Cheery's country living adventure

themadvix

Hey Cheery, just caught up. Soooo glad to hear that Mr Cheery is Ok, albeit not great. And another vote (not that you need it) for paying someone to do the kitchen - it will revolutionise your life having the convenience and time back and stress gone.

Another one here who's interested in the loofah growing!

Cheery_Daff

Urgh. Although sometimes it's best to get as much as possible out of the way in one day! I remember the year we moved house, I had 7 hours of teaching on both Thursdays and Fridays 😮 those days were utter chaos (I answered the 'you've exchanged!' phone call while waiting for a room to be free, so the students knew before Mr Cheery did 😂 ) but at least the other days were relatively calm in comparison!

Had a prolific study ping up so that's another 14p in there waiting to clear 😂 Wonder how long it will take me to get to the next £10? Does anyone else do it regularly? I've been really sporadic about it so far, but have now got the po up installed on both home and work laptops. Obviously can't always just drop everything, but it does mean I see more studies at least. 

Payday on Thursday, so I can at least do some more shuffling - £300 back to the MB account, and £1300 back to the other current account (which I might close - that will mean setting up a standing order from the main current account to MB account to meet monthly requirements so I'll do that on a day when I've got some headspace). 

Also the final regular saver finishes on Saturday, so I should be able to close and withdraw on Monday, and put some of that into premium bonds (holding enough back that I don't nearly go overdrawn again of course!) Might hold enough back to pay for the windows too - they should be here before the end of April so it won't have time to go into a premium bonds draw anyway.

rtandon27

Cheery_Daff said:

Had a prolific study ping up so that's another 14p in there waiting to clear 😂 Wonder how long it will take me to get to the next £10? Does anyone else do it regularly? I've been really sporadic about it so far, but have now got the po up installed on both home and work laptops. Obviously can't always just drop everything, but it does mean I see more studies at least. 

😁 Cheery - I'm always amazed at how many studies you get!  I've been on the panel for years and in all that time, have only got TWO studies!  - One years ago was worth 40p, and one done two days ago was 80p, though for some unknow reason, they have only put 79p into my total 🤣🤣🤣  I guess I'm just not in any of the demographics they need!  At this rate I'll be retired by the time my first 5 pounds is transferred to my account!

Cheery_Daff

Crikey RT! 😮 Have you filled in all the questions? One thing I've found is that they fill up REALLY quickly - I'd been thinking I had barely any at all, until I've put this extension on, and get maybe 4-6 pinging at me during the working day. I had one that pinged this morning though, took me maybe 30 seconds to get to it, there were only 4 saves left, and by the time o clicked it was full. So you've got to be there at the right time and quick off the mark I think! 

It tells me I've had £186 from them over the last 4 years so still worth doing 😁

Been pondering mortgages... (because I don't want to get on with this work, oh dear!). Bear with me for some money nerding. 

Our 5 year fix is up Oct 2024. At that point, if we've continued our normal monthly OP and not added any more, we'll owe £135k. House currently worth about £450k so roughly 30% LTV. (MSE mortgage finder tells me current rates for that are about 1.09%! We're currently fixed on 2.26%)

If we take on another 5 year fix, that'll take us to Oct 2029.

At current OP rate, we'll be done by Feb 2033. But I reckon we can get that down... (although there may be a blip because of kitchen things...) 

Wouldn't it be nice to pay it all off at the end of that next 5 year fix? I'll be 49, and Mr Cheery will have just turned 67 a couple of months before, and been able to claim state pension 😮 So we'd have that as extra, plus the £1500 a month we're not paying to the mortgage... 

Which means I'd DEFINITELY be going down to 3 days a week if I wasn't already, if not giving up altogether 😮

And even if we only continued the current rate of OPs, by the end of that fix we'd only owe about £55k (assuming the same interest rate as now), which wouldn't take long to pay off with that extra income coming in... so I reckon we could still get there by the time I was 50 😁

Exciting! Although I do have to be careful not to get carried away, because there is a big part of me that wants to work less much sooner than that... If I drop a day in September, which I'm seriously considering asking about, we'll lose about £480 a month, which will be a massive dent in mortgage OPs, and will make the whole thing drag on for much longer... (I'll work out how much longer on the laptop later).

So worth considering. So very much want to be mortgage free... but I also want to drop to 4 days... 😂😂 Basically I want to have my cake and eat it 😁 And I do realise how fortunate I am to be in a position to choose either of those things! 

When's the next premium bonds draw?? 😂😂

South_coast

RT, you must be the reason why every time I withdraw I get 1p more than it says 🤣! Knew it had to be coming from somewhere!

My tips would be to make sure your profile is up to date and to check the website rather than relying on emails, although the browser thingy that Cheery has got sounds fab too. I would find that far too distracting though - especially if it was high-paying and I was in a meeting, I wouldn't be able to concentrate for my annoyance!

Cheery_Daff

Yes I had that exact problem the other day SC! 😂 The browser extension was developed by someone else but has now been adopted by Prolific - there's a link from their website (called Prolific Assistant I think).

Sorry Vix, I think we cross posted up there, good to see you! Will keep you all updated on the loofahs if I ever get round to planting them...

rtandon27

@Cheery_Daff & @South_coast - Well here is the kicker - my profile is always up to date! - I log in once a week - just to make sure that everything is up to date - lol - also the same block of time I do all the other (more lucrative) surveys 😁
Our work system blocks the add-on browser extension & the website itself (as with most survey sites) - so I'm relegated to weekends - pah!
@South_coast - you are most welcome to any straggly 1p's going, though that is quite interesting to know about the rounding up & if I ever do reach a payout, I'll be sure to check what actually hits my account!

Cheery_Daff

Pah indeed RT - I'm finding most of mine get done during the week (possibly because I'm on the computer more!)

Most vexing here - just had a message from ParcelForce saying 'we attempted a delivery and have left a card telling you what to do next'. Well, I don't know where you attempted to deliver to, but it wasn't our house. Mr Cheery has been outside for at least an hour (and the road only goes to our house so it's not easy to miss someone!!) And there is no card, so how do I retrieve it?
Phone line is useless - can't speak to a person, just voice recognition options to track (which I've done - it says the same as the text) or arrange redelivery which I'm reluctant to do until I can explain where the house is as they clearly can't follow the signs 😡😡

I've sent them an uncharacteristically grumpy message through their website, and will wait to see if they every mother to email me back 😡

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, shall I tell you what's interesting? We bought a home blood pressure tester on the advice of Mr Cheery's doctor, and we've both been doing it several times a day, mostly out of interest. 

Mine has always been in the green zone (normal), but I was so cross about this stupid parcel I thought I'd check it, see if what they say about stress raising your blood pressure is true...

And it was literally the ONLY time mine has been high 😮😂 Not properly high, just in the 'yellow'zone (there are still orange and red above that). 

But still, interesting to note!

Best go and try to calm down 😂

themadvix

I think Prolific is much busier during the week because they’re mainly academic studies so they go live when people are working on them, sorry RT! Cheery, I am picky because of the need to actually do proper work, but I usually earn  about £20/month from it. So i reckon that’s an achievable amount without too much effort. Obviously it depends on the studies though - ones where you have to do multiple bits and get invited back are great for upping the balance (I’m at £24 already this month - I invoice/cash out monthly for it!)