Bricks Not Books

Cornish_mum

Hi just popping by to say hello and thanks for replying to my rant! Well done the OP for a May. CM

VintageHistorian

I'm on annual leave this week! Normally I'd be looking at places I could visit all week (garden centre included) but obviously that's not really wise right now. However I intend to go in to town tomorrow, with a mask, to have a little look around a few charity shops and Marks and Spencers. I also need to catch up on Christmas shoebox purchases so I'll have a look for those bits too. However my usual 3+ hours of dawdling, lots of window shopping and popping in to places "just to have a look" will be significantly curtailed. I'm going to make a list of what I want and try to get in and out as quickly as possible.

Today I've spent the entire morning lounging around in bed with my book and lots of tea. Not sure what this afternoon will hold but it might involve more of my book! After shopping on Tuesday I intend to do a bit of gardening, my Mum has given me a tomato plant that I need to transplant in to a pot, and I need to try planting some more salad seeds as I think a late forst killed the last ones. Wednesday I'm going to kick Mr VH out of the living room (where he's working from home) so I can watch some movies (he'll set up in the office for the day instead) on the TV. Thursday will be another lazy day, and Friday I will do the food shopping and also sort out the food cupboard and start rotating bits that are due to hit their "best before" date and swap them out for bits with later dates on.

Yesterday we saw my family for the first time since Christmas. Sat outside in my parents garden and had lunch, got to give my Dad and my brother their birthday presents (April and March respectively). The Sunday before we had lunch with Mr VHs parents, again in their garden to enable as much distancing as possible. We last saw them about 2 weeks before lockdown was announced. Hopefully we get to see everyone again soon, but obviously that depends on a variety of factors!

OPs are continuing. I've got £12 sitting in Prolific so will cash that out before the end of the week. I've also now started a new savings account for the eventual cost of our house move (several years down the line). There's only £50 in it to start with, but it's a start! I'm also looking at opening up a LISA for future retirement. I don't really understand how private pensions work (despite trying to read around it for the past few weeks) so this is me dipping my toe in to test the waters, and then in a few years I can take another look at the whole thing.

Have a good week everyone!

savingwannabe

Hello I didn't know you posted. I missed you it feels like it's been ages!!!! I am so pleased you have seen both sets of parents. I bet it was a great occasion for you all. It's great you are thinking of new housey and LISA's and pensions brilliant planning. Enjoy the leave and I hope you can enjoy the great weather we are having. 

VintageHistorian

I'm lurking indoors SW - it's too hot for me XD But as long as others are enjoying it then that's the main thing!

Actually this morning I was woken up by distant thunder and a bit of a downpour! Plants will be happy for it, I think they're getting sick of tap water.

Last night I forced myself to sit down and sort out the damned Lifetime ISA. Opened a cash one with £50, so that's £12.50 the government will now owe me next April XD I also set myself a Google reminder for March to open a new regular savings account for the LISA money to go in to first. Apparantly you don't need to have your money in the LISA all year in order to get the bonus, it just needs to be in the account before 5th April. Since most regular savings accounts only last for a year I figured if I open one in March I can then feed my planned LISA money in to it over the following 12 months, then when the 1 year anniversary comes round the account will be closed, the interest will be paid, and I can shove it all plus the interest in to the LISA in time for the cut off date, so I'll get a tiny bit extra.

At least, that's the plan - whether I remember it by next March is another matter! I don't want to do it now as then I'll miss out on the bonus in April.

Today I got up early (helped by the thunder) and did the food shopping, so we are now stocked up for another week. I got some lamb steaks to try on the barbecue on Monday or Tuesday, now I've got the chimney starter there's no stopping me! After breakfast I went through our main larder cupboard and emptied it out completely. Gave the shelves a wipe down, checked the best before dates on a lot of things and had a shuffle around so some stuff has been moved to the front to be used quickly, and other bits have been moved to higher shelves for future use.

I also managed to find two empty Marmite jars (my fault, I always intend to scrape the last tiny bit out and then never do) which I filled with hot water to soften the residue, then washed out and put in the recycling bin. Some old, leftover, stale biscuits went in the food waste bin, two large packets of Tetley are now on the side as I need to drink them ASAP, and I've listed three tins of Heinz soup and a tin of custard on OLIO - my first listings on the app! And now we have more space so I can start stocking back up for winter.

I have also posted an eBay sale (drove to the post office as I am absolutely not walking and wearing a mask in this heat), and I've done three surveys on Prolific which come to around £2.50 in total, so that will start off July's payout nicely. I'm now feeling very productive with a very shiny halo. I intend to spend the rest of the day doing !!!!!! all!

I've already broken the £70 mark for June's OPs but will do one last money shuffle on Sunday and see if another TT can be squeezed out before I declare the final total!

Stay cool everyone!

savingwannabe

It's great that you thought ahead to next year's ISA. I am so envious of your thunder! I woke up at 4 waiting for it and it didn't come. It's fantastic that you sorted out your larder hard work but very satisfying. I always think you live in a village like St Mary Meade I'm sure you could think about writing a novel as well as your academic writing.  Ps I don't think tea expires  so don't rush. Well done on doing surveys and on the OPs and ebay sales. Enjoy the rest, the great weather and stay safe my friend. 

griffinsaver26

I’ve just started on the MFW journey and have been reading a lot of diaries on here and was rather taken by yours! You’ve made great progress and must be the most organised person I’ve seen on here!  Good luck and I look forward to seeing how you continue to get on. 

VintageHistorian

savingwannabe said:

It's great that you thought ahead to next year's ISA. I am so envious of your thunder! I woke up at 4 waiting for it and it didn't come. It's fantastic that you sorted out your larder hard work but very satisfying. I always think you live in a village like St Mary Meade I'm sure you could think about writing a novel as well as your academic writing.  Ps I don't think tea expires  so don't rush. Well done on doing surveys and on the OPs and ebay sales. Enjoy the rest, the great weather and stay safe my friend. 

We're quite a big village actually SW - bigger than the one I grew up in! But I like it, I only did 4 years in London and that was enough for me. Those that like the urban environment can have it, and I'll have the countryside. I hope the temperature has dropped for you, stay safe!

griffinsaver26 said:

I’ve just started on the MFW journey and have been reading a lot of diaries on here and was rather taken by yours! You’ve made great progress and must be the most organised person I’ve seen on here!  Good luck and I look forward to seeing how you continue to get on. 

Thank you Griffin, I'm so glad you enjoyed it! I'm not quite as organised as I sound, I still haven't bought the tumble dryer that I think I originally mentioned back on page 2! XD

VintageHistorian

Did the last money shuffle of the month this evening. Did a last TT and finished the month with an OP of £78.75. Very respectable, includes £2.22 from Quidco, and £12.75 from Prolific. 

I've done my calculations and if I want to hit £1000 by 31 December then I need to start OPing £96 a month from now on. That might be a little tricky as I have yet to break £80 at any point this year. But I'm ever an optimist, if I focus a bit more in July then it might happen. This time next week I'll probably have forgotten all about it XD

I also had one of those "why didn't I spot it sooner?" moments last night. I was showing Mr VH our mortgage spreadsheet and commented that I couldn't decide what I wanted to reduce to 00's, the last digits of the mortgage, or the last digits of my current account. And he went, "but you can have both?", as if I was missing something really obvious. And then I realised that I now have an emergency savings fund, a pension, and a house move fund. So of course I can have both! So this evening I did a TT of £4.39 to round the mortgage down nicely, and then moved £2.09 to my emergency fund to round down my current account. I can't believe that didn't occur to me before!

I'm not normally much of a neat and tidy person, but there's a nice symmetry to having my current account look like that. Shame it was spoiled by the random penny endings for the emergency fund XD

ruby_eskimo

Just catching up on your diary and you inspired me to pay off the 14p that was hanging around at the end of our outstanding mortgage.  It was bothering me for a while but like you I didn't realise that I could actually pay the 14p and all would be well   Your village sounds a bit like mine, we've got two shops, 3 pubs and a brewery and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

VintageHistorian

It's a lovely feeling isn't it Ruby?  Going to have to do that again this month!

We've been paid and the mortgage as gone out so I've done the money shuffle this evening. I've now got so many different savings accounts that I was having to go through things quite carefully to make sure I didn't pay in twice with any of them! 

The standard OP has gone out plus a TT, so that's £42.57 so far. I've got £9 waiting on Prolific and another £3-£4 pending approval, and it's only the first week of July! Might see if I can get a full £20 out of them this month.

My brother has texted me a quote to replace the doors in our house. We actually discussed it with him back at Christmas and he gave us a catalogue to look at, pick what we wanted, and then bring it back in March. And then Covid hit, so we actually gave it back about 2 weeks ago! It'll be £800 for 7 doors, plus the fixtures, and paying him to hang them all for us. Our bedroom door handle has been broken since before we moved in here, if you close the door from the inside then you might not be able to get back out! There's no door for the living room as it wouldn't fit after we had the hardwood floor put down, and then kitchen door can't close properly for the same reason. He'll do it over two weekends at the end of the month/beginning of August. And then that will be another big job in the house ticked off!

I've also been looking at ways to do a very cheap kitchen makeover. I'm currently thinking of painting one wall as a feature wall, and replacing the door and drawer knobs with something a little more modern. I was considering replacing the doors themselves but I think the drawers will be a pain to do. My Mum suggested we get the worktop changed but we have an integrated hob which will probably make it a right pain in the neck to do. But we'll get my brother to take a look when he's up here for the doors and then he can quote us for that too. We also want to remove the horrid old extractor fan and put some better cupboards over the space. Mr VH wants to box in the boiler too but I'm worried that that might caught problems if there was ever a boiler issue.

Our other next door neighbours have put their house up for sale! We're the middle of a 3 house terrace. The right house put theirs up for sale back in January and then had to take it off the market in March (TBH I think their price was a little unrealistic). They haven't put it back up yet, but now the house on our left have gone on the market! Much lower than the other one, but they're a smaller property. It'll be very interesting to see how much they sell for as I'm not sure we'd get a huge amount more than them, we have an extra bedroom but they're a semi-detached. They've also got a much nicer garden (although I don't think it's any bigger) and a nicer kitchen, so you can see where my refurb desire is now coming from

Have a lovely week everyone!