Second Time Lucky

amycool

Feeling a bit rubbish today.

• For some unexplained reason I appear to have been underpaid by almost £100. Not back in work until Tuesday so will have to investigate then.
• Somehow worked out my mortgage remaining wrong by £500. I am an idiot.
• 3 untracked cashback claims submitted totalling almost £80
• My spreadsheet for October currently stands at -£1270.25

In more positive financial news, I have convinced my husband to postpone doing up the bathroom for a few years. It is essentially fine, just not very attractive. We don't have enough to do it exactly how we want it so I'd rather wait and then we'll appreciate the new one more. So that takes away some of my anxiety.


I also have £60 owed to me by BG so I've e-mailed about that.


Meter readings
Gas - 9 units (same as last week, which isn't too bad considering the cold weather)
Electric - 12 units (much better than last week as we've given up dehumidifying the bedroom)
Water - 1 unit (although ever so close to 2)


We had to have the heating on for ages at the weekend as we had guests and I was ill in the week so put it on a bit more than usual.



The water is baffling me. We're actually using more since we went to showers than when we shared a bath. I'm wondering if because the bath is so narrow, we actually use more water from 2 showers than 1 bath. As it gets colder my OH tends to spend longer and longer in there so I might have to get a timer!


We still haven't done anything about the mystery damp patch but planning to make a start on Saturday.

amycool

I got my act together today and sorted out my wonky spreadsheet so now it all adds up.

Realised why I had been paid less so no extra money will be arriving

It turns out BG only owe me £19, not £60

E-mailed AO about £20 cashback

Damp patch news
It's not ruddy condensation either!!! :mad: We have now removed the worst of the damp plaster right upto the ceiling and the water is definitely coming from above. There's also a 5cm gap at the top of the wall, so currently no need for a vent!! Apparently it can take months for a wall to dry out so my FiL has bought us a damp meter and if the readings are going up (most are off the scale at the moment) we know there's still an issue. If they go down at least we know we're on the right track. We also need to experiment with the dehumidifier to see if it's worth putting it on.

Christmas news!!:santa2:
I have pretty much done all of my Christmas Present shopping! :T
We've spent about £120 on presents for 12 people, which isn't too bad. I got 2 rolls of wrapping for £1 and I have these awful cheap cards from a few years ago that I'm using for gift tags.
The difficulty now is not buying anything else, even if I see nice things. I've wrapped my OHs gifts so he doesn't peep but I think I'll save the rest until December so I can sit by the tree with Christmas music on.
I've already wrapped some fancy chocolates to open on Christmas Eve and I bought a board game in the charity shop for £1 that I'll wrap too. We normally start in November buying a few extras (food) each week and putting them away.
No idea what to put in the advent yet this year.

Overpaying
Assuming nothing else comes up before the end of the month, we should be able to still make a small overpayment. When the cashback eventually arrives (if it ever does) that will go into overpaying too.

amycool

I’m writing this on Word first as I have lost my post twice now!!

Meter Readings
Electricity – 18 (dehumidifier back on for the damp patch)
Gas – 5 (not too bad as warmer last week)
Water – 2

The damp patch investigations continue and some of the ceiling has now been removed. A trip to the loft found that thankfully it’s only a small area affected and could well have been the old water tank leaking, or perhaps a roof leak, but no water in the rafters. We’ll carry on monitoring the water levels in the bricks and running the dehumidifier. We don’t want to have to spend anything on fixing the problem until we know exactly what it causing it and it’s already cost us almost £1000.

Got an astilbe plant from my MiL for free so that’ll fill up some of the very empty borders in the garden. We are yet to get really digging in the front garden ready for the fruit bushes.

Shopping seems to be okay this month - £90 so far but we’ll be getting a big shop today. Hoping to be under £120 for October.

Really looking forward to this month ending (and OH getting paid) and hopefully next month will be less expensive! It’s quite demotivating when halfway through the month you know you won’t be able to overpay very much. But with all the presents bought and no Christmas food/tree to buy until December, November will hopefully be a nice one. I’ve definitely jinxed it now haven’t I?

amycool

The food production has begun!

Today we spent £9.97 on 3 bags of 60L compost from the local council compost place.
£2 each on a Tayberry, a Gojiberry and a Raspberry from the supermarket

The second raised bed is now built and in position. We'll start adding kitchen scraps to this one now in the hope that by Spring we can just add a few bags of compost and Perlite to the top layers and start planting.

Removed a very old rose bush (couldn't save it as the roots went under a wall!) and moved a fuschia and 2 smaller rose bushes (both Pat Austin so we've potted them up and put either side of the front door).

Then an hour of backbreaking digging and adding compost along that bed. We found some bulbs and added them to some of our old ones and once the fruit was in we replanted the bulbs.

Still tons left to do but nice to have begun.

We have another bed to dig over for strawberries but I've missed the ideal planting out time now so they'll have to wait until spring.
Then the corner needs clearing and digging ready for the trees. I'm hoping to get 2 minarette cordons of plum and pear.
The row at the back currently has very spiky roses and some ferns but I'm hoping to move the ferns to the back garden (wet and shady there) and then train some climbers up onto the wall and over the top. Hopefully a "just pay P&P" deal will come up at some point for those!
And I have lots of seeds to order once we've decided which varieties we would like to grow.

In Christmas news, we went into Homebase for grit (they didn't have any) and came out with 240 LED christmas lights for the tree. They were at least reduced (aren't they always?) but an expense I hadn't really planned for. I resisted all of the lovely baubles and decorations though.

Also bought a small torch as it'll be dark walking home from work now and I have quite a spooky route home!

in_need_of_direction

Good call on the torch. You need to take care

amycool

It's OH payday today so technically we shouldn't be spending another penny this month and I've reviewed the financial situation (as Fagin might say).

OH earned £60 extra this month (not sure why), which has somehow left us in the black for October! By £8!!! I then take off house refurbishment money and divide by 2 and that leaves a mortgage overpayment of
£415.50 :j

Not as good as last month, but certainly better than expected. I'll alter my signature once November's payment has come out so I know exactly what I still owe.

I was rather excited today as I have planted some seeds! I spent about £14 on Moreveg for the year's seeds and they had an offer on winter veg, so I thought, why wait until Spring? So I've sown a few lettuce seeds and a few spinach, plus I've started some peas and broad beans to overwinter and give me a head start.

I'm expecting to make lots of mistakes in the first year so I'm just going to try to enjoy it and pick up lots of tips for the following year, when I am fully expecting an abundance of food. I already think I've ordered way too much beetroot and radish but as I've never tried either, I thought it might be nice to try my very own. I phoned my Mum all excited and it turns out not everyone is enamoured with heritage vegetable seed.

A bit annoyed with the weather forecast as they said it would be dull and so I put the washing in the tumble drier. OH somehow found a load of dirty blankets in the car and decided they should all be cleaned, so two loads to do today. As I wrote that, it went dull, so maybe the forecast was right after all! At least we will then have some clean blankets to sit with when watching TV.

I'm very much enjoying not having to put the heating on this week.

Dehumidifer still running but the wall doesn't appear to be drying out at all. I'm wondering whether, if it's going to take months, to just leave the dehumidifier off and save the money. Now there's a hole into the loft, it doesn't have such a good affect as I guess it's dehumidifying the whole loft.

So, plans for November:

• Buy more compost, Perlite and Coir and get one of the raised beds ready for planting out.
• Continue to fill the other bed
• Prepare the corner of the garden ready for trees
• Make christmas decorations to avoid having to buy many (any if possible)
• Keep looking for bedside cabinets

No huge expenses for November, although the tyres are close to needing to be changed so that might come up. Garden stuff will cost a bit, but hopefully not vast amounts. So I'd really like to hit the £500 mark for overpaying next month.

Pearla*Merle

Hello! Lovely to see another fab new diary on here - you're doing great :T

Please feel free to chatter extensively about heritage seeds, I love them! Alas I only have a tiny balcony so I shall live vicariously through you with your fabulous-sounding garden plans!

amycool

Hi Pearla*Merle! Thanks for stopping by!

So far my seed sowing hasn't gone so well! Nothing!! Not one little bit of green!

It turns out, lettuce should be planted in mostly vermiculite and they need a lot of light. Not sure why the others haven't worked. I'll give them another week and then rethink.

It's a bit disappointing as I was really excited at the prospect of starting my garden full of produce. Oh well.

In moneysaving news:

Failed to find a jumper I liked so just spent £8 on a new top (my work wardrobe is about 4 tops constantly rotated).

£20 cashback is in from AO Put into overpaying straight away!

I didn't need to put the heating on today for my visitors as the sunshine streamed in and it was 20 degrees at one point!

Worked out I've knocked almost 4 months off the mortgage already!

Damp patch news:
Discovered a birds nest in the eaves next to the worst of the damp beams. Removed the nest (although it felt very dry) but had to remove a brick from the wall to do it. Still monitoring the situation and we're now completely out of ideas.

Christmas news:
Knitted a stocking decoration for the tree, and then sewed a felt bird. Hoping to make a few new ones so we don't have to buy any!

amycool

Just checked TCB and my Thorntons cashback won't be coming to me as they say I didn't access the site via them!!! So frustrating!! The other £72 of cashback is still "on ice" after months. Don't know why I bother with it!

Pushkin

amycool wrote: »

Just checked TCB and my Thorntons cashback won't be coming to me as they say I didn't access the site via them!!! So frustrating!! The other £72 of cashback is still "on ice" after months. Don't know why I bother with it!

Hi Amy - I find the same thing with TCB - I have been waiting about 2 months for a payment - no idea when it's due and don't know why it is taking so long - I used £co a couple of times before and actually found they paid out more quickly.