Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Cheery_Daff

Urgh, deepest sympathy! That rolo cookie was definitely deserved!

ladyholly

I hope you have solved your plumbing problem. The rolo cookie was a definite need.

foxgloves

Morning Campers!
Sink sorted out BY US!! We just kept at it thinking of that unwanted bill. So I will be contacting the plumber first thing tomorrow to say we no longer have a priority job, but nevertheless ask him to drop us down the list for an unrelated maintenance job, as our bathroom mixer/shower tap unit requires a repair. I want to ask his opinion on a watery mystery too & also to check it is fine for us to remove a silly pipe from an exterior wall.

This morning we are having our annual money summit which is always v useful for making sure we are both 'on the same page' & planning for the year ahead. Off to fetch the agenda & spreadsheet printouts.
Hope the coming storm isn't too unkind,
F x

marionmgcars

it’s great to have a yearly summit.  I checked all my outgoings for last year against my income.  When I suggested this to partner he said “well you can’t take it with you”.  It’s a blessing that we have separate accounts, as I’m sure that would cause a lot on friction in some relationships.  We chat about finances, and it seems to work for us, but it’s definitely not team work.  

Suffolk_lass

After the surprise purchase of a motorcycle we do now chat before big purchases but a surprising number of small things still appear (not on the CC I see) - mostly tools and bike things, sweat shirts with the latest logo and so on, so I suspect he still thinks of the income from Son's house as "his" rather than "ours". I don't mind We are enjoying our retirement in our different ways and we do do stuff together. As far as I know we can afford it

marionmgcars

Suffolk_lass said:

After the surprise purchase of a motorcycle we do now chat before big purchases but a surprising number of small things still appear (not on the CC I see) - mostly tools and bike things, sweat shirts with the latest logo and so on, so I suspect he still thinks of the income from Son's house as "his" rather than "ours". I don't mind We are enjoying our retirement in our different ways and we do do stuff together. As far as I know we can afford it

Yes, I think you have to find out what works for you both, and not just one person.  

PennysIntoPounds

Fantastic that you could sort the plumbing problem yourselves. I've always wanted to learn basic plumbing skills but with my joints it seems unlikely! Hope you have a lovely warm Sunday 

Moorviews

It’s very satisfying to be able to sort out a job like that yourselves. Well done 👏 We thought that we might need help with the dishwasher plumbing recently but managed to find a fix. It’s a relief not having to pay out for emergency help too. 

We aren’t very organised but we do discuss any bigger purchases even if they are from our own funds. That just feels comfortable for us. Very occasionally there are different opinions to reconcile but we manage to remain civil 😂
I wish that my laptop hadn’t died as I really miss that ability to do spreadsheets. 

Less_Talk_and_More_Action

Excellent that you could sort out the plumbing @foxgloves. I am the beneficiary of a husband who is excellent at all sorts of DIY and practical things. If it was down to me there would no doubt be a torrent of water all over the house 🤣.  

L x 

foxgloves

Hello Diary Readers,
Thanks for your comments - reading them made a nice change from wielding plungers & the drain weasel.
Here's a catch up of budget-helping stuff anyway, to show I have been keeping the faith......
WEEKEND:
*Solved the worst blocked sink we have ever encountered.....& can you believe that the final 'push' was achieved with a shopped from home item? I went into the utility to see if there was ANYTHING else we could try & at the back of a basket, found a bottle of a drain-busting solution which I think I must have brought back when we were clearing Mum's house out. Anyway, 14 hours after chucking it down the sink, & following it up with four big kettles of boiling water, it finally cleared, 
*Local butcher had his 10 trays of mix & match meat items for £20 again, so we stocked the freezer up for Feb.
*Found 3 charity shop treasures - a novel, a piano score & some half-price good quality self-patterning sock yarn which will be turned into low-cost gifts.
*Found a 3 for 2 offer on the make-up items on my shopping list.
*Re-stocked medicine box very cheaply by getting non-branded stuff at 'Rhymes with Ravers'.
*Baked a crusty loaf
*Did a bit of darning
*Entered a competition
*Had our Annual Money Summit - haven't yet written up the notes & done all my agreed actions from various agenda items (can't you tell I worked in the public sector?) Very useful anyway.
*Booked 2025's holiday cottage - took advantage of an earlybird £25 deposit offer, as we have oodles of time to fill up the Holiday Pot to pay the balance.
TODAY:
*Did this week's laundry & managed to get the 1st load pegged out where everything pretty much dried in the wind. When pegs started flying off the line, I decided to fetch it in! The rest is on the heated airer.
*Did a good roast pork-stretching session - it did a lovely roast dinner yesterday & I have divvied up the leftovers for hot pork rolls, apple sauce & stir-fried kale tonight, pork & sweetcorn hash tomorrow, slices in gravy frozen for a 'free' roast dinner at some point, some added to a box of leftover veg for Mr F's next Epic Man Stew & a chunky sandwich for tomorrow's packed lunch. £13 joint  - 10 portions, so I was pretty pleased with that. 
*Prepped seville oranges for tomorrow's marmalade making & selected some nice recycled jars from my stash.
*Made tomorrow's packed lunch & breakfast.
*Did my regular Monday morning budget updates.
*Updated Spreadsheet 1 (Bills/Regular DDs) with 3 new monthly amounts (all increases, of course) 
*Entered stats from latest energy bill onto my log-sheet. Monthly DD is going up to almost where it was originally before it was cut to £79 in October. I knew this was unsustainably low, but we had a lot of credit & this will have been taken into account. It will be £115-08 from next month (for combined gas & elec) which is much more realistic. Spent less this last month than the equivalent month last year, which I am putting down to the prices being a little lower. 
*Did a few surveys. PA Jan earnings up to £27-10 so will keep at it, as I like to aim for £40.
*Am in communication with plumber as to whether a repair is possible for our bath mixer tap or if we need to purchase a new one. Would prefer a repair as should be both cheaper & more sustainable so am pursuing this first.
*Knit some more of my cardi tonight. I'd like to reach the armhole shaping. It's not instinctive to see where they start, as cardi is knitted edge to edge, but I shall follow the pattern regardless.
*Was able to provide Mr F with a shopped from home blank card for a colleague who is off to pastures new. So useful having a pack of nice blank cards ready for various occasions. 
I'm feeling quite motivated at the moment, although this may partly be because we are in a period of a bit of necessary expenditure coming up & I am determined to keep everything straight & not sabotage my carefully drawn-up budgets because it's the easy option. It would actually be the ANNOYING option, so I'd rather keep on the figures regularly & not let it run away from me.
Right, time to go & shut the upstairs curtains & start cosying down the house for another windy evening.....though nothing like last night when Mr F went running down the road barefoot in the rain, to recover one of our wheelie-bins. Hope nobody has sustained any bad damage - winds here were just under 60 mph, I know many other areas of the country were more badly hit by the storm.
Take care m'dears, talk to you tomorrow when I've sorted out stuff from our money meeting.
F x