Returning to MFW, my elusive unicorn!

coldcazzie

Family
Me, Manwife, offspring x3 (Big Small 16, Medium Small 13, Small Small 11), cats x2, rabbits x2, chickens x2

Finances
Bank Accs
- 1 FD joint account, into which gets paid his employed wage and my self employed earnings, plus CB and CTC [payment dates will be changing soon]
- 1 NW joint account for home education expenses
- 14 savings pots to cover all regular and irregular expenses: clothing, gifts, health, food, toiletries, cleaning, pets, entertainment, office, house, home, car, holiday, sundries/misc
- Big Small and Medium Small have their own bank accounts, Small Small has a goHenry card
- Manwife™ and I both have individual Starling bank accounts for our personal spending money

Debts
- 1 AMEX card, paying 1% cashback, which we clear each month
- 0% finance agreement for half of new front door cost: will confirm outstanding balance, currently paid off at £92.80pcm
- 1 mortgage, 2 sub accounts currently standing at £89271.11. Int rate: 1.89%. MF date: 2043.

Achieved since Jan 2020
- OP £536.80 on mortgage
- new front door and landing window

2021 Goals
- current OP target is £650: based on achieving £500 last year between March and December. This may change as our income goes up
- engage builder to convert attic into useable space: this will be a hip to gable extension plus dormer, and we will have to extend the mortgage to pay for it. Slightly terrifying.
- finish building new chicken coop/run in garden and buy in hatching eggs to expand flock after our loss in the autumn 

coldcazzie

Well. I have an update. Himself's job is a bit closer to starting, in that they've ticked off more of the things on their list that they need to do before officially offering him the job. But otherwise we are still waiting. In the meantime, his current employer have officially announced various redundancies. End of April would be compulsory redundancy, but they said everyone can get quotes for voluntary redundancy sooner than that. He applied for a quote and it came in this morning at just short of £17k for an end date of March 31st. Everyone has pretty much agreed that it would be silly to turn any redundancy money down, so it's now a case of coordinating start date and end date as best we can. The feedback from the team at the new employer is basically "don't worry about it, it's in the bag, they're just REALLY SLOW", so that is positive.

With all that in mind - I'm now looking at us doing January, February and March bills on a reduced wage. We're obviously not driving anywhere except the shops right now, as Big Small's college classes are online and we don't really go anywhere else. So that takes the petrol money right down. Home ed expenses are very low too right now, so I can certainly cancel that SO for a few months.

I'm going on-call in 2 weeks... my client lives in a little village and I confess I'm a bit anxious about the potential for snow-related access issues. (I totally recognise that this is a direct reaction to the fact that I missed all the snow warnings yesterday and was surprised and disappointed by the 2 inches of snow this morning when I opened the curtains, although it does explain why the heating clicked on at 4am!) I bought a combination car brush/scraper/squeegy this month, with an extendable arm to brush snow off the top of the car, cuz I'm a short-!!!!!!! I also bought some cleats that fit over a pair of shoes. I'm not sure what a reasonable thing is for the car tyres - snow shoes? Winter tyres would be good except that's a big lay out, especially with the car itself being on its way out anyway. I may just be being twitchy. Last year I was on-call in Feb too and things were almost scuppered by river flooding closing a load of bridges, which my clients needed to cross! If anybody has any thoughts on making a car more snow-worthy I'd be delighted to hear them!

Grogged

Fingers crossed for the job and on-call being hassle free.
No idea on the car, don't think snow chains are legal here.
Advice used to be to put something heavy in the boot, but most most cars are front wheel drive now...
ATB, G.

coldcazzie

Snow is now at 5 inches. Bin lorry did not come today, unsurprisingly. Even though the snow was expected, it isn't clear whether or not the gritters went out... sky has that peachy tint that indicates the clouds are full of snow.

For an idea of what it's been like... https://www.starlinenews.com/double-decker-bus-driver-loses-control-on-snowy-hill-near-halifax/ (if you scroll down there's a video)

Himself has officially applied for early redundancy. The announcements will be made next month. Start date of April 1st has been approved by new colleagues. 

coldcazzie

Grogged said:

No idea on the car, don't think snow chains are legal here.
Advice used to be to put something heavy in the boot, but most most cars are front wheel drive now...
ATB, G.

Think you're right on the chains - they tear up the road and of course we are likely to have a mixture of snow and tarmac when driving in winter in the UK. I think I'm going for snow socks, which are elasticated mesh that fit round the tyres. Just need to work out what tyres I'm using and therefore what size I need. Seems a bit silly when we probably won't have the car for much longer, but if it means easier use in the meantime I suppose it's worth it!

peb

You are near me Cazzie, the snow wasn't forecast - it was supposed to only be sleet. However it was forecast to snow overnight/this morning and it's clear.

Tbh the outlay for two or so days a year on snow tyres etc isn't worth it.

coldcazzie

peb said:

You are near me Cazzie, the snow wasn't forecast - it was supposed to only be sleet. However it was forecast to snow overnight/this morning and it's clear.

Tbh the outlay for two or so days a year on snow tyres etc isn't worth it.

Oh really? In my group chat with some friends I said I was surprised by the snow that morning and was it expected and they all said yes and there had been a yellow weather warning for various areas including ours. I assumed I'd just managed to miss it all on social media. (I don't watch the news at all if I can help it!)

Certainly many of my friends across Yorkshire were expecting it and therefore are under the impression that the councils were all aware as well, but didn't plan accordingly.

Edited to add: my weather app didn't say anything about snow overnight last night, only a bit of drizzle this morning (which has happened) and then it being warmer today, which it certainly seems to be as the snow is melting.

peb

Well, I checked and it was supposed to be sleet.  None other night thank goodness.

The council's weren't unprepared though, it's the usual misunderstanding as to what they can actually do. There's a misunderstanding that gritting always works🙄

coldcazzie

peb said:

Well, I checked and it was supposed to be sleet.  None other night thank goodness.

The council's weren't unprepared though, it's the usual misunderstanding as to what they can actually do. There's a misunderstanding that gritting always works🙄

Yeah there's a small window within which gritting is useful, isn't there, but outside of that it's not.

coldcazzie

On Monday I broke a rear shock absorber going over a speed bump in Asda car park. This feels like adding insult to injury because in October 2019 I broke the other one going over the SAME speed bump.

So that was £150 I could have really done without spending. Good job we're hardly spending any money on petrol because of lockdown?? Suppose lockdown has to have some benefits....!