Travelling On

Karmacat

rtandon27 said:

Our 'new' lawn has been completely neglected for at least a year, if not longer.   This means it's a bit weedy! Not sure what it's a mix of, but it is delightfully green, so I just had the OH run over it with the lawn mower every other week since we moved in.  Today's foray into the borders included lots of weeding & a spot of pruning.  Tending of the neglected vegetable patch resulted in the green bin 1/2 full of inedible parsnips and quite a few rampant raspberry canes that were invading.
Ooh, I was wondering how you were doing in this place Weeding and pruning are necessary, it's true.  That's great that veg and fruit are already a part of your new garden, lovely stuff.  My lunch is digested, I **am** about to head out there   

ETA - I too survived a match with the hoover - we had the boiler replaced this week (blue shrieky smiley at the cost!) and between OH & the sweet boiler bloke, neither of them could manage to get all the junk up off the floor!  Spent about 15 mins with the crevice tool getting at the edges of bathroom, hall, cupboard and main room!  After that effort, I need a nap!

You definitely deserve a nap, too!  A new boiler is a good thing, I bet it's really efficient.  I'm hoping mine will last a few years more till things come onto the market that are looking towards the new regulations.

Popped on to say, Principality have messaged me back already - money transferred, and matured account closed.  So I hopped back on there to send back this month's money to my ordinary bank, fulfilling Rewards conditions, with my pension incoming too.  Will update the list on here, I'm sure I've completed *something* on there with all this faffing about, finally  

Karmacat

Achievement of the day: half a dozen mint plants planted in the narrow border at the side of the house, outside the kitchen door.  Plus half a bucket of weeds taken up at the same time.  The soil *seems* horrendous, very claggy, but there's a lot of worms in that there dirt  That's about 40% of the planting done - more tomorrow, it took a while, I have to say!

Karmacat

I imagined I'd be planting another half dozen plants today ... turns out that didn't happen.  I worked for as long yesterday, but I wanted to start getting some plants in the front border (a continuation of where I was working yesterday).  But it was more overgrown than I thought, I only managed to plant one.  Still, progress is progress.

themadvix

Progress is indeed progress, and it sounds like you made a lot of it. Planting is easier than weeding, so today’s efforts definitely count.

Karmacat

I just have to keep going with the garden, not abandon it for months at a time, which is what I have a tendency to do.  Of course, I abandon cleaning the house for even longer  but eventually those kinds of things start to show  I'll check back on my October list for what to do tomorrow.

Karmacat

MONTHLY BUDGET 

Inspired by Ed's new thread, I've finally made an SOA - I never really did it at all - between feeling so ill when I was working, and the income from my work going down each year, I tended to spend as little as I could get away with.  But here I am, with a regular, confirmed income once again, for the first time since I was about 30   

Income

£718 every 4 weeks / £778 monthly

I haven't counted interest or investments etc - I mentally put all of that in capital, not expenditure. Even with the French income, I manage to stay under the taxable threshold in the UK.

Outgoings

109 council tax

80 elec and gas (thats a guess, it was £62 until the latest weirdness)

42 broadband (to be re-negotiated asap)

10 mobile

40 presents (thats a guess.  Not many I buy presents for any more).

20 pocket money

11 home and contents insurance

14 tv licence

14 water 

2 memberships (could well go up a bit, but I just have 2 memberships of £10 p.a. each).

130 groceries (hopefully accurate guess)

100 maintenance

120 holidays

£692 total  £100 a month not allocated.

Dentist not included – I haven't been for ages, and I have some paperwork to attend to about it going private.

If I do buy a car, I'll need accessories (an atlas, for starters, we've used my sister's a fair bit this year while trying to second guess the satnav), there'll be all the normal froo-farah of what you pay out when you buy a car.

Maintenance and holidays are both guesses, and both could be substantially more, but that's what savings are for.  There's a sofa to come, as well; currently I have my eye on a 3 seater from IKEA, £540 delivered.  I'll keep watching my posh charity shop, but they tend to only have small 2 seaters.

During covid, haven't been going up to London etc, so no train tickets, no exhibition tickets.

Clothes: I bought a hat with some JL vouchers last year, but actually, I bought trainers etc before I retired, and then got a lot of day to day stuff from my sister and from my mum's house.  I'm stocked to the rafters with ordinary clothes.  If we manage to have a 2022 christening for the December baby, I'll definitely be buying something special.

With all the things that probably need to be added, this does seem slightly squeaky; when I get to grips with myself, I think I *will* start playing with the Happy Wheel.

beanielou

Not any fun with only one income is it?

Karmacat

Aww, beanie ... it's quite a while since I've been in a two-income household, to be honest, so it doesn't hit me the same way as it sounds like it hits you.  I have an odd reaction to it, actually: I *feel* like I have plenty of money, probably because of the savings, I suppose, and I managed without any income at all for 4 years after I retired.  But looking at that budget has taken me aback: although there's an "unused" £100 a month, I know full well that that can get taken up all too easily by a car, or a cruise, or a monthly dental payment etc etc ad infinitum.  

We shall see!

And for today:
- dw is on.
- look at what the Principality accounts look like.  Ahem, there may be a double entry thing I have to set right.
- weeding
- collect together all the used garden/ houseplant stuff so I can get some suds going and wash it.
- weeding-to-plant.  It's the planting that's taking priority.
- tidying, as ever, and while I'm at it take a photo of my gas and elec figures again, got to keep up on that this time.  And I might as well increase my direct debit now, to the £80 mentioned above.

After that, I might head out to Westeros 


ETA: Principality is sorted, all money in the right accounts.  Tried to send a thanks message to the woman who sorted it on Saturday, and their messaging system is down.  They're not impressing me, but I've been with them for years and never had this problem, so I'll persevere for a bit.



EETA: Sorted out November's transfer of funds ready to return to the current account and to transfer into the Principality Regular Saver.  Didn't see the "scheduled regular payment" box, so I'll set that up during November some time, thats okay.  Onwards and upwards.

themadvix

Re broadband, we’ve been with Vodafone for a few years now and have recently renewed for £22/month and got even faster fibre (DH deals with it, so entirely sure what). He was impressed because he saw that they were offering the deal to new customers and rang up and the woman didn’t quibble at all - just switched us to that deal (and saved us a little bit too).

 Until I saw your figures I was on the cusp of suggesting a gardener every so often or a cleaner (but suspect you’d decline that idea) - just to help you keep on top of things. But if you’re getting a car too, maybe that would be tricky. That said, car will save you energy and time presumably, thereby helping with energy for the gardening/cleaning.

Karmacat

I'll check Vodafone, thanks for that madvix.

I know what you mean about a cleaner or gardener - it's an attractive idea, but I don't want to take everyday outgoings up to the wire, if you see what I mean - and I wouldn't have a cleaner in the house anyway, at the moment.  In any case, this budget is partly correct, partly best guess.

A car is a funny old thing: it wouldn't save me time or energy, not as things are at the moment, because I don't go anywhere     What it *would* do is open out my life, that I *could* go to places again, which I desperately want to do.  It would *take* energy, though - the stress of driving on busy roads in SE England (roads are narrower here than in London, and just as busy as when I learned), but it would give me lovely things to *spend* my energy on without being totally dependent on my sister.  We're interested in the same things, but I have extra interests that don't appeal to her (astronomy, bushcraft, engineering, science fiction.

Right.  Will look at Vodafone, and do the energy bill things.  DW has finished, MW is on.