Cheery's country living adventure

Queen_of_the_Hive

Hi @Cheery_Daff, i'm a bit late to the party in realising you made an exciting move to the country . I grew up in the country in a place that if it was forecast to snow, we would get bucket loads of the stuff. It was high up. I did the opposite and moved to the city where I live now. But now and again I get the pulls to go back but its a lot more complicated with city slicker partner and kids. 

Its so hard to know what is and isn't a genuine transaction nowadays as the scammers are very good at what they do. I hope its not a fraud. 

Karmacat

Hope it all works out - it's so hard to see the line between genuine and fraud these days.  My bank sent me a text from an anonymous mobile number, as a supposed security test - and it really was them.  I refused to have anything to do with it, and rang up their helpline in disgust and told them so.  They accepted that, and said that as I'd phoned them personally, they could accept the transaction I wanted.  Absolutely mad!
/endrant

Anyway, have a good one  

Cheery_Daff

Welcome Queen Bee (is that what you prefer to be called?) Sounds lovely where you were! Quite understand the pull of the countryside, and also the family compromises. Certainly is quite a different dynamic.

Well. An hour on the phone to the bank (35 mins of that waiting to be picked up) and yes, it was fraud 😮😮 several payments to some European equivalent of Uber (one of which was the one the bank flagged as suspicious) - and £1600 to a posh hotel complex in London 😮😮

We've gone through all my transactions and identified which ones were mine (most of them 🙄 ) and cancelled the rest. No harm done - we should get all the dosh back tomorrow. 

Annoyed with myself that I didn't clock this yesterday. I definitely would have noticed the actual transactions, even the smaller ones, and I DID notice the suspiciously low available balance, but just assumed I'd spent more than I thought 🙄 Never occurred to me it was fraud. Won't let something like that go again! 

Gosh, what a lot of excitement for a Sunday morning! 😮😮 Very grateful that it got caught early, and that I keep enough in the current account that we've not gone into overdraft or had other bill payments etc declined.

They've blocked my card, but it's the joint account so we can still access with Mr Cheery's card. Just have to remember that if I'm buying anything online in the next few days!

Need a stiff drink and a lie down now!

Karmacat

Good grief!  Well done you in holding on while they got round to answering your call and your query.  Hope everything arrives back with you safe and sound.

themadvix

Sounds like disaster averted there Cheery! What a palaver though, don't blame you for needing that stiff drink (I bet it's tea! 😂) and a lie down!

Cheery_Daff

Ha, yes I didn't go for anything stiffer than tea at 11am 😂

Done an hour's scything, and now I ache and am covered in insect bites 🙄 Put on some insect repellant but clearly it's too late. It's so still today, no breeze, and all the bitey things are out.

Still, the washing is on the line, and I've been sitting on the swing seat reading a book and pondering life, and occasionally my mind wanders over who hacked into my account (and how??) - feel like I've got a very minor role in a spy film 😂😂 Not helping that I've been listening to Stephen Fry's Edwardian Secrets about espionage 😂😂

Baileys_Babe

Glad you eventually got through to the bank and by the end of the week your money will have been returned and you will have your new bank card.

Cheery_Daff

Thanks BB. It's a bit of a nuisance not having a card but we've got Mr Cheery's, and my personal account (which currently has 51p in 😂😂 but is the same bank so can transfer if necessary) and the credit card.

Speaking of credit card... I did a quick check about cashback earlier. Still didn't find the answer to when it's paid... so am assuming what Vix said earlier about it being paid at the end of the year (or once a year).

What I did find out (which I knew already but had forgotten) was that the first 3 months at 5% cashback, and the rest is 1.25%. Need to spend over £3000 in total over the year to get any cashback at all - but given that we spent about £1300 on it this month, and will be putting the cooker and new fridge on it, I don't think that'll be a problem 😮.

Anyway, currently up to £67 cashback in there, nice amount to add to kitchen fund! 

Made another £14 on the Happy wheel today so September total currently £60 (but obviously that could easily go down).

Hopefully Mr Cheery's new bank card will arrive soon and we can set him up with some MB welcome offers. I can't see it carrying on, I'm certainly not willing to do all the donkey work for him as well as me, and I suspect he won't be bothered, but I can hand hold through the welcome offers for the sake of a few hundred quid.

Did a bit of digging about work pay, and I suspect I'm paid two weeks in arrears & two weeks in advance, which is fine - but means my pay on Friday will be all for September, which means all at 4 day weeks. There should be a tiny bit of backdated pay rise for August though so that can go in kitchen fund. 

So far we've not really made much of an effort to trip the budget at all, but once we know exactly what my new wage will be, I'll do some shuffling. Need to make sure everything will fit. Shouldn't be an issue - we've been putting the whole of Mr Cheery's pension fund to either kitchen fund or mortgage since we got it, and that amount does more than cover what I'm losing, but I do want to make sure we're still saving something from wages/pension income, not just extras. 

Any excuse to play with the budget! 😁😁

badmemory

If you can get the hundreds you were getting way back when, then frankly I'd "become him" for as long as it takes.  At least you know that you know what you are doing.

Cheery_Daff

Can't get that many hundreds sadly... 🙄 but I'll definitely be doing all the welcome offers I can for him! I've switched to casino myself mostly because of time (and because a lot of the dosh these days is to be made on horse offers, which I won't do).

I'm sure there's much more to be made just from my own accounts, but I am the one with the (nearly!) full time job, and the one who does the majority of the housework, and all the admin, scything etc - I'm not giving myself another job! 😮

Definitely a back up if I get sacked though! 😁