Budgeting by the beach

DaisyCheerings

I think I mentioned that all accounts and finances are organised now.  My next challenge is to clear up my corporate office as I just sort of started using it without giving any real thought to what would work in this little space.  It looks like the weather is going to be dreary on Saturday so I may battle it then.  It'll also keep me warm with moving things around.  I feel like I should move most stuff out, so that I can think about what goes back and where it should go.

I've been reading other diaries and it's really made me realise how little I use my heating.  I live alone, so if I'm cold I'm the only one to suffer, but I genuinely rarely feel too bad.  I do wear huge amounts of layers and cringe any time the doorbell goes as I know I look ridiculous, but I've just become very stingy with my heating.  I remember when I was very young, we had the hot air blow out style heating which only had vents downstairs. Most vents were about an A5 size, but the one in the lounge was maybe A4 size?  I can't think of any vents being upstairs, but if they were they'd have been the tiny vents.  My parents put a calor gas heater at the top of the stairs and my Mum would light it as she got up.  That used to make upstairs really toasty quite quickly.  Those hot air heating systems were so bad, and even if you did feel warm, the air felt horrible.  We had a dog and she would lay so close to the main lounge vent that I don't think much heat got distributed!  She was a little heating hogger 🥰

I do now feel that I have enough to keep me warm without needing to put the heating on very often.  It goes on every morning for an hour, to take the edge off the night time cold, and to warm up my bathroom enough for my shower.  My tiny office warms up during this time too, and then I have a toasty room for about an hour or so before the cold takes over.  I tried the ceramic heater yesterday and that added 20p an hour to my electric, which seems like good value.  That's much better than the 86p that's added when the heating is on, but the ceramic heater only heats the room it's in, whereas when I put the heating on, it heats all the rooms I use.

If it snows I'll put the heating on to prevent any pipe damage that I can, but I still can't justify having the heating on a lot of the day in every room.  

My home allowance this month is going on making my home feel a little more secure.  I went out earlier to find that one of my gates was open and the other was unlocked.  I do think that I forgot to lock the gate that has the lock, and it's likely the wind blew the other one open as the latch is very temperamental, but it's unnerved me enough to buy a lock for the gate with the temperamental latch, and a padlock for both locks.  I also already have a couple of security lights which I'll install in the garden.  I have cameras and an alarm in my house which I brought from my previous home, so I think that if I add some security in the garden that I'll have covered as much as I can.  The reason I feel a bit paranoid is before I was burgled in my old house, the back gate was left open a few times.  I was told they were testing to see if anyone noticed that they'd walked through the gate, as that was their best exit.  This area is nothing like my old address, but that paranoia has stuck with me.

On a lighter note, I've not needed to go shopping this week as I'm trying to use up 2022 wares.  I've started looking up recipes that I'll like and which use a lot of similar ingredients and are veggie heavy so I'll do a big shop on Friday to get the staples.  I'm hoping the market will be back on Saturday so I can get my fruit and veg there.  It always tastes so much nicer.  Many recipes I'm currently interested in are for the slow cooker.  So far it's mushroom bolognese, a couple of the no beef beef stews with different alterations for the beef, plus a veggie sausage casserole and an aubergine recipe.  I don't think it was called a casserole or stew, but I obviously need to save these recipes as I can't even remember their names, let alone how to cook them.  I want to use the slow cooker so that I can just prep and pot in the morning and then have something lovely to enjoy when I finish working.  I'll add rice or potatoes to the meals too, in the hope that I avoid buying fresh bread as a side dish!!!  A hot stew with a thick slice of heavily buttered fresh bread just sounds amazing, but I need to make my first choice rice!  Next job is to set up the microwave.  The shelving arrived today, so I need to install that.  I need a stud finder first though to make sure I drill in the right places!!!! 

astrocytic_kitten

I also grew up with those forced air heaters downstairs and no heating upstairs, I’d forgotten about that before you described it! It’s had the opposite effect on me though, I feel the cold a lot even bundled up in multiple layers and have every heated textile going to get me through the winter.

Investing to feel safe in your home sounds like a good choice, and love the sound of the recipes. Am now craving sausage casserole…

savingholmes

Glad you are well wrapped up. I'm trying to minimise my heating. I'd use it less if DD wasn't here. I bought a huge HP themed blanket hoodie in the sales. 

DaisyCheerings

Those hot air heating systems were brutal when the weather turned really cold.  I can't understand how that was ever considered a decent heating system.  I was so relieved to move into a house with radiators.
The sausage casserole came out so well astrocytic_kitten.  It's one I'll probably make regularly now.

DaisyCheerings

I've been wearing hoodies savingholmes.  I bought one that was really big so I can put over jumpers and it's so snug and warm.

DaisyCheerings

I've been using the slow cooker regularly now.  I was originally going through recipes which have so many ingredients.  In the end I bought some vegetarian sausages, some herbs and spices I like, Worcestershire sauce and good casserole veggies and threw it all in.  An hour before it was ready I threw in some pre-cooked rice and it turned out perfectly.  I tried again with Quorn chicken style cubes, but this time I used rice grains rather than the bags of cooked rice and I didn't think to wash them, so it tasted very starchy and the texture wasn't great either so that was thrown away.  I won't make that mistake again with the rice, but I'm sure I still have many mistakes to make!

My house has been getting lots of attention and love.  I'm trying to work my way through each room and blitz it completely and also reorganise things.  I also need to call the plumber and get him to refit a radiator and quote to service the boiler.  I'm also hoping he can drill a hole in one of my outside walls and add the vents I need too for a project I have.

Now the weather is below freezing temperatures I've started putting my heating on all day at 10 degrees.  It's only to keep the pipes at a steady temperature and to prevent any major problems.  The worrying thing is that my heating does click on at below 10 on the thermostat, showing how cold it is indoors.  During the day I've been keeping myself warm with housework, gardening and cooking, but in the evenings I've been putting my fire on.  I've started to use that a lot more than before so the fuel is disappearing pretty fast.  I'm hoping that refitting the radiator in the lounge will keep the edge off, if the heating is on low.

I'm really hoping we'll get paid at the end of this week.  In the past my company has been really good at paying a little earlier in January so I'm really hoping they don't make us wait until next week.  I do have some money in the bank, but I'm also out with 2 different friends this weekend and I don't think what I have will get me through.  Either way, I'll try to make sure I don't spend next month's budget unless I really need to but it'll be nice to know it's there if I do need it.

This week is a difficult work one as I have 3 deadlines to meet and a lot of work to do on each before I can sign them off!!!  I also have to travel into London this week, and I find it close to impossible to get much work done in the office.  I thought it was due to the luxury of working from home during the pandemic, but I found an old diary this weekend from January 2020 and I've noted that I find going into the office frustrating and pointless as I don't get much done with everything that goes on in the office.  It's always so busy and noisy and I find that so distracting. I need to take a packed lunch in too because I know that if I go into the shop to buy lunch I'll end up buying more than I should and then writing it off as some type of "reward" 🤪.

January always feels like such a long month, whereas the rest of the year goes by in a blink!!!!

savingholmes

Best of luck with work and making your money stretch. Sounds busy busy.

DaisyCheerings

Thank you savingholmes.

I didn't enjoy my day working in London this time. I think it was just a case of being "one of those days" but so many silly little things went wrong, all day long.  They're not interesting and I won't dwell, but that just sums up that day.  There were some positive events and those are what I decided to focus on.

Two deadlines were met and 1 deadline was put back with more work being required, so that's for next week now.  Phew!

I have been paid early - WOOH - so I've spent some time today sending payments off to their respective accounts.  That's the beauty of my system, that it doesn't matter that I get paid early as all of my outgoings have their own location, so I can just send money across to those locations each month.  The only issues I could have are spending some of February's grocery budget in January, leaving me short for next month.

I also have some subscribe & save Amazon packages that get sent the beginning of the month and have allocated funds for those items from relevant accounts too.  I like to bulk buy certain household and personal products, and this works out a decent price overall for me and means that I always have plenty at my disposal.  I have to be careful not to over buy these things though, so I've started to go through each item to ensure I need more or if I should skip that to a later month.

When I go into the office I always have to be up so so so early in the morning (3am alarm), and it isn't much of struggle to get out of bed - well, no more than it is getting out of bed at any time.  So I'm wondering if I should regularly set my alarm an hour earlier than normal and get my general housework and food prep done in that hour.  This morning I was up 20 minutes earlier than normal so I spent that time cleaning some of the bathroom.  I'm going to give this a trial run next week during the week, as it would be lovely to free up weekend housework or evenings after work when I'm tired.  

This weekend is a fun one.  I'm visiting a friend on Saturday and we're having other friends visit Saturday evening for a get together.  I'm really looking forward to it.  I'll be staying over so we have Sunday to do some bits and pieces too.  Then on my way home I've arranged to stop off and meet up with another friend just for a quick coffee.  The first friend is a close one, but we've not spent much time together since last summer.  The other one I've only seen once since I moved so it'll be lovely to catch up.

I think I need to put the fire on in the lounge now and have a restful evening.  It was hotter than a nursing home in work yesterday and so I've really felt the contrast with the cold today.  Sitting in front of the fire will solve that!

Enjoy the rest of your week.

doingitanyway

Nice reading through your posts and catching up, seeing your home progress and you settle in.
You might enjoy your London days more if you arrange to do something you can only do in London. Pop not a gallery on the way home then get a later, less crowded train, or meet a friend for coffee.

Is it too late to wish you Happy New Year? Done it anyway 

savingholmes

Time with friends to look forward to sounds perfect.