Bricks Not Books

VintageHistorian

Good to know I'm not the only one that struggles to loosen the purse strings even when the money is there!

I booked Center Parcs for the end of February. In the end I realised that I'll be very happy with that decision by the time the holiday rolls around. I don't want to be sitting at home that week thinking "I could be on holiday right now", so I took the money and booked it. Mr VH will pay me his share at some point before we go.

We ended up having more unexpected expenses. The central heating stopped working so we had to get the gas man out. It was a common problem with a valve that he fixed quickly, but we weren't expecting it. And we had the gutters cleaned out as a damp problem in our bedroom was getting worse. My brother also came out to take a look and made a few recommendations, they haven't stopped the issue but they have improved it. Both the boilet and the gutters were down to me to sort out and I'm getting a bit fed up with always being the person to deal with house issues. I've got to find a way to get Mr VH to deal with some of the routine stuff next year.

I did my last WI talk for 2021 and the car was fine. In fact it was better than expected as there was a nasty fatal accident on the main road and Colchester became gridlocked so I had to leave far earlier than expected. The car got me to the venue and back again and the only problem was that the CD player didn't work so I had to listen to the radio. It could have been a lot worse. I've got 5 talks booked for 2022 so far, with my first one being at my own WI in January.

And speaking of the WI we had our little Christmas party during the week. I got a pair of handcreams from the £3 Secret Santa (just buy something for no more than £3, wrap it up and pop it in the box and then pick something different out when they're brought round later), and I won a scented candle and diffuser set in the raffle! I don't normally win the usual raffle so it was nice to get a Christmas win instead.

Total OP for November was £81.42, which included a cashout from Quidco from my car insurance back in August. 

We've got a new mortgage deal on our house which means our monthly repayment has dropped by nearly £100 (you couldn't get a term reduction without calling Halifax and we wanted to do it all online) so we're just going to OP the difference. It's a 2 year deal rather than a 5 year one as we might end up moving in a few years and I don't want to be tied into a deal and worry about early repayments or the like (which may not even be a problem, I've got no idea as I've never bought and sold simultaneously).

Christmas presents are all bought. Just need one that I've bought my brother to be delivered. The gifts for my sisters are all wrapped up and I want to get my Mum's wrapped this week so by next weekend it'll just be Dad and brother left to go. Mr VH is almost done, there's just a few little supermarket bits I want to get him that can wait until closer to the time. He doesn't really do Christmas so I'm just going to put everything in a box and let him rummage through it rather than wrap them individually.

I also had a surprise call from the miscarriage doctor I saw a few months ago. Long story short, someone in haemotology wasn't happy with my second set of blood test results and sent my blood off for genetic screening. It's come back showing that I'm a carrier for a blood clotting disorder called Factor V Leiden, which causes your blood to clot easily if you're not careful. It now looks like this was the cause of the haematoma that caused my first miscarriage. So a treatment plan involving injecting myself will be initiated for my next pregnancy. I hate needles but I'll just have to get used to them, I certainly don't want another miscarriage. It's odd to think that it's something to be happy about, but I'm glad I have some kind of answer after all this, and all because a haemotologist had a hunch that something wasn't right!

Have a good week everyone, and enjoy the Christmas countdown!

ruby_eskimo

Sorry to hear about the unexpected house issues but yay for booking Centre Parcs and that the car made it through another journey.  My MIL and SIL both have Factor V Leiden so know all about the issues it can cause.  Both now take Warfarin to keep things in check but have had to inject themselves in the past.  Fingers crossed the new treatment protocol works and hope you have a lovely Christmas!

VintageHistorian

Thank you ruby! I'm sorry to hear your MIL and SIL have it. I think because I'm a carrier (only have 1 gene instead of 2) it shouldn't affect me too much as I get older, but I was told I won't be able to have HRT when I hit menopause (although the doctor then went "but by the time you're menopausal we'll probably have found something better anyway", I hope she's proved right!)

Me and Mr VH had a lovely Christmas with my family. Having my parents and siblings so close has made this year much more bearable. We drove over on Christmas Eve and came home on Boxing Day. Had lovely food, exchanged gifts, and played a card game Mr VH had bought called Muffin Time. My siblings have all taken the news that they should be tested for Factor V Leiden in their stride. Youngest sister wants to be checked but is a bit freaked out by the blood test aspect of it, my brother and my other sister are on the fence.

Tomorrow we're seeing Mr VH's parents and then having the evening to ourselves.

I made my last OP of the year yesterday. December finished at £99.80, bringing the total for 2021 up to £901.28. I spent some time trying to work out if I could pull the last £99 from somewhere but in the end decided I would rather keep it in other savings accounts. I'm happy to overpay the mortgage but I can't sacrifice other pots for it.

I've been having a think about my aims for 2022 and have come up with the following:
- Preferably, don't have another miscarriage.
- Finish saving my Emergency Fund.
- Self-publish one ebook (I'm already working on it, it just requires more dedication than I've given it).
- Continue to use local crisp packet, milk bottle top, and pen recycling facilities to help keep plastic out of landfill.
- Buy more meat and eggs from a local farm (and meal plan accordingly).
- Continue overpaying the mortgage.
- Sort out an S&S ISA.

That should be plenty to keep me going! See you all in 2022!

VintageHistorian

Happy New Year everyone!

I'm off work for the rest of the week as I booked 4 days of annual leave to give myself a solid 2 weeks off. But Mr VH is back to work tomorrow so today I've packed up all the Christmas stuff and we've put the tree in the back garden until a charity recycling group come round to collect it next Saturday. Mr VH is now cleaning downstairs so he'll soon have the living room back to normal. I've been making notes for my ebook and aim to get some bits written up this week.

I did a little top-up food shop yesterday that got some reduced minced beef and diced pork shoulder. So tonight I'll be making a lasagne with some cheese sauce I have in the freezer, and tomorrow I'll make a pork and chorizo casserole in the slow cooker. My main food shop is on Thursday and I've now set up a Google Sheet for the year with meal plans for every month. I've noticed that when I'm feeling low I find it really hard to make decisions and act on things I need to do, so hopefully having the meals planned out so far in advance will help with that, even if it does get a little repetitive.

The Google Sheet also marks the Saturday that is market day so I've made sure some of my meals around that feature things that can be ordered from the local farm as you can collect from their stall at the market. Hopefully that will make that side of things easier too.

And lastly I set up my new mortgage overpayment spreadsheet last night (this time with Open Office) so we can see the impact of our OPs.

Tomorrow I'm going to get up early and go into town (with my mask) so I can look for a few bargains. I want to see if I can find any good reduced chocolate in Hotel Chocolat, and have a browse in the charity shops. I've also got a bag of donations I've had waiting for months so I'll put that next to the front door now so I remember to finally take it with me!

Mortgage comes out tomorrow and then I can do the money shuffle!

Have a good week everyone!

ruby_eskimo

Happy new year to you too VH.  I like hearing everyone's goals for the new year, it helps to inspire me.  I want to set up a passive income stream this year but don't think I could write an e-book so hats off to you.  Hope your trip to town was successful! 

VintageHistorian

I didn't go into town in the end @ruby_eskimo - I was lying in bed struggling to get to sleep on Monday night and while my brain was ticking over I realised I didn't really need or want to go.

If I put in the effort to get up early, paid for parking, and then couldn't find anything I wanted to buy then I would be annoyed at a wasted trip. But if I went and spent loads of money then I would also be annoyed as I'm trying to rein in my spending after buying Christmas bits.

So instead I got up early on Tuesday and after breakfast settled down to work on the ebook. I did the same yesterday and managed to make good progress on both days so I'm quite happy with using my time off for it.

Things I've completed this week:

• Money shuffle! The new mortgage payment went out so we've overpaid the difference between it and our old amount (including our old standard OP amount). This means we'll be overpaying £124 a month as standard. I'm going to continue to use Tilly Tidies to overpay but I think some of my other extra sources (Prolific etc) can occasionally be diverted to other savings pots.
• eBook - I'm turning my "Unlucky Princesses" blog series into the book. This involves rewriting the old blog posts and writing new biographies from scratch. This week I've finished two new drafts and edited two first drafts so they're now complete, and made notes ready to draft another new one. I've got to start getting into the habit of setting aside time after work to get this done.
• New recipe book - One of my Christmas presents from my Mum was a lovely new notebook that I'm turning into a recipe book. I've got one spiral-bound one I bought from Paperchase years ago but they don't do anything like it now. This isn't a spiral-bound notebook, it's more one of the ones people use for bullet journalling. But it's lovely quality and I spent Wednesday sitting in front of the TV with scissors and a Pritt stick gluing in lots of savoury recipes I've cut out of newspapers or printed off over the years. Going to use some time this afternoon to do the same with sweet and baking recipes.
• Laundry - Done this morning, it's now sitting in the garden hopefully getting dry.
• Freezer audit - Could not work out why our freezer was still overflowing so I took everything out and wrote it all down. Turns out we have enough batch cooked meals to last us nearly 3 weeks of dinners. I know we could have a very cheap January using all this up but I like to have some stocks (Mr VH isn't a confident cook so I like having things he can just bung in the oven if necessary) so instead I've worked them into my meal plan spreadsheet over the next few months and told myself to be more realistic with the yellowsticker buying until after Easter.
• Vinted - Photographed the bag of clothes I've been meaning to upload for months now. Just need to sort out measurements and then I can finally start listing.
• I looked into setting up an S&S ISA but realised that I should be dedicating more to it than I currently want to. I'm going to focus on finishing off the Emergency Fund first and then divert the money from that to an S&S ISA.

I'm sure I've done something else but I can't remember what it is. That said this is plenty to have got on with!

Going to have a lazy day today and try for more ebook work tomorrow before a lazy Sunday and then back to work Monday.

VintageHistorian

The first week back at work is done!

I've been very good about not spending anything but I'm now getting to a point where some money does need to be released. I need a folder to collect all my medical paperwork from the past 18 months in, I need some plastic storage boxes for excess Christmas decorations and to help clear one of the kitchen cupboards, and I need to get some more vitamin supplements for me and Mr VH.

I have therefore decided to bite the bullet and go into town tomorrow. I need to run to the market first and pick up my eggs and beef ordered from the local farm, then go into town as my Mum and one of my sisters will be going in themselves and I can give them the birthday card and gift for my youngest sister who they're driving down to see next weekend.

I'll take a look at my bank account tonight and see what I have. Last time I looked I think I had £390 so I'm thinking of it as just £90 so that the extra £300 can be shuffled to savings at the end of the month. Assuming I don't get too distracted by other cheap bits tomorrow I should come under £90 as it's not like plastic boxes cost huge amounts.

Mr VH is working tomorrow so in the afternoon I'll do a quick clean of the kitchen and bathroom and run the hoover around.

I've been trying to get into the habit of doing a bit of writing every day, whether it's a blog post or ebook work, and so far this week I've managed to stick to it. I'm hoping to develop it into a habit before work grinds my brain to a halt as then finding time to write will make me feel better than skipping a day will.

I've also remembered to put the charity shop bag next to the door so I just need to remember to take it with me tomorrow!

Have a good weekend everyone!

VintageHistorian

Well, I did end up opening my purse last month. But I did manage to pay the extra £300 into various savings, although I drop into my buffer a tiny bit to do it (I always keep £100-£200 in my account as padding against the risk of an overdraft).

Boxes were purchased and filled, Mr VH just needs to put them in the garage and loft. I now have a cardboard folder that's got "Medical paperwork" scribbled on the front and it's put in a safe place where I can't lose it. I also bought another box to help tidy up the cleaning cupboard, but I'm not entirely sure if it's tidied it up or just taking up a lot of space. We'll see how it works in the long run.

Today I did the money shuffle and counted up all my food spends last month. We were £20 over on the food budget, which is a bit disappointing but not entirely unexpected. I've told Mr VH we'll have to review the food budget come Easter as I want to see if this month is just a blip. Prices are going up of course, but some of what we bought last month was nice Christmas food for celebrating New Year etc. We will almost certainly need to increase the budget but it's just a case of how much by.

I also sorted out my new fixed rate with EDF. This was before the price cap announcement the other day and while I understand Martin's advice to hold off I felt that it was obvious that the only way was up. Our unit cost doubled for both gas and electric and the daily fee went up by a few pence for each too. We've actually had the heating on more to help with the damp problem (and it's worked, along with more ventilation) so I think we'll just have to accept that this is how it will be for the next 12 months at least. We don't really have many other savings to make as we're both good at switching off lights and not leaving things on standby.

That said we're still very privileged in that we're not currently in a position between heating and eating. We don't waste huge amounts of food but there is probably a bit more we could do to make some of it last a little longer. And some of my overspend will almost certainly come from getting some yellowsticker purchases as well. They go straight in the freezer and do get eaten but they're generally just filling in recently created gaps, we never get through lots of the freezer before I start filling it up again. I do need to find some energy this week to pop to Mr T and do a foodbank shop. We're fortunate but many others won't be and I want to be able to contribute a few bits that will help others out.

Last months total OP was £133.42, and our new regular monthly overpayment is £124 so just having a few Tilly Tidies through the month gets us over the £130 mark.

I've got to start going back to the office 40% of the time from a week on Monday. So this evening I've bought myself a nice new backpack and pencil case. I've decided I'll have to treat it like school and just take all my things in each morning and bring them home every evening. That will also reduce the risk of me leaving anything important behind if we get rushed into another lockdown (unlikely but I'm not taking anything for granted). I'll have to remember to spend some of my Monday evening making my packed lunches, packing up teabags, and getting whatever I need out of my office.

Have a good week everyone!

ruby_eskimo

We're back in the office from this week too and I agree, it feels like going back to school.  Especially when I've spent literally no time there in the 2 years I've worked for the company 😆  Best of luck, hope the transition back isn't too jarring for you.

VintageHistorian

It could be worse @ruby_eskimo - two of my colleagues have moved house during the pandemic (one in the autumn of 2020 and the other a few months ago) and both said that they ended up chucking out loads of clothes while decluttering for the move. Now we're going back to the office one of them has "nothing to wear" and the other "can't remember what I used to wear" so they've had to buy new office clothes!

I just wear the same black trousers and a top in a plain colour or nice pattern. So the only things I've decluttered in the past two years were things that had been unworn for at least 5 years and were definitely out of favour befor the pandemic XD

My new bag arrived and looks very smart. Doesn't have quite as many pockets as I thought but it will hopefully serve me well. My pencil case also arrived so I've stuffed it with pens and put in the bag. I've also dug out my staff pass and added that and sorted out a small tub for my teabags. I need to find a different tub, in either shape or size, for my decaff teabags and this is proving harder to do. They look exactly the same as my normal ones and obviously I don't want to mix them up. But the packet is much smaller so I might just take the whole thing with me for the time being.

I'm currently trying to work out what will save me more money in the long run. I have that £5 off a £15 spend for Amazon, which expires tomorrow. But I don't have Prime so will need to spend £20 for the free delivery. Also on Approved Foods there is a good selection of chocolates that both me and Mr VH will eat and they've got the MSE code that was in this weeks email.

I don't want to be spending money on both platforms. It's just a bit too much. But as I'm seeing from comparing to Tesco some of Amazon's prices for groceries are much higher than the shops. I'm currently sticking bits in a private wishlist so I can dedicate a bit more brain power to it tomorrow and try to work out if/how much it would save us.

I also need to get a few bits for our upcoming holiday. And I had to fill the car up with petrol which proved to be a pricey undertaking! I need to move the food money for the week back into my account tomorrow so I'll see what the state of my balance is like then.

This week I have two WI talks! An afternoon one and an evening one, luckily on two different days. That'll be just over £50 towards the new car, and I have two more booked for March.

Tomorrow I need to squeeze a large whole chicken into my slow cooker. While looking for some ways to improve my food economy I realised that a large Waitrose chicken was just over £1 more than a small one and I could use some of the extra meat in place of the chicken breasts I was going to buy to make chicken risotto on Monday. Only problem is my slow cooker isn't a big one. It should just about fit, but it will be an extremely snug fit. It will probably shrink once it starts cooking though. I'm going to put it in earlier than I would a small one so it has more time to cook. Along with the risotto I'll also put some of it in the freezer with the leftover gravy and use some for lunch during the week.

Have a good week everyone!