Hazelnutty's New Start

killerpeaty

I love the lights! They're like my mum's (which are up all year long for about 3 or 4 years now) and they give such a lovely light when they're on. Did not know that command strips had those, I might look into getting some for my lights when I put them up.

@themadvix Do you have similar ones?

themadvix

No KP, the wires would get chewed by our naughty Ginger cat; we don’t even get to have a proper tree because he’d chew them on that! They look lovely though.

Hazelnutty

I put the lights waaaay up out of feline reach as we have the same problem! Our Christmas tree is now a fake one about 5 inches tall that we put up on a very high inaccessible shelf each year as very much a token effort.  It's a shame as I've amassed a lot of homemade (mostly DD's toddler efforts) and one-off gifted ornaments which it'd be nice to put out but no chance with our two.

Hazelnutty

September report
Food: £328.70/£300 (Probably DD's birthday to blame there so it's fine )
Non-food £46.25/£50
Fuel: £23.89/£100
Ents: £178.64/£175
OP: £30.83 (TTs/Pr0lific) + £31.83 regular OP
Not a bad month overall. Bit of a cheat in that I've pushed a few small spends onto my personal spends account but it's not much of a misdemeanour in the grand scheme of things!

October plan
Shuffled to my 15 (!) virtual pots: £352 total (this is much lower than normal but I'm prioritising the house renovation fund and so everything else has been stripped right back)
Shuffled to house pots: £500 to NSI (keeping it until the rate drops in November - it'll be almost entirely spent by then anyway!) + £500 to virtual house pot.
Shuffled to safety net account: £150 (target £15k)
OPing my credit cards too by just under £175 across the three cards. Doesn't affect my budgeting but helps spread out the odd overspend.

themadvix

Great figures Hazelnutty and so glad it’s not just my cats who can’t be trusted!

Karmacat

Figures are great, and the lights look terrific!  Thanks for posting ... I might dig out my plain white Christmas lights    Got the linkie to the article, will read that later.

Hazelnutty

Well... the saga continues! Started digging to lay pipes for the garden room and 1) discovered  some muppet replaced the original water main pipe with copper piping?! How the hell that seemed like a good idea I will never know. New plumber basically refused to take on the garden room until proper blue polyprop piping was put in. Then 2) as we start digging that out, we discover 2) the original clay pipes for the sewage and the grey water are cracked. Probably been leaking for years but the densely-packed clay soil helped compress the cracks. Now they're exposed we're in trouble!

So another week's delay as we replace all the original pipes with modern plastic before we even start with the garden room. It's going to be thousands extra in costs. Luckily Mum is of the opinion that better to discover these issues now than have them buried like a timebomb under the concrete so she will lend me the money to fix it. 

We're just getting further and further behind as the weather's getting worse and have had to fit a bodge so we can flush the only loo in the house and use the taps for washing up etc. OH and I have been on a tour of cafes today just so I can work while the builders fit the bodge So hard as I'm really busy getting ready for term. While I'm here, don't believe anyone who tells you university staff aren't working hard/not taking students' needs seriously - it's a LOT more work to get decent teaching working online and most academics I know are close to burn-out already as, contrary to the headlines, universities haven't been closed at all over lockdown. Plus the cost of e-books and other online resources is eyewatering. Couldn't believe some Tory MP asking if we wouldn't get bonuses this year if there were fee refunds Nearest I've got to a bonus is a free pen left over from an open day  

Anyway, we're having a tough time but still hoping against hope to be done by Christmas... now where did I hear that one before?!

Karmacat

Good grief, thats *really* tough, I'm sorry to hear it.  But your mum's right about not living with a time bomb   Can you not stay in the car rather than keep circling about the cafes?  Best of luck, no matter what, thats really hard

rugbymadfamily

That is so tough, what a pain - what is i with bodge pipe work? My husband tried to replace our bathroom tap at the weekend (simple job - he's relatively good at DIY) but because the previous owners had done some ridiculous pipe work, it became overly complicated and removing it resulted in more leaks from other parts! Your mum is right though, at least discovered now before all the other work is done. Fingers crossed for your Christmas deadline! 

Hazelnutty

Thanks, Karma and Rugbymad. I need a space to set up my laptop and wifi so the car won't cut it unfortunately. We did go to 4 cafes, all felt very safe and we could tuck away on a table and keep to ourselves. I don't think I've ever been so full of tea though! Who knows why people bodge - it's such a false economy. Builders are still excavating the garden, tracing pipework and any spare space is being covered by lumps of concrete and clods of clayey soil. 

Cashout of £8.55 from Pr0lific today plus someone paid me on Paypal for the FB sale (that was subject to a fee so I lost 45p/£5) but at least I could transfer £13 straight into my TT pot and get my new pay month off to a good start.

What's not so good is getting all spendy on ents money for the cafe tour yesterday followed by takeaway. Hey ho. As long as all my cc spend is under the monthly target, it doesn't much matter.

Tomorrow is meter move day! Builder has asked if we're doing party hats and balloons to celebrate. Might just do that an' all. DD is staying at her dad's tonight as the prospect of not having power for 40 mins before school is apparently too much to countenance! Weather has turned here but hoping to get my turn around the local park in before dinner.