Giving every £ a job

savingholmes

Glad you are doing okay. Hopefully it will be a pleasant reminder of your Mum each time you use up a card.

Blackcats

Very resourceful gift tagging,  I have a roll of sticky gift tags that seems to go on for ever with plenty left for next Christmas. 

Next week's shopping list will involve a Robin on a postbox type of card - also with glitter.

we swam again this morning - had to share the pool with 2 other swimmers but they were enjoying life in the fast Lane so didn't encroach on our personal slow swimming lane.

I've just added up our January (to date) unearned income and am feeling very pleased with our start to the year.  I'd forgotten about the rewards cash back attached to our chase card and discovered we had amassed  £94,37 over the last few months.  That's been whizzed across to medical and dental pot which needs boosting as MrBC needs new glasses.  Also cashed in £15 with £co which was cash back on travel insurance and an item sold for £7 on e bay.  A savings product has matured today yielding  a nice chunk of interest.

part of my plans for retiring early involved me putting in time and effort to making my pension lump sum work hard for us and it's about a year now since I saved it in various places so a good chunk of interest is being received.

we will have a temporary dip in income in March, April and May but will then have a permanent increase in monthly income so I'm trying to prepare for a lean Spring by building a bit of a buffer.  We do have funds to cover the reduction but the less I need to spend from savings the better.

savingholmes

Sounds like you literally have a plan. Lovely to see things working out so well.

lucielle

It all sounds very organised. Envious of your swimming. 

L

Blackcats

thanks @savingholmes and @lucielle - I am improving at being organised certainly better than when I used to shove bills and paperwork in a drawer while my head was firmly buried in the sand.

the 2024 year planner is now filled in with birthdays, events and our late Spring holiday dates.  Very excited to have 1 theatre trip and 4 concerts booked.  2 concerts are outdoor picnic events where the tickets are relatively inexpensive and 1 is our annual treat at the Hampton Court music festival - very pricey but usually a magical evening.

Our boiler is misbehaving which is a worry.  It's ok again tonight but I think after the medical and dental savings pot is more full I will switch to focus on saving for a potential boiler replacement.  Son-in-law is a gas engineer so will able to fit it for us but I'm hoping it will get us through the next few months.

PennysIntoPounds

Excellent funds work all round!

Would you be able to get a heat pump instead of a boiler? Apparently much more economical, and my friend was being extremely cross about boiler companies pretending they have no choice but to up customer prices when that is very far from the case 

EssexHebridean

It seems a bit of a stretch to say that a heat pump might be more economical than a gas boiler to be honest - although I’m no expert. In terms of electrical heating they are certainly unmatched by any other form, and I suspect that over time ASHP’s will become more economical still as the gas price may well start getting loaded…although we’ll see, it’s going to be a good many years before it becomes practical to try to encourage all the current GCH users across to electricity I think - we simply can’t generate enough! I confess if we were replacing right now it would be another gas boiler without even a thought -  apparently the new ones now are all being manufactured to be able to run on hydrogen down the line too which is an interesting possibility I guess. If I was building a new home from scratch though with the ability to specify the right radiator sizes etc from scratch - or even possibly a wet underfloor system, I would definitely be looking at heat pumps though PiP - and I imagine your thoughts are very much on that line these days! 😁. Either way, BC I hope your boiler is behaving itself again now and that it continues to do so for long enough for you to get a replacement fund well filled!  

Good work on the squirrelling away of the lump sum, and come to that the filling in of the year planner too - I should probably take my journal to work with me this week so I can make a start on drawing mine up too otherwise it guarantees that we will double book ourselves! 

lucielle

Personally I’d wait for hydrogen I think it’ll be here sooner than we think. That’s unless the powers that be put all sorts of levies on it. The boilers that are currently being installed are already out dated 
L

savingholmes

How lovely to have lots of events booked in. Sounds magical.

Blackcats

@savingholmes - looks like you were not sleeping well last night.  Hope you get a good night's rest tonight.

enjoyed my dancercise class this morning which is a nice way to start the week.  We had some snow this morning, not very much and it didn't settle but we decided to re-schedule a trip out as the M25 doesn't need much of an excuse to grind to a halt and turn into a car park.

we did venture to our local town to do a couple of chores and treated ourselves to a coffee/hot chocolate.  We used to go to a coffee shop most days before lockdown but rarely do it now so we throughly enjoyed having a nice chat and making some plans for a January decluttering.  

I'm starting in the study.   I want to revamp it so it's less like my old work place (which used to feel like my prison) and more like the concept of my HQ as per @Foxgloves HQ.  I'm starting with tidying and organising paperwork which should free up a bulky storage cabinet that I can freecycle to create more space.  Then I think I'll re-arrange the furniture and maybe move some pictures around and move some lamps from the spare bedroom.  Will do my best to shop from home.  
MrBC is continuing his decluttering of the garage - his progress is slow 🥴