Mortgage free in Forever Home :-)

KajiKita

Heading off to Minden next month for work. Booked my airport parking myself through TBC and should earn £16.80 cashback!

KK

KajiKita

Ooooooooh!!!  My employer has just announced a one-off CoL payment to go out in October's pay of £2K. I will pay 40% tax on that but still flipping useful! And brilliant news for my team too 

KK 

LadyWithAPlan

KajiKita said:

Ooooooooh!!!  My employer has just announced a one-off CoL payment to go out in October's pay of £2K. I will pay 40% tax on that but still flipping useful! And brilliant news for my team too 

KK 

How great! Though if you can afford it can you pay extra into your pension or a sipp to get you back down to BR tax? I always do this = pay into my sipps enough to not pay HR tax - it slows my savings but 43.25% (as there is NI on top..) is too much to pay the govt and hard to earn 40% elsewhere  

Well done on the company cashback

KajiKita

LadyWithAPlan said:

KajiKita said:

Ooooooooh!!!  My employer has just announced a one-off CoL payment to go out in October's pay of £2K. I will pay 40% tax on that but still flipping useful! And brilliant news for my team too 

KK 

How great! Though if you can afford it can you pay extra into your pension or a sipp to get you back down to BR tax? I always do this = pay into my sipps enough to not pay HR tax - it slows my savings but 43.25% (as there is NI on top..) is too much to pay the govt and hard to earn 40% elsewhere  

Ah .... good thinking!!    Not atm if I'm honest, but it is definitely one to put on my long term plan sheet that I am building ..... Thank you 

KK  

Suffolk_lass

My window cleaner is lovely. He comes monthly, uses purified water from a tank on his van, and does 16 windows, one fully glazed door, one half glazed and one oak (no glass, but removes all the cobwebs and spider poo) for £23 (up from £20 until June).

KajiKita

Started the day with a trip to the library to get lots of new free novels, that if I don't enjoy the start of them, I can just cast aside without a shred of guilt!  Ignored the supermarket and drove PAST the garden centre without stopping - go me!!   

2 new curtain rails installed today - Thank you Mr KK  2 new sets of curtains put up in dining room including a set on a window that has not had curtains since we moved in - it will be interesting to see how much warmer it makes the room feel.
Also, shuffled one pair of dining room curtains into the kitchen where they look much better. I need to add thermal linings to the kitchen curtains, but I had other stuff to do today so that can wait a little while. In the meantime this is where the other new curtain rail is so the curtains are flush to the wall / window recess rather than 3" off the wall on a metal curtain pole (does this make sense?), so even this should help with warmth retention. 

Finally(!), lifted my spuds. This should have been done back in the summer, but I got covid when I came home from holiday and just couldn't face it and then we went into that crazy hot spell, followed by me being too busy. They are gathered in now though and they are down in the cellar (grand name for a small but useful undercroft  ) - the cellar now smells like the cellar I knew as a child - I had no idea the smell of spuds would be so evocative     3 of the largest of them are now starting to become baked spuds for our dinner tonight   

Cooked a batch of black beans in my pressure cooker with onion and home-grown bay leaves ready to make a batch of Frugalwoods rice and beans tomorrow for work lunches. 

Tried to find new tops for work on E-Boy but had no luck so went onto LandsE via TCB and managed to find a 40% discount code so have 3 winter new tops, 1 summer top and a new gilet for the winter for £126 - quite pleased with that. 

2 loads of washing dried on the line, more or less and just finished off in the tumble or hanging up to air. I have retrieved the dehumidifier from the cellar and Mr KK has glued its roller-feet feet back into their sockets, as every time you pick it up by its handle it kept trying to drunkenly throw itself on the floor - not helpful when it was full of water!!   The forecast here is dreadful tomorrow, so it will be interesting to see how hubby's clothes dry in the conservatory just with the dehumidifier. 

Channelling @Cheery_Daff as i have found an unused rug that was rolled up and just hanging around in the conservatory - it is now under my 'desk' (desk - grand name for piece of kitchen worktop across two 3-drawer filing cabinets!) and I can already feel the difference - thank you CD   

Still trying to think of a present for my dad for his birthday. This has to go in the post next weekend so I must get this sorted this week!

KK

KajiKita

I have had a furtle in the 'present corner' (aka plastic bag dumping ground!) and there was a book there that I bought for my Dad for last Christmas but chickened out of giving to him - he WILL be getting it for his birthday this year!!  I just need some dark chocolate and some cheap wrapping paper (I know, I know, but that is the 'required standard' for my parents), choose one of the many cards I have sculling around in my desk, wrap the whole in brown paper and send it on its way - yaay!

Proper chuffed that he will get a reasonable present with me spending very little (spending little now, obviously I have already spent on the book previously). 

KK  

redofromstart

Drove past the garden centre?!?  Outrageous.

congrats on the cost of living payment

KajiKita

Redo 😂😂😂😂

KK

KajiKita

Had my first work lunch of the Frugalwoods rice and beans today and it was really nice - so relieved as I thought I had over chilli’d it (I’m not good with spice-heat in my food 🥵😂) but it was delicious 😋 So pleased, as I will be able to make more of it and gussy it up with other things too 😊

 Not a NSD but I have made some progress on cheap Cmas options:
- RHS catalogue arrived and prompted the thought of buying my mother some pretty Cmas baubles

- my other thought is to finally(!) track down a large replacement plastic or melamine tray for my parents, instead of the one that they got as a wedding present (they are in their 80’s btw!) which is starting to ‘fail to proceed’ ….

- did hubby’s FlyP@st subscription via TCB (which has already tracked) so he is happy. Just need to find a kick-!!!!!! apple corer or scratter to support his cider making efforts next year …. 🧐 (The cheap ones he bought are not robust enough and have failed on the welds especially when trying to chop the pears up! 😳😂)

KK