Cheery's country living adventure 11 March 2018 at 8:28AM edited 30 November -1 at 1:00AM in Mortgage-Free Wannabe 3.8K replies 251.4K views

Busy_Mee1

Loving your planning for UFM, I did it back in July and found it really focussed our minds. The more I understood and thought about where we were spending our money the more I realised that our discretionary spending needs to be a conscious choice rather than an accidental frittering.
I have signed up again for January as I have lost a bit of focus over the last few months. I really enjoy The Frugalwoods updates and follow her on Instagram. Her photos are lovely.

Karmacat

Morning! I started my equivalent of your posts, Cheery, though I haven't put them in amongst the deluge of kitchen planning on my diary and nor have I worked out exactly what I spent last month, which is *very* early in the to-do steps - I looked at my equivalents of what you'd written, as a start - I do think annualised bills need to be included.


Hope you can have a lovely day today, with a bit more energy as you don't have that long commute now.

Cheery_Daff

Today is Christmas-shopping-arama! :j Had to pop to a local market town this morning so spent a couple of hours pottering while I was there. Getting there...

I probably wouldn't have worked out last month's spending either KC if I hadn't had it all there in YNAB well done on getting started though! I expect after years of MSE you probably know where the bulk of your dosh goes anyway.

I've been pretty good today at putting stuff into YNAB as I'm spending it.

Popped home for a bit as Mr Cheery isn't very well and I wanted to check he was ok, let the chickens out for an hour and have some lunch, then I'm planning to pop out to another market town this afternoon for the last of the Christmas shopping amd to get some chicken supplies...

Cheery_Daff

Right, I think I am finally THERE with Mr Cheery's presents :j and the bulk of the rest too :j Still need a few others for family but won't be seeing them til almost new year anyway so all good.

Picked up chicken supplies. 20kg bags of food & corn for £8.95 each :money: will hace to check but I think this is about half of what I paid before :eek: but then that was from the charity I got the hens from, and I think some of it was organic, and it was delivered to my door included in the price, so I may well switch back...

But I wanted to check this out at least once and now wr are nicely stocked for Christmas :j

Yawn. Still rather tired and not quite right but NO RESTING just yet as I have a musical festive extravaganza to play in tonight. I'd happily go to bed now actually :rotfl: but it will be fun and festive and over by 10pm (although there will still be another half hour drive after that).

Planning on a nice restful day tomorrow!

Cheery_Daff

Morning MSE chums :hello:

Goodness me it's nice to have a clear head and not feel poorly! :j I completely take my fully working brain for granted every single day My fuddle headedness this week clouded everything and I feel SO different having the cogs nicely oiled and turning :j I hereby promise that I will be grateful for a fully functioning brain for as long as I have one :j

So today it's raining, but the chickens are out wandering round the garden causing mischief (actually, I have no idea what they're doing as I have no idea where they are...). Mr Cheery has gone out to do the last of his Christmas shopping, and I have the house to myself for a couple of hours. What do I need? a LIST of course! :j :j

So...

HOUSE
* tidy and clean living room
* tidy and clean kitchen
* tidy and clean bathroom
* hoover
* change sheets
* hang washing up when it's done

CHRISTMASSY PREPARATIONS
* make truffles for neighbours
* deliver truffles if Mr Cheery gets back while it's still light
* wrap presents and list what's still needed
* write final couple of cards

OTHER THINGS
* clean out chicken house
* bring in some greenery to arrange in a festive way

That'll probably take me the best part of the rest of the year actually :rotfl: :rotfl:

Depending when Mr Cheery gets back, I might quickly nip out to the bookshop for a last couple of presents and a new notebook for me - I do like to have one to do my planning over the new year :j But I can always do that in the morning (there's a cafe there so might be nice to pop out for a festive cuppa).

Right, if I'm going to get everything done I'd best get on! :j Will report back...

Karmacat

Please do ... thats an awfully optimistic list :rotfl::cool: :kisses3:


I'm nipping out myself for a walk right now, hope you'll get the majority of it done

Cheery_Daff

Well I've had 3.5 hours, time for a mini update:

HOUSE
*[STRIKE] tidy and clean living room[/STRIKE]
* [STRIKE]tidy and clean kitchen[/STRIKE]
*[STRIKE] tidy and clean bathroom[/STRIKE]
* [STRIKE]hoover[/STRIKE]
* change sheets
* hang washing up when it's done

CHRISTMASSY PREPARATIONS
* [STRIKE]make truffles for neighbours[/STRIKE] (well, they're chilling in the fridge for a few hours before I finish off - forgot about that bit!)
* deliver truffles if Mr Cheery gets back while it's still light
* wrap presents and list what's still needed
* write final couple of cards

OTHER THINGS
* [STRIKE]clean out chicken house[/STRIKE]
* bring in some greenery to arrange in a festive way

Getting there! :j :j

While I've been pottering round in the kitchen I've had old episodes of 'It's not easy being green' on in the background. I've never actually watched this - I bought the book of the tv series in a charity shop years ago but never occurred to me to try to find the programmes. Some of them are knocking about online so I've been watching them and trying to figure out if I can build a water wheel or make my own biodiesel :rotfl: :rotfl:

('probably not' is the answer to both of those right now...)

In the meantime, let's think about MSE things I've done today

* lazed around in my dressing gown all morning so the heating stayed at 10 degrees til Mr Cheery got up
* once he'd gone out, I turned it back down from 18 (which is our usual) to 13.5 and it's stayed there all day - which has been fine, especially as I've been pottering about tidying up
* made truffles as presents for neighbours. Total cost, er, about £1 worth of @ldi chocolate, about 5 digestives, a spoon of quark, a couple of teaspoons of liqueur... probably under £2 in total. Mind you, it'll be a miracle if they get any the amount of spoons of the mixture I've already eaten :eek: :rotfl:
* cleaned using my own home made 'miracle spray'
* chickens were out from 8.30 til 3.30 - they eat far less bought food when they're foraging all day (although I do always feed them proper chicken food first thing and give them a handful of corn before bed to keep them warm)
* cleaned out the chicken house - scooped the poop onto the compost as usual, dumped the old bedding onto the floor of the run, and added some old hay from an outbuilding into the run too
* made some lentil soup for lunch - there's enough leftover for tea too

Er, that's probably it for now. Might go and change the bed - it's chilly now it's gone dark and I've sat down! Might put my big woolly jumper on first

I'd be interested to know what temperature other people have their house at? Our old house had no thermostat so the heating was either off or on (mostly on...). This one we generally set at 18, and then knock down to 10 overnight, then turn it back up again when we get up.

Haven't been using the timer, partly because we never had one before so not in the habit.

What do you all do?

PurpleFairy26

We do 18 for when we need the heating on and then 12 for other times. The only exception is first thing in the morning when I set it at 17 for an hour. This is just enough to take the edge off without it being too hot. We find the timer works otherwise we'd forget :rotfl:

However, if the heatings off the coldest ive seen the thermostat go down to is 15, then if I'm my own it's just blanket and extra jumper - oh and the cat on lap who is useful for warmth :rotfl:

fannyadams

<delurk>
Gas boiler (not combi) to radiators, with immersion heater (does have electric element in it as well but not used as ££££ even with E7 electric)
on at around 5am (HWTHMBO gets up then) and off at around 7am (we're out the door at 7.30am weekdays).
on again at around 4pm (back by 4.30pm) off at around 9pm (I don't stay up much past 9).
We have a boost option (comes on for 1 hour) or an advance option (switches on then goes off when the next off time is) on the timer box.
Thermostat (at foot of stairs - open lounge to stairs and landing) set to 60°F (15.5°C), it does get boosted up to 65°F (18°C) sometimes (at weekends or if we're at home a lot, like now). I also have a 'baby room thermometer' sitting on top of the room thermostat to show my children that the setting is 'just right' when they moan that they're cold. lol.
Water 'set' at 65°C (thermostat on boiler itself (no markings), we had to have a fiddle to work out how far to turn the knob to get the water hot enough - needs to be a minimum of 60°C or you get all sorts of problems).
I am also guided by how small the barkin things have curled up to and where they're sleeping as they are the best gauge of how cold the house is.

Cool Yule y'all
FA
xx
<relurks>

WannabeFree

Glad you're feeling better Cherry, your plans look so organised!

Hope you have a wonderful Christmas


P.S heating here is set at 13 through the warmer months and set at 16 now it's winter but I have the smalls

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