Learning to walk before I run

edinburgher

Did some swithering this afternoon and decided that I had been holding on to an energy spends budget that was roughly 4x our monthly payment because of the recent worries on that front. Now that there is a solution (of sorts) with the energy price guarantee and also the £400 of assistance starting to work its way through the system, I've gritted my teeth and decided that I probably don't need to keep as much money back for this particular emergency. I have left our average spend for one month in the budget, so we'll continue to have an extra month in reserve.

With the freed up money and my usual 1% payment, this knocked £359.33 off the larger CC, we'll have less than £10k on CCs by tomorrow evening (and be above -£5k walking around money Before everyone is too horrified, we're still sitting on c. £14,000 in cash. 

I think @savingholmes was right re. just selling the whisky to other people, I ordered a shipping crate that arrived this morning and will contact the auctioneer shortly (will need to ship pretty quickly to meet deadline for October sale).

Karmacat

Those are good decisions, Ed, you're really going for it  

edinburgher

£17.76 withdrawn from Prolific.

badmemory

With your increased space will not your energy usage increase?

powerspowers

badmemory said:

With your increased space will not your energy usage increase?

See I read this as a reason not to get rid of the whisky. The bottles clearly help keep the house warmer. 😜 

edinburgher

badmemory said:

With your increased space will not your energy usage increase?

Probably not too much @badmemory. While the attic is exposed on 3 walls, it has 10cm rigid insulation under the roof, an insulated floor with insulated underlay on top of that and the Velux windows are very well manufactured.

Yes, there will be a lot of electronic kiddy crap up there (fairy lights and lamps central), but those are all LEDs nowadays and the cost is negligible.

That said, I'm sure an extra room will mean the boiler works harder. I remain glad I went biggish for the radiator as opposed to the tiny electric one suggested by the builder 🤔

Suffolk_lass

I've just submitted meter readings and we appear to be over £600 in credit. I won't be withdrawing this and hope for another £115 increase in credit next month (helped by us being away for two weeks in October), ready for turning the electric aga on when we get home. At that point the credits fall away by around £100 a month. 

Love the reference to swithering. A much underused word and preferable to dithering in my view 

edinburgher

@Suffolk_lass - lovely to see you

I have had an action packed day! Up at 5:40 for my morning exercise class, followed by 6 hours building a wardrobe 😓 Now relaxing in a hot bath with a fancy Lush bath bomb and an equally fancy whisky barrel aged beer

Absolutely no financial activity today, I didn't stop doing chores until 7. Lovely F-I-L also came round and repaired a pendant fitting where the builders had stripped the screws when removing for painting, as well as hanging 3 nice IK3a light shades that I can only describe as looking like goldfish bowls (or maybe astronauts helmets) 🤔 *So much cardboard*!

Bean to cup coffee maker is up to £155 on Edward Bay and courier collected the whisky for auction this lunchtime.

Happy Friday all.

Suffolk_lass

Completely different to me. I was up shortly after two yesterday (2h 20 maybe asleep 😲) with dog. Did all (washing, dw unloading, bit of tidying and sorting) chores by 06.00 so came on here. Had a little snooze in the office chair, with 500w oil rad under the desk, keeping my knees warm and needy pup asleep on my lap. DH got up about 10 (he had done the previous night plus that night up to 2am) and I went back to bed about 10.45, being briefly woken at 1pm before taking a HWB back to bed and sleep until 3pm. Trying a different routine with dog and not all to plan yet. It's the aftermath of him being in the motorhome with us - he quickly adopts the "I'm one of the pack" mentality combined with the mini-dachshund sense of entitlement and so when he finds himself alone he protests, loudly and repeatedly to the point of waking and upsetting everyone (neighbours, us, cat, birds, milkman).

This morning I have had over 6 hours continuous sleep and all is well. Still up at 05.00 but a definite improvement. Trouble is, it will all start again when we go come to Scotland in ten days time. Sorry to distract, it's exercising our brains at the moment

edinburgher

I appreciate your predicament @Suffolk_lass - DD2 is not much of a sleeper (yet). Most nights involve being woken up 3-4 times and I'd be the first to admit that I probably only wake up half the times that Mrs E does Monday nights and Thursday nights are slightly different, as Mrs E tolerates me sleeping on the couch as I'd struggle to do strength training with no sleep. Dogs sound funny, we've just got used to closing the cats in the kitchen with a couple of cozy blankets, the steady supply of quite often alive birds and mice had become intolerable!

I am aching today, DOMS from exercise and furniture building. We're going out for an early family swim, stoat around Dun3lm and then perhaps a fast food lunch. After that I'll tackle either one of DD2's new toy storage units, or her desk.

Transfers done, ISAs topped up for the girls, 2 days of transfers to CC done (£147.78). Total CC debt into the £9,xxx's. Weather miserable here, may the rest of you experience a more clement day