Cheery's country living adventure

Karmacat

Reducing term assurance!  That's the one, that Vix has named - we actually had to call on it within the family, sadly, and they were very quick handing over £100k or so, after being insured for less than 2 years.

The garage man who called sounds a nightmare!  Though I'm glad the garage is good itself.  I really, really don't envy you looking for a car in the present - though the present actually explains why a 2nd car is a pretty essential backup, given where you live.

Baileys_Babe

We too are looking for a new (to us) car and selling the 2 we currently have. This is not a job either of us was looking forward to and procrastinating about, we mentioned it in passing to a friend who is a mechanic with their own garage and they eagerly offered to search, buy & sell for us 😀 Some may argue we could get a better deal if we did the work our selves but as I would be running any purchases by them and asking for help and advice this feels more honest and not abusing our friendship. They also know it will be their job to keep the vehicle on the road.

Tescodealqueen

Cheery_Daff said:

Hey ho. Garage were nice. They'll probably get to it early next week now which is fair enough, not exactly urgent. In the meantime we might start looking for a new one anyway - that one has an intermittent electrical fault that nobody's been able to fix anyway. 

This rang bells.....We had an electrical fault meant the alarm went off for no reason at odd times and door locked or unlocked itself at will. Mr TDQ was told off as he worked in a school and it started interfering with quiet in examinations. Garage investigated and called us in to find the removed  wiring loom on floor surrounding car and next step was to take off the dashboard with no promise of success. I retrieved the tax disc to cash in the remaining months and exchanged the car in payment for the work already done. We have always run cars til they were beyond economical repair but this was the first that simply died for want of a conclusive diagnosis

greent

Tescodealqueen said:

Cheery_Daff said:

Hey ho. Garage were nice. They'll probably get to it early next week now which is fair enough, not exactly urgent. In the meantime we might start looking for a new one anyway - that one has an intermittent electrical fault that nobody's been able to fix anyway. 

This rang bells.....We had an electrical fault meant the alarm went off for no reason at odd times and door locked or unlocked itself at will. Mr TDQ was told off as he worked in a school and it started interfering with quiet in examinations. Garage investigated and called us in to find the removed  wiring loom on floor surrounding car and next step was to take off the dashboard with no promise of success. I retrieved the tax disc to cash in the remaining months and exchanged the car in payment for the work already done. We have always run cars til they were beyond economical repair but this was the first that simply died for want of a conclusive diagnosis

TdQ - was it a VW? 

Paspatur

Cheery are you having to go out to the greenhouse to read temperature? I got a widgit for Xmas, one of my best ever presents. Govee thermometer/hygrometer. I have an app on my phone (free) and I can see temperature and humidity in greenhouse for now, hour, day, week or year. Absolutely fascinating. Today 0.1 c to 41.3c. Week -1.4c to 43.7c. Month -1.9c to 43.7c, Year (since Xmas) -6.4c to 43.7c. I love it, as it was a present I didn't buy it but looks like they are about £16 on the river people site. I have an automatic window opener so who knows how hot it might have got without that. I also open the manual vent when it gets very hot. Amazed to find out the coldest time is about 6am, I would have thought it would be middle of the night. Stunned at highs as it has never ventured above 8c outside, shows you the power of a greenhouse for blocking cold winds. The low of -6.4c was when it was -13c outside here in Feb. I am now wondering if my plants need hardened off before planting after last frost as they have suffered these extremes already!

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, that sounds extremely exciting! I confess I only bought my thermometer the other day and did pretty much no research, just bought one of the first that appeared, so yes, I'm going out to read it! Can confirm that the last 24 hours has been 1.1 to 39.5! Didn't expect it to get so hot!!

rtandon27

Sending good vibes over the airwaves to clear the know-it-all chatter from your space!!! (Nothing worse than having to listen to that!)

...and I second & third & fourth the sentiment of loving the pension waffle!  Something in what you said reminded me that I still have one over the pond (from my younger days) that I've lost track of & should make some inroads into resolving!

It's so great to 'see' how you weigh out your choices Cheery!  Certainly helps the rest of us sift through all the extraneous non-sensical thoughts when doing the same with our own choices!

Cheery_Daff

Ooh yes, do find your lost pension RT! 

BB - I missed that about your car - sounds like an excellent idea for the garage to sort it out for you! Sorry to hear you had a ridiculous electrical fault too TDQ. We're under discussion about whether we'll get them to fix it or not - I'm currently favouring not, but we'll see how we feel over the next few days. It's not so much of an issue right now as we don't really have anywhere to be! 

Been having a quick play with the mortgage calculator... 

So. If I DO pay those extra pension contributions, we'd lose pretty much dead on £500 a month, meaning normal overpayments would drop to just £80 a month. If that continues forever (I know we'd likely increase it in the future, but...) that's a mortgage end date of Feb 2040 (as opposed to the original of Feb 2043, so only two years early, and only saving £863 in interest in total!) I'd be 60 by then - so in reality we would have paid the end of it off with my pension lump sum anyway, but still. 

If we ignore the extra pension contributions for now, we only drop £420 a month, meaning normal overpayments of £160 a month. That takes us to an end date of June 2038, so almost four years early, saving £4642 in interest. I'd still be 58, so not exactly super early. 

Hmm.... I SO much wanted to pay the mortgage off super early - although not so much that I want to stay working full time, clearly  

Current feeling (which might change in five minutes) is to stick with original mortgage goal as I already pay 10.2% into pension (employer pays 16% which is a decent chunk anyway)... 

Anyway, like I say, might change my mind in five minutes... 

Tescodealqueen

GreentT. No a vauxhall. 

themadvix

Totally get what you're sayinh about the recovery driver. It's sexist, belittling and unasked for opinion and it's so rude. And it makes me feel like a silly little girl when it happens to me, so i completely agree!

Glad the garage are happy to sort it though.

I really need to look at pensions, but it's so difficult with a self employed income!