Simple living in the country - back to basics

rtandon27

Ooo - that is fabulous that the BT chappy is there and has made a start on the repair!

themadvix

While not to plan, it definitely sounds like it's a good idea to get it fixed while he's about!

Cheery_Daff

Yep, I am THRILLED. He ended up in the loft, up the telegraph pole and everything - unsurprisingly there was damage everywhere, and he's ended up using a different phone plug (which we'd never used) to plug in the router, as the other one was damaged so much. 

Still, after about 3 hours we are now up and running and everything is working perfectly. I am utterly delighted - and I've filled in their 'thank an engineer' form for such excellent service

I've now also done the banking, and the kitchen is very clean

But I am FINALLY going to get myself to the cafe to do some plotting and scheming and meal planning. Having done the budget means I don't have to take the laptop which is good. 

Nowt much to report on the budget, although apparently we did spend around £1300 between our weekend in Wales and a week in Scarborough Accommodation for the two was £775, and we've incorporated diesel into the normal diesel budget, so that leaves about £525 that we spent on food, drinks, cafes, ice creams, chips, entry fees etc, covering about 9 days of holiday in total, about £58 on average per day. 

Not remotely thrifty, and probably would have been cheaper to go on some kind of cruise... But hey ho. We had a great time and it was VERY much needed, and we've not taken on any debt for it, so I flatly refuse to feel guilty. 

Budget for July is done - all looking on track, Mr Cheery's pension will arrive at the end of this month and top up the rest of the categories. I've had about £140 of expenses back, but I need to submit another £300 or so after yesterday, so that'll go straight to the 'replacement wages' category since a lot of that was switched to the holiday fund... 

Also realised I forgot to add in the £110 from last month's happy wheel, so I'll do that later. This month I'm up to £5 so far so that's not going to pay for another holiday

Right, leaving the house! Plan for the rest of the day: 

* meal planning in cafe
* supermarket
* couple of things to pick up in town
* finish weekly home blessing
* potter around garden
* maybe have a bath later

See you later on! 

themadvix

Cheery, given that you've not had a holiday in how long, I think £58/day on food and spending is very reasonable! And I can assure you that a cruise would have been a lot more expensive - the one we're not paying for would have been £5000 for a week! (Plus alcoholic drinks and excursions!).

That is excellent news about your phone line - BT engineers are usually pretty good - I've heard similar 'above and beyond' stories before and others with very prompt service (as in, it's only just been reported and the engineer says 'I was in the area...'). It's a nice change in this world of ever deteriorating customer service.

Enjoy your plotting in the cafe!

Merlin's_Beard

Above and beyond service for you, and saves him having to drive a long way between calls and back to you another day - good initiative from that guy!

£58/day for two doesn't seem like that bad a deal - very easy to spend £30/head on just a single nice meal out!

rtandon27

£58/day for two is not bad at all Cheery!  We wend out for a delayed BDay meal yesterday.  Not posh at all, more of a cafe that served Asian tapas-style food & bubble tea & cold beer.  Cost us 45 for the food with one drink each, another 5 for a tip, 5 for parking & a few pounds of petrol to get there & back! We were easily at 60 just for one meal out.

Cheery_Daff

Thanks all, you're all right of course 😊 We only actually went out to a restaurant one night out of the 7 we were away in total , and that was almost £50 just for that meal (Mr Cheery was on antibiotics so we didn't even have alcohol).

I think we had 3 takeaways, but the first two we just shared one meal 😂 and the second we did have 2 meals, but saved some for leftovers the next day 😂 Definitely helped having a flat with a kitchen for the week - we cooked a couple of nights, had a fridge for leftovers, had breakfast in the flat etc, and could sit around drinking without being in a pub (we did that a couple of times, but not for very long).

LOTS of cafes, but I don't think we ate lunch in any of them - just had takeaway sandwiches or chips most of the time.

So yes, could have been a LOT worse - and clearly I have never been on a cruise 😂😂

Spent 1.5 hours in my favourite cafe and spent a total of £3.15 (got my second drink free with my loyalty card). Have actually done a meal plan to take me up to next Sunday, and a shopping list, so am finally taking myself off to the supermarket 😊😊

Cheery_Daff

Also I was going to say about holidays - we didn't really do anything 'touristy'- the only place we paid to get in was the RSPB reserve at Bempton (£7 each). I don't think we paid for much parking either - we had a space at the accommodation both times, so just a few hours on one of the day trips. 

I haven't included the cost of Mr Cheery's dentist trip in the holiday spending, even though it did take place during the holiday 🙄😂

We did a supermarket shop at the start of the week long trip, and actually ended up bringing quite a lot of stuff (including booze) back with us. 

Right, I can't put the supermarket off any longer!

Karmacat

I'm glad lots of other people have chipped in the way I was going to 🤣  I went on my first cruise 5 years ago now, and my sister priced it up: it had to be around £100 a day each, considering it was paying for accommodation, food and transport, which is a good way of looking at it.  Even 5 years ago, there were plenty at double that price.

I'm glad you went to such nice places, and I'm glad you got to a cafe today  

themadvix

I hasten to repeat, we're not paying for our cruise and nor would we at that price!! (We managed 3 weeks in America for about the same and America was not cheap!).