Life is a minestrone as the song says - my new diary

teapot2

On the subject of food, am trying to wean myself off biscuits and sweet stuff.  I've been eating far too much shortbread which is  my fave and as I've been baking, even though I give quite a bit away, I end up eating some of that too.  So, that's 2 days done with no biscuits and I don't have any cake left anyhoo.  I'm not going to give myself a hard time if I have the occasional one and fruit will help if I get a craving for something sweet.   Hooray for a kale seedling KC, hope others will appear - I noticed my radish seeds have sprouted which made me happy  .
Cashed out on Prolific, nearly £16, while I was transferring that to my CA, I added up my earning from Prolific since lockdown and its over £85 which is pretty good.  Also got points for the PCone survey I did so have 1000 points to turn into something - will possibly withdraw that to Pp@l and chuck it at a CC.  Also got paid today for a bit of temporary extra work I did, it came to a halt halfway through due to lockdown but even half of it helps and again will go to a CC.  I really want to keep chipping away at them while I'm not spending anything on coffee and cake .
Had quite a long chat with a neighbour over the road [at a suitable distance], I put a note through her door last night about the ad hoc brown bin collection as I wasn't sure if she would have heard about it.  Also said that as I've got an online shopping slot booked, she could let me know if she needed anything that I could add to it.  She came to the door this morning but I was on a work video call so couldn't answer so I popped over to her this afternoon,  was nice to chat to someone in person!  No rain here so still been watering the garden, looks like we aren't forecast to get any until Wed evening - wouldn't mind a bit of heavy rain overnight as the ground is so dry.  
Better get the washing up done, hoping to have a reasonably early night as I've got quite a long working day tomorrow.  Definitely colder here tonight so had the heating on for a wee while.

beanielou

Well done on the biscuits 🍪 

Karmacat

All sounds really good, teapot - I'm lucky that I've got the rain now - it was damp overnight, but its bucketing down now.  It will come

teapot2

Busy day yesterday with work so just caught up with some TV favourites in the evening.  Bit done in the garden too, think I need to add some shredded paper to the compost as there are rather a lot of grass clippings in there.
Just a two hour work meeting late afternoon/early evening today so the day is mine.  I've got some work invoices to prepare for the month end and some other work admin which I've been putting off - one is a tricky reply to an email that has peed me off.  Hopefully I'll give myself a kick to get all that done.  
Also need to investigate recipes to use up what I have in the fridge/cupboards.  Still no biscuits have been consumed though last night I did have the last portion of a rice pudding I cooked at the weekend.  Might make some more soup, its a lot cooler today but still dry, I have some big plant pot saucers out to collect rain to water the blueberry plant.

teapot2

Goodness, a couple of weeks + since I posted.  Has been feeling a bit like groundhog day in these here parts so haven't got much to report.  I feel like everything takes me longer than usual these days and I'm often surprised to find that its lunchtime when I feel like I still haven't properly got going.  Online work going ok, I've settled into it now I think and feel very grateful to be able to support myself.  
I've been doing some financial fiddling and changed my S@ntandre 123 CA to a lite account so that I still get cashback but only pay £1 account fee.  It was simple to change the account - all done online and no need to phone.  I've transferred most of the balance out to my TSB account which still gets interest.  The H@lifax reward account will change next month and I'll no longer meet the criteria for a reward so I'll leave it to be downgraded automatically.  Quite pleased with myself as this month I've already paid nearly £500 off various CC and theres another 0 % one due at the end of the month so will aim if I can to pay that off completely - around £200 left on it.  Am I right in thinking that its better for my credit score to close that card account down once its paid off or have I made that up?
Really chilly at night up here but lovely in the sun daytimes.  Did 1.5 hours of weeding this affy, we've had a bit of rain and the weeds seem to be galloping away.  Not enough rain to soak the ground thoroughly though and its still like concrete to dig

beanielou

When does the interest drop on the TSB? Is it next month?
Good news on the CC 

beanielou

Oh & I think that best to close the CC down   

teapot2

beanielou said:

When does the interest drop on the TSB? Is it next month?
Good news on the CC 

Think it was at the beginning of this month I need to look for somewhere else to switch to if there are still any decent incentives out there!

beanielou

Let me know if you find anything. My mum was looking with not much luck! 

Mortgagefreegonnabe

Hello, 
I'm new here (well new to commenting but I've been reading you all for yonks) and I hope you don't mind me commenting.
Re closing the credit card: I logged on to my credit score the other day which is fine but it told me different ways I could improve it and one of them was having £10k of available credit on a card. 
I've spent a long time paying CC off and closed as and when I paid balance off so I only have an empty one with £3k credit. I personally don't want that much available to me but I am under the impression that having available credit is a good thing in the eyes of the lenders so if you trust yourself and need to improve your score it may be a good thing to keep it open?
Well done btw! X