Simple living in the country - back to basics

rtandon27

Cheery - I feel the same way about Prolific income - I like it to hit the bank account so I can count it as income before it gets spent - which tbh it always does!

Cheery_Daff

😂😂 funny how we all have our little rules and routines, isn't it?

We had a very sad possibly last trip to Wilkos, where we stocked up on paintbrushes (possibly the thing I'll miss most, never found any as good!), stationery and other oddments. 

Trip to a supermarket cafe descended into farce - I ordered one egg butty and one veggie sausage butty. Received two slices of bread on one plate, and two eggs and a veggie sausage on another plate 🙄

Server said 'is this right?' Er, no - I ordered one egg butty and one sausage butty. Off she goes back to the kitchen, comes back and asks for my receipt as the 'chef' doesn't believe me. Sadly I'd slopped coffee on the receipt and thrown it in the bin 🙄 Off she went, came back with two eggs and two sausages on one sandwich 🙄

Never mind, says I - I'll just go and order another 2 slices of bread and build my own damn sandwich 🙄 Fortunately the people on the till appeared slightly less clueless than the people in the kitchen (although it may have been them that caused the problem in the first place by putting it through the til wrong) and returned with an extra plate and two slices of bread, so we were able to separate the first sandwich into two. Definitely felt like we'd earned it by that point, even the people on the next table were laughing at the farce!

Also picked up a lovely cushion for £1.50 and a book in a charity shop.

Spent half an hour sat reading in the greenhouse this evening in the rain, and another half hour scything. Half way down row 9 now!

joedenise

You couldn't make it up could you!

beanielou

Blimey, that’s funny but really it’s not 😂

Cheery_Daff

joedenise said:

You couldn't make it up could you!

No! What a palaver 😂 I think technically it's not actually on the menu, someone before has told me that have to put an egg butty through the til as 

Egg
Egg
Bread
Bread

And then go and explain to the kitchen that it's an egg butty, so there's plenty of room for error in the process. This is something we do very regularly though and they've always managed it before today! 😂😂 and this is a large supermarket chain, you'd think they could handle an egg butty! 😂😂

Another £40 on the Happy wheel tonight, so £184 now! 
Prolific at £27.44 with £2.64 pending
Don't think I've done much on 1P today, standing at £8.65

So if the Happy wheel continues to go up rather than down, we'll make it to £200 😊 But I usually end up wagering at least £40 a day so plenty of potential for it to go down... 🙄 always low risk stuff though, rarely do the medium risk offers, and never high risk, I don't have the stomach for it 😂

 Mr Cheery is getting on the case with Prolific too and is now standing at £4.09 😁 

Cheery_Daff

Oh, and clearly I should be asleep 🙄 but instead I'm reading about regular savers 😂 we have a small one connected to the Happy wheel bank account, just £50 a month at 5.5% - it seems it's 2 years rather than one so clearly I didn't read the small print 🙈 still, that should get us about £69 interest in total when it matures in Jan 2025.

Thinking of setting up another one for about £250 a month - I was considering drip feeding the main savings account (which I think is at 2.75%) into it, but am now wondering whether we can actually manage that just straight from income each month now, with the understanding that we may need to pilfer the normal savings account for bigger bills or eg if we need a new car etc 🤔

Can have one withdrawal a year if necessary anyway. It's 5.25% so £83 interest over the year, and we can have it in joint names - I suppose we could have one each but I don't think we could manage £500 a month (although maybe one being drip fed from the savings account?!) Don't know, will sleep on that, generally prefer most things to be in joint accounts for ease of access if anything happens. And I'd prefer the bulk of savings to stay easy access, not locked away...

Right, will let my little brain whirr on all that while I sleep...

rtandon27

Cheery_Daff said:

...Another £40 on the Happy wheel tonight, so £184 now! 
Prolific at £27.44 with £2.64 pending
Don't think I've done much on 1P today, standing at £8.65...

...Mr Cheery is getting on the case with Prolific too and is now standing at £4.09 😁 

Pondering trying out the Happy Wheel - LOL - not sure if I have the stomach for the ups & downs of it!   I think I'd be in tears everytime it went down

My Prolific currently stands at 2.52 - that's going to sit there until next month, unless there are some good studies between now and 'payday'.  OH on the other hand is up at over 90 & aiming for 100 - that will be a pretty penny to add to next month's budgeting & as we are planning a weekend away, it will most definitely be used to supplement the food budget!

YNAB is calling as it's the last weekend of the month and I'll need to transfer over money to the 'points collecting' credit cards, once everything is balanced.  I fear we may have overdone it on the eating out budget as we did a day trip yesterday with a coffee shop stop for lunch and meal deal for dinner.  Have to ponder where I can siphon funds from to cover it! 😁

Cheery_Daff

Ha, yes, that's the thing with YNAB (and zero based budgeting more generally) - it forces you to allocate all money to something other than generic 'savings'. I try to shift between pots instantly these days if I go over eg the cafe budget - makes me prioritise very clearly! 

Team Casino is a good place to start with happy wheel stuff - starts nice and gently. If you do eg 20p spins it smooths out the ups and downs a lot more. Trouble is, legislation has now banned autospins, so you can't just set it to do 100 spins while you go and make a cuppa, you have to count. I do think this is a good thing given the huge problems of gambling, but it does make fleecing the bookies slightly more inconvenient 😂 I tried £1 spins for a while but couldn't handle the vast downswings - I've settled pretty happily at 50p spins. There's plenty I don't do - just settled into a pattern on 3 or 4 of the same offers most days, so not too much thinking! I could do far more, but that would be far more time and energy, and this level suits me for now.

 Do let us know if you try - have you done the free versions yet? That's a good way to get into things.

Washed some of the outside downstairs windows - I bought a spray bottle with sponge and squeegee attached in town yesterday, and the darn thing doesn't spray at all! 😠 I've resisted using it, will take it back for a refund, and will just make do with a cloth, like I should have done in the first place. It did make me do those windows though, I think for the first time since we moved in 😱

Out scything now, keeps raining on and off but not enough to send me indoors yet. Visitors not due til tea time, so plenty of time to potter about. 

Cheery_Daff

Goodness me, the weather is all over the place today! I've pegged uesterday's washing out twice, and brought it back in twice, and it's staying in now with the dehumidifier on 🙄

Glorious sunshine for a while, and I did more weeding in the windbreak area under the fruit bushes so I can eventually get at the damson tree. Then my mum rang, and I lay around in the hammock while talking to her, then the rain started again so I pottered in the greenhouse, re-potting a rescued supermarket coriander and some house plant cuttings from my sister.

Now the heavens have completely opened, and there's not much more I can do in the greenhouse, so I've come back in to finish tidying ready for guests. 

Need to sort out water collection from the greenhouse. I bought little catcher things a while back but they are beyond useless 🙄 barely any water makes it into the big IBC tank, and I'm pretty sure the water butt only fills up because the top is open 🙄

Part of the issue is that the IBC tank is massive, and despite me digging it into the ground, isn't actually that much lower than the greenhouse. But the main issue is that j can't get anything to attach properly to the end of the greenhouse guttering! There's got to be a good solution - well,I imagine there always has been, I was just trying to do it cheap/free but maybe we're past that! 

Granola is made, halloumi and pea curry is in the haybox for tea, and we've roasted some peppers and Mr Cheery is planning to make soup for a starter (or lunch tomorrow, depending). 

Oh, and I finished cleaning the outside of the accessible downstairs windows (you have to go through a very overgrown field to get to the other two so they can wait!)

Right, tea first I think, then

* washing up (does it ever end?!)
* quick clean in the study
* hoover downstairs
* stuff away of dining table

Then hopefully the sun will have come out and I can get back outside!

badmemory

My £50 a month account is for 2 years.  It is the first time I have ever come across a regular saver for more than a year, makes me wonder what they think interest rates may really be at the end of the 2 years.  But lets face it it is way better than the 0.5% one I had last year (not from them as they didn't do one that year).