Beating Lifestyle Inflation and Staying Mortgage Free!

apple_muncher

Didn't know you could eat radishes other than raw!!!

earthgirl2

Not sure about radishes? we have them with salads.
So today has been lovely. After work,home school and tutoring I managed to get out into the garden. I fixed the green house so it is water tight again, planted up my strawberry runners into hanging baskets and put in the green house to avoid frost. I tried to improve the soil in the shady corner and dug up mole hills in the forest and dumped them onto the patch! Mole hill soil always looks so  good! That was quite a lot of physical work, so I was glad to teach a bit more this afternoon.
I am going to try to do a physical thing every day - even just for 20 mins - probably garden related. Improve soil, collect sticks or a log from the beach, collect sand and add to soil etc. collect and deposit a barrow of manure, dig over the patch... the list is endless. I like Karmas approach of doing a little bit every day - not only good for my strength but also for my ability to grow veg successfully.
 I watched 'big little farm' in lockdown 1 and loved it! A lot of their work involved soil improvement.

Also, weighed in today and I had lost another 1lb even though I had drank and snacked on Friday night. Pleased with that, so that's 8lbs down since January, just by cutting out sugar and cutting down carbs. It's the first time I've really sustained weight loss and it's the best I've felt health-wise for a long time!

edinburgher

8lbs is great 🏃‍♀️

earthgirl2

Hi all, 
 I have had a really busy week. I managed to fit it 5.5 hours of extra work per day for three or fours very early mornings. This was working with all my Chinese students who booked intensive lessons. I'm really quiet now but I think I have done enough to secure a good amount to the savings pot for February and March. When I finished my teaching marathon I felt really excited to get back to normal life, and made a to do list to get things back to where they could be. It had 80 plus items on it and I just trudged through them all until I could fit the remaining tasks onto an A5 page and stick it neatly in my diary!
so some money things:
Money Making 
tutoring covered above, now my time is more my own I will return to things like surveys and freebies etc

money saving 
lots of work completed in garden to get ready for spring 
one tree hauled up from the beach and chopped by OH.
due to our weekly routine I'm shopping once a week at mr m where I get teacher discount. I am getting so many yellow stickers meat and fish items, so it is really saving me money over shopping at the discount stores.
shopping was £80 last week and I have a freezer full of meat and fish.
Ive made my yearly overpayment to the penny. Our mortgage is out of deal next Feb so we can pay it off completely at that point if interest rates are still dire.
OH and I are both opening some regular savers and in April I will try to get the best savings deals I can for the remainder.
Ive used £25 of the Amex nectar points to buy a close relative a present for an important birthday. 
I'm noting our spending much more diligently and really just trying to use what we have.

tomorrow my exercise will be bringing another log up off the beach. Home school and work and two hours of tuition. Life sounds really boring but I'm so grateful for the beautiful scenery and the wonderful opportunities life brings.

edinburgher

Life sounds busy, practical and routine, but not boring 👍

Viking_mfw

Bringing up logs from the beach sounds like ideal exercise. So good. 

beanielou

Have you not got lots of snow? 
Bit worried about the log lugging.

earthgirl2

No hardly any snow here last week. I suppose it's the sea air? Another few logs hauled up the hill in recent days- it's such good exercise for my whole body. And it saves us money. I've been so quiet with tutoring that I've had loads of time in the morning so I now do a workout and then get a bit of exercise on the beach or in the garden before work. 
Money saving
we we're looking To go camping in April just in our area, not sure if it will be allowed, but hoping so.
It will be a very cheap break though!
I'm hoping that I save lots of cash with all the work I'm putting in i the garden.
money making
Hoping that tutoring will busy up again soon. 

beanielou

Positive vibes for the tutoring 

Karmacat

Hi earthie!  My bookmarks list didn't show any updates on your thread, very weird, so I've only just seen your diagram, it's brilliant!  Taught me a lesson too - last summer, I got so involved in trying to make an accurate plan of my garden to take things forward, that I got paralysed about whether something was six inches this way or that way, and abandoned it in the end.  I love that diagram! 

Well done on the weight loss too.   And I love the sound of getting logs up from the beach.  A beach view, sigh .... lovely.