And so it begins: The Pig Vs The Mortgage

pinkypig

Happy Hump Day 😀
Today has had its moments 🙈. Why  do certain adults feel the need to intimidate others to make themselves feel in control?  A very inexperienced member of staff is on the receiving end and it’s not a nice thing to observe.  I’ve offered kind words and support but if it carries on much longer I’ll struggle to keep my gob shut.  Really don’t like this sort of behaviour, it’s so mean and causes such anguish. Let’s hope they wind their bloody neck in !
Anyhoo, the kids were great, the day was busy but good, it’s almost Thursday and I’m in bed with a decaf gingerbread latte and the electric blanket is on.  Happy days.
It has got really cold here in the evenings so it’s nice to be tucked up and toasty.
The heating still isn’t on but on the nights that we are setting down to watch TV, the wood burner is on.  

I’ve no money news other than a £3.09 spend on a bargainous TGTG box that was packed with a good week’s worth of fruit and veggies😀.  Must research lemon recipes though!  I thought I had about 20.  There was actually many more 🙈😂. I’m thinking lemon curd, lemon marmalade and lemon drizzle cake .
After today’s life draining shenanigans I’m pleased to report that I’ve taken the following small steps towards freedom and happiness;
Took breakfast, lunch, coffee and water to work.
Saved fuel money by lift sharing 
Cheap, healthy eats ( overnight oats for breakfast, hm soup and ys roll for lunch and huge stir fry with TGTG veggies and the last of the cashew nuts for dinner).
Daily marking up to date although I have got one set of books to do over the weekend.
Planning and prep done for next week.

I can actually feel my eyes closing so I’ll say night night 😴
PP x

Cheery_Daff

Night night, lovely that you're all toasty after a trying day 😊

pinkypig

Cheery_Daff said:

Night night, lovely that you're all toasty after a trying day 😊

Thanks Cheery, yesterday was much less frustrating!
Enjoy your Friday 😀

pinkypig

Hello

I seemed to have lost Thursday!  On the whole it was quite productive and reasonably MSE.
I did have some spends but only on grocery and a birthday gift Having got all my fruit and vegetables in my epic TGTG box I only needed a small top up shop which should seem me through to the end of the month so £15.21 spent which included some sugar and butter for  marmalade and lemon curd making.  This also included some sunflower seeds from HB (almost half the price of Aldi) and some chia seeds that were about 20% less and one of those oven cleaning kits where you leave the shelves in a bag overnight which was a very reasonable £1.49.  Just need to do my least favourite job and clean the oven now 😱
I did have another small HB spend of £1.47 on 3 packs of three pull bows which are good for homemade hampers and you only ever seen them in there when the Christmas stock is in so I stocked up.  Finally, I ordered two used but in very good condition books from Amazon for OH birthdays which came to £8.96 which will come out of the annual expenses budget.
My biggest MSE achievement was a phone call to the pension helpline.  They were so helpful and explained things really clearly.  They also gave me an adjustment calculation so that I can work out how much pension I will get on the final salary and the career average part of my pension if I retire at 55,56,57,58,59 or 60.
I’m going to spend a bit of time playing around with figures so I can get my head around the impact of retiring early.  It won’t be absolutely accurate as I’ll have to estimate the pension available at those dates based on what it’s worth now plus the value of contributions that will be made between now and each of those dates.    I’ve also requested the same info from my other small final salary pension from my first job.
I’m terrible for putting off phone calls that I’m unsure about and then once I’ve done it I wish I’d done it sooner! 

I’m currently in bed with a large oat milk latte which is still the best treat of the week.  I wonder if I’ll enjoy it as much when I can do it every day 😂
My to do list for today is mainly getting my car winter proofed, serviced and an MOT so I hope that’s not going to blow my budget but prevention  is better than cure and all that.  

The rest of the day will be some batch cooking with all my TGTG bargains, some reading, a run and perhaps a visit to my sister. 

Yesterday’s small steps to a happy retirement were;
Very controlled spending .  I was very disciplined in HB despite all the lovely things and the only things I bought off list in Aldi was Greek style cheese to make a pasta dish with the slightly squashy tomatoes from my veg box and a large bag of peppers as they were all red and yellow, no green and you can’t pass those up!

Took coffee, breakfast and lunch to work.
All prep done for next week, all books marked so that’s just writing assessments to finish marking this weekend ( Is there ever a time when I’ve not got writing assessment marking to finish?🙈😂).
Cheap, healthy eats (porridge for breakfast, baked potato and beans for lunch, batch cooked chickpea tagine, cous cous and salad for dinner).
A bubble bath followed by a cosy night in front of the wood burner.  The weather was awful here yesterday, constant rain and I was soaked by the time I’d done the shopping and got it into the house so a nice, hot bath was bliss.

Happy Friday 😀
PP x

Karmacat

A shame about the soaking, but that phone call sounds ace, a million frogs all rolled up together and disposed of   And winterproofing before its needed is an excellent idea.  Mind you, I think I have your rain today, it wasn't like this yesterday here!

pinkypig

Karmacat said:

A shame about the soaking, but that phone call sounds ace, a million frogs all rolled up together and disposed of   And winterproofing before its needed is an excellent idea.  Mind you, I think I have your rain today, it wasn't like this yesterday here!

The weather is so weird at the moment KC.  Sunny and quite warm here  today (although chilly in the morning and evening).
I hope the sun returns to your part of the world today x

pinkypig

Hello

The sun is shining! It’s flipping cold though and when I let the dog into the garden there was that lovely autumn smell which I love.

In money news I had no spends yesterday other than the car which passed its MOT 🥳. It also had a full service and the tyres have been checked ready for winter.  It was £223 so I was very pleased with that.  The garage I go to is run by a dad, son and uncle and they are brilliant.  Really nice, super helpful if something goes wrong, trustworthy and with very reasonable labour costs.  This is a godsend for me as I know nothing about cars and with them I never have to worry about getting ripped off. 

The rest of the day was pottering at home getting a few jobs done but at a nice, leisurely pace.

My main achievement was a good tidy up and cut back in the garden.  Once I’d filled the green bin I moved the garden furniture and put its covers on so finishing the landscaping should be easier with that out of the way.

I then planted lots of bulbs that I had been given in anticipation of sitting in my beautiful garden next year and just enjoying it (rather than positioning my chair so I don’t have to look at the weed ridden building site 🙈).

My freezer is getting low on easy dinners so I soaked some lentils overnight and then put bolognaise sauce in the sc.  there was enough for two spag Bol dinners and two lasagnes which is now portioned up in the freezer.

I tackled my lemon mountain and made marmalade which tastes lovely but hasn’t set 😡. Hate it when that happens!

I also started my pension income number crunching.  I’m still waiting for one bit of info and my SIPP will have taken another hit with the value of the pound collapsing yesterday 😱 (so relieved all my eggs are not in one basket). My figures are not going to be 100% accurate but it will give me enough information to make some decisions and plans.

Other small steps to happiness and retirement included;

Coffee in bed (obviously 😂)

A reasonable sleep.

Went for a run.

Hoovered downstairs 

Cheap healthy eats (porridge for breakfast, beans on toast from YS loaf for lunch and batch cooked Thai red curry from the freezer for dinner)

A couple of hours gardening in the sunshine.

Knowing the car is roadworthy and well maintained as we head into winter.  

In the spirit of prevention not cure I washed the filters and cleaned the brushes on the vacuum. Between my menopausal shedding and the dog it is probably the hardest working appliance in the country 😂😂

Swallowed two admin frogs

Marked 10 writing assessments 

Had a bubble bath followed by a cosy, candle lit evening in front of the TV using throws rather than the wood burner to keep warm ( settled down late so it wasn’t worth lighting it).

Got my autumn/winter cushion covers and throws out of the attic, gave them an airing and put them on.  They look so nice and it feel like I’ve got a new living room !

I think I’ll have another coffee before I get on with my day .

Happy Saturday 

PP x

pinkypig

Hello

I’ve woken up to more sunshine which is confusing but nice!

OH is having his first overseas work trip since the pandemic and won’t be back until later in the week so I thought I’d push on and get all the home jobs done and to fill the freezer so that next weekend we can have a mini staycation.

My plan was to clean the house, mark some writing assessments, do a bit of batch cooking and catch up with DD. I bet you can’t guess which one didn’t happen 🙈😂

DD has visitors this weekend so we had a nice video chat while she was waiting for them to arrive.  I do miss them both but it’s also nice seeing them settled in  their own home and getting really excited as future goals get closer.  Anyhoo, being her mother’s daughter she was taking her visitors charity shop shopping  as it’s something they both enjoy and it got me thinking.  

I’ve tried to avoid my favourite warehouse for as there’s nothing I’ve needed and I’m trying not to spend and it’s always a bit of a temptation .   However, I keep a list of things that I wants/needs on my phone and there were a couple of things on it so I took a little break from my to do list and treated myself to a leisurely rummage.

My need was a door curtain and my want was bathroom storage ( although this is arguably a need as there’s a tiny wall mounted cabinet and the lack of storage space drives me nuts).  I’m also on the lookout for a nice baskets/pots to store candles and tealights and an Instantpot for OH.   

It was it’s usual Aladdin’s cave and I thoroughly enjoyed a good hour just looking around. It was also very successful!  I found a great quality  pair of Next curtains which are immaculate and fully lined and once hemmed will fit the door for £8

The furniture section was rammed and on my first walk through I missed a treasure - it always pays to look twice!  Found a marbled topped pot cupboard with a drawer and a two shelf cupboard.  The marble was very marked and the wood ( that lovely, very old pine) had a few scratches and dinks.  It was £45 so I did dither a bit but 15 minutes after moving on I was still thinking about it so I took that as a sign that I’d regret it if I didn’t so bathroom storage solved! 

I also uncovered a few very useful small bits in the kitchen section.  No candle storage pots today but did find 6 very large cereal/salad bowls for £3 which might stop OH eating cereal out of a pasta bowl 🙈. I always buy plain white crockery as it’s so easy to add to without having to worry if it matches.  There’s was also 6 mini thermos reusable ice packs which will be useful for lunch boxes in the summer and a lovely wicker waste paper basket for the newly decorated (but quite sparse looking) spare bedroom.

I had no look finding an instant pot but I did hit gold!  A 6 litre Crockpot slow cooker that has a pot that you can put on the hob to sauté things prior to slow cooking or can be put in the oven to reheat things.   It was a bit grotty looking with food splatters on the base unit 🤢 but it had no scratches or signs of wear. A bargainous £10.  It’s a want not a need but I’ve plenty of kitchen storage now so I’ll keep my smaller sc (which is coming up to being 10 years old and has served me well) as it’ll be handy to have the two on batch cook days and for keeping food warm when the family descend for hot buffet type meals.

True to form, when I went to pay they did their usual job lot price rather than ringing up the individual items so the final (random!) figure was £57.  

I’m going to put this down as personal spends because in the past my annual ‘house’ category became a bit of a  naughty way of justifying and hiding spends that didn’t need to be spent and really added up so doing it this way keeps the monthly spends visible and me accountable.  As I have £50 a month personal spends and I’ve already spent some of that on coffee out for me and a friend I’m now over budget but we’ll deal with that confession at the end of the month😂

Everything cleaned up beautifully (love the pink stuff!) and the sanded and oiled pot cupboard looks beautiful in the bathroom.  It’s big enough for all the spare towels and my make up and toiletries and a bonus feature is that it is perfect height for watching a film  on my tablet whilst in the bath 😀.  

Out of curiosity I had a quick look online at the actual retail price of things and got a bit of a shock.  The curtains were in the £75 - £150 bracket due to their size.  Marble topped bedside cabinets were upwards of £250😱, wicker waste paper baskets were £10 - £15, large cereal bowls were around £4 each and I got 6, Thermos ice packs £3.99 for two and I got 6 and that particular Crockpot… £134.99 😱😱😱.  Flipping love charity shops and feel a bit less guilty about going over budget on my personal spends now !!

Other small steps to happiness and retirement included;

Coffee in bed 

A run

Reboiled lemon marmalade and it’s set!

Put lentil cottage pie filling in SC and made mashed potato with veg box potatoes.  6 individual ones in the freezer, a two portion one in the fridge for me today and tomorrow and enough filling for a family size one in the freezer.

Made lentil soup for next week’s lunches.

Laundry done and line dried (including new to me curtains) and I even managed to fold it and put it away. 

Nice chat with DD and OH.  DS seems to be MIA but I’ve had a couple of messages so at least I know he’s alive 🙈

Hoovered downstairs and cleaned the bathroom 

Cleaned up CS finds and sanded and oiled new cupboard.  

Had a bubble bath and watched an episode of my current series with my tablet and my coffee securely placed on top of my new cupboard 😀

No writing assessments marked so that’s got to be the first job today.  Other than that I’m having coffee with DD, popping round to see my sister, walking the dog and then maybe a bit of reading and TV.

Happy Sunday

PP x

Karmacat

OMG, how did you fit all that in?  What an amazing day!  And what amazing shopping!  I'm in awe, Pinky, I really am.  What a good idea to check out actual prices in shops for your warehouse finds.  Congratulations!

pinkypig

Karmacat said:

OMG, how did you fit all that in?  What an amazing day!  And what amazing shopping!  I'm in awe, Pinky, I really am.  What a good idea to check out actual prices in shops for your warehouse finds.  Congratulations!

The Crockpot was amazing KC.  It has a timer and it’s huge!  It also cooked a lentil curry so quickly and evenly.

How I wish I’d discovered the joy of second hand sooner!
Hope you’ve got your French bank issue sorted out x