Cheery's country living adventure

Cheery_Daff

Oh, and I know nothing about peg looms KC! Do tell. I would love to have a go at spinning one day though - should have kept hold of one of those sheep that was in the garden the other day! :rotfl:

And I am literally giggling out loud at the prospect of being bewildered by rhubarb :rotfl: fortunately it is just a matter of making a decision rather than general rhubarb-related bewilderment but they are excellent suggestions and I will throw them into the mix, thank you! :j

Karmacat

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

Oh, and I know nothing about peg looms KC! Do tell. I would love to have a go at spinning one day though - should have kept hold of one of those sheep that was in the garden the other day! :rotfl:

Sorry! I think of you as being very craft-oriented. The "loom" is a piece of wood, varying lengths of, with a single row of holes. In the holes are pegs, with a warp thread through each hole. You wind your weft through the pegs, there's a bit of magic to push it down (I've seen it done, and its simple, but for the life of me I can't make sense of the memory right now :rotfl:) and it grows very quickly. It will easily take material the width of, say, a ribbon - great for using up my stash

And I am literally giggling out loud at the prospect of being bewildered by rhubarb :rotfl: fortunately it is just a matter of making a decision rather than general rhubarb-related bewilderment but they are excellent suggestions and I will throw them into the mix, thank you! :j

:rotfl: I stewed it in water with mixed herbs the other day, and had it with porridge - ended up a champagney type taste

teapot2

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

Matched betting is going rather well - we're now up to £2151 since the middle of March :eek: :money: Who knew? (Well, lots of MSE-ers knew, and I knew in theory years ago, but just wasn't ready to take the plunge ) I've made the mistake of trying to explain it to a few people lately and have decided that it's just not worth the bother :rotfl:

Anyway, I've basically decided to treat it a bit like a second job, as that's essentially what it is. After the initial (very) steep learning curve I'm settling into it a bit more, and basically spend an hour or so in the morning, and then sometimes another hour or so in the evening (sometimes not). Certainly not for everyone, but there are just two of us here, and we'd quite often be sat one either end of the sofa with a laptop each :rotfl: Mostly what I've ditched is mindless trailing down internet rabbit holes

Am in awe of your matched betting progress, thats amazing. I've started doing MB in a smallish way and taking it slowly. It is quite a steep learning curve as you say and I feel there is so much I still don't know. As I'm on my own now I can fit it in before or after work though I haven't been doing it every day.

Cheery_Daff

Thanks for the loom info KC! I am indeed quite craft-oriented I've just not come across peg looms before. Interestingly there were some spinners at the little open farm thing I went to today, very interesting :j

I've been quite consistent about the MB stuff teapot Once I get a bee in my bonnet about something I do tend to just focus on that to the exclusion of all cleaning etc :rotfl: :rotfl: I'm certainly less worried about it now than I was at the start Just keep going - it's all profit after all, even if you don't go very quickly!

Speaking of which, we are now officially at the end of week 12, and have made a total of £2137 :j :j :j :money: VERY pleased :j :j That's an average of £178 a week :eek: :eek:

As I say, not exactly an 'easy' or 'quick' option as it's taking a lot of time and brain power but as second incomes/side hustles go, this one is VERY convenient for me, requiring no leaving the house, committing to regular hours, or involvement of other people whatsoever

And I am VERY motivated by the prospect of paying off the mortgage :j :j At the rate I'm going, we should be able to overpay by around £500 a month at least :eek: IF we use it for the mortgage of course, which is the next decision...

Anyway, first job for tonight is to gather all those little mortgage OP savings from various places and see how much we've got - I REALLY want to pay off £2000 before the mortgage fix, but it doesn't need to be this week (in fact it doesn't really need to be til September... but it would be good to get it done sooner rather than later...)

Cheery_Daff

Right, mortgage overpayment pots...

£1000 from MB
£647.50 from married tax allowance, survey sites etc

= £1647.50

Hmm. Going on the scrounge round various places to see what I can find Will report back

themadvix

Thanks for the info on LPG Cheery. Will bear it in mind should we find ourselves interested in another house with such a set up.

Great OP! Sadly I doubt you'll be able to continue to make as much from MB over time - I think as the bookies ban you it becomes harder and harder and the earning dwindle. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news! But... in the meantime - make hay while the sun shines! :j

Cheery_Daff

I've already been banned by a couple :eek: :rotfl: :rotfl: One for no bigger infraction than signing up and placing ONE bet :eek: :rotfl: :rotfl: Have you done it themadvix? How did you get on?

I think my main restriction is going to be when I have to go into the office more and so am adding in a couple of hours of travelling some days... But that's not for another few months yet! :j

themadvix

I've not - DH did some time ago, so I really need him to get back into it. Failing that, I'll have a go, but I'm really not mathematically minded! Perhaps when we get back from holiday. I can see me happily signing up to all the bookies for cashback though

How outrageous that you were barred for one bet?!! How weird!

Cheery_Daff

So much excitement here today MSE chums, as I have paid an extra £1000 off the mortgage :j :j :j :j

SO very pleased, and this brings our mortgage due date forward by a whole three months to December 2042 :eek: :j :j Exciting but that's still quite a long way off, and I will still be 62 :eek: I think I'll have a proper celebration when we get to the date being when I'm 61 :rotfl: :rotfl:

Anyway, I learned that I had in fact misunderstood them last time, when they said any overpayment under £1000 didn't make a difference until the end of the year, so there was no point making smaller OPs.

Turns out payments under £1000 don't make a difference TO THE MONTHLY AMOUNT until the end of the year - interest is calculated daily and so it IS worth making smaller payments - especially as we kept the monthly payments fixed last time we did a big overpayment, so we're now paying a fixed amount rather than the minimum amount.

My fault for misunderstanding (although I'm not stupid so I'm prepared to give some responsibility to their poor explaining too). And I won't be making many tiny over payments as they still have no online account management, but it'll definitely be worth overpaying *something* at the end of each month :j

Cheery_Daff

In fact... as we've been pondering what to do with the extra matched betting dosh... this gives us another option I suppose - rather than waiting til we've got to £1000 we could just see what we've got at the end of each month and split by percentages - say 40% mortgage, 40% savings/wage replacement, then 10% each for frivolous indulgent spends (or whatever).

That would mean it wouldn't matter what I made each month, we'd add a bit to each pot. I confess I'm favouring that option at the minute (but I think I've changed my mind every day lately so let's see what tomorrow brings :rotfl: :rotfl: )