Cheery's country living adventure

Cheery_Daff

SAVINGS ACCOUNTS

Ok, these are going to need a bit of shuffling in the new year... 

The bulk of the savings are in a Post Office account, with interest currently at a pathetic 0.8%, but reducing to an even more pathetic 0.01% on 8th January - this is priority for sorting out. 

I've been drip feeding that into a regular saver for each of us, which both now have £5000 in, and are sitting at 1.85% interest (to be paid at the end of the annual term - 22nd Feb for me, 22nd March for Mr Cheery). 

There's a current account with TSB - only opened for the regular saver, which is sat at £2750 and 2% (you can only add £250 a month and it finishes on 22nd Feb)

And there's a current account with Nationwide, which swaps £1000 into the TSB account and back account (to meet both of their requirements for a 'current' account). Only opened for a regular saver last year, but not worth having for this year - this is the account I use for MB though so it's staying open. 

Net worth seems a pointless calculation on reflection - we took Mr Cheery's pension lump sum this year so of course it's increased wildly as it was wildly depleted by the house move before that!

So there we are. Need to find a new home for the household savings, and reign in some of the extravagances that have crept in through months of internet shopping. Will check how the mortgage is looking... 

Cheery_Daff

Ok, can't check the actual mortgage balance as the building society website is down. But I've added up the payments made from my spreadsheet, and the difference is an increase of £1572 this year. Hmm. It FEELS like so much more than that!! But actually we paid the contractual payments for the first 4 months (only slightly increased on 2019 rate), then increased by £70 a month, and only in the last 4 months increased more than that. 

If all goes to plan, I'll be increasing the amount each month to include a £570 overpayment (!) so even if we don't throw anything else at it, that'll mean an extra £4663 over what we've paid to it in total this year. 

Not too shabby! Current estimated finish date is Nov 2033, but that's just continuing at that overpayment rate - not adding any extra to that. 

And at some point of course as the world gets back to normal Mr Cheery will be able to work again so we can add that to the pot.

Just realised I've not got enough time left to increase the monthly amount that goes out for January, so I'll have to add that manually, but I can ring and add more once I've reset the budget. I think with everything we're drip feeding into various places, and this weird old year, we're coming close to allocating more than is in the current account each month, so I need to have a rethink - I don't want to be running that right down and having to transfer a wodge from the savings account. Will do a bit of planning over the next few days... 

Gosh I love being able to just plonk in a big load of financial nonsense in here and know people aren't going to laugh at me (too much)

Karmacat

I love that you can do the ups and downs and have it more or less make sense, its only the recategorisations that are the issue.  I have my classic January coming up, all to do with finances, and they're much easier now I've retired, so I'll be having a bit of a go at this  

Baileys_Babe

Thanks for the updates @Cheery_Daff I too have a regular saver which reaches term in late March, I haven't even started looking where I am going after this it feels too early as all the rates will no doubt change before I want to move my money.

missymoo81

Hey Cheery! Just catching up! Merry Christmasness. Sounds like you’ve had a lovely couple of days apart from being chilly. Loving the look of the lovely fire though. All the financial stuff looks great. I need to look at mine too! 

CathT

Hey Cheery, another one suffering with the cold here too. I had a daytime bath yesterday which did the trick. Went out for a walk today which bizarrely felt warmer the longer we were out (although I was being pulled along by a mad spaniel!)

I was thinking of you earlier actually as was watching Sar@h B33ny new life in the c0untry and they were planting trees. I'm not sure how long ago you did this but having read through recently it doesn't feel that long ago.  I'm actually starting to get delusions of grandeur imagining myself living in the country.

Hope you have a relaxing few more days in this period where no one seems to know what day it is. 

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, lots of people, hello! Good luck with your January finances KC! Saw your massive list earlier, will pop over and read it properly soon! 

BB, I agree, far too early to be looking for March. Goodness knows what will happen by then - it seems the current best easy access savings account pays 0.55%interest so by March we might be paying then banks to store our dosh for us

Merry Christmas to you too Missy! I think we all need to get on the case with our finances - January always feels like a good time...

Hi Cath yep our tree planting was at the start of December so not long ago at all Will check out the programme! 

Well I've had a nice day of plotting and scheming. Had a long video chat with my sister this morning (her first Zoom call apparently! I was jealous until she pointed out that's only because she's actually been working on a reception all year... ). Anyway we've done lots of planning of goals, and will have a monthly check in to see how we've got on, most jolly.

Then I've just had another one with some pals, doing a different type of plotting and scheming. 

And this afternoon I actually managed some DIY! Most exciting. Got some more battens cut and screwed to the beams. Done a quarter of the kitchen now which is brilliant (it'll be a kitchen/dining room so quite big). 

I'd do a bit more but I've had to put the drill battery on charge, what a shame Instead I'm going to sit with tea and Christmas cake while Mr Cheery has a bath Also we're meeting some friends for a walk on Tuesday and we said we'd like to go somewhere neither of us has been, but where?? Need to have a look at the map...

Karmacat

Ooh, Cheery, I think my big list posts are more or a library reference book than a reading book
I love Sarah Beany by the way - especially nowadays the series that are about her, rather than the property ladder series.  The recent series was filmed during lockdown, so very relevant.
Enjoy your walk!  My county council has an interactive map on their own website, you can explore particular routes or all foothpaths locally, its very good.

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, that sounds like an excellent resource KC! As you know we're in the national park so there's a million walking guides - most of which I have made NO use of - perhaps that'll be one of my cheerful activities on the list for next year!

Well, a jolly day today I woke up to heavy fog and a light dusting of snow. Had an overwhelming desire to get in the bath but I resisted - telling myself I could do just that if I went for a walk first. So I togged up and spent an hour walking a loop around the lanes. No scenery through the fog, but the dusting of snow was pretty, and it was SO quiet and peaceful, I really enjoyed it (and enjoyed listening to my audio book in one ear too). 

Came home, and ended up cutting a few more battens for the kitchen ceiling and attaching them - I'm over half way on that job now, hooray!! Nipped out to sit with the chickens, and the fog had lifted and it wasn't quite so cold, so I spent an hour shoveling woodchip and managed to cover all the veg bed paths so I'm delighted with that! 

Also spent an hour on the phone to my mum being tech support - apparently her emails had been hacked All sorted now though it seems! 

And I'm finally running a bath

Realised after reading various other people's 2021 goals that I didn't actually set any goals for myself! Well, I've set loads of goals on paper which I won't copy out here but I've not set any financial ones! 

I think I'm going to do a YNAB fresh start for the new year though - get rid of some of my redundant categories etc, make sure I've got enough allocated for various things. We're having the stable block roof repaired soon before it gets any worse and the rest of the building deteriorates - not sure how much that'll cost as the local farmer is doing it and he's quite vague but I'm going to put aside about £8k and hope it comes in at rather less...

I also want to make sure there are pots for a new car (not planned, but one is 17 years old and has some kind of intermittent fault that nobody seems able to fix), and a new boiler (also not planned, but I like to always have enough in a pot just in case). Also want to make sure I've allocated for various house maintenance tasks - we didn't paint the outside of the house this year but it's VERY flaky now and there's water coming in through one of the windows because the guttering by the paintwork is dodgy, so all that will need sorting in the summer. Fortunately it's only actually a small part of the extension that is painted, and all one storey so we can do it ourselves. 

And of course there's the kitchen. SIGH. Planning on doing this all ourselves and mostly from salvaged/freegled stuff but inevitably we'll need plaster, nails, the odd bit of wood etc. Not much idea how much to allocate at this stage. 

We've not added anything really to the savings this year I don't think - anything soared has gone off the mortgage. We did consider adding some of Mr Cheer's pension lump sum off the mortgage but given all the uncertainty we've chosen to keep it in the savings account. Not financially the best choice (that's 0.8% and the mortgage is 2.26%) but given the current situation, it seemed sensible, so instead we're paying most of the monthly pension off the mortgage and managing on just my wages. 

I'd still like to cut expenses down a little bit if I can though!

frostie101

Cheery_Daff said:

Well I did two of those things, and some different things, so all good! 

We dropped off our his n her urine samples at the docs - for some reason the receptionist didn't find that as hilarious as we did In fact, she said "has someone told you to bring those in?" Er, no love, we had a few spare and thought you might like them  

Good grief. I was laughing with my sister - and apparently her docs has a box outside that says "this box is for urine samples only! Please only put samples in here if you have been asked to!"

Er, is this a thing - people dropping off unrequested urine samples at the surgery?! 

Anyway, it's done now. Mr Cheery's blood test was slightly delayed by the man in front of him having some kind of health crisis and them having to wait for the paramedics but that's done now too, so we're trying not to think about health issues as much as possible until after Christmas. 

We grabbed a takeaway cuppa and a mince pie from our favourite cafe on the way back - they're theoretically only shut til 27th but who knows when we'll all land in tier 4 at this rate so wanted to bung a final few quid their way (completely selfless of course, not remotely motivated by mince pies).

Had a nice chat with a neighbour who popped a card round - didn't want to keep him too long as he was stood in the rain and of course I couldn't invite him in, but it was good to see him. We never need to go past his house, but he often walks past ours with the dog, and usually stops for a chat if I'm out. They only moved here last year, so it's nice to have some other relative newcomers. Of course we've not actually got round to having a cuppa yet but we all fully intend to as soon as we can. 

There's someone else new in the village who I've heard of but not met yet as well, who this neighbour has got to know, so hopefully we can all meet up. 

Other than that, I've had the new fire burning today and have watched a couple of films and sewed about a million present bags Settled on a MUCH easier design than the ridiculous drawstring nonsense I was doing before, and with the overlocker they're really quick. Trying to make sure we've got enough for Christmas day - just the two of us, but we tend to buy each other lots of small things. 

Unexpected bonus - I've now "wrapped" all of Mr Cheery's presents (apart from two i just remembered, and another two I currently can't find) and it took me about 10 minutes, instead of a couple of hours! Of course I had all that sewing, but I won't have to do that again!

We even went into the loft to find some more of my fabric stash and now have some excellent fake fur ones

Could you give details about where you found the best info on making present bags.
Something I can look to do for next year.
Many Thanks
Enjoying your story.