Simple living in the country - back to basics

Cheery_Daff

Certainly is,although I was feeling rather less anxious anyway as the new medication kicked in 😊

I know the expenses policy can be quite ridiculous 😂 I didn't realise that anything not explicitly mentioned by the policy has to be booked through work 🙄😂 I think there likely would have been time - but really, why waste the time of an admin person faffing about when i can just pay in person when I get there?! Clearly I'll know for next time! Annoyingly, a colleague did exactly the same thing and hers got paid so I'll definitely be quibbling. It's my project budget and there's money in it specifically for this, so I'm not paying out of my own pocket for the sake of a technicality. 

I know why they have thevpolicy, and I appreciate they don't want people booking hotels and train tickets themselves - and I'm sure they'd argue time spent paying expenses is worse than time spent booking things for people (largely because the booking isn't done by the finance team!) 

Anyway, YAWN. Just another stupid thing to have to deal with 🙄

On which note, I should have been up an hour ago!

EssexHebridean

what a faff about the expenses - hopefully that there is precedent with your colleague having been paid for hers means they will pay yours too - but still! 

That's great work on the savings in February though - well done.

KajiKita

Ah, okay. So it’s just extra hoop-jumping authorisations to get that expense paid back, hopefully 😊

KK

Cheery_Daff

Hopefully KK! Although officially they've said no, so I shall have to be at my most persuasive! 🙄

Thanks EH, it's funny how it adds up, isn't it? We did still spend plenty on cafe trips though, could have tightened things more if absolutely necessary. 

Just thinking about financial things in March...

* flute is being serviced next week, should be roughly £80 (it's the first time in 4 years, so I don't begrudge it too much...). Could do without it right now, but I'm playing it quite a bit and it's been feeling in need of a service for a while

* nearest nephew's birthday at the end of the month

* might go to an event that costs £36, could try and find somewhere to stay, but it's actually less than 90 mins drive so I might just go for the day

* six more strike days planned 🙄 although they're not all on my working days. Let's hope they get called off, but I'm not holding my breath.

* no annual bills due I don't think, so will just keep adding to various pots as and when.

* didn't win anything on the premium bonds 🙄

* need to ring up the building society for online password - keep forgetting on my days off and I don't think they're open at the weekend.

* will keep an eye on electricity account, although it was £181 in credit when I looked yesterday I think. DD is £21.83 at the minute, and we used about £67 worth I think in Feb, so it'll gradually get eroded and will need increasing at some point, but not yet.

* got another £40 worth of vouchers to download, so will keep those aside, possibly for another storecupboard stock up since we didn't manage to get everything last time.

* No particular events planned I don't think. Got one lot of friends coming to stay over mid month, but that'll just be normal friends-round-for-tea fare, nothing fancy - usually just something like curry, rice, bread, cheese, salad etc. 

I think that's it, nothing else I don't think. Did a Prolific survey for £5.50 yesterday, very exciting, so might focus on that a bit more. Happy wheel was up £48 yesterday and down £24 today, bloody ridiculous. 

Right, off to lounge around for a bit 😊

KajiKita

Could you ask the colleague who did get it paid how they swung it?

How dare the premium bonds be so elusive! 😉😂

KK

Cheery_Daff

She wrote exactly the same as I did! I asked her what she put before I did mine 😂 Clearly they just got looked at by a different person 🙄 😂

EssexHebridean

Well that's inconsistent then isn't it!

I should probably apologise for the fact that we DID get £25 on the PBs this month!  

A for spending/saving I thin it's nice to be at a place where you are enjoying life, but know that there is wiggle room to tighten belts if needed - to me that's about the optimum I think.

Cheery_Daff

Yep, that is indeed the optimum! And that's pretty much where we are now 😊

Going to ignore you winning on the PBs 😂 My sister won £25 too - pah! 😂

Unexpectedly cheerful day today. I'm off work, swapped with Friday - not remotely ideal and something I'd not normally countenance, but for various reasons it's been a few weeks of upheaval and I'm having my day off where I can take it, hopefully back to normal soon. Anyway, we said we'd go to see Mr Cheery's dad, which would have been an all day expedition, but he's got a bad cough and didn't want to infect us 🙄 In other circumstances we'd have insisted, but his sister is local and free at the minute, and we only went less than a week ago, so...

Anyway, I spent a couple of hours in the front garden, cutting and lopping and generally tidying up. Not that you'd know if you hadn't seen it before 😂 But it looks a LOT better. Decided we might as well take all the clippings to the tip, and they filled the entire car, even squashed into bags. So that feels nicely rounded off! 

Stopped for a cafe trip on the way home...

Cleaned the chickens out this morning, the new ones are settling in nicely 😊 They're all mixed together most of the time now, and we put the new ones into the house with the others at night. Today was the first day we caught one of the new ones laying in the main nest box 😊 We're going to leave them mixed today, and see whether the new ones follow the old ones to bed, or whether they head for their own little house and we have to move them. We'll see.

Finally got round to something I've been putting off - ringing the building society to reset my activation key for online access. They answered the phone in ONE ring, and the new activation key worked, and the test transfer I did a few weeks ago had gone through, so now I just need to get on the laptop and transfer the rest. I think it's 2.5%? Can't remember - certainly better than the current account it's in at the minute! 

I was going to set up various other regular savers to drip feed into, but we'll see - I'm not feeling like I've got loads of mental energy for that kind of faffing right now, and from memory it would be only an extra 1% on not a huge amount, so it might not be worth it.

Prolific up to about £7 now I think - a considerably improvement on last month! 

Mr Cheery's dad told him to take me out for dinner and he'd pay 😊 so we're off out this evening to somewhere we've not been before. Very cheerful of him and gives us a nice excuse to dress up a bit 😊

Cheery_Daff

Oh, and the local (very accurate) weather forecasters are predicting significant snow here Thursday/Friday, possibly up to 40cm on higher ground which we are - about 1300ft above sea level, roughly 365m. Usually above 400m gets the worst, but we're not too far off that... 

Anyway, I'm teaching on Thursday and after all the strikes don't want to miss any more, so I'm going to try to stay over near work tomorrow night. It does mean getting things a bit more organised today though - and possibly planning to stay for 2 nights if it's still bad here on Friday. Mr Cheery will be here to keep an eye on the chickens (who will be cosy and fine, but their water would likely freeze overnight if we left them).

Got friends coming on Saturday to stay, so I'm washing bedding - wish I'd remembered this morning, it would have dried outside in a jiffy today! 🙄 Never mind, the heating is on now so it won't take long on the radiators. 

Right, off to pack for tomorrow/Wed (and find a bed!) Must remember I've got a 90 min dentist appointment tomorrow too 🙄 Very tedious! 

themadvix

Have a lovely evening! 😊