Simple living in the country - back to basics

Cheery_Daff

This is the one we've got (it's not under £100, but it was considerably closer to that when we bought it!) 

https://www.argos.co.uk/product/8499493?clickPR=plp:1:15

I love it, doesn't cost much to run, pretty quiet, but again, the container is close to the ground and it's a bit of an odd shape, so quite precarious to carry when full. You wouldn't need to keep it on the floor, I suppose it could sit on a coffee table (if you could lift it up there, I think it says it's 11kg), and then the water container wouldn't be at ground level.

Went into the study to do some work on job application at 7pm, and the next time I looked up it was 10.30! 😱 I've done lots, but there's still a LOT to do. Thought of another couple of people I know who I can quizz though so that's helpful 👀😂

Cheery_Daff

Well I actually got several things done off that list! 

✅ banking! 
✅ cafe breakfast - 
✅ workout
* possibly strim front garden (no idea what weather is doing)
* investigate someone else coming to strim garden 😂
✅ washing
✅ job form
* flute practice

That's more than half! Not bad. I also went with Mr Cheery to his appointment, pottered round town (bought a present for my mum, charity shop but brand new, reduced to less than half price, and picked up a vest top in a clothes shop - mine are all now saggy/holey/indecent), we did some food shopping, and remembered to pick up plenty of gin, so I should be able to remove the half a drawer of damsons from the freezer soon to make damson gin 😁

Tomorrow's list...

* get peppers roasting in the oven to make soup
* job form
* friends coming for lunch, but need to leave about 6
* job form again 🙄😂
* flute practice - also a priority...

Bit of a theme for this weekend! Definitely a MSE activity though - if I get it, the jump in salary combined with a return to full time will mean an extra £1k a month - definitely worth a few days of work!

rtandon27

1K a month - wow - not to be sneezed at - and it would allow you to outsource the strimming permanently, without batting an eyelid!

We asked our lovely neighbour's window cleaner to do ours as well whenever she gets him in.  As she is frugal and sensible, it is every 6 to 8 weeks so we don't have to worry about breaking the budget. It is such a time and effort saving for us! (...and the interior panes get done in rotation as I flylady the house) - a house maintenance expense well worth every penny

VintageHistorian

We've got the same dehumidifier and I agree about the coffee table, it's bloody heavy so for those who would struggle to move it it's worth seeing you can find a lighter one first.

beanielou

Cheery. Apologies for clogging up your thread. 

Thanks to everyone for pointing out the perils of emptying one. I am glad I dident just buy one as this will be a big deal to me. When I think about it the one at the foodbank was on top of something that made it easy to empty. 

Cheery_Daff

Definitely worth investigating a smaller one than ours! 

Good plan to get the neighbour's window cleaner in MV. I don't think I've ever had one! The old house never seemed to need it (I think I did downstairs occasionally) and here does need it really, but doesn't get it 🙄😂 I bought a bottle with a cloth thing and squeegee attached recently and that's made a massive difference to how downstairs looks, it's dead easy for me to do. We've only got four windows that aren't on the ground floor - one has a tree nearby and is filthy but not very high on my priority list sadly.

I'm already racking up a list of things to outsource if I get this new job 😂😂 Well, not really - main plan is to continue to rack up a decent wodge of savings (and perhaps splurge on a fortnight's holiday, which we've not had for nearly 9 years). It would be nice to have more options when it came to replacing the car, for example - we've always bought outright, but they've always cost under £2k (and in most cases under £1500) so they don't tend to last that long, and require a fair bit of patching up.

And of course the mortgage fix is up next September 🙄 Currently on 2.26% but that won't last. I've not been overpaying recently at all - saving has been a priority (and for a while we weren't even doing much of that beyond annual pots). 

Plan is, if I get the job (and it's very unlikely 🙄) to continue throwing as much as we can into savings until the fix is up, then prioritise overpayments. We had a 50% LTV rate when we bought, and by then it'll be around 30% even on a fairly conservative estimate of the value of the house, so I don't think overpaying before the fix is up would get us a better rate anyway. Especially as we'll be just taking an offer from the current provider - various circumstances make it harder to go elsewhere (amount of land, mortgage running til Mr Cheery is 80 - although we're planning that it won't!!)

But anyway, all this waffle to say I am going to aim for not too much lifestyle inflation, but also need to account for the fact that I'll be losing a day a week (and I don't keep on top of everything now) and Mr Cheery's uncertain health - hopefully this current episode will be resolved by then but who knows what the future holds. And much as it would be convenient to have a 1950s housewife to support my working life, I don't think he's ever going to be that 😂

So I will definitely be getting someone in to do the grass - and that is on the cards regardless of the new job, as it would allow me to get on with other garden stuff which is FAR more cheerful. I suspect my mostly thrifty head will not allow me to stretch to a cleaner though, regardless of how convenient that would be, but we'll see!

Merlin's_Beard

To play devil's advocate, if you're losing free hours by going back to 5 days, a cleaner would be a way of reclaiming some of them and may be worth it for your sanity....

beanielou

Another vote for a cleaner. 

Cheery_Daff

Oh it's definitely under discussion - I tear my hair out not being able to keep on top of this place even now, let alone working full time. I had someone round to quote last week - he estimated 2 hours for a whizz round once a fortnight, so 4 hours a month, at £68. Not ready to justify that at the minute, but I'm going to reconsider after Christmas, regardless of job. I'd like to get on with more DIY stuff but barely feel like I'm keeping up with treadmill of normal stuff, let alone anything extra.

Been working on job application this morning, Mr Cheery was in charge of making lunch and tidying - made soup but now doesn't feel well and needs a lie down, so I'm back on tidying & prep duties 🙄 Fortunately friends are running late (as usual)!

In reality, we just took on somewhere that required more DIY/maintenance/work/general stuff than we had time and money for and are now paying the price 🙄😂

Right, best whizz the hoover round (although I've just seen a message saying friends are delayed again, so they might not get here at all at this rate!)

Baileys_Babe

Would a robot vacuum help to take some of the pressure off you Cheery?

I would love one but our "ground floor" is on 4 different levels, only a couple of steps up or down but I would always be needing to move it which rather defeats the point.