A Journey of Many Pounds Starts With a Single Penny

LadyGnome

Its been a busy time.  We have extracted some of the honey from the bees as they were running out of space and its getting a bit late in the season to give them a whole new honey super to fill.  We pulled out the fully capped frames and extracted them in two batches so we are probably fine for honey for the next year   There will be more frames in a few days and we are giving them the extracted ones back to clean out and refill if they are so inclined.  

I've had some a major dental work which was painful in reality and on the wallet.  I need an implant as I have a gap due to a retained milk tooth giving up after 50 years.  I've organised a new CC with a long interest free period so I can spread the cost rather than raid my savings.  However, it didn't arrive in time for the first payment so I put it on my @maz0n card to get the points and will BT it over to the new card.  The second payment can go on the new one for the rewards (major retailer).  

A few unbudgeted expenses like a broken x box controller to be replaced but generally everything is under control (well as much as it ever is with teenagers in the house!!).

Crazy stretch total is down from £1.833M to £1.824M progress indeed.

Suffolk_lass

It has been grumpy bee weather this week. Hopefully we can get in there and check next week

LadyGnome

We had a window of sunny weather on Sat so I managed a full inspection of both hives for the first time in ages.  I was surprised how full of bees they still are. Roll on the good weather later this week.

themadvix

Hi LadyGnome, I’ve just finished reading your diary from the beginning after SL suggested that you are the font of all bee knowledge 😉 We’re in the process of moving and bees will certainly be on our list of projects, although probably not for a couple of years yet. I love the sound of your garden - it sounds like an oasis of peace and colour for you and the wildlife, how lovely!

 I’ll be following along from now on!

LadyGnome

Hello and welcome.  Bees are great fun.  We had been talking about them for a couple of years and I had taken a basic 2 day course about a year before we got them.  I will do more formal training but the best training has been doing it.  You make mistakes, learn from them and become a better beekeeper.  We have almost finished the honey harvest.  I'm giving them another week and then I will take the last filled frames for us and leave the rest for the bees.  The local beekeepers association is really helpful and has a lively whatsapp group for questions.

Its been a busy time for us.  DS1 got the grades he needed for his first choice uni and has already packed up and gone down there for preseason sports training.  So its been a mad week or so.  Just as well I budgeted for him going as I've been chucking money at the situation.  I already have 3 years parental contributions saved for him as he will only get the minimum maintenance loan but this is from the settling in fund - pots and pans etc.

On the MSE side I need to start looking for a new contracting role as mine ends in Sept - there may be another project I can move on to but until that is confirmed I need to look for an alternative just in case.  I have been keeping things ticking over with lots of side hustles like pr0lific and Sw@gb and a bit of MB (now the footie has restarted its picking up).  My new mortgage fix takes effect this month with a a lower monthly payment so that will be an additional OP without trying.  Will make my first OP of the month today a whole £5 - I am splitting the side hustle money amongst multiple pots rather than just on the mortgage.  I also BT the dental bill on to the new card so I can spread it over 20 months.

themadvix

That is early for uni for DS1, but how lovely that he can actually go and be there - imagine that has been a concern at times this year.

LadyWithAPlan

LadyGnome said:

I also worked out all my crazy stretch goals of all the things I would like to achieve financially, supporting family etc. in the next 10 years or so. I like to think big so apparently I need just under £1.833M    I guess that will keep me busy!  It's going to be fun seeing how close I get.  My view is that if you don't write it down and aim crazily high you hold yourself back.  I know by aiming for it I will get closer than if I don't make it a hard number.  Not all of this is savings some will be investment growth and it includes paying off the mortgage and supporting the children through university.

P.S. I've just made £1.67 on PA so that's 0.000091% of the crazy goal done; I'm on a roll!

Just read through your very inspiring diary and you seem to almost have as many pots as I do

Love the above I will have a go at working out my own figure myself Shooting for the stars in a focused way is always a good thing. I like how you do all these short term sub goals as well.

On the implant note - I have had one recently due to a dentist cracking a back  tooth during a root canal accidentally, then the crown finally collapsed the week  before COVID Lockdown , so by the time I could get in to get it sorted it was implant or bridge time.  I forgot how much having a tooth removed hurts .
A note if you  are still healing - you can choose to go to the colourist to choose the new implant colour - which I am glad I did but  it is still not a great shape so I am getting them to make it similar to the one on the other side. When you pay that much for something - I needed special drills as well - you expect it to be perfect..
My dentist (male) told me women have better colour vision than me so it is important to have a female eye check the colour matching as well.

I will be following your progress with interest.

LadyGnome

Hello Lady with a Plan. I may have more pots than I admit to in this diary    Thanks for the tip about the implant.  I am going to have a follow up appointment soon to sort out the crown bit.  The implant site has healed well and stopped hurting so hopefully it will bond well to the bone.

I have made my first OP of the month - a whole £5 - I split £30 across 6 pots funded mainly by prol1fic.  One pot will be filled this month (next year's tax bill - boo!) so bonus money will be a 5 way split from now on.  The only difference is my MB where I split half to one priority pot and the other half to my MB float.  I have over £10 to cash out on each of Swagb and PA.

I need to sort out the bees this weekend.  I left the honey supers on for another week as the weather was so good but I want to take them off now and start sorting out the bees for the autumn.  I will extract any properly capped honey to add to our stock and then give the rest back to the bees for them to store for the winter.  I may try putting the honey supers under the main hive box (they usually go on top) as the bees will usually move any stores up into the main box from below.

LadyGnome

Money shuffle done and the big OP of the month made. £1070 off the mortgage.  I have cashed out of SWB now but waiting of PA as I have a couple of repeating surveys this week.  I think the money will go to the first OP of Sept.  

LadyGnome

Its been a busy time at work and getting DS1 fully sorted out for university.  He is now down there enjoying Freshers Week and I've met my big deadline at work (yesterday!) so all is good.
It looks like I have a new project to move on to when this one finishes at the end of Sept so that is great news.  I am just waiting for some of the details but the screening process has started (its for a financial institution so they tend to do fair number of background checks).

The MSE stuff is carrying on to plan.  I've now saved enough to cover my tax bill due to my tax code not being updated during the year (I was on a rolling 3 month contract and that messed things up).  I'm a bit ahead on my pay the mortgage early plan and have been making extra bits via prol!fic, sw@gb and MB.

I am so glad I saved up to cover the parental contribution for uni.  It was only after reading the articles on this site that I realised how much we would have to cover as DS1 only qualifies for the minimum maintenance loan.  It's been a relief that the money was there to pay the first instalment of his accommodation at the start of the month.  I paid with my mands CC so I should get plenty of points and can pay it off out of the money saved.

We have enough honey to see us through for months.  We've given some away to friends and neighbours and sent a jar with DS1 but still have a fair bit.  DH made jam from our fig trees with the very ripe figs so we are fine for spreads for a while.  I am starting feeding sugar syrup to the bees today as its starting to get a bit colder.