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

Cheery_Daff

:hello: hi all

Have I really not been in here for 9 days?! :eek: Where on earth did the time go??

Well clearly I am not going to catch you up on all of my spending in that time as I have not kept track at all I do know that I spent over £20 on lunch, gin and taxi fares yesterday though so that should give you some indication of how close (or not) I am to sticking to the budget... :rotfl:

Also had an eye test at £24 (apparently my eyes are 'perfect') and all manner of other frivolities...

No planned spends today though and then I can do a nice new shiny budget ready for next week

Cheery_Daff

Ooops, sorry Starnac, I never did answer your question about the heating! Still works Got an invoice for £40 yesterday which I quite reasonable :j

Need a bit list a-la-pippi today...

- take books back to library (I now have over £7 in fines and they won't let me renew online :eek: )
- blog post
- find roofer
- pay plumber invoice

Er, I'm sure there were a million other things when I was awake at 6am listing them all... :mad:

Karmacat

I was going to send out a search party, y'know

And I get that thing of listing stuff in my head at 6am ... the only way to shut it up, for me, is to use the note facility on my phone, and write it down there

Cheery_Daff

Extremely sensible idea kc! :j in fact, i've already done that once this morning with something i forgot to even put on the list yesterday :rotfl:

Sunny day here Was going to do the parkrun but hip is a bit wibbly so i might stay here and do some yoga instead... and this afternoon a cheery pal i went to university with is coming round - not seen her for about 2 years so very excited! :j :j

oh, and yesterday's library fines were £7.70 :eek: consoled myself that (a) the library service needs every penny it can get and (b) nobody probably wanted the books i had anyway :rotfl:

oh, and doing lots of garden plotting at the minute - and i found a perfect copy of Alan Tichmarsh's complete how to be a gardener for 49p :j :j :j it's enormous!!

Greying_Pilgrim

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

spent over £20 on lunch, gin and taxi fares

Please. Please ... tell us more.......

Hope your hip is OK Cheery - sounds like a wonderful Saturday you have lined up for yourself

Greying

Karmacat

Your hip? Definite pampering involved, thats wise not to do the parkrun. I'm glad we've got the great-minds-think-alike on the listmaking thing

Have a great day with your mate, sounds fun - and if I saw a copy of Alan for 49p I'd buy him too :rotfl:

Cheery_Daff

I'm enjoying him very much, especially at that price :rotfl:

Er, gin wasn't AT lunchtime Greying :rotfl: Had to buy lunch because I'd not made any then met a (different) pal I hadn't seen for ages (and gosh, isn't gin expensive in the pub?! :eek: ) then I COULD have got the bus home but I'd been out of the house for 15 hours by then and after a couple of gins couldn't care less how much the taxi cost :rotfl:

Yesterday I was a complete buttling whirlwind!! Hoovered both downstairs and upstairs (including under sofa cushions and rugs - very unusual ), dusted all through (EXTREMELY unusual!), cleaned kitchen floor, microwave, fridge, bin, scrubbed metal cooker rings, grill and kettle (which I thought was irredeemably black but which is now shiny like new) :rotfl:

Also booked the decorator to paint outside upstairs windows on Monday (he's quoted £80 for all 3 - if I'd have known it was that cheap I'd have got him to do the downstairs ones that plagued me for weeks!),, booked roofer to fix roof slate (also monday), picked up primer, undercoat and varnish for decorator, and varnish for inside of front door (will do that myself in a minute)

Paid plumber, had lunch and afternoon tea with long lost pal then went to friend's house - he's letting me use his garden to grow stuff in :j :j So I took a load of photos and measured it and then spent an hour scratching my head over the things I'd forgotten to measure and finally drew some kind of vague base map.

Then spent another hour working on my own garden diploma project, bit of reading of Alan, had home grown cabbage and garlic for tea with industrial quorn sausages and Smash :rotfl: Watched a piratey programme then collapsed exhausted into bed and slept the sleep of the just

Still on it today - banks first, then varnishing the front door, then get the bikes out the car and a load of stuff for the tip in (possibly including some branches which will need cutting from the trees first...) Then a training session all afternoon.

Busy busy! :j

Banks first

-

Greying_Pilgrim

^^ PHEW! is all Phew!

Greying

Cheery_Daff

Quite, Greying :rotfl: :rotfl:

So... banks - looking quite healthy! :money:

Savings accounts
£324 car maintenance (insurance due Jan)
£219 annual bills (hmm - suspect I've been pilfering from this one both TV licence and house insurance due Jan)
£308 house maintenance (decorator and roofer both coming Monday)
£310 No Quibble (may sneak one in before Christmas)
£185 Holidays (not going away for Christmas so this can build up (or be used to pay TV licence... :rotfl: )
= £1346

Added to long term savings
£50 standard savings
£12 government electricity rebate (apparently we're all getting this in both 2014 and 2015 - check your statements!)
£137 extra savings (reduction in gas/electric bill, my payrise, savings from switching phone supplier - I put in what I've saved each month for swapping)
£1 to round it up to a nice amount :rotfl:
= £200

Other money-related stuff to note
- arranged for energy people to come and fit a new Smart meter (for free). This means no more meter readings :j :j and we get an energy owl thing to see our consumption as it happens. Also means we have to do some clearing in the cellar :eek: probably no bad thing... :eek:

-Mr Cheery will change his phone contract this week - won't 'save' us anything as it comes out of his old savings account, but it WILL add a couple of hundred quid to the joint savings when we close that account :j :j

- I will also FINALLY be able to change my phone contract after TWO YEARS of not being able to make a phone call in the house :mad: Have already got a giff gaff sim and plan to buy their £10 thing, saving us £10 a month :j

Very excited about doing a budget for next year - been thinking LOTS about longer term planning and want to crack on with saving as much as we can (without being daft about it). I set standard savings at £50 a month this year, and anything I've saved (eg from reducing bills etc) I've added extra.

However, I've managed to save at least £150 pretty much every month I think, and over £200 quite a lot of them, so I think I'll set the standard rate somewhere around £200 and anything I save from eg reducing car insurance etc can be extra :j :j

I do better when I save FIRST and spend what's left! :rotfl:

Anyway, enough pontificating - best go and varnish the door! :j

Karmacat

Wow :j

And say it again, wow :j:j:j

Brilliant!