Travelling On

Karmacat

themadvix said:

The balloon up the chimney sounded far more obscene once you said it fell out occasionally… it took me back to James Herriot books and prolapsed uteruses (uteri?!) in cows and sheep! 
Obscene balloons   wonderful stuff. 

Wise spending there today, even if it added up - if it’s all been sitting in your basket for a while then it must be stuff that, on reflection, you need.

Exactly.  Life's too short to beat myself up about clumping purchases together - it enabled free delivery, the food will go straight into stocks to be used up until summer, the cards will be stashed for emergencies (like the rabbit!) and the diary will be used right away, I'm subsisting on a list at the end of my 2021 calendar, and it's really difficult.

Cheery_Daff

Oh I love that 'support inwards, complain outwards' thing - I've never heard it expressed so concisely. Sorry you're still feeling guilty xxx

Also agree this is wise spending, and I hope you love your chimney sheep as much as I love mine! I can confirm it hasn't fallen out once 😁 and has stopped the gale that used to howl around my study, and the whistling through the closed door. An excellent purchase!

Karmacat

Hi Cheery, that's good to hear that your chimney sheep is still baa-ing happily   I'm glad you like the support thing and the spending clump.  On the guilt, I'm talking to myself and to the little rabbit.  It's all subsided considerably today.

Just going to spend a bit of time looking at the details of my 2022 plan.  January is already clear, it's catchup: home and contents renewal, two birthdays, two sets of tax accounts to be submitted.  Oof, and I better check just now whether I paid the last management company invoice for the apartment.

Night night all  

Chiglepig

Gro-lights sound like a really good idea, KC. I might look at some to see if I can move some of my house plants off window sills and further back into rooms making room for more plants.

Karmacat

Hi chiglepig - that's a good idea. In these days of needing to draw the curtains to conserve heat, you need a fairly clear windowsill.  I've tried to draw curtains while plants are still there, and all I get is stained curtains  

I was clearing my porch this morning (erm, cleaning shopping that was delivered in mid-December may have been a part of this.  Just saying).  Then this month's shopping turned up, on schedule.  I may have got a bit overenthusiastic with the veg  but at least it's here now, and not going anywhere.  Total was about £60, and I can't see I'll need any other food for a month - plenty of cheese, nuts, carbs, enough eggs to cook a couple of cakes, I'm happy with that.  I'll try to finish off the cleaning tomorrow.

While I was waiting, I got the meter details, and I've just submitted them to Scottish Power.  Not as bad as I thought they might be (though of course, I was away for a week just now at my sister's).  Anyway, my DD is £62 a month, and over a period of almost exactly 3 months, I'm in debit by £24 a month, total of £73 negative balance.  It was already going to need increasing - I'd made a rough estimate of £80, and it turns out that between 16 October and 13 January it averages £86 a month.  Not as bad as it could be, but still £24 a month that's out of my pocket that stayed *in* my pocket last year.

greent

Just caught up -  sorry to hear about the bun 🐰 -  but a chimney sheep 🐑sounds fab 😀

Alchemilla

Your energy bills sound very moderate x

Karmacat

greent said:

Just caught up -  sorry to hear about the bun 🐰 -  but a chimney sheep 🐑sounds fab 😀

Thanks for that, greent - chimney sheep has been despatched, as has the diary, life can resume.  

Alchemilla said:

Your energy bills sound very moderate x

I'm very minimalist on my heating and it's a very small house for a 3 bedder.  Only one room downstairs, apart from kitchen and bathroom, and the hall upstairs is so small that the 3 doors to the bedrooms each take up a whole wall, if you can envisage it  

rtandon27

Oh - I didnt realize 86 was moderate - feeling much better about our energy bill now which has been around that since October!

Karmacat

Hi RT, yes, it is moderate, Alchemilla is right.  Have a gander at this How much is the average gas and electricity bill per month? (moneyadviceservice.org.uk)
At that time (April last year, ha!) my bill was already up to £62 a month, when the moneyadviceservice website is saying that the average monthly bill was £95, and the cheapest tariff was £77 (this is all for a family, which is why I paid less than the cheapest, because there's just me).

But you might find you're paying more than £86 a month now though, RT - or at least, using it.  I'm paying the same, but I'm in debt to them at the moment.

This is making my brain hurt this late at night!  My own fault, and I've been doing meaningful stuff offline too, I'm ker-nackered.  

Night night