Tales from The Shire

wishingthemortgaheaway

Evening Fortune, sounds like you have everything sorted.
Does Hubby have to choose from the cars offered or can he ask for a lower tax band one?

Fortune_Smiles

in_need_of_direction wrote: »

love (and am slightly jealous of) the balance in your life

Thank you INOD. Although I don't always feel very balanced :rotfl:
This year's goals are certainly helping.

Fortune x

Fortune_Smiles

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

Excellent progress Fortune! :j :j

LOVE your health, wealth & happiness list and the little smileies you've chosen Perfect

Good luck setting up the B&B! People often ask us if we're going to do that but I don't know where we'd put them - we don't have an annex, and our outbuildings are more 'falling down agricultural shed' than something out of Country Living magazine :rotfl: not saying I would never consider it, but I think the initial outlay would take about 400 years to recoup and quite frankly I'm far too anti social anyway :rotfl:

I do admire other people who do it though maybe we'd consider a caravan or similar one day... In fact we were standing in a spot in one of our fields the other day that we've never stood in before & thinking what a lovely campsite it would make... Not sure how that works with the mortgage mind you...

(And again, far too antisocial...)

Sorry, waffling on your diary I'm just interested is all did you actively seek out somewhere you could do B&B? Is it something you always wanted to do, or did you just find yourself with a suitable space? Do you enjoy it, or is it mainly just for the dosh?

(Feel free to ignore me of course)

We didn't intend to run a B&B Cheery. It just happened that the house that suited us best came with some extra accommodation. Once we'd cleaned it up we could see the potential and it seemed a shame to leave it empty and waste the opportunity to earn some extra cash. I don't know if I'll be any good at it :rotfl: In fact I'm slightly terrified of getting bad reviews

If you ever wanted a change of lifestyle/job you could look into setting up a caravan or camping site - ttps://www.caravanclub.co.uk/setting-up-a-certificated-location/

I'm certain you'd get lots of visitors. You're in such a beautiful location and could provide a supply of fresh eggs

Fortune x

Fortune_Smiles

wishingthemortgaheaway wrote: »

Evening Fortune, sounds like you have everything sorted.
Does Hubby have to choose from the cars offered or can he ask for a lower tax band one?

I'm getting there Wish Mr F can only choose from the cars available to his grade or take a car allowance. We've looked into the car allowance but that wouldn't work for us. I'm crunching numbers at the moment to see how we're going to be affected.

Fortune x

Fortune_Smiles

Mr F has gone off on a long business trip so it's just me and FDawg for the next 12 days Fortunately I have a few social events planned to keep me occupied.

We were supposed to be going out to a comedy show last night but the business trip took precedence. I went with a couple of girl friends instead so got the money back for his ticket and friends bought the drinks as I drove.

It was a very late night so I gave myself most of the day off today. I did manage to reconcile the bank accounts though and everything is as it should be. We are a bit better off than I thought as Mr F will be getting extra cash in his salary to make up for his new company car not being available yet. Lodger friend will also be paying the final month's rent before she leaves on Tuesday.

An early night is planned as I don't get a lie in now I have a canine alarm clock

Enjoy your Sunday night all

Fortune x

doingitanyway

The BB sounds exciting
I'm sure you would make an excellent host.

Cheery_Daff

Fortune_Smiles wrote: »

We didn't intend to run a B&B Cheery. It just happened that the house that suited us best came with some extra accommodation. Once we'd cleaned it up we could see the potential and it seemed a shame to leave it empty and waste the opportunity to earn some extra cash. I don't know if I'll be any good at it :rotfl: In fact I'm slightly terrified of getting bad reviews

If you ever wanted a change of lifestyle/job you could look into setting up a caravan or camping site - ttps://www.caravanclub.co.uk/setting-up-a-certificated-location/

I'm certain you'd get lots of visitors. You're in such a beautiful location and could provide a supply of fresh eggs

Fortune x

Ooh, well now that *is* interesting, thank you! :j :j Never even occurred to me to do anything through the caravan club. Being limited to 5 pitches would certainly keep things manageable... Mind you, not sure any of our land is level enough :rotfl: :rotfl: and there would need to be some fiddling with the water pipes, and some kind of toilet disposal thingy... (don't think I'd bother with electric hook ups...)

Something to think about though, so thank you!

I'm sure your B&B will be just perfect and receive loads of lovely reviews :beer:

I feel for you being on your own - I had 2 weeks out here without Mr Cheery in the autumn and it was rather lonely overnight Also get you with the canine alarm clock - I was saying the very same thing about the chickens the other day :eek:

Fortune_Smiles

doingitanyway wrote: »

The BB sounds exciting
I'm sure you would make an excellent host.

Thanks DIA - I'm going to give it my best shot.

Fortune x

Fortune_Smiles

I work up early this morning and am determined to make good use of the extra time. I find I waste a lot of time gravitating towards the twin black holes of the internet and television. I could be far more productive with a little discipline. So, this morning I have already:

• meal planned for the week. As Mr F is away, I've managed to shop from stores and the freezer for the whole week so won't have to spend anything on groceries
• bought a moving in present for lodger friend for half price
• re-gifted a lovely but surplus to requirements Christmas present
• ordered a repeat prescription.

I'm feeling very virtuous already :A

The rest of the day will be spent catching up on housework But tonight I'm having a night out with the WI It's our Christmas meal :eek: I put some glittery nail varnish on last night to try and recapture a little Christmas spirit :rotfl:

If you haven't already seen it, I'd recommend the current MSE Ciate deal. I went for it as I'd been looking out for a nail polish set and I'm very pleased with the colours. Lots of variety with some shimmery and glittery ones included. I'm wearing Total Eclipse which is a dark grey with Star Gazer glitter over the top. Great coverage and a fabulous effect. Would make a great gift too although they don't come in a fancy box.

Right, breakfast time and on with jobs.

Happy Monday all

Fortune x

Fortune_Smiles

Most of my time this week has been spent on the laptop which means progress has been made in some areas but not others.

Lodger friend has moved out now and our Air8n8 listing went live today :j I've blocked out the next six weeks though to give me time to get the annex up to snuff. Any tips from other hosts would be very welcome as I'm quite nervous about it all.

I'm hoping to run things on more of a holiday let basis so I've started to look out for games, jigsaws, umbrellas, torches, etc which will make things more enjoyable/comfortable for guests. The Bay is my first stop.

I put together a spreadsheet to calculate Mr F's tax liabilities and work out how changes to his pension contributions and company car benefit or allowance affect these. He has discovered he has the option of buying his current company car so has asked for a quote. My next job is to get a Bay listing together for my old car so we can advertise it to coincide with Mr F's next time at home.

We haven't had much snow here but it's been extremely icy. I braved the cold to go to the WI Christmas Dinner on Monday and yoga on Wednesday but cancelled going to my writers' group on Tuesday as it's a much longer trek. I'm not intending to venture
out over the weekend either. Far too much house work to get through now as I've been concentrating on the computer stuff :eek:

The little lambs were quite close to the fence today and FDawg got very excited at the sight of them and went racing around the top field. He wasn't looking where he was going and ran straight into a cable that secures a pylon. He caught his leg and came running to me with it held out very stiffly. I thought he'd broken something! He started to put some weight on it after a few minutes and seemed to have fully recovered by supper time :think: I'm keeping an eye on him and I expect he might be a bit stiff tomorrow. I hope he was just being a drama queen and hasn't done myself any damage.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Fortune x