Cheery's country living adventure

shangaijimmy

No such think as luck - Luck is where "Opportunity" meets "Preparation"

Cheery_Daff

Evening MSE chums :hello:

Aw, thanks wanabee, glad you weren't upset at my ranting and raving :eek:

Urgh, I'm completely full of cold :eek: Bleurgh. Had really disturbed sleep the last few nights, had a couple of nights on the sofa bed, and then last night half in bed then transferred to the actual sofa about 2am. Urgh.

Today I've been useless - popped out to slimming world this morning (lost 2lbs) then after a quick nip round the supermarket, I headed to the cosiness of my usual seat by the living room window, where I've stayed since approximately 12pm, reading my book and looking out of the window occasionally. It's been great

Can I also confess we still have the Christmas tree up?? :eek: :rotfl: It's so very dark here, we can't see anything at all outside once the sun sets, and neither of us can bring ourselves to get rid of the cheerful tree :rotfl: :rotfl: We have no neighbours to judge, so it's still here, and it might well still be here til the clocks change :rotfl:

Ooh - the savings account details arrived today :j If I could be bothered doing anything at all productive, I'd transfer our savings into it. Sadly I have entirely given today over to idle staring, drinking tea and blowing my nose, so it will have to wait.

Anyway, I'm a day or two (or three) behind with Uber Frugal Month so I'll do a bit of catch up...

WannabeFree

Hope you're feeling better soon Cherry and manage a good nights sleep
x

Cheery_Daff

Uber Frugal Month Day 10

So, Day 10 was about grocery shopping. Mrs Frugalwoods suggests some things that many of us old MSE hands likely do already:
* shop from a list - er, actually, I DON'T do that at all :rotfl: Largely because Mr Cheery is in charge of food shopping in our house and he is not a list-making man. But even I'm not very good at regular food lists..

* buy in bulk - we do tend to stock up a bit, although we don't do REAL bulk buying for anything other than chicken feed. Something to investigate...

* buy raw ingredients - this we DO do. porridge oats rather than cereal, rarely buy ready meals etc. Our ready-cooked 'indulgence' if you like is veggie sausages

* economise where you can - well yes, we do - budget brands of most things :money: There are some things I'd rather spend MORE on (I won't buy non-fairtrade tea, for example, and when we bought eggs I wouldn't buy non-free range).

* Don't shop at an expensive shop - nope, budget ones all the way for us :money:

Not saying we couldn't make improvements to our food shopping - clearly we could :eek: The main issue is ME - Mr Cheery went food shopping yesterday, but forgot yogurt (no list!! :rotfl: ) so I nipped into the supermarket this morning. I spent almost £20!! :eek: :eek: I mean, I bought fruit, frozen fruit, scones, a new windscreen wiper thing, some tinned fish... but we could have managed without pretty much all of that... Naughty cheery :eek:

Cheery_Daff

Uber Frugal Month Day 11

Day 11 was all about frugal friendships - and on the whole I think we're pretty good at these! We don't have any REALLY spendy friends (and those we do, we don't see very often). Most of our socialising is done in people's houses, or ours. If anything our socialising weakness is cafes - but we don't even do that too often with other people, and when we do it's mostly for tea and perhaps a scone, rather than lunch, and we rarely spend more than £5 each.

Not toooooo bad.

UFM Day 12

Day 12 is all about banishing excuses, and one of the accompanying readings is about making use of time constraints to get loads of things done...

http://www.frugalwoods.com/2018/03/21/leveraging-the-power-of-time-constraint-to-get-more-done/

I confess I DO make excuses about things (about why we spend more than we could do on food, why we have the heating on for so many hours a day, why we have a treats budget and spend all of it in cafes...). And I don't always use time as efficiently as I could

Right now I don't even know what to say about that :rotfl: I'm tired and sniffly and uncomfortable and can't even be bothered feeling like I SHOULD be doing something so I won't :rotfl:

Karmacat

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

Urgh, I'm completely full of cold :eek: Bleurgh. Had really disturbed sleep the last few nights, had a couple of nights on the sofa bed, and then last night half in bed then transferred to the actual sofa about 2am. Urgh.
.....after a quick nip round the supermarket, I headed to the cosiness of my usual seat by the living room window, where I've stayed since approximately 12pm, reading my book and looking out of the window occasionally. It's been great

Can I also confess we still have the Christmas tree up?? :eek: :rotfl: It's so very dark here, we can't see anything at all outside once the sun sets, and neither of us can bring ourselves to get rid of the cheerful tree :rotfl: :rotfl: We have no neighbours to judge, so it's still here, and it might well still be here til the clocks change :rotfl:

Poor Cheery! You don't sound well at all - the tree must be a very addition to the room in the circs you're describing I think I probably need to let you know I haven't taken my Christmas cards yet either

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

UFM Day 12

Day 12 is all about banishing excuses, and one of the accompanying readings is about making use of time constraints to get loads of things done...

http://www.frugalwoods.com/2018/03/21/leveraging-the-power-of-time-constraint-to-get-more-done/

I confess I DO make excuses about things (about why we spend more than we could do on food, why we have the heating on for so many hours a day, why we have a treats budget and spend all of it in cafes...). And I don't always use time as efficiently as I could

Right now I don't even know what to say about that :rotfl: I'm tired and sniffly and uncomfortable and can't even be bothered feeling like I SHOULD be doing something so I won't :rotfl:

Well, you *shouldn't* be doing something, you're ill! I like this point, day 12, it sounds like that saying "if you want something done, ask a busy person". And I've certainly found that if I have a deadline, I get more done, the closer it gets. I don't hear the "excuses" thing quite as strongly as you're hearing it on this, but I really, really love the points she makes, the priorities, eliminating unnecessary tasks, all of that. I'm bad at that last one in particular I can ignore my list in a second and just go do something else

Not doing anything else right now, though - nice hot drink, a dvd, I'm done.

Hope you sleep well, Cheery.

greenbee

I think one of the things you need to think of through these exercises in UFM is how far you want to take things. For example, the heating - I work from home full time, and it costs me a LOT less to heat the house that’s it would to drive to the office. And I need to keep it warm enough for my brain and hands to function. I haven’t always been very good at this in the past, but frankly when it’s so cold that even wearing gloves i’m struggling to types then it’s not fair on my employer who is expecting me to be working efficiently. So I now prioritise heating.

I also prioritise food - like you fairtrade and free range, real food and where possible organic. I do occasionally indulge in junk, but it’s tends to be when I’m tired and run down. TBH as I hate shopping, I rarely get the opportunity to buy stuff so I have to want it enough to make the effort!

Socialising is important too. It doesn’t have to cost much, but a life with no heating, poor quality food and no friends isn’t much fun - and if you can afford it then you shouldn’t feel guilty. Save towards retirement, pay off the mortgage, but remember there are no guarantees that you’ll get to spend your savings, and you can’t take it with you, so try to get the balance right and enjoy life now, while making sure that you don’t have to worry too much about the future.

angela110660

greenbee wrote: »

I think one of the things you need to think of through these exercises in UFM is how far you want to take things. For example, the heating - I work from home full time, and it costs me a LOT less to heat the house that’s it would to drive to the office. And I need to keep it warm enough for my brain and hands to function. I haven’t always been very good at this in the past, but frankly when it’s so cold that even wearing gloves i’m struggling to types then it’s not fair on my employer who is expecting me to be working efficiently. So I now prioritise heating.

I also prioritise food - like you fairtrade and free range, real food and where possible organic. I do occasionally indulge in junk, but it’s tends to be when I’m tired and run down. TBH as I hate shopping, I rarely get the opportunity to buy stuff so I have to want it enough to make the effort!

Socialising is important too. It doesn’t have to cost much, but a life with no heating, poor quality food and no friends isn’t much fun - and if you can afford it then you shouldn’t feel guilty. Save towards retirement, pay off the mortgage, but remember there are no guarantees that you’ll get to spend your savings, and you can’t take it with you, so try to get the balance right and enjoy life now, while making sure that you don’t have to worry too much about the future.

Totally with the last paragraph above- shrouds have no pockets.

teapot2

greenbee wrote: »

I think one of the things you need to think of through these exercises in UFM is how far you want to take things. For example, the heating - I work from home full time, and it costs me a LOT less to heat the house that’s it would to drive to the office. And I need to keep it warm enough for my brain and hands to function. I haven’t always been very good at this in the past, but frankly when it’s so cold that even wearing gloves i’m struggling to types then it’s not fair on my employer who is expecting me to be working efficiently. So I now prioritise heating.

Socialising is important too. It doesn’t have to cost much, but a life with no heating, poor quality food and no friends isn’t much fun - and if you can afford it then you shouldn’t feel guilty. Save towards retirement, pay off the mortgage, but remember there are no guarantees that you’ll get to spend your savings, and you can’t take it with you, so try to get the balance right and enjoy life now, while making sure that you don’t have to worry too much about the future.

I'm also someone who prioritises heating particularly at the moment when I'm recovering from surgery and not able to get out much. I felt guilty at first but it makes a big difference to how I'm feeling and what I'm motivated to do in a day. I make sure I'm on the best tariff I can find etc and do wear extra jumpers, sit under a blanket as well.

Having lost my OH recently, I'm very aware about 'you can't take it with you' so am trying to find the balance between living well and enjoying life but also being mindful of my somewhat precarious finances and the limited buffer I have to cushion my approaching retirement years :eek: No easy answers I feel!

Cheery_Daff

Wise words from all of you :kisses3:

KC, glad to hear I'm not the only one with Christmas still hanging around Doesn't feel like there's anything to really replace it with yet - although I did spot some snowdrops peeking through yesterday :j :j They're not in the living room though

Greenbee, you are SO right about working out what to prioritise. We are fortunate that we don't NEED to be super frugal, and we can actually afford to have the heating on all day. I do work at home a lot now, and this week I've had the plug in oil filled radiator in my study too - that end of the house is never properly warm and while I don't mind sitting with woolly jumper and hot water bottle to work, I do draw the line at gloves and a blanket! :eek: Need to get the plumber back to balance the radiators at some point...

Angela, you are also so right about shrouds having no pockets... And of course we have no offspring to worry about when we go. As you say teapot, it's such a fine line working out where the balance should be between enjoying life now and provisioning the future. So sorry to hear about your OH Hope your recover from surgery goes as planned (and yes, very important to keep yourself warm and cosy in those circumstances especially!)

Well, we are having a slightly odd day here! Fed the chickens this morning, came back in and Mr Cheery got up saying there was no power :eek: Slightly confused, as I was convinced I'd just boiled the kettle to make the chickens' porridge :rotfl: but apparently there had been a power cut while I was outside :eek:

Our first power cut! It actually had no effect on us as we were off out anyway (to the cafe for breakfast ) - stayed out a little longer pottering round town and it was back on again by the time we got home. Phew!

Very windy again here though, not surprised it had gone out somewhere. Did make us think about making sure we have provisions for a longer power cut - we have plenty of torches, candles, matches etc, and can light the gas cooker with matches if necessary (although the oven is electric). HEATING though :eek: We do have one fireplace in the study, which we were going to check this weekend... but it's made me think about prioritising getting the solid fuel stove installed into the living room. We have the stove and the pipe, it just needs installing into the place where the gas fire was. Will add it to my list of things to investigate and then we'll be all set.

And maybe if we've got a fire in the living room that will add enough cheerfulness and cosiness that we can take the Christmas tree down :rotfl: :rotfl:

We did buy a few charity shop books today - 8 for £2 (last of the big spenders :rotfl: ) Also had tea in TWO cafes - although one of those was M0rrisns and I had a free tea voucher so for a total of £10.50 we had two mugs of tea (one of them a pint mug!), two coffees, two scones, a teacake and a pear Not toooooo bad (and also not exactly depriving ourselves either ) :j

Going to stay inside and get cosy for a bit - got to nip out to musical group practice thing later but got a couple of hours to warm up first.