The Hen House Chronicles

redofromstart

Deeply envious of the walks - love your local landscape. Mr Redo and I used to have a weekly walk and it's one of the things we most look forward to going back to in my random mid life year off.

has your OH sorted claiming his HR tax refund on pensions? The thing I have just realised is that there are funds with lower fees and better performance for the over 3% contribution element. 

MerryHen

Thanks for stopping by @redofromstart , we do feel very fortunate to live where we do

And no he hasn't yet 🤦🏻‍♀️

I sent him the relevant number for HMRC a while back, I can't remember exactly what happened, possibly it took too long to get through by phone or they suggested going through self-assessment, and then he couldn't find his government gateway login so gave up. He has a very low tolerance for bureaucracy.

I've sent him the information again and have said we'll go through everything together one evening. I'm more familiar with self assessment so we'll try setting that up for him again and if it doesn't work at least he's armed with exact figures for HMRC.

In other news: in a stroke of serendipity the November issue of a magazine I subscribe to had a 2024 wall planner in! So no need to buy another.

MerryHen

Monthly money shuffle

In November we paid an additional £830 off the car loan and an additional £310 into the emergency fund, thanks to it being our last month before full nursery fees!

I also started looking into stocks and shares ISAs thinking in terms of longer term savings, and got a bit over excited and opened one with Vanguard 🙈 

I know debts should be paid before saving but I couldn't help myself. It's something I should have looked into years ago when we actually had savings. Anyway, that now has £201.01 in (a growth of £1.01!), and a standing order set up for £100 a month.

Start of December figures are:

Emergency fund: £4450

Sinking saving pots: £5100

S&S ISA: £201.01

Car loan: £-6328 (23 months)

DH has gone through the past four years of pension contributions and P60s. He is now armed with numbers to tell HMRC on Monday.

KajiKita

Sounds like it’s progressing well. If your debts are under control I don’t see any harm in having some of your savings in a high interest location, so long as you can get to what you need to.

I am persistently asking Mr KK to share his pension details with me so I can add it to our overall forecast. No sign of it so far - the man has a memory like a sieve! 😉😂

KK

redofromstart

Nice progress! I pram to shift my pots to V in Feb once work stop contributing. 

MerryHen

Thanks Redo!

Mine too Kaji! I have a document listing everything he might need to know if I die: every bank and savings account owned by us jointly, me individually and the kids; pension information; house, life and car insurance policies; renewal dates for everything; utility information; the name of our window cleaner....everything I could think of. He has an absolutely fantastic memory for technical stuff, Terry Pratchett and Hitchhiker's guide trivia, and remembering to put DD's school library book back in her bag on Wednesday night ❤️ He still hasn't phoned HMRC, I have gently reminded him again

MerryHen

I have been listening to "decluttering at the speed of life" audiobook which has inspired me to declutter small areas of our home as and when I can.

On Friday six bags of clothes (four kids, two adults) left the house, destined for the community children's clothes project and the charity shop 🥳 A couple more items of clothing have already been added to the next bag.

My sock and underwear drawers (starting easy!) have been culled. Worn out and odd socks and less loved underwear have either been repurposed into cleaning cloths or binned.

In the kitchen all lids without boxes (🤷🏻‍♀️) have been binned and I have given away the rarely used mahoosive roasting dish and awkwardly shaped griddle pan that have been taking up valuable cupboard space for the past six years. I am working my way through using up the herbal teas and tisanes, of which there are many. Currently they're organised in glass clip lock jars on a countertop which take up a lot of space, once they are finished I'll stick to having just a couple of different sorts at once. Next on my hit list is the drawer of doom ☠️

We had a trip to the big Swedish Shop of Wonder on Friday, which ten-month-old DS (and I!) absolutely loved but where we did acquire a few more things than planned. This included an artificial Christmas tree. We are away for Christmas this year so an artificial tree will be better than getting a real one for the short amount of time we'd be home to enjoy it, and it'll mean in future years we can have trees upstairs and downstairs (we have living rooms on both the ground and top floor but never want to buy two real trees.)

Overall, however, items out > items in so that's a win.

MerryHen

Verrrry spendy couple of days, mostly C word related.

Big W@itrose alcohol order of £113 for family Christmas hampers. They were the cheapest for the mead I wanted (why isn't mead more popular?!), which has increased from £9 to £14 a bottle on the big river shop 😫 £11 a bottle in W@itrose which is still just about worth it for special occasions. I also added a bottle of 'nozecco' as a little treat to myself since I'm currently not drinking alcohol due to breastfeeding & co-sleeping.

Also a big £70 toy haul at the Greek catalogue shop making the most of their "2 for £.." promotions. This included presents for several upcoming parties, niece and nephews' Christmas presents, and donations for the Christmas toy appeal which we always donate an extra toy to, something we think DS1 would have liked. This year it's a big bus with opening doors and changing destination display, I'd enjoy playing with it so no doubt six-year-old DS would have too.

Another £20 on clothes at Sainsbobs in their 25% off sale to get a bigger swimming costume and summer school socks for DD, and a few long sleeve tops in the next size up for DS2. I need to remember to claim nectar points back, for some reason I can no longer sign into their website to checkout.

And £100 on our regular grocery shop at the very big green supermarket which should last about 10-14 days with cow milk, oat milk, fruit, and bread product top ups (but not bread since investing in a bread machine!) I do, however, also need to get bread flour because this was missing from the order, and sultanas because their claim "we never charge more for a substitute" isn't quite true when that sub is one third of the original quantity for the same price 🤨 I had £29 of vouchers on their reward app with which I bought approximately £30 worth of Tony's chocoloney for hampers (Tony's dark chocolate with almond bar wins points with me and my dairy intolerant SiL!)

DD has asked Father Christmas for a giant unicorn and a tiny baby doll so I have been looking on V¡nted for those and then I think we're mostly done for our kid's presents. Most have been bought second hand and on sale at Hobbycraft. I'm mindful that the two at home both have January birthdays so I have tried to not go too wild.

I'd still like to get bar soaps for Christmas hampers, trying to remember where I saw nice ones on sale...possibly the Salts Mill in Saltaire 🤔

MerryHen

DD started her new swimming lessons last week and already seems so much happier and positive about them. There are four children in the class and the instructor is in the pool with them so each child gets a lot of attention. She also had a trial session at a dance class today which she enjoyed so we'll be signing her up for that. A lot of children at her school dance and the older children put on a show at the summer fayre which captured her imagination.

When l was growing up there wasn't much money at home but my mum always made sure we could attend clubs and hobbies. Looking back this must have involved some sacrifices from her at times to afford membership fees, subs, uniforms and equipment costs for the various clubs and sports my siblings and I were involved in over the years. I got so much joy from these hobbies and that's something I want for my own children. Supporting them in discovering and developing their own interests and hobbies is something I've been looking forward to as a parent and I feel so happy and privileged to be in a position to do so. I can't wait to see what they end up doing (and secretly hope they'll fall in love with the same things I love!)

In other news, we're off to Eureka! The children's museum in Halifax tomorrow. We went for DD's birthday in January (when DS2 was a teeny tiny two weeks old) and have made good use of the year long ticket, this will be our fifth visit this year. DD absolutely loves it and there's enough there that it doesn't get boring. We'll bring a picnic, avoid the gift shop and it should be a cheap day out.

Wishing everyone a cosy weekend out of the wind and rain.

beanielou

Enjoy your day tomorrow