Cheery's country living adventure

Cheery_Daff

UFM Day 13

Ooh, hadn't realised the UFM email had arrived :j

Today is about not spending money to look good :eek:

I'm actually happy with the balance I have in this area, and if anything think I could probably spend a bit more :eek:

My clothes pretty much always come from charity shops, and always have. I usually buy a pair of knee high flat boots for work every year or two - I have no objection to buying those second hand but I'm quite fussy and people tend to wear decent ones to death so hard to find second hand. This year's were from M&S, £60 I think, but should last at least a couple of years - especially now I don't walk to work in them every day :eek:

I should probably confess I did just buy a tartan dress thing today for £6 :rotfl: Lost a stone over the last few months and quite a few of my clothes are saggy and I find myself wearing the same thing over and over which is getting quite tiresome.

Hair ... I've not actually had a hair cut for about 18 months :eek: I have rather long hair and generally just leave it to do its own thing. I did buy a pair of hairdressing scissors a few years ago for trimming the ends which have been great, and I generally tend to wear it tied up anyway. I DO want to go and get it cut soon though - I've been growing out a fringe and am NOT happy with how the front looks at the minute, I've been tinkering with it but can't get it right. I've been putting it off, because hairdressers ALWAYS make a comment about how they can tell I've cut it myself :mad: :rotfl: Doesn't exactly make me want to go to the hairdresser more!

Last time I paid £7 for a haircut, so probably currently averaging no more than £5 a year :rotfl:
I got into the habit of dying my hair over the last few years. It's quite a nondescript colour, and I'm starting to get weird grey tufts above my ears which I HATE :eek: :rotfl: However, I've only done it once since we moved - I wasn't sure how the septic tank would react to hair dye :eek: although I've now realised that the shower water just goes straight out into the field anyway :rotfl: Even when I was doing it regularly I did it myself with a £6 box of hair dye maybe every 2 or 3 months - £25-35 a year (and often less)

Nails - never had them done professionally. I do like wearing nail varnish, but very often don't.Thinking about it, now I'm not outside with my hands in the soil I could probably do it mire often and have it stay on Got plenty of colours here to use up - maybe that should be a bit of a mission

Make up - I do wear minimal make up (foundation, mascara, lip stick/gloss). Nowt fancy, eg mascara usually 99p off the market :rotfl: Currently using lip stuff I made myself over a year ago, just a mis of beeswax, olive oil and the end of an old lipstick melted down and poured into a couple of tins :j

I'm quite scruffy, especially when I'm not at work :rotfl: I manage 'reasonably tidy' at work, but I've never been 'well groomed'. Sometimes I wish I was, but I was never brought up that way, and a big part of me can't really be bothered figuring it out now :rotfl:

Still, a hair cut once a year, and making an effort to use up my stash of nail varnish, and some clothes that don't have holes in are probably good things to aim for

Karmacat

I'm quite scruffy, especially when I'm not at work :rotfl: I manage 'reasonably tidy' at work, but I've never been 'well groomed'. Sometimes I wish I was, but I was never brought up that way, and a big part of me can't really be bothered figuring it out now :rotfl:

This! So much this! And I don't wear makeup, minimal or otherwise, except once every other blue moon. Nail varnish, I wear on my toes. Too much faff otherwise. Except when going to a vampire fancy dress party, then a couple of dabs on your neck shows a vampire has bitten you

EssexHebridean

Reasonably tidy is about as good as I get as a rule as well - and frankly, for the sort of company I usually mix in, that's good enough, too!

I find that list based shopping works for me because I hate supermarkets - so if I meal plan, and make a list, and buy what is on that list, normally I can get away with only going into one once a week, which is fabulous! Whether I spend less doing it that way than otherwise I have no idea, the money into the food budget account each month now is £175 though and we still build uop to a nice surplus in there that contributes to holiday spending money so something must be going right!

Definitely a good idea to sort out the stove for heating too I'd suggest - they do say that if you have a house that was built and designed to be heated with some form of real fire then you should do everything you can to heat it that way if possible, after all!

Cheery_Daff

Evening MSE chums :hello:

Thought I'd popped in yesterday and replied?! Apparently not :rotfl:

Anyway, a couple of MSE things today :j

Finally got round to setting up the PO savings account and transferring some money in :j Not straightforward - either I've lost the letter with the account number in, or they never sent it... (suspect the latter - they've sent us two of everything else and it seems unlikely both would have gone missing!) Anyway, I passed the telephone security tests and am all set up now Transferred £100 to start with - want to make sure it arrives before transferring all our savings :eek: Not there yet... (but then I did only do it 5 minutes ago - patience dear girl... :rotfl: )

What else? Bank rewards payment arrived, so that's £5.50 to the mortgage :money: must update signature :j £54.50 in there now :j

Just did a bit of YNAB shuffling - couple of things not quite adding up (And I confused myself by getting cash back at the supermarket - so £30 has arrived in my cash account without leaving the bank yet :rotfl: ). Still, it's payday tomorrow :j :j so I'll have a proper shuffle then :j

Filled the big car up today so (fingers crossed) that should last us til the end of the month... Although we do have a trip planned to see Mr Cheery's family - should manage with what's in there though as we don't have loads of other trips planned.

The other car is half full, and I've got to go to town twice next week so will likely have to fill that again - that's only about £35 though.

Not much else to report I don't think. Annoyed myself by realising too late I could have got over 1000 swagbucks points for opening the PO savings account but I had the ad blocker switched on so it didn't track :mad: :rotfl: :rotfl: Hey ho, that'll teach me I suppose!

Off to open one of the current accounts with the linked saver now - not got round to that yet either...

Karmacat

Ooh, new accounts - as soon as I've finished the dividends and savings declaration for hmrc, thats what I'm up to. But how annoying about not getting the 1000 SB - thats about £7? Would certainly buy something nice on Amazon Stay with it for next time.

Cheery_Daff

N@tionwide account opened - did it as a joint account and remembered why I was going to do it just in my name when it said it won't be properly open til we go into the bank with ID :rotfl:

Fortunately there's a branch in our little local town and we're usually there a couple of times a week anyway.

Not done the TSB one yet - am I being daft wanting to get one account fully open before I start applying for another one? Can't open the regular saver til the current account is properly opened either.

Getting there though! :j :j

Right - UFM catch up...

Cheery_Daff

Good grief, I'm days behind :eek: Will try to be brief...

UFM Day 14

Day 14 was about empowering yourself to do things you might otherwise pay for. As we have been known to cut our own hair, do our own plastering, dismantle our own chimneys and generally refuse to pay anyone to do anything unless we absolutely have to, I think we get a big fat tick in this box :D

UFM Day 15


Day 15 was about asking ourselves why we spend money. Hmm. The normal reasons of course, eating and the like Our main treat spends is in cafes... which we like to get us out of the house, spend an hour sitting somewhere else quiet with a crossword etc, or to meet people for lunch (less often). We could obviously take a flask of tea and sit on a bench somewhere, and sometimes we do. Not in this weather though :eek:

UFM Day 16

Day 16 was about emergency frozen food I'm not as good at this as I could be... but I've got a couple of stashes of soup left in the freezer, and my lasagne has been a hit this week and last week :j Not just for taking into the office, but also for defrosting so I don't have to stop and make lunch when I'm working at home :j Freezer dinners for the win! :j

But I'm running low now - only one portion of lasagne left and two soups. Need to get on the case over the weekend.



And now we're up to today :j Except I've been staring at the screen for too long already and want time to think about it so I'm going to save today for tomorrow :rotfl:

greenbee

Well done.

Reading your UFM is making me feel a little better about my lack of effort. Turns out I'm not doing too badly. And I'm paying it forward by helping friends claim back HR tax on pension contributions...

Cheery_Daff

Good work greenbee, you are definitely paying it forward there! :j :j

EssexHebridean

Tell me you didn't open a N'wide account without getting the "friend bonus" from someone?! :eek: I suspect you'll very much enjoy N'wide though - there's the linked regular saver as you know, but the ordinary online savings accounts also pay *reasonably* well - the one my Reg saver just converted into was showing at 0.6% earlier. And of course you can personalise all your accounts to give them there own nice descriptive names - I have several for various sorts of "fun" and one for airshow savings called "Red Arrows Stalking" :rotfl: Very easy to navigate too. It's the reason why every now and then when :money: starts on about switching your bank account if you've been with the same provider forever I think about it for a nanosecond then go "nah!"

Had to laugh at the idea of you sitting on a bench with your tea and crumpets in this weather - although if you stayed there for long you'd probably tick the "Emergency frozen food" box nice and easily! :rotfl: