Simple living in the country - back to basics

badmemory

I discovered a couple of years ago that no heat = no move  = can't move.  So it isn't going to happen here.  Not the best financial answer but as they say "it is what it is".  I was way too hot at 26 in summer but I seem to be too cold at 22 now.  This is what we have savings for!!

Cheery_Daff

You are all right, of course, you lovely people. I am delighted to say that I put the energy monitor on the oil filled radiator, and used 20p worth of electric heating the room up to an acceptable temperature. I turned it off for a couple of hours after that and it was fine, so that's good that it doesn't need to be on for the whole day. Put it on again for a bit later, so about 30p worth - even I'm not stingy enough to deny myself that 😂

Gone all out and put the actual heating on this evening too! 

LadyWithAPlan, good to hear about the detail of your MB stuff. I'm not changing my tracking for now, it works fine. I use Team Casino, and do record every offer through there - this is my graph since I started doing casino 



(For those who don't do it, EV is Expected Value - what you'd mathematically expect to make from offers over time - you can see I'm not quite keeping up with that, but I've not actually done that many offers, and I'm still clearly in profit).

Overall, I've tracked MB for years through OddsMonkey - get get a decent graph on the phone, but I'm £6457 in profit overall (although obviously that's been spent over the years!) I track each MB offer through there just cos I use their calculator, but for casino I just add my total at the end of the day. 

So I don't have an issue with tracking, or knowing that I'm well in profit over time - I'm just annoyed because I like to withdraw at the end of the month and add to savings and this month is still about £100 in minus figures 😂 But I had £400 in August so I shouldn't really be complaining! 😂

Anyway, nowt else to report today I don't think. 

Cheery_Daff

So, a bit of a list for tomorrow... in no particular order

* get rugs down from loft
* measure blinds
* order thermal fabric
* finish painting ceiling (determined to do this in September 😂)
* paint kitchen
* finish sewing Mr Cheery's hat! 
* book hotel for sneaky night away on Saturday! 😁
* order mole traps 🙄

Mole traps are a last resort. I'm sure you can imagine I have no interest in a pristine lawn 😂 However, a mole, or a while battalion of them, has taken up residence near the chicken run, and 6 or 7 new mole hills have been appearing every day for weeks now. We've tried all the online tricks of pouring coffee grounds, stamping on the ground etc, and still they come. I don't care about mole hills, but the ground is completely undermined, when you walk you sink into it 😱 and I'm concerned (a) that it will eventually undermine the chicken run itself, which doesn't have foundations but is just built on top of breeze blocks, and/or (b) a stoat will start using the tunnels to get into the chicken run 🙄

So sadly, mole traps it is 🙄

Mouse traps set inside the house for our musical mouse 😂 we are beset with critters!

Karmacat

Cheery, are there any acoustic / high frequency gizmos you can buy, where moles don't like the vibrations given off and they scatter?

I do remember, years ago, somebody in the US in your situation, who used telepathy and told the moles to go to the next field.  The result was even more molehills, and she telepathically sent angry queries, and what she got back was "we're heading there, be a bit patient".  

More realistically, that sounds quite a serious problem with subsidence, I'm not surprised you want to take action.  And the less said about your musical mice, the better!  Out of the house, please!

Cheery_Daff

There are, but the reviews aren't great on the whole. I'm afraid on this occasion I've resorted to a £5 trap. Consensus seems to be moles are solitary, so hopefully it'll just be one that's creating such havoc so hopefully it won't take long to sort out. Don't feel great about it, but on this occasion, on balance we need to prioritise the chicken run! 

Sadly, all my previous attempts at communicating by telepathy have failed miserably 🙄😂😂

On the other hand, mouse caught this morning and released up onto the moors. No idea if it was the musical one, I guess we'll find out 😂

Karmacat

Cheery_Daff said:

There are, but the reviews aren't great on the whole. I'm afraid on this occasion I've resorted to a £5 trap. Consensus seems to be moles are solitary, so hopefully it'll just be one that's creating such havoc so hopefully it won't take long to sort out. Don't feel great about it, but on this occasion, on balance we need to prioritise the chicken run! 

I'm reminded of when the mortar in my weather-facing wall failed, so that the internal plaster was buckling.  The builders wouldn't work on it because there were mason bees lodging in the crumbling plaster I had to get a pest control guy out I salved my conscience by making a donation to the county beekeeping association, but I wasn't happy.  Nor would I have been happy to have my house crumble away, however.

Cheery_Daff

That's the deal, isn't it? Got to protect your own home (and that of those you're responsible for) first.

Nice cafe breakfast, collected my prescription, went to different town to collect mole traps, now home and it's absolutely bucketing down. Chickens are currently having a nap on the sofa with Mr Cheery 😂 then we'll put them in their run I think - if we leave them out they'll spend the whole day sheltering in our porch anyway and there's far more room in the run.

Curry in the hay box for later, and I've used up a few bits that visitors left for that and lunch. 

Happy Wheel done, up £13 today so I'm calling September at minus £85 🙄

Withdrew from Prolific this morning, £19.26, so once that arrives I'll throw it at the mortgage as planned. Not made an overpayment for months, and right now it seems good to chip away at it (fix doesn't end til Sept 2024 but who knows what will be happening by then).

Will do banks and YNAB later - Mr Cheery's pension arrived today so a bit of shuffling and totting up to do.

Right - off to find the paint brush and get this ceiling done once and for all! 

JGB1955

According to HSE - Temperature: What the Law says  it is suggested that  the minimum temperature in a workplace should normally be at least 16 degrees Celsius - so get that heating on!!

Cheery_Daff

JGB1955 said:

According to HSE - Temperature: What the Law says  it is suggested that  the minimum temperature in a workplace should normally be at least 16 degrees Celsius - so get that heating on!!

Ha, good find!

Heating's not on yet today - I'm painting the ceiling, and not only is it rather warmer up there 🙄 but all the clambering on and off chairs is keeping me warm enough 😂😂

Gosh, it's vile weather out there though 😮 Definitely an indoor day.

£19.27 arrived in bank from Prolific (now I've remembered it was going to PayPal rather than directly to the bank 🙄) and paid off the mortgage, hooray! Will check spreadsheet later to see what difference it'll make. I think I need a bit of a rejig - the 'interest saved' calculation is based on the original interest rate of 1.8%, whereas the current is 2.26%, so interest saved is minus over £4k at the minute which feels rather depressing 🙄 Wondering whether to recalculate based on new interest rate, or whether to just leave it (certainly won't be doing today either way!)

Right, just finishing cuppa then back onto the chair... 

Cheery_Daff

Right, ceiling is SO close now!! Vast majority has had 2 coats, hooray! There are 4 panels that I only did a first coat on today, so they'll need a second, and one which I've had to do a bit of repair work to, so that'll need sealing round the edges, then painting. And there's still the odd bit of plaster on the joists that needs wiping off. But I am delighted with progress today! 

Less delighted by the fact that the freezer has been unplugged since yesterday afternoon 😮 Entirely my fault. I plugged the washing machine into the energy monitor, as you know, and was rather baffled by the fact that it didn't seem to be working properly. Left the plug out when I removed the energy monitor, and the mystery has been solved today by soft bread... of course, I'd plugged the FREEZER into the monitor, not the washing machine, and then left the FREEZER unplugged. At least it explains why the 'washing machine' wasn't drawing continuous power yesterday.

What a plonker. No harm done - freezer is mostly full of fruit from the garden, ice pops, and leftover bread from last weekend. We'll get on the case eating the bread, and the rest will be fine. 

No more painting today, or anything much else!