Extending our house without extending ourselves beyond our means

PurpleFairy26

Thanks Dawn that’s a really useful summary. I bought six self fertilising minature fruit trees (that had been grafted on to dwarf stock). One died but the other 5 are going strong. However, I do feel they would be happier out of pots. My plum tree has produced a single plum this year and last and my cherry tree about 6 cherries. One produced a decent amount of apples last year but they were all tiny. I just think if they were in the ground it would give them a bit more space and nutrition. The plan was they would always go in the ground once the extension and garden was done. The garden is about 50% done, we should be able to plant at least one out at the end of this season and the rest next year. 

PurpleFairy26

missymoo81 said:

Thank you so much DawnW, that is so super helpful!

Hope you’re ok Purps, haven’t heard from you in a while.

Thanks for checking on me missymoo had a few days away and consciously chose not to be online and since I’ve been back I’ve also tried to limit my time. 

PurpleFairy26

Well it’s been a while folks. Went away for a few days as although shielding I was able to go and shield somewhere else and the change in scenery was so good for the soul. 

Was pleasantly surprised when I realised it was payday this Friday 😃 I thought it was next week. Should be getting a bit extra as I’ve put through a few days holiday this month. 

Not much else to report in money news. Lull before payday. Only 1 DD to go out. Reconciled just for points CC. Nice to see the points balance building up again. 

We ate our first home grown courgette this week, think there will be plenty more! Not sure how successful any other growing is going to be, but anything we get will be a bonus. 

crazy_cat_lady

I am getting no courgettes this year, thanks to NT2 and her penchant for plant eating. Enjoy yours!

PurpleFairy26

It's payday so did money shuffle part 1 😀. Frustratingly bank account started with a zero (always does on payday as I sweep anything else out of it) only 4 transactions and it's doesn't match YN AB. I've triple checked the entries and they match so I just don't get it. This happens every pay day. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Will check again later and if I can't work it out, will adjust via budget fiddling category. 

Builder coming today to finish job he started last week, will talk to him about garden and if we can crack on with that and also finalising the last few jobs for the new utility and pantry. I think the first job might be us picking the floor we want but we'll se what he says. 

It's going to be warm here today so may try and get the beds changed and dried out on the line. 

Am being gifted a veg box today, so will do a meal plan for next week after it. DH will pop out for a small shop as we only have essentials coming on the online shop today as it would let me edit it last night. Nothing too random on there and although there are about 5 things I would have taken off, they'll all have decent dats on so won't go to waste. Was a bit frustrating though as am managing to get food spends down a bit. Oh well, worse things happen at sea as my Nan always said! 

May bake today as I've not done for ages and we are all out of snacks. 

Have a good day all purps. 

hugglemonster

How lovely to discover payday was earlier than thought, I hope you manage to sort out the discrepancies on ynab. Frustrating when that happens even though your sure everything went in!

Will the last jobs in the utility and pantry be it for all the extension now? What do you want to do in the garden?

Good news on the veg box and hope you enjoy your baking.

H x

brizzlegirl

Hi, hope all good with you PF. Often think of you as I go out on my run  

all the chat about fruit trees is great. Our small trees (we live in a Victorian city terrace so small garden) have fruited very well this year. Best ever maybe. The combination of sun and rain has helped For sure Plus we have been here to control the woolly aphids and give them a bit of love. Tomatoes are the only real crop this year (they are still flowering so will have to see how that grows but grew them from very OOD heritage seed so a real win already!) apart from herbs and sorrel for salads, but always nice to have food from the garden. Strawberries very poor but we can always try again next year.

have a great weekend x

savingholmes

It sounds like everything is coming together. We are mid painting kitchen cupboards as a diy revamp - but may then spend some money to get replacement appliances and a new counter and one new unit - and the odd drawer!

PurpleFairy26

Hmm, it’s been a while. Thanks for the visitors popping by. So much being going on in RL, including lots of financial stuff that I’m getting my head round but is taking up time and headspace. 

It’s a definite lull before beginning of the month (even more so as I moved some DD to a different date this month for simplicity going forward) so not even YN AB to update 🤣

we've had more work done on the house (some of its that annoying stuff that needs doing, you can’t see, but still pay for 🤣🤣), with a little more to do but we’ve made decent progress. I will need to order a couple of items this week (For some of the works ) but will go through cb site for them. At least this stage of the work we can see and it will have a significant improvement on things. 

Several years ago we moved house and we bought some nice bathroom fittings with us from our old house, which didn’t work in the bathroom for the new house. We’ve saved them and next week they will be put to good use after some work is completed. Good shopping from home opportunity and less to landfill. 

We’ve also been gifted a couple of items this week that I can upcycle. I need to do some research on one, am looking forward to it. 

PurpleFairy26

Due to various things going on, the recent productivity at home has been very much done by DH rather than me. However, today I have had a bit of a surge of energy so after breakfast I took myself into the kitchen and raided the fridge. I was able to:

double pod some broad beans 
used some gifted plums to make jam 
made a peach melba cake but used nectarines and blackberries for the fruit as it’s what I have 
roasted the last few nectarines that were over ripe and a few stray plums 

I’ve updated our freezer inventory and done a meal plan for the week to use up what we have and work on emptying the freezer as we’re  working hard to reduce food spends. July was lower than June. 

Garden continues to gift us courgettes, so they feature in the meal plan! 

Continuing to work through the financial stuff, it’s taking its time but want to make sure it’s done properly. More forms to fill in today and send off.