'll swap it for (2).

Also need to think about house insurance - renewal due 12th at £163 (it was £156 last year) - I'm not sure it's worth switching as we'll be moving not long after so I'll just end up having to ring and change everything anyway. Might just let it renew for this year, not sure I'm going to save much on that amount anyway. Just need to check whether they charge a fee for changing address etc.

Right, breakfast and lunch all packed for work and I'm planning to go to the gym before I start so best get a move on!

rtandon27

Morning Cheery - Happy UFM! - Well done on packing food for your first day back - Have done the same using up yellow stickered posh xmas grub from MrW - will try to do a pack up every work day this month - let's see how realistic that is with three working lunches already in the calendar!

Your house insurance sounds very reasonable - we pay nearly that for contents only! If I remember correctly last year you looked round but couldn't find better? or was that car insurance? I'd tend to agree that with the changes you'll be making it may not be with the effort to shop around now!

Cheery_Daff

I'm sure I already posted in here but it's vanished! :eek:

Yes RT, your memory is indeed excellent :j And no, I shan't be bothering this year - with any luck we'll be gone in a month anyway - but I MUST check their policy about what they charge if you cha ge addresses etc (and what they'll charge if I have to cancel if they turn out hugely expensive at the new place!)

Not much money saving to report. Uber frugal month is carrying on, perhaps not quite as uber frugal as I'd like... we are making use of the treats budget and did go out for a cuppa yesterday, although just spent £4 between us and had breakfast before we went. Still not great I know

I also bought a new running top in a charity shop for £4 I stupidly packed all my long sleeved ones months ago as I hadn't run for ages anyway and I figured we'd be moving soon... :rotfl: Now I've entered a race at the start of Feb and can't run outside as I only had short sleeves :rotfl: anyway £4 has seen me temporarily kitted out with some 80s throwback running top so all good Just about to test it out :j

Lunch all packed - an excellent soup made by Mr Cheery yesterday :j also have reduced yogurts from last week (4 for 10p) and some fruit, which wasn"t reduced, but at least I'm not paying 60p per banana from the canteen :eek:

Have a good one MSE pals, remind m to take the Christmas tree down later :rotfl:

Cheery_Daff

Evening :hello:

Well I went for a run (free exercise), had porridge for breakfast and soup for lunch :j

Did buy some milk for the tea kitty at work (but when I got to work someone else had done the same - d'oh!). Also bought some satsumas to see me through the next couple of days at work. Poor old Mr Cheery is ill so didn't get chance to do the food shopping - I picked up a pizza and some supplies on the way home. Not good - I could have just made pasta or something inventive (although we have literally NO veg but I'm sure I could have managed...) Naughty cheery.

Hey ho. Tomorrow is another day. Lunch is in the freezer so I must take it out. Meeting a friend I've not seen for a couple of years for a cuppa tomorrow after work so that'll be a couple of quid of spends (quite acceptable I think). Shouldn't be anything else though :j

starnac

Hope Mr Cheery is feeling better soon. I hope it's not this flu that's going around.

Cheery_Daff

Thanks starnac I've been more ill than him - he just felt queasy for a day, whereas I've been snuffling and sneezing for a week now! :eek:

Not doing hugely well with Uber Frugal Jan here My heart's just not in it this year I've not spent a fortune, and we did avert a takeaway this evening :money: but we also went out for breakfast :rotfl: Only spent £7 between us, but that could have been put towards something else...

Still, I did take frozen soup for lunch, and we made our tea at home so not all bad

Hey ho. I'm just ordering a present for a friend and remembered I had a few points in the secret survey site, so I've cashed them out into an online voucher and that'll pay for a third of it :money:

What else? I've let the house insurance renew so that's one less thing to think about for now

Bloody hoover won't pick a single thing up :mad: I've cleaned all the filters several times, bashed the tube to get any dislodged stuff out, and generally kicked it about in a temper, and it still won't work. We only bought it about 6 months ago when the previous one conked out the day before the house went on the market :eek:

I wouldn't mind but I don't even hoover that often!! :rotfl: :rotfl:

Can't even remember where I got it from, possibly panic bought in T3sco. I suppose I could see if they'll refund?

Also need to see about taking my winter boots back to M&S. Bought them in September, and in December the sole started coming away from the top. Of course I didn't do anything about it then and now it's been four months - but I'd still expect M&S winter boots to last the winter. Although I have used them more than the hoover! :rotfl: :rotfl:

Urgh, I hate doing stuff like that.

Minor house news this week - prodded estate agent for an update, and they said our buyers' solicitor has responded to enquiries from their buyers so it looks like their searches might be back :j Estate agent said 'it might not be long now!' but we all know how that ended last time so I'm not holding my breath... :rotfl:

However, it has prompted me to think about some of the little things that still need doing - sorting removals, sneakily painting over some paint that's flaked off since the viewings (gosh, we SO need to move house before we have to decorate this one all over again!!) etc.

Tired and a bit grumpy tonight. After all my recent waffling about how well I sleep, I woke up at 5.30 and didn't go back to sleep. Decamped to spare room thinking I'd put the meditation app on which always helps, but instead I started messing about on the internet and before I knew it, it was 8.30 and I'd wasted a good couple of hours! :mad:

Right, off to see if there's another minor task I can tick off my list :j And failing that, I might just have a nice cup of tea

Cheery_Daff

M&S didn't quibble one bit - just scanned the receipt and said 'because theyre faulty, ir's giving you a cash refund, is that ok?' Yep, thanks very much! :j

Found a replacement pair in another shop, £65 reduced from £95 :j hopefully they'll last a year or two at least, although I do tend to rather a log way in my shoes...

Renewed my discount card through work yesterday :money: don't use it for much, but it gets me almost half price on the bus which I'm always very grateful for! :money:

Cheery_Daff

Morning MSE chums :hello:

YNAB and banks shuffled, all looking ok. Just £6.97 in the budget fiddling category - not ideal and as I write this I've realised I'd not gone through all of my receipts so I could likely find the answer in there but it's too late now

Flute choir this morning, and I'm going to walk over there for a bit of exercise so need to get a move on!