Hazelnutty's New Start

Karmacat

Good grief!  Thats really not what you want to come home to How did that start?  Can you ask them innocently (along with other neighbours, to camouflage what you're doing?).  Sorry you had that after such a lovely holibob.

Hazelnutty

I don't know unfortunately - it was probably before we set the doorbell up

Quite a few surveys today and I now have just under £4 awaiting review - will cash out as soon as I hit £5 and add to the OP pot, which is currently standing at £26 (boosted by a QC payout). I've redone my budgets ahead of payday on Friday and it's not looking too bad. I can stash about £800 into the house renovation pot, £750 into my virtual pots and OP my CCs by about £130 - this'll clear some of the personal spends (cinema membership and outdoor gear) I've made since they cut off. I don't have to deal with them til next month but it feels good to get a good chunk of it cleared early.

Excited to have DD back tonight, a day early   OH and I need time to ourselves but the house feels kinda empty without the third musketeer. Can't believe she'll be back at school in just over a week

Hazelnutty

August report!
Hello everyone! It's payday so reporting in on last month's spends and next month's budgets

Food: £275/£300
Non-food: £82/£50 (small oops!)
Fuel: £86/£100
Ents: £99/£150
Clothes: £108/£35 ( )
TT: £41.88 (pleased with this - means total OP = £72.71)
I'm not redirecting underspends to the mortgage at the moment. I basically re-budget the next month based on what I have left and, right now, it's the house renovation fund that's getting the benefit.

I've just sent:
£900 to house fund (about to buy the bathroom for the garden room eek!)
£925 to the virtual pots
£150 to my safety net pot (no immediate risk of redundancy but I'm aiming for a £15k pot here, which is more than 6 months essential bills - currently @ £12k ish)
Cleared and OPed both credit cards 

Right, better get on with work! Catch you all later 

South_coast

All looking good, balancing out nicely. Have a great day x

Hazelnutty

Thanks @south_coast !

Put hiking kit and fans back in the loft, sorted out August's OP and cashed out from Pr0lific £5.28, which makes a modest start to September's OP pot. It's definitely been slow recently.

On the spendy side, I booked us tickets to see a favourite drag queen in January. DD is a mahoosive fan of RuPaul's Drag Race but is too young for many shows as they're 14+ or 16+ generally but luckily OH and I have found 'our' queen so we can share DD's enthusiasm Plus her style of drag means her show's open to all. I've decided to categorise it as a Christmas gift to us all so it's come out of the present pot! XH is finally showing something of an interest and we've shared buying DD an electro-acoustic guitar for her birthday that's a replica of the one her top queen using for her country shows. DD's really getting into her music so it'll get plenty of use. I love listening in to her lessons on Zoom where her and her teacher are just jamming and trying out some favourite songs.

I've also used the new M&S 0% card to order a loo, basin, shower and flooring for the garden room. Credit limit is only £7k but at least that takes £7k of pressure off the cash savings. By the time I've bought the solar panel kit and paid for UK Power Networks to do their thang I'll be almost at the limit

Got a switch date for electricity so will be calling the metering team early doors that day to get the appointment to move the meter booked! Garden room looks set to be finished in 2 weeks and the internal renovation can start as soon as the meter's moved.

Got Taekwondo in half an hour and none of us is relishing going as it's kinda yuk out there   DD gets to wear her blue belt from karate so no doubt will enjoy being the senior student over her mum!

DiscountDuck

Can you get any of the solar heating panels covered by the upcoming government Green Homes grant, or will this kick in too late for your project? I’m looking at what might be the best things I could ask them to install through it, and thought it may be useful for you too. Have a great bank holiday weekend. 

Karmacat

DD must be doing ever so well at the music, to be jamming like that, good for her - and an excellent idea from you for the tickets (and the guitar) - experiences trump "stuff". 

I'm very interested in the solar panels .... any info or weblniks you can point me to?

Hazelnutty

DiscountDuck said:

Can you get any of the solar heating panels covered by the upcoming government Green Homes grant, or will this kick in too late for your project? I’m looking at what might be the best things I could ask them to install through it, and thought it may be useful for you too. Have a great bank holiday weekend. 

Ooh good thought @DiscountDuck I'll check that out!
@karmacat our builder has been doing the research and apparently you can get self-install kits for £2kish. I'll ask him and post up a link...

Our reclaimed basketball court plan has fallen through... When we measured it it was 7sqm short and finding matching bits to make up the difference was going to mean a four-hour round trip and about twice as much per sqm! I really loved the idea of reclaimed wood but the cost of buying and reconditioning it was looking at about £50 psm before the cost of laying it. So have decided to return the basketball court (the guy offered a refund as the lot was short) and will probably buy engineered wood when we get to that point. I'm hankering after a herringbone parquet, which would fit really well but may be a bit too pricey.

Today we popped into town for some school bits and to sort a couple of refunds. Our milk frother broke this morning (after a decent 10-year innings to be fair) so coffee was on the agenda too - may use some John L vouchers towards a new one as espresso with frothy milk is a daily staple in this house. A wee bit pricey as we had pastries at Gail's and Millie's cookies but hey ho.

EDIT: Oof! £50 for replacement frother I had a John L e-gift card from a Quidc0 payout so that covered most of it, luckily. We shall froth again!

themadvix

£2k for what sort of kWh Hazelnutty? If we don't buy a thatch, solar is definitely a potential option for us (depending on the size of the mortgage!).

How much for a frother?! 

killerpeaty

Hi Hazelnutty! I have read through your diary and I'm amazed.

Which queen are you going to see? I'm a huge fan of drag race!