22 Foxhole East

f0xh0les

Work over until Monday! 

The holidays start now.  I wrapped all DS1s presents last night in bed, between 11pm and midnight. So only have 3 more to go. I found a book on painting animals on rocks. I thought it was so niche, DH could not possibly have one yet.   It came out of a c/s so even if he hates it, one of the DS's will love it.  And found him some charcoal sticks to practice with on his paper.  I have only got himself silly gifts, probably not more than £10 worth (£10 in c/s money anyway). 

DS1 is cooking supper tonight, a saag aloo,  and I am just going with the flow from now on.  Not terribly much on tv tonight. Have spoken to step-gran yesterday, and today, and have an appointment with her tomorrow morning - for someone who is supposed to be isolating, she is getting a heck of a lot of visitors through her house, I do not care if they used to be her carers and they left the agency, or if they used to be a nurse 15 years ago, or they have  been isolating at home with their grown up children, I know for a fact she has multiple carers in 4 x a day, plus her mate from down the road, plus the daughter of a friend, plus the lady who used to clean for her.  She  has literally had a visitor every single day for the last 2 weeks, and she still complains about being lonely - she has more people in her house daily than most of Great Britain is allowed! 

So I am off to wrestle with tape and gift wrap for a bit.

f0xh0les

Everything went well. Everyone was happy - except step-gran who now has toothache.

Job done.

Next!-

I am going to write my definitive meal plan for the rest of the year,

Breakfasts will be boxed cereal (4 left in the pantry) or overnight oats - there was a page of flavour ideas  in Mr T's magazine, and I have nuts and seeds and all sorts of lovely things to jazz it up.    I love overnight oats.

I have celeriac and carrots and celery left over, and apples and pears and kiwis,  so I am thinking raw slaws and waldorf salad,  one sausage based meal, one chilli meal, one shepherds' pie, one burger and salad meal (no bun), German-style pea and hotdog soup, tomato and lentil soup, fridge-bottom-vegetable soup, baked potatoes.  All that should take me up to January 1st, and I will be fine as long as I do not run out of milk.  We have plenty of cheeses and two cucumbers,  and many many crackers.

Nobody will starve. We can hunker down and do the rest of this year on £0.00 and avoid people and shops.

Pressure to return to face-to-face teaching is being ramped up, just after the students have travelled up and down country, so DH's stress levels are sky high, although he did stop marking essays on Xmas Day itself,  he was back at his desk for a half day today. 

  to all Teacher-Types    Take a break for as long as you are able.   The next statement on lockdown areas is due on 30th but who knows, it may be sooner, so gather yourselves while you can.

crazy_cat_lady

Morning f0xh0les
I've spent my morning catching up on your diary. Actually can't believe it's been 2 months since I was on here properly - I've had a whale of a time catching up with your exploits while I'm trying to relax and enjoy my holidays.
Lots of love to you and yours. x

f0xh0les

CCL!!!! Hello! How are you doing? Will catch up with you later,

I suspect Witchcraft abounds - check under your beds -  I just did the car insurance.  !!!!!!?  Ok, so the story goes, every year as long as it is under £500 I consider it a win. If it is under £500  and with a cashback on it,  definitely a win, so I just did DH's and my car insurance for next year - left off the breakdown insurance as usual as I love 4utoaid's policy and the rest can go take a running jump - they insure both of us for any car you are in, whether you are driver or passenger for less than £60.  But anyway - went with the nodding dog company,  DH's insurance was under £200 - over £ 50 less than last year,  and mine was also under £200 and when the multi-car discount was added, it came down to £175.  Plus there should be £35 cashback coming to me from the comparison website, so all in all, this year we should come in under £350 for both cars. 

Ok, so it does not include the 30 days of EU travel, but we knew that was going, and we will pick up a separate policy when we are able to get over  to his parents in Ireland (south) again.

So HUGE round of applause goes to me,  and let me know if for some reason your policy is much less than normal  - a £150 price drop is MASSIVE!  Ok, my car is 11 now and DHs car is 16, but still!  It does feel like something has gone wrong, but then again, we don't do more than 5k miles each.  But still!  YAY!!

Off volunteering again tonight, did 3 hours this morning, will do another 2 or 3 tonight.  I am on  NSD4 on the bounce, not spent since Xmas Eve, so I have managed about 7 this month, and am aiming not to spend another penny until January.   Thankfully p/academic is playing ball at the moment, so am making money rather than just not spending it. 3 and a smidge days left  til New Year, when I will let you know of all my sneaky cunning plans that I have up my sleeve for next year.   So have a good one, and I will get back to you shortly (don't call me shortly!). 

crazy_cat_lady

My car insurance is due at the end of January. My car is 3 years old and I do about 11000 miles a year and I normally pay about £350 so I am going to cross my fingers and hope for a similar win...

f0xh0les

Cashed out £5 on p/a last night, which covered my monthly orangutan charity payment which went out this morning,  and have made another £5 this morning on it as well, so that will turn up at some point this week. Need to buy precisely NOTHING so it will be NSD5 in a row, and NSD8 this month I think.

The snow has finally made it over to us in Le Shire, it snowed steadily for  the last 3 hours, it was lovely, it is not settling, so I have no fear for my poor roof.  Emptied the bucket again on Monday, it is not a long term solution, but it works in the short term.

It is not due to go above 3 degrees C for the whole week, so going to keep on hunkering down, will go volunteering on Thursday, and apart from that nowhere else.  No spending for the rest of the year. I have a bottle of fizz in the fridge, and a carton of OJ, a carton of cranberry, and a carton of pineapple juice, so at least it will be one of my 5 a day, no matter what I choose to put in it.  The 6 litres of tomato juice I got for £1 from 'The Long Legged Wading Bird Store' makes a cracking base for a tomato and red lentil soup, and a litre of 99% tomato juice for 17p is a bargain!  Much cheaper than two tins of tomatoes. See, there are still things I can learn to cut the shopping bill!  The food bill has been creeping up. I am going to come down hard on it in 2021.

Thinking of looking back at last December's plans for 2020, lets face it, nothing happened to the house this year, but would be interesting to see how my plans may have changed and whether I am ££ up or ££ down on where I expected to be.

Will have a ponder when I can drag myself away from the beautiful snow falling outside the window, just beyond the lovely radiator keeping me toasty (I am dreading the power bill this month what with DH working from home and the heating being on for most of the day). 

Keep warm peoples!

Baileys_Babe

Both our car insurances dropped this year. I have not made any changes to my policy but the priced dropped by 20% 😃 OH reduced the number of miles from 16k to 5k and the price dropped 45%!! What we saved on OH's policy has covered the cost of mine (where is the jumping emoji when you need it)
Good luck @crazy_cat_lady I hope your premium is reduced.

f0xh0les

I am not going to be sniffing at an extra £150 in my pocket,  I also dropped our voluntary excesses down to £0.

We had soup for lunch,  tomato and red lentil, or winter vegetable, their choice, with stale bread turned into croutons, sounds much healthier than fried bread cubes don't it?    and £land d/f raspberry ice cream in cones with ys choc sauce (19p agave syrup based health food shop posh sauce).  Seemed fitting after all the snow this morning.  Supper is toad in't  'ole with spuds, sprouts, carrots, swede, corn, and gravy.  All exceptionally cheap, and filling.  

One week today I will have to have my alarm clock back on.    or will I?  The tier re-evaluation is scheduled for tomorrow,  not going to second guess it.  Strapping on my Doris Day and Que Sera Sera -ing  it.

What I can do is have a look at what I thought 2020 was going to be, and what it really was.....

I cannot believe I have made my way through my entire 'thick tights' stash. I have two pairs left and one has developed a ladder last week.  I am glad I have not bought any more, as there really were lots,  also, I have not bought any clothes from 'normal shops', only charity shops, in 2020.   I now own 2 pairs of jeans, I am well dressed, and this can continue when the c/shops reopen. Size 14 me!

I had just squeaked under 60% ltv in Jan 2020 , I am now at 55% and have a plan to take me to 50% by Xmas 2021.  I overpaid £1200 off the mortgage in 2020, I was aiming for £600. 15 years left to go on the account, and if I am able to pay off 5% every year at the moment,  then I can be MF in under 10 years.

I have £15k in savings, and 4 golden thrones that make the place look better. Three kids have new solid bed bases at £0 cost to me.   No movement on the actual physical house renovations though.  Architect will be consulted.

Lockdown put paid to my not buying any books - but I did only buy second hand, and only to fill gaps in my bookshelf trilogies .  I read many, and have released many more  back into the wild.   I have about 10 left to read. Lots were bought with survey vouchers so no real money changed hands.

I have not watched one single dvd - so that can go onto the list for 2021 to watch and release

I have downloaded 0li0 and 'T00 g00d t0 g0' apps onto my phone, joined community recycling groups, and have made contacts with food waste organizations.  All in the name of keeping the food budget down.

Still do not have DS3 and 4 back into the scouting movement,  DS4 has 7 months left of primary school, DS1 and 2 both have exams this summer, DS1 might surprise us all and go to Uni, so I suppose my first goal date to have stuff done is September 2021

DH managed to get his pay rise, and a promotion, and keep teaching throughout the pandemic -climbing the greasy pole.

My pantry is frankly ridiculous. But most of it was YS for no clearly apparent reason - long dates, probably just rebranding everything with a Union Jack / Farage Face / B0ris' bum  on it.

Volunteering is going well, the kids are accepting that I am out one night a week for 3 hours, and that they have not been neglected, even if dh sometimes only feeds them a cheese toastie, or crackers and cheese.  One snack meal a week will not kill them, and as they have not died they are coming to terms with it.  

Lost 2 stone in 2020,  2 more to go and I will look like a lollipop head (with boobs) so need to carry on with that, hence the soup.

greenbee

You've done really well this year
I've managed to make some OPs, make some savings and get some of the house sorted too. Like you, I need to get on with the next phase of the house, which means making all those boring phonecalls and waiting for people to not reply or not turn up... 
I'm making vats of soup at the moment for a similar reason... I need to shift the xmas gain and have something easy to heat up when I'm back at work from tomorrow and the chaos resumes. 

greent

I'm also looking for another 2 stone off in 2021- hoping some of the next bit of weight come off my bum, as I now resemble an avocado! 🥑😂