Staying on track to be MF and ready to support my daughter at 18

ElmoR

Growing sweetcorn seems way out of my league Cheery. I do love an oven baked cob too. Maybe retirement (and no more grant deadlines and their emotional roller coasters) will involve a move to a place with a proper veggie plot

The greenhouse is still waiting for it's base to be finished. DH started cutting the slabs but the huge plumes of dust that it generated made us a bit nervous we were p***ing off the neighbours, who were sat in their garden. We managed to get half done, will do the rest this weekend once everyone's washing has come in from their lines...No idea why we care, these particular neighbours are incredibly noisy and don't care about how we feel!   I am very keen to get the thing built though, the glass is all stacked up in the garage and vulnerable to getting broken. I cannot reach the lawn mower without risking a glass shower.

Managed a smaller OP than last months triumph and it brings us to under £11,000 remaining. If I can keep up the minimum OP then we would complete the mortgage payments in March next year. It would be awesome to nibble that back another month or more, so I'm going to keep my focus and avoid the gardening websites.

The big news this week is that my lab has been selected as one to trial re-opening. I'm both excited and nervous. My funded research has obviously all been put on hold while the university has been closed, though we were able to apply for extensions to projects (so much paperwork!!). It will be a huge relief to get the projects back up and delivered. I hate not delivering.The lab itself is very large and open plan, so with a bit of careful thought we should be able to set up a social distancing way of working that minimises risk for everyone working. I'm slightly anxious that people will start a stampede back to work (especially the postgraduate students who will be feeling the pressure as the clock is ticking on their funding - though to be fair, they can apply for extensions too), but I suppose it will be my job to ensure that we do it slowly and safely. It feels like a lot of responsibility so I best make sure we get it right. Looking online, I can see quite a few lab plans/arrangements outlined in other countries, so there seems to be plenty of good practice out there to learn from.

Have a good weekend all.

ElmoR xx

Kat78MFW

Just caught up - under 11k is amazing. You are nearly there! I love the sound of the veg you are growing. I have tried in the past with fairly miserable results as I am rubbish with plants - I never remember to water them. Or if I do, then the slugs eat them.
I hope you can navigate the return to work safely. 

ElmoR

Plodding along through the middle of the month.

Had a couple of MS triumphs this week. Finally reached enough points on YouG*v to cash in a £50 payment. That went straight to OP. A further £200 for additional extra work arrived. Straight to OP. Have an email to say that my energy tariff switch went through and should get the switching bonus money soon. Guess where that's going! On a roll here...Car insurance was due in ~3 weeks, the haggling sweet spot.  Ran a comparison on a website with rodents and saw my current policy provider offering better coverage at £50 less than my renewal quote and only £20 quid more than the cheapest of the cheapest on offer. Five minute haggle call with provider and cheaper deal completed. I wish they would look at your history and recognise that you are a savvy haggler and offer the decent quote first time. They are relying on people's inertia.

The greenhouse had to be paid this month, so the name of the game is to try and make it to the end of the month now without raiding the savings pot...We are sitting at £10,350 of mortgage left (fixed rate ending in October and penalties for early payment end then too, this is getting exciting...), if only I could muster that £350 from somewhere and wipe it down to 4 digits!!!

Spring onions doing well, will grow more of them. Not sure when to dig up the spuds or garlic? I planted them a week or so before lockdown. The greenhouse base and frame are built so far. It's the glass part this weekend

And was back in work briefly yesterday. Back full time next week. Still excited and nervous. So much so that it has messed up my sleep. Well, it's more issues related to work than the adapting to new working ways, but hey ho.

Have a good weekend all,

ElmoRx

South_coast

Wow, you're doing brilliantly! Good work 😀

Good luck getting back to work full-time

LeighofMar

Just catching up on your diary. Good going. I know I wouldn't be able to sleep if my mortgage was 10K and change. You must be very excited and proud to see your finish line so close.

ElmoR

Crawling towards the end of the month and keeping fingers crossed that there is nothing incoming requiring a raid on savings. I had to take £20 from the savings pot this week to reward my daughter completing an online medical school outreach course that'll look good on her CV when she's older or when sat in an interview and asked 'what did you do during the lockdown after your GCSEs were cancelled?'. It's hard to help keep her motivated when her friends are largely just chilling.

The big news is that the greenhouse is built and functioning   There were only a few minor injuries (scratches mostly) and no tiffs. Now that we have built one, I suspect that in the future we would be able to dismantle and remantle. I've moved the garlic into there for now. We did a hand lucky dip into one of the potato sacks and came up with a good sized spud, so I think I will harvest those this week. We had to wait til the end of the month to make an IK&A order for the greenhouse shelving. They have a backlog apparently, so that won't arrive til the end of July. In the meantime, I'll just have to fill up the greenhouse floor space with more spring onions and maybe some tomato plants in grow bags? I've not been to a garden centre yet, so no idea if I've missed the boat on tomatoes or not. Am really pleased with the greenhouse though. It was a big layout but it forms part of my practicing for retirement/hobbies. Given that it's into the summer now, I'm wondering what else I can start to grow that isn't too late in the growing season? I have chilli and parsley seedlings poking through the soil, but no sign of the basil or coriander seedlings yet...

Spent Monday through Weds at work, preparing the lab with social distancing adaptations. We have to wait for the signage and inspection now. It's looking like July 6th for the lab reopening, but we will only have a small number of staff initially. Given that delay, I decided to take the coming week off as annual leave. We would have been in Hawaii this week

Plans for the coming week of staycation - more planting of seeds, a trip to the garden centre, trips to the charity shops with accumulated bags, trip to the municipal dump, catch up on batch cooking...Even the thought of having a whole week off from work had an effect - all the built up tension in my shoulders, jaw (?) and neck seems to have released but left my feeling like I was run over by a steam roller?! Guess you just don't realise how stressed you are until you pause and relax...

Have a good week all and stay safe

ElmoR x

ElmoR

LeighofMar said:

Just catching up on your diary. Good going. I know I wouldn't be able to sleep if my mortgage was 10K and change. You must be very excited and proud to see your finish line so close.

Thanks LoM. It's incredibly exciting, like a feverish level of excitement. I have the mortgage annual summary of payments folded closed on the coffee table in the sitting room as a reminder of the achievement the past two years so far and the closeness to completing it. It is an obsession, plan and simple. I don't understand why some posters pour cold water over those of us caught up in these obsessive missions. I can see that once the mortgage is gone, we will have so much less worry, far greater ability to help our daughter as a young adult and be able to lob larger payments into pensions/savings. You'll be at the 10K stage soon enough...just keep chipping away...

ElmoR x

South_coast

I can definitely relate - despite being in the midst of redundancy, I'm sleeping better than I have in years! Practising for retirement sounds amazing, sorry you've missed out on your trip though ☹ x

ElmoR

That week flew past. Time relativity in action when you take annual leave days.   Not sure what I got done exactly. There was some seed planting, a lot of garden bush cutting back, picking the weeds out of the driveway slabs, really exciting stuff like that. Did complete an online digital learning course though. It seems a bit strange to be doing a skills course during my annual leave, but I wouldn't get the headspace to do it in an ordinary working week just now. Anyway, it's done now and all that remains is a complete overhaul of my entire teaching materials and module design ready for September, nothing minor

On Friday I was back at work, properly physically in the building back at work, inducted into the new way of working for now. It's different, a tiny bit stressful, but also a relief to finally, hopefully get back to delivering on projects. There are lots of measures in place that will hopefully keep everyone safe. Travelling to and from work, I was surprised that the traffic seemed to be at normal levels? We are still in a lockdown aren't we? Makes me very cross when the media say Universities are closed. We aren't, we are online and working our blooming socks off to make it as good an experience as we can under the circumstances for our students. Grrrr.

Finances stuff is going well. Having read about others doing the MSE Academy course, I thought I would give that a whirl too. Some was stuff that was familiar already, though I did learn in other areas. I think it might be a bit too complex for my teenager DD to take though? The big news is that this months mortgage payment took us down to 4 figures!!  Sat at £8,970 with potentially more O/Ps still possible this month...On the current standing order O/Ps in place, this would have us making the last payment in March 2021, which is awesome in itself. In theory though (or maybe this is tipping into fantasy?), we could smash it by Christmas by living ultra-frugally, sell some stuff in the garage?, what else? I have dyscalculia so match betting would probably be a massive mistake. We both already do YouG0v and I hated Sw£gb**ks. Hmmm, maybe extreme meal planning since that's where we still splash out a lot each month...this would require family buy in though...

Have a good weekend everyone and stay safe

ElmoR x

Baileys_Babe

Brilliant news on the mortgage, not too many months until it is gone.

I thought the same thing about the MSE Academy some areas a little complex for my  teenage ds.