22 Foxhole East

KajiKita

I hate that kind of training, I’m convinced it rots your brain! 🙄😳😂
Well done for persisting and yaay for the work starting to roll in 👏😊

Have you tracked down the night-time biscuit thief? I quite liked the laxatives suggestion … 😉

KK

f0xh0les

The mysterious biscuit thief seems partial to date and walnut flapjacks too. 6 missing overnight. 3 left.  They were cut into very small squares, but still. 

I am still driving DS4 into and out of school.  He is milking this.  I don't think the police are going to do anything, they are happy to have given them a scare, they don't want to be bothered with it. So hopefully he will not get beaten up  this time.  I want to get him back on his bike, he is resisting. I have the Easter Holidays to retrain him.

10 days til we head off to the in-laws, so m-i-l rang to tell me she has ordered stuff to be delivered to my house to save her the money on postage... the £300 it will cost me to get us all there, is obviously neither here nor there.

She is scurrying around trying to sort out her UK pension - she is 76 and has not bothered before, but has decided she might be 'entitled' to something before she headed off to sub- Saharan African countries.  Her plan is to donate it to charity if she does get something. But  despite not needing it, and  only having been resident here for maybe 3 or 4 years in the last 55, if there is a single penny to be had, she is determined to  have it! You wouldn't believe the woman recently had a nearly £100k payout from an accident.  It is an illness.  We will never hear the end of it if she doesn't get anything. She is 'entitled' indeed.

I paid my £2880 into my SIPP this morning to get the tax relief on it, I know it is only £3,600 a year for the last two years, but I am hoping it will grow into something. Nowhere near the magic Million £ in the pension some people aim for but I am not employer matched.

Financial Report 2024-5........ Financial Report 2024-5........ Financial Report 2024-5 .........

I have managed to get my ISA up to £30k

I have my PBs which paid out £0 this month for the first time in over a year. Can't win every month!

I have £14k in the bathroom/renovations fund

I have £1,550 in random and various scattered regular savers and saving accounts.

So this financial year I am ending it with around £95,500 in savings, and £7,200 in my pension fund.

Which is pretty darn good I think.

beanielou

Most excellent totals. 

f0xh0les

beanielou said:

Most excellent totals. 

Why thank you!  It will drop a lot when it comes to the house renovations, but I am going to aim for keeping £50k as minimum reserve.

DH still has 10 outstanding job applications, none of them are in the UK.  I don't want to be in the position of being left behind while he swans off 'abroad' to start his new life, and having to deal with builders / selling a house before I can join him.  His parents did that, and I know it was difficult when m-i-l got there and f-i-l had already made himself a little circle of friends, she felt very excluded as he had been accepted and she was 'the newcomer'.

But tradesmen are terrifying.  They are just all so flippin' weird!

beanielou

I am so so lucky. I have a trusted joiner & he is beyond fantastic. 

It certainly helps. 

f0xh0les

Filled the car with petrol

Juggled money

Did pension for 2024-2025 allowance

Intercepted DS3s suit from courier ( before he could throw it on the roof, or put it in a bin).£10 off Vint3d . It's from N3xt.

Submitted meter readings for Gas and Electric

Did a small food shop - sub £5

Planted out sad supermarket herb plants I got for free - 3 parsley (yum), 3 coriander (bleurgh).  Some will die, they are sacrificial herbs.  Tidied up the plant pots outside some more.  I see compost bags in my future....

Made a jelly. Just have to remember to eat it.

Had spannakopita for supper and it was lush. One roll of filo out of the freezer .  Plenty of salad with it too.

f0xh0les

Morning! 
Could not believe how much stuff had overwintered successfully.  Then I remembered that I scraped my car windscreen less than 10 times this winter ...  the wildfires started early because the ground is so dry, and the brick wall sheltered many things. 
The yard is now 3/4 organised and planted. Never been this organised before and never been able to move so many plants around to fill gaps this early.  Very happy with my efforts, and I washed down the washing line and saved myself the cost of 5 tumble dryer loads by drying them out there. Still dusty out there, but the sun dried them rather than a strong wind. 
I have a double duvet that needs a spin through the washing machine, and the weather forecast looks great for it to dry outside this week. 
Right, 2 coffees consumed, and off to volunteering I go.

f0xh0les

Oh blessed relief!  The energy bill was only £225 last month. Down £50 on the month before it. So the reduction in the heating is working already. Combined with the use of the washing line this month it should drop rapidly from now on, and then I will ask for a refund as I pay £204 a month and have not been in the negative for over 2 years.  It is another savings account that pays no interest.

As we are off to the in-laws at the weekend, I recycled 3 sad bananas from the fruit bowl into a banana and currant spiced cake. There are only 3 pieces left this morning, so it must be okay.  The fridge is being run down, because DS1 can feed himself.

He is on a training course for hospitality so he cannot come with us (he does not want to), but has arranged to go down to London to visit his friends for the weekend...so I refunded his ticket (£59 back to me) and took him off our booking. I still feel mean though  -   I need to stop thinking of myself as being me+5.  They are adults. 

DS3 went off to college wearing his £10 V1nted suit yesterday. He looked very cute. He is 17 and wants to go to Aiya Napa with his college friends for a week this summer ...  I may well let him go actually...  it is nice one of them wants to grow up.

badmemory

If you don't go abroad are you thinking of solar panels as part of your refurb?

f0xh0les

Absolutely,  after the rest of the structural building work is done, in case I decide to relocate things.   The huge water tank in the kitchen may move location when the kitchen gets done and I made sure it could be used with solar panels.  I fancy a battery.