Simple living in the country - back to basics

Cheery_Daff

EssexHebridean said:

It's always lovely to see you whether sneaking in or not! And yep - the price of a bought cuppa sounds like good value if it also buys you some quiet time NOT having to stand awkwardly listening to stuff you're not interested in! 

(Also - thank you for the card, and apologies for not saying it sooner - head is still in a bit of an odd place and I'm really struggling with messages etc at the moment! xx) 

No need to apologise - I sent a physical card partly so it wouldn't feel like a response was required 😊 

beanielou said:

All the very best people are 60 in August 
Vintage 62 was a great year.

Ha, certainly was Beanie! 😁 Not that I was there myself, of course 😁

Baileys_Babe said:

Cheery_Daff said:

 Mine are free on a medical exemption anyway.

Make sure you know when it expires so you have plenty of time to renew. OH's medical exemption certificate is only valid for 5 years (before needing to be renewed) despite him needing qualifying medication for life.

Aiming for free parking seems wise, £2.80 soon adds up.

I renewed mine last year, so not due a renewal for a while yet. Good idea to keep track though. I think they did send me a letter else I probably would have forgotten... 

Not sure how I've found myself in here again... (well, I do know- I've just painted my toenails so don't want to go wandering off, and Mr Cheery is watching guitar pedal demos 😂). Anything MSE to report?

* little car has a very slow puncture 🙄 Garage did say it might when they did the original MOT, and pumped it up for me, but when it took it back a week later for the retest it hadn't gone down, so we left it. However, it's gone down since then, not much, but it's definitely leaking a bit. I did briefly investigate kwikfit in case they could do it while I was at work today, but they couldn't (and I remembered I hate them and don't want to use except in dire emergency, which this isn't), so we're booked into the garage Monday morning. 

* er... lost £1.65 on the Happy wheel this morning. Up and down this week, still at £150 for June. Ooh, except I just remembered I have a free bet to use so that should get me another £6 or £7, woo hoo! 

Nothing else to report. Got free parking all this week, and been taking both breakfast and dinner to work. Snaffled a free banana and pear at a buffet yesterday, so ate those today, oh, and nabbed a scone and a little pot of jam for Mr Cheery too 😁

Payday on Friday, so some shuffling to be done. I think the last of the strike deductions are due as well, so at least we'll know where we sit. 

Had some promotions news today - they've had more applications than they were expecting, so they've had to delay decisions until the end of July. Aarrgghh! They knew how many applications they had when we all got through to this second stage in early April! Still, I suppose the end of July will get here eventually, and the new pay doesn't start til September regardless so it makes no financial difference, I'm just impatient (I did apply in Feb so I do feel like I've been quite patient already quite frankly!) 😂

Right, best put the chickens to bed.

Cheery_Daff

Oh, and interestingly I saw a job advertised today. I have insider knowledge and have decided on this occasion that it's not for me for various reasons, but it's notable because it does actually compete with my current job in terms of experience/salary/relevance to what I currently do etc, and it wouldn't require moving house. Would require working full time again though, so no. 😂

However, it's good to know other things are out there in case this promotion doesn't happen and I throw my toys out of the pram 😂 

Cheery_Daff

Evening MSE chums 😊 

Well, I am full of cold and feeling rather sorry for myself. I've spent most of the week feeling a little under the weather, and the mu h of today either in bed or on the sofa. Still, we have managed a few small things.

* cleaned out chicken house and made sure they had plenty of treats

* went for a short walk out to the road and back (it took about half an hour,rather than the usual 15 minutes as I was dawdling so much, but the fresh air was nice and we saw some neighbours)

* spotted two very well fed snails sliding their way up the greenhouse wall... swiftly evicted them.

Ha, that's literally it. Had a bath, watched about 5 episodes of Call the Midwife, made a kind of paella thing with a load of frozen veg, and had a cuppa in the garden with the chickens.

Ready for bed again now! 

Some financial things:

* Happy wheel is up to £178 for June, I'm pleased with that.

* Little car is booked into the garage on Monday for them to sort the tyre out.

* I've declared the holiday budget fully funded for the year. I was aiming for a set amount, but actually, in reality we won't be going for a big holiday this year, although we WILL get in a few days away here and there. It's got £650 in, and that will do since we don't have anything in particular planned anyway. We've got a couple of nights away for a wedding, but that's already booked and paid for.

* I've added a budget line for replacing a few blown windows. Not something that's imminent, but there are five panes gone now in various places round the house. One lot we might replace the whole frame, as two panes are gone and it lets in water, but the others will probably just be the panes. I've set a target of £1000 and once we've got that, we'll get quotes.

I'm snowballing savings categories at the minute. Annual costs get set amounts added every month (house/car insurance etc), and a couple of categories are topped up to stay at a set amount (home maintenance), but the longer term or one off stuff, I'm doing one pot at a time as it's more satisfying than adding bits and pieces to them all.

Holidays is funded now, as is replacing the stable roof (although that won't be done til autumn at the earliest as it usually has swifts nesting in it), as is household emergency (new washing machine, something wrong with the septic tank etc).

Next on the list is the new car fund, at £1500 (currently £0). Not planning a new car soon, but as ours are 14 and 15 years old, one of them will probably die within the next couple of years. 

Once that's full, I'll start on the windows. After that, there are several options, not decided what the priority will be yet:

* windowsills - we have no windowsills in the new kitchen or bedroom. Mr Cheery wanted stone, but we struggled to source, and I got bored of looking. Agreed to experiment with some of the GIANT stone roof tiles off the old barn and an angle grinder. Likely won't get round to it for a while, and if it doesn't work, we'll start adding to a pot - which will likely be shifted above the windows pot.

* plastering the stairs (not a job for me, unless we hire some kind of indoor scaffolding - might as well just hire a plasterer who is happier balancing on things)

* bathroom - we'll be doing the work ourselves but will need to pay for tiles, flooring etc

Then there are even longer term things, that also don't have anything in them yet

* income replacement for roughly 6 months (aiming for £14,000) - not immediate priority as my job has 6 months full, 6 months half pay sick leave, and Mr Cheery is claiming his works pension now which won't stop

* income replacement for me between age 50 and 57 (earliest I can claim works pension at the minute) - aiming for £36,000. Clearly won't replace all my income for 7 years!! But Mr Cheery will be claiming state pension by then. Might have worked this out based on having paid the mortgage off 😂😂 which won't happen by then, but since we're not adding to it any time soon, I'll save that calculation for another day...

Anyway, enough waffle from me. Feel like my head is full of cotton wool, so off back to bed...

beanielou

Be better soon 
Take it easy.

Cheery_Daff

Thanks Beanie. 

I slept well, and feel quite a  bit better today - still snuffling and sniffing, still not up to par, but better than yesterday. 

Productive day so far - had the strimmer out, and also made £54 on the Happy Wheel - up to £225 for June now, which is more than last month! Of course, it can go down as well as up, but fingers crossed it'll keep pretty steady. I'll be very pleased indeed if I have a couple of hundred quid to add to the savings pots. 

Need to get back on the case signing Mr Cheery up for some accounts. I did a bit, and then stopped for various reasons, but that might be a nice boost to the savings pots.

Karmacat

Hope you're onwards and upwards with your cold - I still tend to get slight hay fever attacks if I'm out doing garden work, hopefully you're not affected with that.

You do so well with the HW!   Once I'm sure I can get my head round it, I'll take that on too: at the moment, I'm just doing the basic each day, and I've still got 21p to earn before I break even  I know your balance can veer down quite sharply temporarily, but overall you've done so well, it's great.  

Cheery_Daff

I am indeed feeling better by the hour (although taking things relatively easy, and I cancelled going to band practice - flutes are, I imagine, an excellent way of blowing germs at as many people as possible!)

Took me ages to get used to the Happy Wheel, as you know. The thing that tipped me in the end was when they brought out Team Casino - lists the offers in order of which ones it's most worth doing, and gives step by step instructions - opt in here, deposit this much, play this amount on here, and always warns you if there's something tricky and tells you what to do. I don't think I'd be doing it without that, but, of course, it does come at a price... for me, at the minute, it's worth it though.

Most of the casinos have a free daily game though, which I think is what you're doing now - free, no risk dosh is always good!

Nipped to town and bought a garden rake today - ours is irretrievably broken and the replacement was far more sturdy, and only £11. Tried the cafe, but it was heaving. So we got veggie burgers from the village shop and are just lighting a fire to cook them on. The sun has come out too 😊😊

Might have a drink tonight. Bonny Chicken had a mucky bum, and we have had to clean it 😮 She is the most jumpy chicken imaginable, and I even had to get the scissors out, it was like sheep dagging. Urgh. Better now though, but I think all, including Bonny, are in need of a stiff gin...

themadvix

Oh my sympathy for the mucky bum… one cat is very good at standing and behaving (basically give him some food and he doesn’t care what you do at the other end 😂), but the other is always a hugely traumatic experience. So I feel your pain!

Cheery_Daff

Thanks -  yes, I remember various cat shenanigans from my childhood- never fun! Not sure if chickens are easier or not - they can fly, which doesn't help with catching them...

Filled the car up earlier  at 195.9 a litre. Was cursing myself for not checking the other garage first, but when we drove past it on the way home it was 198.9. Good grief.

Cheery_Daff

Grr - just had a call from the gym, saying that because I'd cancelled my direct debit, there would be a £20 admin charge.

I didn't cancel the direct debit - I cancelled the bloody gym membership!! They're going back through the call log to listen to my call - which wasn't to them, because they can't cancel their own memberships, it was to their parent company - which of course I know because I rang them...

What a nonsense.