Seasidegal's Scrimpy Retirement Diary!

maggiem

Me too - following you that is. Lots of exciting things to do. I had sort of retired due to redundancy but during lockdown have gone back and done some locum work. I've enjoyed it as I can work when I want so if it's a rainy Saturday I work then and get out on a sunny weekday but think I will finish totally at the end of August. Grandchildren around and it's lovely to be able to arrange things without having to rearrange work. The plan had been to do lots of travelling but that got stopped very quickly. Hoping we can soon get back to arranging holidays as I very much miss having something to look forward to.  

I hope you can enjoy looking for a new flat, having an extra bedroom will give you lots more options too. 

Enjoy the free time. 

HairyHandofDartmoor

I've subscribed and I'm looking forward to your new exploits now you're a lady of leisure 😁.

foxgloves

I'm a bit behind you with the retirement plans, delayed further by Mr F being a few years younger than me. We do have plans formulating though, including hopefully being able to relocate to the coast. We both love the sea but have always lived way inland. So lots of careful money habits going on here too. No debt (despite the lightbulb flaring into life rather later than it should have done) & fairly newly mortgage-free, so we are saving hard to make up the pesky regional differential in house prices we will almost certainly encounter.
Will follow your progress as I am genuinely feeling quite excited about the future. 
F x

milann

Happy new diary.  I’ll follow you on here and I could well be joining you in retirement once the powers that be at my place of work decide on whether to grant me pension through ill health or not. Looking forward to hearing about your adventures. 

Seasidegal58

@savingmore@Sun_Addict@Debt_Me_Out_Of_Here@Debsnewbudget@BalanceBy50@maggiem@HairyHandofDartmoor@foxgloves and @milann - thank you all for your wonderful posts and I'm so pleased you will be following me on my retirement journey!😘

And so the courier came to pick up my work laptop and security cards on Tuesday afternoon. I've taken down the camping table I was working from (DSis and OH are having this for their barbecues!) and packed up the two screens (I'm keeping one for when I move and DD said she'll have the other one), together with the keyboard and mouse. The living room now looks much better and bigger and feels much more relaxing. The only thing left is the office chair, but tomorrow's job is taking a photo of it and putting it on Gumtree. 

I still don't feel like I've quite retired as yet - it's more a feeling as if I'm off work on holiday but haven't gone away anywhere - just having a couple of days pottering at home!🤔

I've decided to do the 30 days to a clean and decluttered home routine that I've carried out periodically.  The only difference is that I'm taking it slowly - if I don't feel like doing it one day I won't. But the flat does need a bit of a deep clean and declutter as I've taken my eye off the game these last really busy couple of months.  So today it was sort out your spice/herb jars - this needed doing as they were looking cluttered and I found that I've ended up with two identical items of certain jars!  The other things on the list was laundry (which I keep on top of anyway) and the daily job list which is tidying up your rooms, keeping the kitchen/bathroom clean and a quick hoover round. 

Today I popped out to vote and then met my friend for a coffee at our favourite cafe - it was nice having a natter and sitting in the sun. 😎

At least things are finally becoming less restrictive - I'm definitely off to the Highlands later in the month to see DD and OH after missing my New Year's trip. I'll be up there for a fortnight - one of the nice things about retirement is not thinking about how much holiday I have left!  I'm also off to a day spa next week courtesy of DSis and OH - it's my birthday pressie from them. And I'm popping up to the City before I go to Scotland to have lunch with my boss (or ex-boss as he is now!) - he'll be disappearing to his place abroad for two months all going well with the easing of travel restrictions abroad. 

Scrimpy MSE Retirement Things
I was pondering on working out my budget going forward. I used to get paid on the 25th of each month - my first State Pension payment (which is four weekly) will be paid in the 17th and my other pension on the 20th. So I'll think I'll stick to normal and leave working out my YNAB budget pots till the 25th. 

I've also treated myself to some clothes for Scotland from Marisota as I had a 25% discount code - two pairs of jeans-like treggings (indigo and lightish-blue) and two tops (black and black and white large print). 

And I've been rereading the Nancy Mitford novels 'The Pursuit of Love' and 'Love in a Cold Climate' in readiness for the BBC's new TV adaptation on Sunday. I forgot how much I loved the books and have been laughing away whilst reading them this afternoon. The last TV adaptations in the 80s and 15 years ago were pretty good so hopefully this one will come up to scratch too. 😀

beanielou

Wave on your way past to the Highlands   

Seasidegal58

I will do beanie!👍😀

enthusiasticsaver

Sounds like you have lots of nice plans to come with your Scottish holiday and spa day.  We have a family holiday booked for 28th May and it looks like that will go ahead (rearranged from last year) so it is nice to get back to some sort of normality.  How nice to get rid of the temporary desk and office chair now you no longer need them. 

Seasidegal58

I bet you can't wait ES!  I was supposed to go to Scotland at the end of last May but Covid scuppered it!

My living room isn't particularly big but it feels absolutely spacious now all the office bits have been removed!

milann

Your first few days sound lovely. Knowing you have ‘bottomed’ everywhere is a lovely feeling. I used to do that job every school holiday...not sure when I’ll do it now 🤔 
Bet you can’t wait for you Highland fling....bet it’s some journey from where you are 😲