Simple living in the country - back to basics

Jessy103

Happy New Year cheery! Look forward to reading more of your adventures/ shenanigans 😂 All the best for 2024 x

Cheery_Daff

Thanks Jessy! 

We have made it home 😊 Had a lovely time away, but a tedious and grim drive back through the rain and fog. Unloading the car was unpleasant (we had all our bedding in there, now festooned about the dining room to dry off). We managed to see three out of four family groups so that was a bonus, although I'll have to get back and visit the fourth at some point in January. 

Glad to have decluttered all the presents out of my house 😂😂 Electric was off in one part of the house when we got back, but we've tripped the switch back up and fingers crossed everything is working. Everywhere outside is soaked, the drive is like a river, and the cellar is inevitably full of water again 🙄

Lots of our presents were edible this year, so no need to find places for them! Some booze, chocolates (now all gone), marzipan fruits hand made by my mum, gin, chutney, some candles, and a load of toffee which, while appreciated (I do love toffee) will not be going anywhere near our teeth in their current state, so we'll be looking for somewhere to donate that. And some much appreciated present fabric wraps 😊

Dropped in on my dad on the way home, inevitably no presents from him (he didn't even get me a birthday card last year so maybe we just call it quits and stop bothering!)

Going to have a look back at what's been achieved this year in non-financial terms!

Cheery_Daff

So, 2023... 😊

Big thing for us of course was the end of our beaky flock 🐔 Lost our three older ladies, and rehomed our remaining two newer ones. Very sad, and a big change after five years of chicken keeping.

Other things...

HOME

🏡 Painted final coat of yellow onto kitchen & dining room
🏡 Finished making and hung thermal blinds in kitchen, dining room and bedroom
🏡 Rebuilt bed and moved into new bedroom
🏡 Set up craft room! Painted it pink, and It now has a table for sewing machines, and shelves filled with fabric and sewing accoutrements etc (plus a spare bed and three rails of clothes)
🏡 Identified a load of stones for windowsills, dragged them into the garden, and spent a lot of time experimenting with cleaning methods
🏡 Had the side of the house re-rendered and painted, and fascia boards replaced

GARDEN & LAND

🌱 Two new chickens at the start of the year, and a LOT of messing about and vet trips
🌱 Collected a load of our tree guards to be used by a community project
🌱 Built a table and bench in the greenhouse from pallets
🌱 Dug all the composted chicken manure out of the chicken run and covered the veg patch (didn't grow much veg though)
🌱 Made a new bird table
🌱 Finally hung the hammock and spent quite a bit of time hanging round in it
🌱 Scythed two thirds of the field - further than I've got before
🌱 Started planning for a new winter seating area by the house
🌱 Bumper damson harvest which I made into damson gin

EXCURSIONS & HOLIDAYS

🌞 Little permaculture event
🌞 Couple of nights in Llandudno
🌞 Week in Scarborough
🌞 Few days in Berlin
🌞 Visited friends in Wales, the dales, Birmingham, and elsewhere

WORK

💻 Got a bit of additional funding for existing project
💻 Got two extra bits of funding for new projects - one just for me, and one where I'm just a small part of someone else's project
💻 Lots of events and speaking to people and travelling
💻 Applied for a new job - and got an interview in a few weeks 😱

OTHER THINGS

☃️ Went to work in March and couldn't get home for 3 days because of the snow
🏆 Iron May! Ironman distances of swimming, cycling and running in May
🐕 Looked after Mr Cheery's dad's dog for a few days
⚡ House got struck by lightening 🙄
👙 First ever naked sunbathing in our fields 🤭
🧼 Made soap and enough washing liquid to last a year

Work was busy in 2023, and both Mr Cheery and his dad, and my dad, have had health issues requiring hospital stays 🙄  The whole business with the chickens took it out of us. Both Mr Cheery and I had some messing around with medication, although we both now feel much better on our new tablets. And we finally had a holiday, for the first time since we moved house! 

LadyWithAPlan

I do love those terracotta tiles ! Lovely to read your round up .. I was also up and the house today by 11.30 am as went to the Buddhist centre for new year - I had a serious hangover but somehow got my legs walking in the right direction 

Cheery_Daff

Looks like 2024 will be starting with an electrician - something has gone bang in the living room 🙄 Fortunately our house is on several circuits, and we think we have identified the problematic one, and the rest of the house (touch wood) seems to be working - including the heating and all the lights. We've run an extension lead from the kitchen to power the TV, and hopefully we'll be able to get someone to have a look at it - I'll start ringing round tomorrow 🙄

Annoyingly the cheerful guy who did the electrics when we had the building work done (not in this part of the house) has retired - I might drop an email to see if he can recommend anyone, and ask the neighbours too.

Trying not to let our imaginations spiral out of control in relation to what might need doing... 🙄 hopefully it's relatively straightforward if the problem is what we think it is. 

Sigh. Still, even if we do end up having to have a wodge of work done, it was going to have to be done at some point, and at least we've not decorated in here 🙄

Cheery_Daff

And so, looking forward to 2024...

HOME

🏡 Sort out whatever electrical work needs doing 🙄
🏡 Bookshelves up in the study!
🏡 Skirting board and floor in kitchen & dining room
🏡 Windowsills in kitchen, dining room and bedroom
🏡 I would LOVE to re-do the bathroom this year - will we get round to it??

GARDEN & LAND

🌱 Grow a decent veg haul this year!
🌱 Finish scything before the spring, and fully scythe again in the autumn
🌱 Get yellow rattle sown in the hay field
🌱 Rebuild a couple of dry stone walls (big field and the drive at least)

EXCURSIONS & HOLIDAYS

🌞 Visit friends in Ireland
🌞 Berlin again?
🌞 Will we make it back to Orkney this year?? It's been 10 years since we last went. Will entirely depend on finances 🙄

WORK

💻 New job?!
💻 If not, continue with current plans for applying fir next promotion within 2-3 years

OTHER THINGS

🤸‍♀️ Get back on the case with exercise
🧹 Keep on top of the housework
⏰ Be on time, and don't leave things until the last minute!

I'm sure there are plenty of other things i want to do this year, but that's enough waffling and excitement for one evening 🙄

Humdinger1

Cheery_Daff said:

Ha, then I'm sure you're not the only one who will hate it that our mortgage payment is £919.99 😂😂😂

Problem with rounding is that you then leave unrounded numbers elsewhere! Anyway that pot was reasonably round until I started buying flights and things, doesn't seem much point in rounding it now as we'll be starting spending it in less than 48 hours 😂

Sorry, you'll have to do some extra rounding on your own accounts to make up for it 😂

Could you set up one pot that is allowed to be irregular? You could transfer money from every other pot so that they are smooth and round; and then transfer back out of Irregular Pot at will, to keep all the others in an acceptable state? Love Humdinger xx 

Humdinger1

Cheery_Daff said:

Humdinger1 said:

Am on p344 of your diary @Cheery_Daff.  I may well not fully understand the principles of happy wheel/MB but I think I've heard thar you only win in the medium to long term if you own the casino.  Don't want to rain on your parade as you are plainly doing better than average and it be good fun but for the time it takes, is it worth it? Love Humdinger xx 

Hello 😊 I do understand your caution, and yes, in the normal scheme of things, the only winners are the casinos. 

What I'm doing is slightly different - ONLY playing using special offers. So, normally, slots will have a 'return to player' (RTP) ratio of around 92-97% - let's say 95% for ease of calculation. That means that, on average, over thousands of plays, for every £1 spent, you'd expect to get 95p back - you'd be losing overall, and the casino would be winning. 

With an offer, you might get, say, 10 free spins worth 20p each when you spend £10. So, under the normal scheme of things you'd play your £10 and expect to get back, on average, £9.50. Then you'd get your 10 free spins worth 20p each - the equivalent of £2 - which you'd play, and out of that, you'd, on average, expect to get 95% back - in this case £1.80. But obviously those spins were free, so that £1.80 is free for you - so you can add it to the £9.50 you got back from playing your own money, and now, on average, you have £11.30 - and as you only spent £10, you have an additional £1.30 - that is the 'extra' money you have from doing the offer.

Obviously, the average is worked out over thousands of plays, so on any individual occasion you might lose money, which is why this isn't a quick fix, and isn't for anyone looking for an immediate solution to debt. 

Obviously, the casinos give these offers to entice people in - they hope that people will be tempted by an offer, and then go on to just play for the excitement, even just an extra few spins. So this is not for anyone who might be remotely tempted to spin a few more times for good luck, or do anything outside an offer. 

There are things you can do to make it lower risk - play your initial £10 using 10p spins, for example, which means that you do more spins, so on average your ups and downs will be less volatile than if you just did one big £10 spin each time. Or different slots have different levels of volatility - some you win little bits frequently, some nothing for ages then a giant win - they're pretty heavily regulated in that sense and have to list RTP and volatility for every slot. 

I use the Team Casino website. They identify offers, and give precise instructions on how to play, when to claim free spins and where from, which slots to use, any warnings to look out for etc. 

I've had people I've mentioned it to in real life be very skeptical, think I'm being conned, and ask if it's so good why isn't everyone doing it? The answer is, of course, like many things we do on MSE, is that it's a bit of a bloody nuisance 😂 It can be fiddly, certainly when you're getting the hang of it. You have to open accounts with dozens of online casinos, which not everyone wants to do. It can go up and down - I've had a few months where I've been down, but overall I'm over £7.5k up over the last few years, and I don't even do it very much compared to some. It's quite an admin task to keep track of everything.

So thank you for your concern, and you are absolutely right that in the long run, casinos usually win when people play normally. But if you ONLY ever take advantage of their offers, and NEVER stray outside of that, then the odds shift in your favour. They know this, of course, and have rules against it, and people are regularly banned from individual casinos for doing exactly that 😂 The correct response is to move right onto the next casino - as one would when taking advantage of any other MSE scheme, eg bank switching. 

But, again, NOT something for anyone who might be tempted to gamble, or who can't afford the ups and downs, or who isn't organised enough to keep very close track of everything 

Xx

Thanks @Cheery_Daff for your elegant exposition! You plainly have a handle on this and £7.5k is well worth having.  Congratulations on the interview; I've almost caught up and am so looking forward to cheering you on as a subscriber.  Love Humdinger xx 

Cheery_Daff

Can't believe you read the whole lot Humdinger 😱😱 Glad you've caught up though 😃 welcome aboard!

Today has started well with a workout and a wholesome breakfast, and now I need a list, although the shape of the day may depend on other things.

MORNING

* text farmer for electrician recommendation
* set up new budget! 
* find passwords for two banks and transfer dosh back into main account
* find details to set up next switch
* shower
* text other neighbours re date for tea, and see if they know an electrician
* lunch

AFTERNOON

* set mouse traps in car and house
* batch cooking - get at least 3 meals into the freezer as well as food for today
* clear some things OUT of the freezer - definitely got some fruit that can be used up, and probably half bags of ancient broccoli etc
* get all stuff from weekend out away
* 15 mins in flylady zone - making a start on the pantry shelves i think
* find tools for putting bookshelves up...
* check if we have tile adhesive/grouting for floor tiles

EVENING

* nice dinner
* nice bath
* nice film 😂

Elisheba

Lovely, clear plans for next year, and the summary of key events from last year is a great idea!  Very useful to see things written down as  looking back, the year just passed always seems to merge into one.