Simple living in the country - back to basics

beanielou

Awesome on SW & happy wheel 

Karmacat

Fourthed from me!  Brilliant results

Cheery_Daff

Thank you all 😊 Delighted to say the win has hit the bank so no chance of them thinking of a reason not to give it to me! 

So. Lots of pondering going on here. Not because we are anywhere near the breadline, of course - very thankful for that. But the general situation is of course sharpening the focus. 

This led to me playing with the mortgage spreadsheet in bed last night, falling asleep, and doing something I couldn't undo when I woke a little while later 😱 Had to admit defeat after searching and finding you can't restore previous versions on a phone - but you can on a computer. No way was I going to sneak back downstairs and admit to Mr Cheery that I'd been messing with the mortgage spreadsheet in bed 😂 but fortunately order has been restored this morning! 

Not made any OPs at all for the last few months. Deliberately - trying to build savings back up after the kitchen and building work left them rather depleted. However, I miss a mortgage OP, and I hate the thought that it will continue til I'm 62 (of course it won't - if nothing else Mr Cheery's state pension will be thrown at it when the time arrives but no harm tackling a bit sooner).

I don't want to commit any of the new pay rise to it with things being so uncertain re fuel etc, but I'm thinking it might be nice to throw income from Prolific at it? I usually get £10-£20 a month without really putting much effort in, so having a goal might make me a bit more focused? Checked the spreadsheet, and the remaining £11.18 in there from this month wouldn't change the mortgage end date, but would save us £5.61 of interest eventually (apparently!) - got to be worth it 😂

Happy Wheel is staying as it is for now - in the 4 months since I started doing it every single day I've had £208, £215, £186 and now up to £386 for August, which is topping up the savings pots nicely.

Not sure when I'll feel happy with the amount in savings. Aside from monthly savings for annual bills which I keep separately, and £1000 in a general household maintenance pot (painting, appliances etc), we've currently only got put aside

£2000 to fix the stable block roof (which i can't even bring myself to spend at the minute, but we'll ruin the building if we don't do something soon as so much weather is getting in)

£1500 household emergency (something going wrong with septic tank etc)

£1100 ish in new car pot

Not destitute, but too close to the bone for me (funny how things change - I've spent most of my life with no savings at all!) I think possibly because I can see it all allocated to particular things - that's helpful, but also feels like there isn't any 'spare'. 

Still. Happy Wheel is adding to things nicely, and while there hasn't been much from normal income for long term savings for a while, my new pay rise should be an extra £192 a month ish, so I'm hoping over the next few months things will start to feel more secure.

As always, feeling fortunate that the main thing to worry about is how much is in the savings pot.

Cheery_Daff

So, we were meant to be thinking about frugal September, weren't we?? Not sure what that's going to entail for us. Possibly focusing on food and energy in our case.

Checking and building the storecupboard ready for winter

Preserving some stuff

Defrosting the freezer and restocking with batch cooked meals

Making good use of covid study supermarket vouchers (i think we've got about £30 left from last month, and another £40 arrived today).

Might aim for not buying any food while out and about - I don't mean cafes... but not buying snacks while out etc. We'll see.

Ramouth

Might aim for not buying any food while out and about - I don't mean cafes... but not buying snacks while out etc. We'll see.

That’s an interesting one.  I am rather prone to buying bottles of drink, packets of crisps, pieces of fruit etc when out and about often for extortionate prices.  I should plan better and carry things with me but prefer not to as I generally walk everywhere.  Reading this I realise how lazy it sounds so perhaps will make it my focus for September to see if I can make better habits.  Thank you for the thought provoking post Cheery!

themadvix

I hear you Cheery, pondering savings. With the work to the roof we've got coming, we've very definitely gone from a 'we can afford it (it being our general lifetstyle) and OPs are no issue' situation to being a bit more concerned, especially given rising costs. Although we're hoping we'll have solar in before the winter (November, hopefully, assuming they've not forgotten us - Mr MV has chased up yesterday), we don't have a firm date yet and in any case, this will only offset some of our costs/heating (we will be able to charge the battery on grey days using the cheap overnight, so despite it being winter, we will still see some significant benefit from the installation).

That being said, I'd get on with the stable block roof before the winter comes!

themadvix

Good suggestions for Frugal September there - I'll have a think and probably pinch some of those. A good target for me/us would be Mr MV's office day lunches - we've been getting back into him taking something, but it doesn't always happen. That can be changed!

Cheery_Daff

Thanks all. I did even get to the end of what I was going to waffle on about - got interrupted mid post! 

I used to walk everywhere when we lived in town Ramouth so I do understand! Not lazy, just practical! I got into the habit of a rucksack very early on 😂 Must go back to the first time i did Uber Frugal January on my old blog - life was very different then sort will be interesting to compare!

We nipped into town this morning and picked up a couple of things. Bargain of the day was a nice pair of knee high boots for me from a charity shop which will do nicely for work - I wear them every day and my current ones are starting to look quite scuffed on the toes - won't stop me wearing them but it's nice to have a pair to alternate with so they can stick around for longer. These were £15 and seem unworn. Also picked up a birthday card for friend's small daughter for 35p, and some reduced peanut butter.

Finally dug out the external hard drive so have set a backup of my laptop going - apparently there are over 24,000 photos on there so it's going to take a while - no wonder the laptop is running slowly! We'll do Mr Cheery's too if mine ever finishes 🙄

On the cards for the rest of today

* drink tea while the chickens have a nap in the living room 🙄😂

* ring washing machine repair man to check call out fee, then either arrange, or ring up about replacement second hand machine for sale locally

* more scything

* write nephew's card ready for posting tomorrow

* wrap friend's daughter's present and card ready for tomorrow

* get everything out of the freezer and start defrosting

* maybe ring HMRC to finish sorting out this pensions stuff

That'll probably do - if there's any time left I might do a bit of shifting stuff out of the new bedroom - it's become a bit of a dumping ground and neither of us are wanting to go in there to sort stuff out which is NOT the idea!

Cheery_Daff

OK, in case anyone else is as nosey as me... 😂😂

Here's my post preparing for my first Uber Frugal January, which was Jan 2017.

http://snippetsofalife.weebly.com/blog/preparing-properly-for-uber-frugal-january

Interesting to see how different things were! We were almost at the end of DIY in the old house - put it up for sale that July and moved the following Feb. I was working full time (same job). We'd paid the mortgage off(!) so had much more discretionary spends. Far less on tea and cake though! 😂

Then I wrote about food:


http://snippetsofalife.weebly.com/blog/uber-frugal-january-food

Value for money:

http://snippetsofalife.weebly.com/blog/uber-frugal-january-value-for-money

Travel (gosh I miss being able to walk or cycle everywhere!)

http://snippetsofalife.weebly.com/blog/uber-frugal-january-travel

And a final round up here:

http://snippetsofalife.weebly.com/blog/uber-frugal-january-the-results

Looks like we managed to save about £200 on our usual monthly averages! 

Such a different life. Very odd looking back on it. I love so many things about living out here but I do miss some things about mortgage free city living too!

Cheery_Daff

Had a quick chat with washing machine repair guy - £30 call out, plus £60 to come back for a fix, means it'll either cost £30 to tell us it's proper broken, or £90 plus parts to fix. He said it might be the brushes (which would be £20 or so) or it might be the circuit board (likely fatal - or at least far too expensive to fix).

Sigh. I HATE replacing when there's a possibility of repair, but there are four decent ones for sale locally (second hand) under £140 - all far newer and more energy efficient than ours. 

Have sent a message about one of them and we'll see what happens.