Simple living in the country - back to basics

badmemory

I am so glad I am not the only one to have a whoops day.  Took meter readings yesterday & had an unexpected visit from a friend & forgot to send them in.  I did it about an hour ago but they seem to have already started doing the bill.  The rest of my day hasn't gone any better.

redofromstart

Sorry about the minor freezer losses, always annoying. Hurrah on the pennies for the oil heater though, I ran my tiny under desk one for an hour or so today because my hands are blue despite
many layers and cashmere fingerless gloves.

Cheery_Daff

Badmemory, they should still calculate today at today's rates, even if comes on next month's bill. And sending in at the end of the day gives them no excuse not to be accurate! 

Hope you warmed up a bit redo. Brrrrrr.

We are finding a hotel at the seaside for tomorrow 😁 Slowly getting our heads into being able to go on holiday next year. We were emboldened by our night at the seaside a few weeks ago, so that's what we're doing again 😁

Except we have fallen into our usual pattern of both looking cheerfully for a while, then me losing patience and going 'for goodness sake, let's just book this one' 🙄 while Mr Cheery trawls through endless websites and an infinite number of reviews 🙄 I can't complain, we've stayed in some lovely places over the years, but we're staying for one night, mot moving in permanently! 😂

I'm leaving him to it - found a sachet of Galaxy hot chocolate in the back of a drawer so going to make that and do the banking 😂

Cheery_Daff

Right, hot chocolate consumed (with a sneaky bit of knock off Baileys in it ) and now I'm fiddling with the banks. 

Report for September - which didn't turn out to be super thrifty after all... 

My spends = £75 (including £35 for Slimming World, a bit of socialising, and, apparently, some 'other things', whatever they were...)
Mr Cheery's spends (including stuff for his dad) = £50
Diesel = £275
Food & household = £261 (outrageous, although we have fed a lot of visitors this month)
Parking = £14 (definitely need to sort this out - most of it was on one day at work!)
Cafes and meals out = £111 (this included taking a friend out a couple of times while he was staying)
Chickens = £39 (sack each of food and corn, will last about 3 months)

The monthly direct debit category looked hefty this month at £1800, but that included £508 for an LPG top up. 

So things aren't looking too bad, although clearly we could do with getting more of a handle on the food spends. Diesel is what it is for now, and probably for the foreseeable future. Parking I want to cut completely, and my spends could come down a bit, but outside slimming world it's only £40 which is fine, actually.

As for October, what's coming up? Night away tomorrow (if we ever choose a hotel, that is - in fact the entire location has shifted to the other side of the country now) - that'll be covered by the holiday budget (which has about £350 in it, which we won't spend all in one night). Big car has an MOT on Monday - I'm hoping there will be nothing drastic, as we spent £500 getting the brakes etc fixed in August. Fingers crossed. There's £280 across the car maintenance/MOT pots, so I'll be pleased if it costs less than that. 

We've definitely used less electric in September than August - August was 174kwh, and September was 155 as of this morning (so probably about 160 in total). 

Cheery_Daff

I've never really looked at the income vs expense report on YNAB before. Interestingly, it was in negative figures for the first 5 months of this year, which does make sense as I did feel like money was just leaking out at that point It's misleading, of course, because some of that was bigger stuff we'd saved up monthly for, eg £536 LPG bill in January, and another £843 in April. Diesel was very hefty at the start of the year too, going back and forth to Mr Cheery's dad even more regularly than now. Oh, and of course some months had quite a bit of strike deduction from my salary. 

Overall things are getting better (helped considerably by MB, and now my pay rise). For this year, overall income vs expense is

Jan -£504
Feb -£636
Mar -£585
Apr -£568
May -£134
June +£78
July +£1256
Aug -£138
Sept +£419

Monthly average for this year is -£90, and overall for this year, it's -£811. 

Interesting. Will keep an eye on that. Clearly it won't be in positive figures every month if there's a big bill, but it would be nice to have a positive average, and a positive overall for the year! 

pinkypig

Did laugh at your musical mouse Cheery 😂. That said, I wouldn’t have been laughing if it had been here, they give me the heebie  jeebies 😱
YNAB looks so good.  I just use the Numbers spreadsheets on my phone which is great for tracking but any kind of analysis is a bit clunky. 

Hope you and Mr C have a lovely weekend and that the weather isn’t too grim.  It was like World’s End here yesterday 😱😂x

Cheery_Daff

It was very grim here yesterday too, but fortunately today is substantially better! 

And, after MUCH faffing, we have found somewhere to stay with a sea view - we are off to the seaside! 😁😁😁 Just for 24 hours again 😂 But we are very excited! 

Best pack else we'll never even get there 🙄😂

elantan

Have fun, enjoy your wee break away 

[Deleted User]

Hi Cheery_Daff,

I'm a newbie here, and have just read through the first few posts (at 200 pages, I'm not sure I'll be reading through them all!) Your lifestyle sounds so incredibly idyllic and wonderful! A mixture of countryside living and frugality - you're really talking my language. I am on the brink of getting my first mortgage, after having an offer accepted on a house last week (woop!) Also in the countryside, in a remote village in Scotland. Thinking of starting my own diary here after feeling inspired by yours! Have a lovely weekend x

[Deleted User]

@KajiKita, talk about fate - I've just been reading your diary on here! Very inspirational and I admire your strength and perseverance. Considering starting my own thread...

Thank you! I am moving to Dumfries and Galloway, so Southern Scotland, though I'm from Glasgow originally xx