Simple living in the country - back to basics

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, and in other financial news...

* had the LPG invoice - at £850.50 it's exactly what I was expecting - they've stuck to the price fix. Hooray! 

* had the renewal quote for the house insurance (plus four speculative letters from other house insurance companies who obviously have me on a database) - come in at £195, which is pretty reasonable. I'll still check around, and I'll have to do my annual slightly paranoid measuring of tree distance and height 🙄 but I'm not sure we'll get it much cheaper than that. There are a couple of named bikes and instruments included in that too. 

I've got £450 in the pot, so if we go with something more expensive/less fussy, we can cover it, or I can redirect some of that to the car fund 🙄 I've never ever claimed on house insurance, but I swing wildly between wanting the cheapest one, and being paranoid that the cheapest one won't cover anything if we did need to claim 🙄 And we do have at least one tree that is borderline in terms of height & distance so if renewal catches me at a paranoid time I tend to go with something that has less stringent boundaries... 🙄😂

A job for later over the weekend, I think. 

Bed renovations are afoot! We're going to fix the new slats today, and set the frame up without the headboard for a week while Mr Cheery makes his decision, and sands and oils the headboard (the whole thing was made from scratch when we moved here as we didn't have a bed - we'd slept on a mezzanine platform at the old house).

Best get back to it.

Karmacat

You're reclaiming your bed and bedroom, thats great news.  

Home and contents is troubling, isn't it - I've just gone with a big provider, and pretending to trust they'll do what they say they do, not much else to be done when you've signed on the dotted line.  But next year, I'm going to check around, and hopefully I'll have got my accounts done even earlier, so there'll be more time to do it.

Loving your list!  Hope that the majority of it works out   

beanielou

Jeez that's some bill.
I would be crying.

Cheery_Daff

I very nearly was Beanie! 😱 Could well do without that type of thing, especially with a load of strikes coming up 😕

Anyway, quite a productive day and some of my massive list chipped away at.

* bed is assembled and sheets are changed! Very excited about having a bed again 😁 Especially as we fixed it up with a load of wood we had lying around 😁



(Obviously it is now back in the middle of the room, and will have a headboard again eventually)

Also sorted out a load of clothes from what was the bedroom, then Mr Cheery's sick room, and will eventually be my craft room 😁 Not quite at the stage of being able to move all the craft stuff in just yet, but I don't think we're too far off! 

Hung out with the chickens for a bit, but not done any of the big jobs today.

Did the banking, and a few other pottering chores, and sat around for a bit too 😂

Oh, and we went for a nice walk in the sunshine 😊



Still plenty of that list to do tomorrow, but I did tick off a few things 😊

Made 12p on the Happy Wheel today. Sadly it doesn't go far to offsetting the £112 I'm down for January 🙄

themadvix

Eek to that bill from the garage Cheery! And definitely agree that you shouldn’t have been given an ex-VAT quote if that was the case.

 Beautiful photo (the view, although I’m sure the bed is just as exciting for you!)

greenbee

Great progress Cheery! I'm surprised the garage didn't call you to confirm you wanted the work done - mine always do (or if they're busy they send the car back with a quote). I saw your LI post and it reminded me that you're a real person, not just a diary on MSE. Loved the photo  

Cheery_Daff

themadvix said:

Eek to that bill from the garage Cheery! And definitely agree that you shouldn’t have been given an ex-VAT quote if that was the case.

 Beautiful photo (the view, although I’m sure the bed is just as exciting for you!)

Ha, yes, the bed is far more exciting right now 😂 That's the view from our drive, and I really should appreciate it more often!

greenbee said:

Great progress Cheery! I'm surprised the garage didn't call you to confirm you wanted the work done - mine always do (or if they're busy they send the car back with a quote). I saw your LI post and it reminded me that you're a real person, not just a diary on MSE. Loved the photo  

They did ring to check - that's when they said it would be £4-500 and I told them to go ahead. They didn't do anything over and above that (other than the service I'd taken it for - I hadn't particularly noticed anything wrong with the brakes before I took it which makes it worse...)

Anyway, laughing at the thought of me being a real person 😂 I don't know who you are in real life, you'll have to let me know since you know who I am 😱😂

Cheery_Daff

Just done a 79p Prolific survey, and realised I've been ignoring it most of the month 🙄 Up to £10.90 (mostly left over from December) so might set a target of £25 to aim for. I was going to pay Prolific money off the mortgage, but right now I'm feeling like I need to keep hold of whatever I can! 🙄

Having a real feeling of scarcity thinking tonight, which isn't like me 🙄 We are NOWHERE near the breadline, but I just can't stop going round in circles with what if the car breaks again, AND the boiler breaks again, AND this, AND that, all at once 🙄 I have managed to not dip into this month's saved £200 so far, so that's good, and it was payday the other so I've allocated next month's £200 to the monthly savings pot too, but even so. 

I realise this is just a result of general gloomy feelings at the minute, and the stupid car bill on top of the boiler before Christmas, on top of the LPG, which was expected, but Jan and Feb do feel a bit like money is just flowing out at pace, with both house and car insurance to go soon too 🙄

I KNOW it will pick up, and I know there is plenty we could do to tighten our belts, but just having a small wobbly wobble right now! 

But I have run a bath, and I think I'll make tomorrow an interet free day (under my usual rules...) as they usually help me get quite a lot done in the house without being sidetracked, so that should help too.

See you all soon!

beanielou

Great news on the bed 

VintageHistorian

An early night might help as well Cheery, I know I start to catastrophise in my own head when I'm over tired, even if I'm not showing all the other normal "time for bed" signs (yawning, rubbing my eyes etc).