Mortgage free in Forever Home :-)

KajiKita

Couldn’t get the wayleave cheque to scan in to H@lif@x so have done it the old fashioned way and sent it off in the post to my bank with a covering letter! That should be cleared by the time I get back from my work trip on Friday, so hopefully I should be able to send that as an OP.

Had a right old wrestling match this morning getting set up on the M@S banking app. There are two payments showing there that I know have gone through but a 3rd for fuel yesterday that isn’t showing. This is annoying as I didn’t keep the receipt as JL c/cd always pending payments. I will just have to develop new habits of keeping receipts again. 

Speaking of habits, I’ve noticed that two ‘being out of routine’ things have led to me spending this week. I was out for work on Thursday evening for a goodbye and thank you meal - by the time got home I had the energy and time to make breakfast for the following day but not lunch …. which led to the purchase of a sandwich (from some BP points). Also, I only had 1 day this weekend in which to get all my weekend tasks done before leaving before 6am tomorrow (flight to Germany) so I decided to spend the extra 2p per litre filling up my tank at the same time as buying the sandwich to save me going out today to refuel. And finally, I had to get all my washing done, dried and packed by the end of today - this led to extensive use of the tumble dryer which I haven’t done in months and months! 

I don’t think there was any way round any of these (I still have a stinking cold so any short cuts / time savings I could find I am taking!), just interesting to observe. 

KK

Baileys_Babe

The one thing I can think of would have been to only tumble-dry the clothes you needed to pack and dry the remainder on airers around your home, they would be dry by the time you returned.

But we all understand when we are feeling below par we need support a.nd shortcuts. When you are feeling better can you come up with any ideas for ways to reduce the likelihood of them happening again? When I worked places with a microwave I always kept an emergency tin of soup on hand either in my locker/desk drawer or at home it would then be quick to grab some crackers, roll or some bread to accompany it along with some fruit or yoghurt. It would depend on what you like to have and what facilities you have at work.

KajiKita

Baileys_Babe said:

The one thing I can think of would have been to only tumble-dry the clothes you needed to pack and dry the remainder on airers around your home, they would be dry by the time you returned.

But we all understand when we are feeling below par we need support a.nd shortcuts. When you are feeling better can you come up with any ideas for ways to reduce the likelihood of them happening again? When I worked places with a microwave I always kept an emergency tin of soup on hand either in my locker/desk drawer or at home it would then be quick to grab some crackers, roll or some bread to accompany it along with some fruit or yoghurt. It would depend on what you like to have and what facilities you have at work.

Thanks Baileys Babe 😊

I’m not sure that leaving clothes on the airer all week would have been good - they would have been in the conservatory and probably stayed fairly damp, not sure hubby would have rescued them …. I would probably have to rewash them when I get back. 🤷‍♀️ At this time of year anyway. 

Good idea on the emergency tin of soup - I will take one into work and leave it my desk drawer 😊

KK

KajiKita

Aaaaand I’m home again! 

Been in or travelling, travelling, travelling around Germany all week. I’m absolutely shattered! 

Learning a bit of German before I went definitely helped ease the way. Next challenge will be to learn / revise French for my trip to Quebec in March! 😳🥶

Found it quite difficult to manage my spending whilst I was away - some taxi drivers didn’t take cards so I had to use my own cash which I should be able to reclaim (got receipts for all those), some places wouldn’t take Am3x so had to use my own c/cd, one hotel had been booked for me in a completely different town to where I needed to be so I had to book and pay for another just before I checked in and I ended up getting a second train ticket for the journey home (my original one wasn’t flexible) so I could travel with a colleague as I had felt so threatened by all the beggars at Frankfurt Main station on my way out 😳

I know I also missed one meal (not expensive but frustrating) as we had to pay by cash as the internet was down and I totally forgot to ask for a receipt (I think I was in a state of hysterical happiness at actually having eaten vegan food for the first time in three days! Oh my poor guts …..). 

Oh and another thing - the case I was using for my hold luggage arrived partially open on the carousel on my arrival - 2 of the 3 catches had popped open. They are just not ‘holding’ any more. I will have to explore repairing or replacing these as I don’t want to buy a new case if I can avoid it. In the meantime I had to A/Prime a luggage strap to my hotel, which was an unplanned spend! 🤷‍♀️

OP income from QMee is down due to working very long days and OnePoll has kicked me out (possibly because I opened it whilst in Germany?) and I can’t see how to resolve this atm. 

I am sooooooo glad to be home! Hubby has made an executive decision that we are ordering delivered curry for dinner tonight. I would normally say no but having been on the go since 4am UK time, I think this time I will just go with it and use what energy I have left on planning the week’s meals and the online shop! 😉

KK

KajiKita

It’s the weekend! 😊

The forecast is for wild and stormy weather here tomorrow so today will be focused on washing and drying outside as much as possible (though the rack I put in the conservatory yesterday with the dehumidifier is doing quite well in terms of drying out 😊) including the huge dining room table cloth which had an exciting time with the curry last night 😂 There is some other cleaning I want to do, get my finances updated as best I can (including starting to get my expenses sorted - does anyone have any failsafe disciplines for these?) and a little gentle garden pottering (I am so stiff after all the travelling and hard, lumpy beds of the last week). 

Tomorrow I am hoping to catch up with my best friend (whose mother died when I was in Germany - a release and relief for both of them tbh) and start inroads into the fabric representation of my house for the village wall hanging I need to do. 

Oh, one huge piece of news …. My FiL has been refusing to make a will for years …. Apparently my MiL rang hubby last night and said that she had just made an appointment at a solicitor’s, marched him down there and got it done! So pleased and relieved for hubby! It led into a conversation about Hubby knowing what she wanted for her funeral …. “Er, no ….” says hubby, “Write it down please” says hubby …. Apparently the solicitor also asked why they were waiting until they died to distribute some of their things they had mentioned specifically in the will (FiL has a huge collectibles toy car / vehicles collection - some will come to hubby and the rest will be sold for the Air Ambulance charity) - why not do it now and enjoy the reaction of the recipients. Apparently off the back of this I will getting something from MiL next week for my birthday. I am a bit stunned - I had no idea that she thought that much of me - I got a bit wobbly when hubby told me over dinner last night. ❤️

KK

KajiKita

More wobbliness today when I went to see my friend. My friend nursed her mother right to the end and in the middle of the night went in to see her on coming back from the loo - she was still breathing, but had only one eye open and seemed to have lost cranial fluid. My friend took her mother's hand (they absolutely did not have a touchy-feely relationship!), noted it was stone-cold, and said; "It's okay, you can go now." and with that her mum just died .....

My friend is doing okay, not grieving as such, just absolutely exhausted and being with strong sense of a 'job well done'. I am so very, very proud of her. I am hoping to be there for the funeral on 4th November but it depends what work commitments I have that day. She has asked me to do a death rites practice for her mum sometime around the funeral, so I will do that when I feel less like tissue paper myself. 

Did the garden pottering  - dead heading and edge trimming. There is gallons of other work to do but I am exhausted and still quite lurgified, so there is no point pushing myself further and I have other life-admin type stuff to do. It was lovely to have that hour outside in the garden and in the fresh air and the sun. This is why we live here!

Speaking of life-admin, the wayleave payment cheque has cleared which means that I have made an OP of £76.67 today - yaay!  This takes my first OP goal from £4800 to £4711 in the first month I am tracking it, 1.75% cleared so far. It's slow start but there is some stuff coming up which should help make some inroads into it!

Test payments for M&S C/Cd worked so that is all set up and running well now. Even got hubby to open his own M!lk and M0re account so i am not paying for his milk anymore (legacy thing from when we moved in here and he just didn't have the mental bandwidth to set it up). This will save me c. £20 per month for me to put into savings. Still nudging him towards setting up a savings account .... I suspect that will be next weekend's action with him  

Inspired by the boards here, I have sent a polite but firm complaint off to B@ylis and H@rding about the packaging they use for their handsoaps - I had one pump action top collapse on me and then the spare I had under the sink refused to 'untwist-open' (iykwim) back-to-back. Flipping annoying, especially as the second one I decanted into an old tomato sauce dispenser this morning was too big a volume for the sauce dispenser and I ended up with handsoap all over the worktop ....<sigh> Not sure if I will get much out of it, but worth a try 

Started on my Francais ready for next March. It's horrifying how much I have forgotten since my GCSE French <ahem, ahem> years ago!   

Enough wiffling from me. Hope all is well with everyone - the boards seem quite quiet atm.

KK x

KajiKita

Another tiny OP made - £3 from QM33 for the surveys I did in the week whilst I was away 
(The site said they were having issues with the payments this weekend so I thought I would have to wait but when i checked PayPal just now - there it was  )

KK

KajiKita

Ooooh .... Interesting ..... we have had £66.00 from EDF arrive in our joint account. This must be the start of the monies for the high utility bills ....

Now then, do I save these monies or use them as OP .... I am very torn .... or split them 50/50 .....?

KK

KajiKita

Talked it over with Hubby. We are going to split the £66's as they come in - half to savings in a separate pot attached to the joint account and half to OPs

This means we have made 2.6% of the OPs to our first goal 

KK

KajiKita

Just done a TT on our joint Food account and my current account - £12.58 so my *actual* savings are now at £4,223. I was aiming for £4K this month so i am well chuffed with this   

Looking at upcoming payments before payday there is nothing due so the remaining £40 in my Current Account can get swept into savings next weekend   

This stuff gets addictive!   

KK