Simple living in the country - back to basics

Cheery_Daff

😂😂 you lot! Clearly I have some catching up to do! 😂😂

Had a lovely evening, but I'm worn out now and have left them to it (although I think they're nearing the end too)

Very quick whizz on the Happy wheel, made £16.46 so September is now at minus £12 🙄😂

Prolific standing at £5.29 with another £3.33 pending, not too shabby.

Right, best go to sleep. First meeting in my new role tomorrow (well, not first meeting as I've had several today 😂 But first one that I wouldn't have been at before) but that's all I'm doing work wise. We're off to a local event after that 😁

LadyWithAPlan

The crystal singer I dont think I have ever read - will check out though I am more fantasy than scifi.
I have read most the fantasy that exists I think   and in my teenage years I loved David and Leigh Eddings books. Polgara rocks! 

Glad HW going well - I am doing some MR & HR signups as when I looked at my credit score last I can see a fair few where the bookies had looked me up..which probably will not make a bank happy.. I had not realised and it is done  now.  So I am getting signed up to loads at present - all I can see -hopefully by end Sept  and then will not join any new bookies for 6 months ahead of thinking about a mortgage.

Enjoy your new role

themadvix

Never tried the Crystal Singer ones, but I think there's one on the shelf (at my Dad's). Will check it out..

Not great that you are going to have to move offices at a busy time Cheery - so not helpful! Hope today's meeting goes well and you get some hay moved.

Cheery_Daff

Morning all 😊

An excellent time with my chum 😊 I do wish he lived closer than the far north of Scotland as he's always up for several hours of hard toil in the fields, and I don't have many friends like that 😂😂

Between us we scythe another two rows, but more importantly, shifted all the soggy grass I'd already cut - don't want to leave it on there too long, and this was a big job I'd been putting off, so much celebration. 

I even put him to work on the kitchen ceiling when it was raining 😂😂

Excellent and slightly bizarre time at the local event which wasn't quite what I imagined and involved a 'sack race for ponies' and several bookies taking hundreds of pounds worth of bets (not on the pony sack race, I don't think 😂)

We did take friend out for a pint, and then yesterday tea and cake, so not been a free week, but we resisted the urge to go out for dinner, and we've had pasta, home made pizza, and a most excellent home made crumble with some cooking apples a friend at work gave me the other day and some of our blackcurrants 😊😊

Friend is somewhat of a tree expert, and we wandered round our tree fields. Lots of them doing well, and I'll be taking a few tree guards off in the spring, very exciting! Several have died (as expected- 1000 were planted so they were never all going to survive). Might wait for a crisp sunny autumn day and take those tree guards down - I wonder if I can find a community project who might appreciate them? If not I'll put them on Freegle.

Cheery_Daff

In other money news...

* LPG bill arrived, and at £508 (for just over half a tank) it's what I was expecting. Will come out automatically soon, and leave us £197 in the gas pot towards the next bill. Going on last year's usage we'll likely have a full tank top up by Christmas, billed at the end of Jan, so I need to focus on getting that pot filled.

* new covid study packs arrived - we'll do and post those after the weekend for our next lot of vouchers. Need to make sure I have our last lot of vouchers saved.

* Been checking the electric meter every day - I was ignoring the final number at the start of the month (as you do when you submit online) but I've started including that now - we used 6.6 units yesterday, 6.7 the day before, and somewhere around 5 or 6 a day on average this month. Interesting stuff. I have no idea whether this is good or not (national average I read somewhere is 8.5-10 but that's meaningless with no context). Will keep tracking for now, noting down what days we use eg the oven, washing machine etc. 

* no invoice from garage yet - they usually take a few weeks to post out but I'd rather know how much I'm dealing with!

* payday for me next Friday- should include new wages, plus a month of backdated at increased old wages, so I'll have a look at the pots and see what to fill

* decided stable block roof isn't a priority at the minute so I might repurchase that dosh into a different savings pot

* someone local recommended someone who might be able to re-render a bit on the side of our house where there's water coming in. It's the only bit we've got, and it'll need fixing before the window is replaced as I don't know if the lintel is rotting. Need to take photos and send a message, will do that this morning.

* Mr Cheery's supplementary credit card arrived - it's the same account as me, just means he can rack up cashback for diesel and food spends too

* new washing machine is here, and friend helped us get the old one to the tip. New one has a bit of rust on the front so I'll scrape and repaint that today, then get it in place and give it a test run. All fingers crossed!

* We're going to need a food stock up at some point, running low on quite a lot of things and it's hampering my batch cooking efforts! We've got about £70 of Mr M vouchers now, so might use those to fill the storecuoboard and get some veg.

* need to get something in the hay box this morning, not sure what yet though given the lack of food!! Got quite a lot of lentils so maybe just soup...

* Prolific still standing at £5.66 with £3.33 pending

* Happy Wheel in disgrace - down £81 so far in September!! 😱 That had best turn itself around pretty sharpish! 

* read the whole of Tilly's diary recently 😮 Epic stuff. Been doing Tilly Tidies into a separate account to see how it goes - got £2.15 so far in September 😂 Better than nothing but as it's not 'new money' and I track everything anyway, I'm not entirely convinced it's that much of a useful tool for me, but maybe I can use it for sneaky overpayments? We'll see.

Right, that's probably enough waffling for one morning. Raining here today, so I think a focus on the kitchen ceiling, and some sorting out of clothes etc in the new bedroom. A list!

* banks/ynab
* blog post
* reply to a couple of emails
* lentil soup in the hay box
* finish scraping ceiling
* finish bits of ceiling painting
* sort out my clothes in new bedroom
* sort out bedding etc in new bedroom
* measure up for blinds
* general tody round later
* finish making Mr Cheery's birthday hat while he's out tonight

Right, more tea!

Cheery_Daff

Oops, me again, sorry.

Been updating my meter readings - replaced the scruffy bit of paper with a more organised one now I know what I'm doing. 

Current price per kwh = 26.538p, so including VAT and rounded up(for easier early morning calculations), that's £0.28 per unit

Standing charge is 45.835p per day, so again with VAT and rounded up, that's £0.48 per day

My sheet now tells me we've used between £1.64 and £2.36 per day, including the standing charge.

We used 174kwh in August, up to 48.7 so far in September. 

Not entirely sure what I'm going to do with this right now, but knowledge is power after all, and at least I'll know what's what once they announce the new price caps.

Cheery_Daff

Right, banks and YNAB checked, all (now!) in order. 

Decision made that Tilly Tidying is not for me - it's a nuisance with logging every transaction in YNAB. Will have a think about an alternative, maybe retrieving odd pennies from various YNAB pots and putting them into a mortgage OP pot?

Stable block roof pot repurposed, so now there's dosh in a pot for the rendering (weather proofing the actual house feels more important right now), and I've topped up various pots that aren't going to get used just yet (plastering the stairs, for example). I may actually pilfer a bit of that for the fabric for the kitchen blinds - not decided what we're doing about that yet but while I think I've got stuff that's suitable for the bedroom, I don't think I've got anything that will do for the kitchen (or rather I haven't got anything that will pass Mr Cheery's aesthetic approval!)

Right, next job - blog post I think, then I WILL get off my backside and do something useful...

Ramouth

I haven’t got on with the concept of TTs either.  It clearly works for some people (as proven by Tilly herself) but doesn’t work with the way we budget.  We are not even as organised as you are with your separate pots.  I just scoop money from our current account into a savings account at the end of each month to be paid off when we come to the end of our fix (savings interest is greater than mortgage rate).  I suppose doing this over the month might keep focus but I don’t think it would change our spending or the end result.

LadyWithAPlan

I love a TT as it gives me a daily boost of saving towards my goals but if you are reconciling everything I can see it’s a pain. If it doesn’t work for you then that’s your banking

I move TT from just 2 different banks accts into a 2 x TT saving pots within each bank  so it’s easy for me  
then monthly buy a PB and rest to s&s isa 
I no longer reconcile all my pots as the bank especially  monz@ make it so easy to see what is there 

Maybe use the mortgage pig idea of cash you would have spent and pennies you find etc would work better ? I think a lot of the TT brilliance Is the psychology of saving daily and seeing the cash movement  especially where people are OPing these amounts off their mortgage and saying I will never pay again interest off that 30p TT  
I can’t wait to do that ! 

Cheery_Daff

Yes, I think it's the idea of daily progress that appealed, but given that I do reconcile all transactions it's a nuisance. Maybe the cash thing would work - I do try to reconcile cash too but am a bit more sloppy with that 🙄😂 We'll see.