Mortgage free in Forever Home :-)

KajiKita

redofromstart said:

(Weights and squats!)

??? 😂😂😂😊

I so love winter honeysuckle. To me it’s like a fairy plant ❤️😊

I have some winter box just starting to come into flower. I have enough of that plant that means I can cut some and bring it in the house 😊

KK

redofromstart

I have a lovely patch of scented box that was a few pounds from the garden centre with cats (to quote the boys, sadly long gone for housing land) which has self propagated to several patches.  Love the plants that like my soil, I have transplanted a few bits elsewhere last year. 

When I was looking earlier I realised that the weeds in the front bed 2 are actually self seeded candy tuft from last years 50p Wilkos packet that grew in front bed 1.  Happy days :-)

The cyclamen are the runaway success though, the few I transplanted form a densely packed colony have spread a good six foot.  There is no such thing as too many cyclamen. 

KajiKita

redofromstart said:

I have a lovely patch of scented box that was a few pounds from the garden centre with cats (to quote the boys, sadly long gone for housing land) which has self propagated to several patches.  Love the plants that like my soil, I have transplanted a few bits elsewhere last year. 

When I was looking earlier I realised that the weeds in the front bed 2 are actually self seeded candy tuft from last years 50p Wilkos packet that grew in front bed 1.  Happy days :-)

The cyclamen are the runaway success though, the few I transplanted form a densely packed colony have spread a good six foot.  There is no such thing as too many cyclamen. 

Totally agree with you on cyclamen - they are one of those plants that just charm me  

I'm jealous of your self seeded candytuft!  I wonder what has survived the witnerous blast we had recently .....? 

KK

KajiKita

Daily Accountability:

- NSD 
- 9.1K steps - 10 minutes of those were at lunchtime in day light 
- weights and squats done before going to work

Qm33 tells me that the Esco cashback that I tried to claim weeks ago has been paid! I had completely given up on it! Not a huge sum (72p) but a lot better than many of the surveys!  I will keep looking out for this as I do my weekly online grocery shops. 

Got some transactions to YNAB record tonight. Trying to keep this discipline going. 

The forecast is so naff this weekend I should be able to divvy up my savings into YNAB planned pots at various levels of timing / accrual. 

Lost my earring back in the kitchen when I got home tonight. This led me to sweeping the floor - which in turn supports me in wanting to do at least one little job every evening, just so there is less overall stuff to do every single weekend! Linked to this I also carried the bottle of rainwater that I got out of the water butt last weekend that then got as far as the conservatory, into the living room this evening and lavished the water on our carnivorous plants (we have one each - long story! ). 

After dinner I have made Mr KK talk to me about annual leave. He hates being ‘pinned down’ but I must plan ahead or otherwise my work diary gets so packed I don’t get chance to take time off!  I booked the week before Easter off today and my birthday at the end of October (a Monday) and will probably book 2 weeks at the end of May / beginning of June  This gives me light in the tunnel and something look forward to!!

And finally …. I have started thinking about Christmas this year. I know, I know, ridiculous!! But again if I don’t plan it will will be expensive *and* mis! My deputy has already booked the last working week off before Christmas so I will book the three days at the beginning of the week before off, to do cooking prep, clean the house etc in an unrushed way. I can then go back for two days of handover / catch up before my deputy disappears.

Having spent nigh on £300 on presents last year, I want to cut that down this year. I made piccalilli as an experiment this year and it went down a storm, so that’s something I will do a bit more formally (prettier labels etc.) this year as various neighbours and family will appreciate that.  Also, I knitted a knee blanket for my dad this year but didn’t get one done for my mum; started but not finished. So, I am intent, decided upon indeed(!), that my mum’s blanket will be finished by the summer months so I can wash them both in the warm weather for drying! (They are 100% chunky wool, so will take quite a bit of drying.) 

That’s enough for tonight! 

KK

KajiKita

Oh dear .... my emojis have come out gargantuan ....!!  Too tired to bother changing them now!

KK

South_coast

I like it 🤣!

KajiKita

Musing on what to do this weekend when the weather is so horrid ….. 🤔🌧

Think I might pull the spare room apart enough to get some photos taken of the spare (single bed), bedding and bedside table. Hoping to get rid of the lot as a set. I will wash the single sheet on there and cover the mattress cover with a plastic dust sheet before I restack all the stuff back on the bed!! 😂 The sooner I get it all listed on FBM, the sooner I have chance of getting it gone. 

Also, need new tyres for the front of my car (better be all weather tyres so I will try and get some quotes for those today) and a new lamp for my back brake light. 

I feel a list coming on…..

KK

KajiKita

Daily check in:

Weights and squats done before work
Only 7K steps, but that’s still better than my average 5K
An NSD
Finished book 1 of 52
Down to 6 open shower gels instead of 7! 😉

Mr KK became intrigued when I came home talking about clearing out the spare bed …. So we have now ‘walked the job’ and talked it through together. He has suggested that we buy an old dark wood wardrobe (nobody wants them, they are deeply unfashionable, but we do and they suit the part of the house - 1870’s or so - that the spare  room sits in), take the rail out and put a divider and shelves in it for all my craft supplies 😊 He has also suggested that we replace the piece of kitchen work top across two small filing cabinets, that I am using as my desk with a piece of breakfast bar as that would give me the working depth front to back that I want. 

Quite excited now! 😊❤️

KK

KajiKita

Grocery spend is under control, partly thanks to money off code (£12 if spend £60 at Mr S's), TCB 'gift card' of £7.28 for Mr T and eating from the freezer(s). I have another £12 off code for next weekend's Mr S's shop, so my grocery spend limit has dropped from £500 for the month to £476!   

Fuel spend was £1.49.9 per litre today, which is the cheapest I have seen anywhere locally. 

New lamp for my brake light was c. 60p - fitting costs were abused ears as Mr KK grumped and wrestled with '!!!!!!, plastic, modern cars!' He is my hero 

Rang round for costs on two new front tyres - they have to be all seasons as my boss is German and is horrified that we aren't mandated to have snow tyres in the winter as they are in Germany .....  Local, independent tyre shop £184, Kiwi-Fit, £290!!! That was a fairly easy decision to make .... guy in local tyre shop was weeping with laughter when I went back to him and told him I wasn't prepared to extend my mortgage for the sake of two tyres! I will get those fitted next Saturday. 

Managed to keep the heating off all day - partly because it is wet here but not too chilly and partly just because I have been busy doing stuff. It's just coming on now. 

In spite of the weather, I have spent about an hour in the garden this afternoon , weeding the gravel path under the pergola. Managed to get a lot of baby dandelions and alkanet up whole and the bigger ones not out fully but they will be weakened. It's another of the places that I can see from the house so it's visually encouraging and also, its an area that attracts both gnats and ants in warmer weather so isn't much fun to work in for any extended period of time later on. I didn't finish it, but another quick session will knock it over and I did fill a big plastic garden bucket with weeds etc.  

KK

KajiKita

Discovered a side benefit to tracking YNAB transactions each time they come up .... it takes me less time on a Saturday, which is when I usually do them    

KK