"Isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it."

greenbee

Payday today, and also quarterly bonus day. Looking at bonuses so far this year (which include last year’s EOY which was delayed) they haven’t been overly generous. Much like my pay rises haven’t been - but those will be down to the same cause as my redundancy 😉 There are already comments about my boss volunteering herself to take on some of my commitments,

Anyway, leftover money from last month and bonus element of pay have been shifted into savings and mortgage. I cap the short-term savings (for funding work on the house plus upcoming dental treatment) and for the moment am using any other surplus to OP the mortgage. It won’t be as high next month as credit card bills are up again with holiday and my mum’s birthday. 

I need to think about where to put the money that will come in next month - PILON plus redundancy pay will come in at about 4.5 months’ salary. Some of it I will probably need to fund pension payments for whatever gap their is between my current one and when any new job starts paying as this is usually dependent on a probation period. The pension may also be less generous, so I need to plan to compensate for that. 

While paying down the mortgage is certainly appealing, I’m not planning on any radical attempt to pay it off early. Just manageable. And I think I need to keep the money reasonably accessible until I’m settled somewhere new. So the obvious answer is to bung a lump into the cash ISA, and the top up the S&S ISA to max out my allowance. After that it’s either find the best of a bad lot of savings accounts or premium bonds until next tax year when I can move more into ISAs if there is any left! Any cash left at the end of the month can then be split between mortgage and pensions - and any further house or garden work hopefully paid from cash flow rather than savings. Which means the cash savings can slowly be reduced and moved into ISAs and then mortgage/pensions when those are done.

It feels like a plan... I just hope there are no nasty surprises lurking.

Karmacat

Absolutely, nasty surprises are never good.  But I'm glad to hear the holiday went well, and you're well along in negotiations.

maddiemay

greenbee - I hope that you don't mind me asking (have been meaning to for ages) for your thoughts/hints and tips for hot composting now that you have been using it for a while.
I have read up a little, but as it is a considered purchase (having windows and doors replaced soon - nothing much left in the garden budget), I would like to be sure it would work for us.  In normal times we spend a month touring northern England and Scotland in April/May and quite a lot of 5/6 day breaks through the summer in our caravan.  Currently have 4 "daleks", but when I am below par my DOH is not great at keeping up with them.
MM

greenbee

Hi @maddiemay - while it's nice being able to stuff things in the hotbin rather than making the black dustbin smelly, it is fairly demanding - you have to get the mixture exactly right (which means I need to chip some bark soon) and keep feeding it regularly. It seems to get through quite a lot of material! I haven't yet opened it up, although it should be ready, as I don't have anywhere that needs the contents yet! I may well just empty it into the normal compost heap at some point

maddiemay

Thank you greenbee, you have confirmed my reservations, shame as more and quickly made compost would be great.  I will buckle down and make the daleks more productive, may need to up the HM cake production to get OH more onboard!

greenbee

I'm not very good at using my compost @maddiemay. In fact I should probably empty the hotbin at some point, but the garden got a little out of control when I was unwell from the end of June, then went on holiday and came back to rain! The weed from the river, which I've twice filled a compost bin with (one made of 4 pallets, so not small) has rotted down to about 8 inches high, so I have plenty of room to work with there. 

As I'm now officially unemployed, I really need to get the garden back under control - the mowing needs doing (I need to check how much petrol I've got and may need to go out to fill up the cans), the long grass needs scything, raking, strimming and mowing, and I could do with scarifying all the grass. Lots of weeding needs doing, the rest of the stream needs weeding and I need to start planting it up. Raspberry cages need building for next year, as does a bean frame. Window frames need painting outside, the roof needs some slates fixing and a damp patch on my bedroom ceiling needs investigating once the wasps have gone. The drive needs weeding, the garage needs emptying and cleaning with all the sails and dust sheets put away properly. I need to do a tip run or two, and make space for both the garden furniture AND everything that's going to come out of the kitchen shortly. 

I still have decisions to make for the kitchen - worktop, sink, tap, splashback, cooker hood. And I need to get it painted, and measure for the privacy blind and get that ordered. I have, however, got the sitting room curtains and blinds decided on and the curtains and spare fabric have been taken away - hopefully I'll get them back before the end of the month and then move on to my bedroom curtains so I have nice cosy ones for the winter. I've got muslin to make curtains for my mum's room, so hopefully can do that when she's here next (looking after me when I have my dental bone graft in a couple of weeks). My cousin is coming over for 3 days next week to help, so hopefully that will at least get the kitchen decorated and we can go through the rest of the list to see what else he might be able to do and when. 

I still haven't signed my settlement agreement with my old job, but I'm hoping they'll manage to finalise it today. I'm also hoping I can sign a contract for a new job this week. Once I'm back at work and the kitchen has been done I think I'm going to need to find a cleaner again, as even without the travel I'm not keeping on top of it as much as I'd like. 

teapot2

Wow thats some list to work through - thats a full time job in itself

greenbee

teapot2 said:

Wow thats some list to work through - thats a full time job in itself

I know...

I was weeding the drive while waiting for my supermarket delivery when a landscaper came round - ostensibly to let everyone know they were working locally but actually to tout for work. He asked whether I wanted the hedge cut and I said no, as I've just lost my job. He said he'd offer me a 'special price' of £120 ... this is the standard price for this hedge, and frankly I'd rather pay someone I know. I pointed out that as I'd lost my job I wasn't really in a position to pay someone to do it, so he suggested I go and work for him. It was tempting to say yes, just to see what happened, but I decided not to. 

Seriously though, what kind of idiot tries to push a sale when someone tells them they've just lost their job?

Frozen and fridge bits of shopping have been put away. Veg is in the sink waiting to be washed, but I need to get back out into the garden for another hour to so of grass cutting and weeding. And if there's enough petrol in the mower, I'll set the blades high and go over what I can today. I will have to go out and fill both the cans and the car at some point though... 

greenbee

Didn't get the grass cutting done - by the time I'd got the washing in and filled up the bucket of weeding I'd had enough. I need to do some cooking shortly - supper plus stuff for the freezer.

Despite using 4 different pilates and yoga teachers, I'm not getting as much choice of classes as I did at the beginning of lockdown - partly because they're going back to some face-to-face classes which I can't attend (3 of them are out of my area for a start!), and partly because they all seem to be picking similar times for zoom classes. Two of them now have online booking systems which are set up for the whole term which is good. One is on holiday this week and I'm not sure what her plans are for the new term, and the other tends to change from week to week.

I'm debating a 6.45am class tomorrow morning, as it's the only Tuesday option. Wednesday I have 4 options - a tough yoga class 9-10.30; Pilates at 1.30 (but I think I'll be out for lunch with an ex-colleague); easy yoga at 6.30pm and relaxing yoga at 8pm. Nothing on Thursday sadly, then either a 6.45 or 7am Yoga option on Friday morning and a 10am Pilates. I guess this week, as I'm not working, I should try to do as many as I can. There's also a Saturday morning option, but I've got a day out with my nephew planned all day, so that's out this week. 

Paspatur

Hi are you limited to Pilates and Yoga? lots of Zoom classes here if you can include Ballet or other classes
 https://www.citymoves.org.uk/calendar