Arrietty's Acorns

Arrietty

Hello again,

thank you @Skint_yet_Again for your encouragement. Maybe you're right, I shouldn't worry too much about reading now and just wait for the right weather!

Yard owner has spoken with her hayman and apparently he sources from "all over" and the next delivery will be £1 cheaper per bale so HRH is on rations until then 😂

I suspect that when supplies are tight everyone adds their little bit on top, from the grower on up the chain so by the time it gets to the end user it's ridiculously inflated! Anyway, we have had RAIN this last week and I am so glad because if the temperatures stays in the low twenties for a while we should get some grass growing.

HRH has been taking full advantage any damp areas to have a good roll and coat himself with a nice layer of mud so that's fun but at least it means I'm not covering his face with a fly mask and the rest of his body with fly spray, which we all know does't work for more than 5 minutes but which for some reason we can't help using anyway 🤣

I'm feeling relieved that I bought a new rainsheet rug earlier in the year as - like last year - this will go over any other rugs to keep them clean and him double dry. We've also decided to take his shoes off for winter again this year if the ground is really wet and soft so that will save a bit of money if he's just having trims for a few months.

His account is looking flush at the moment because YD and I have both paid in and the Healthy Horse payment and livery haven't gone out yet. Farrier not due til after next payday day so I will probably do a feed re-stock at some point in September.

HRH account = £412.35

I sent over the payday payments to the Car and Christmas funds so they're also looking quite good:

Car & Christmas fund = £2200.07

No change to the new Monthly Saver as yet because I can only fill it up again in September!

New Monthly Saver = £250

I'm surprised at how much money has been scooped over to my ERF this month; I only do these scoops on weekdays when my balance is untidy and have made payments totalling £ 121.53 which I think is quite impressive. I'm sure it won't be like that every month but as I'm prioritising putting money in the monthly saver each month it's nice to know that the ERF is also continuing to grow, albeit at a lower pace than before.

ERF - £10,194.95

As I joined the Frugal Living challenge this year ( and consequently been the most UNfrugal I've ever been 🙄) one of the pieces of advice I took on board was to save all my grocery shopping receipts to get an idea of my average spend. (I can get a bit out of hand with shopping eg: I 'popped' to Waitrows on Friday morning as I had both Daughters coming over for lunch and somehow spent £89.75😮)

Well, I have saved my receipts religiously since 30th December and can report that my total grocery spending so far this year comes to …. £2105.97. I will point out that this total is based on all my receipts from both Sainsbugs and Waitrows and does include some cleaning & laundry products, some household items (like tea towels, or glassware), some toiletries, some things like socks, cards, gifts, gift wraps/bags, stationery etc…

So, we're 35 weeks in to the year and that total averages out at £60.17per week which is quite a lot for a single person … and yet not so bad taking into account it's not just groceries. Anyway, I think I can reduce that by at least £10 per week which would give a decent saving over the year.

I'm extremely good at buying extra items when on offer and freezing them… what I'm NOT good at is then using those items. I seem to forget the freezer is there - except for when I want ice cream - and I end up buying more. I've also been so determined to eat a lot of salad and fresh fruit over the summer that my freezer is now packed full and yet my fridge seems to always be half empty except for cheese, milk and carrots - there are always carrots for HRH 😆.

I need to use up everything that is in my freezer during September so I can then re-stock for winter. I have plenty of stuff for packed lunches for work and in the evenings I HAVE to use either freezer or store cupboard contents for meals.

I shall report back in due course…

Have a lovely day. x

Arrietty

September has arrived and with it a horrible stomach bug which started rudely, at 4:00am yesterday and kept me in bed for most of the day aside from a quick trip to feed HRH early afternoon which completely wiped me out.

Thankfully, it's nowhere near as brutal as that awful bout of Norovirus I had a few months back. I've not eaten anything since Monday evening and stayed away from work again today as I'm still feeling a bit light-headed and disorientated and may still be contagious.

Trying to make the best of it so being home again today does allow me the opportunity to update the financials;

Healthy Horse programme seems to have gone up by £2 a month and I don't remember them telling me… Livery has also gone out of the account so

HRH account = £175.35

No change to the Car & Christmas fund = £2200.07

I've made the September payment to the monthly savings account ( I don't have to pay it all in one go but I like to just dump the maximum in there so then it's done and I don't have to think about it)

Monthly Saver = £500

I received £33.83 interest on the account where I'm saving for Early Retirement but the interest rate drops as from tomorrow. I don't think I'll bother to change the account though as come April, I'll either be adding the balance to my Stocks and share ISA or cash ISA. I scooped a bit over both yesterday and today.

ERF = £ 10,238.59

I finally received the long-awaited water bill. The total bill was £139.68 but I still had credit so only had to pay £93.18 😁 I worked out that over a year this would mean my average monthly cost is about £23 which is about £15 less per month than I was paying previously. I paid the bill from the linked savings account and I think I'm due to get a measly interest payment on this account at some point in September (.5% I believe is the latest offering from Lloyds) so I shall keep the money in there until then and then either transfer to the ERF or I could just leave what's in there for the next water bill. Either way, I don't need to save £50 a month for water anymore.

Linked Saver = £413.52

I checked my Premium Bonds early this morning and was delighted to have a £200 win 😁 it will take a few days for the money to be paid but once it's arrived I'll be transferring that straight over to the ERF.

I've got it in my head now that I really don't want to work until I'm 67 and every time I have some bug or illness or injury it reminds me how fragile we really are and how I despise spending 8 hours a day Not breathing in fresh air or being out in nature or doing what I want!

I'm away to try a piece of toast now.

Have a lovely day x

Skint_yet_Again

Sorry to hear about the stomach bug Arrietty hope you are feeling better now. Excellent news on the £200 PB win 🥳 and great savings on the water bill 💷💷💷

Arrietty

Helllooo,

Stomach bug is now a distant memory thank you @Skint_yet_Again, and I think any weight lost has now been regained 😂. It's a bit dull and drizzly here this morning but we don't mind that as yesterday was warm and sunny and this mix makes for excellent grass growing.

There are 13 horses 😮 leaving the yard at the end of the month which was a bit of a shock and a financial gut punch to the manager. The 4 giants in HRH's herd who are leaving are owned by one couple who have never seemed to grasp the concept of grass livery and prone to not visiting their horses for weeks at a time…their idea of care is very different from mine… I shall not miss the owners one bit and can't help but be a bit relieved that over winter there will be more grass to go around for the remainers.

Some of the girls were getting very twitchy about the planning being submitted at the end of this month and that along with the driest summer ever and lack of grass has got people looking for new places to keep their horses. 4 of them are setting up on their own and whilst I'm surprised by their move at this time of year, I guess it's exciting when you're younger!

Planning goes in at the end of this month and even the landlowners think it will be rejected in the first instance but they won't find out until March '27. It would then go to appeal and then we're looking at March '28 before a decision and Yard Manager has been told she will be given at least 6 months notice to leave. She has advised everyone of this so I'm surprised at the haste to leave… especially as we come into the autumn/winter season. My attitude is that we fight the planning on every grounds possible (starting with the fact that it's on greenbelt land ) but the younger ones seem to have just accepted it will happen. I think that's a very generational thing;

Aside from the horror of losing land and wildlife and the demands on already creaky infrastructure - roads, schools and my workplace - and the now seemingly regular summer droughts ….I drive past the yard on my way to and from work each day - it could not be any more convenient for me and HRH has never been so happy and healthy as he is so I will be staying as long as possible even if it is costing me a fair bit in terms of hay and feed!

On that note, to the money:

2 x new bales of hay and payment for hay that was put out in the fields last month and taking into account the Healthy Horse programme HRH account = £145.35

Car and Christmas Fund = £2200.07 ( no change here)

Monthly Saver = £500 (no change here either)

Linked Saver = £315.53 There have been a few pennies scooped over but I also had to pay for a new tyre last week as I'd somehow managed to embed a large screw in it 🙄…and yes, this should have come out of my Car Fund but I get pretty much zero interest on this account so I just transferred the money over from there.

ERF = £10,283.37 I've added £53.60 to this account so far in September just doing my daily tidy up scoops which is my favourite financial habit! I really enjoy 'resetting' my current account to a tidy amount each day and seeing how this habit is translating to 'painless' savings is brilliant!

Full disclosure - the £200 Premium Bonds win did not make it to the ERF.

My 5 year old yard boots have finally worn so thin on the soles I can feel every tiny stone I tread on so I decided to buy a new pair and retire my old ones to be used at home for gardening - cost £106.46. My waterproof muck boots split last winter and I had to wear freezer bags inside them to keep my feet dry so I bought a new pair - cost £49.99 and I remembered that my waterproof trousers also split making them a tad risqué when bending over so I replaced them at a cost of £22.99. I also made a charity donation of £50 instead of flowers for a funeral. My thinking is that whilst I didn't add that £200 win to the ERF, I managed to replace all those horsery essentials at no cost to my regular budget which is also a win 😁

Having lived on freezer food for the last week I got bored of having no fresh fruit and vegetables, my fridge looked really sad (and more importantly my beloved coffee ice cream had also run out) so I gave the fridge a through clean and did a trip to Waitrows yesterday. Total cost £85.76 and this was after using a couple of vouchers, some money off for buying two packs of chicken and also included a couple of household essential like washing up liquid and wool laundry washing liquid which will last months.

Granted I bought 4 different flavours of ice cream and 2 bars of chocolate which may seem excessive but I ration and alternate these as my after-dinner treat so they should last a few weeks as well so if you see me posting about buying more of either before November, feel free to question, reprimand and ask how the weight loss is going 😆

The point of this admission is that a couple of weeks ago my weekly average grocery shopping was £60.17 per week and after yesterday's shop the average weekly spend is now £59.23.

My aim is to get it to £50 a week spending including household items and basic toiletries. I hate food waste but admit to having over bought items and not used them in the past few months and also not having used up freezer items and gone shopping unnecessarily which is wasteful in terms of both food and finance.

I'm really rubbish at meal planning and even worse at sticking to a plan but do have some vague ideas of what I'll be eating for my evening meals for the week ahead. I enjoy making packed lunches for work and try to ensure they are nutritious and filling so will have chicken salad rolls, greek yoghurt with berries, fresh fruit/veg sticks and of course some mini cheddars as they are essential! My lunches power me through the afternoon without an energy dip and I'm never hungry when I get to the yard but do find I'm ravenous by the time I get home from the yard especially if I've ridden and that's why I need to have a meal idea in my mind. What I should probably do is try to prep as much as possible before leaving for work in the morning so it seems less effort in the evening.

Sun is now shining and as YD is not coming to the yard today I get to have a lovely leisurely ride with a friend this afternoon so I should get myself working on those packed lunches for the week ahead, get the yoga mat out and have a general tidy up.

Have a lovely day x

Arrietty

Good morning from the sunny South East where the temperature is due to be 25 today!

This is very unsettling; it's now dark by 7:30pm and dark when I get up at 6:00am but to still have these temperatures during the day is just wrong.

Horses are so confused; they're shedding like crazy and winter coats are coming but lthough it's cooler at night we can't rug them yet as it's. Well, I could but I'm really not inclined to get up at 5:15 am to add that half hour on to my morning. Last year and also 2024 HRH was wearing a rainsheet by 10th September!

I'm full of cold and cough and it's been over a week since it started and I'm and off work today as I'm unable to breathe at night so just exhausted by the time my alarm goes off and literally cannot drag myself out of bed. I seem to peak at lunchtime and feel okish for a few hours but too much exertion exhausts me and I just start coughing. It's most annoying and coming so soon after the stomach bug I'm starting to feel my age a bit and rather less invincible than I was.

HRH had the vet out on Friday as he's been having these strange episodes where he zones out and it's been worrying me so I made the mistake of asking Dr. Google what his symptoms could be …and next thing I'm calling the vet out. We know that it definitely isn't his eyesight which is good, and vet did a full neurological exam but when it came to checking his teeth he decided he didn't want the metal gag in his mouth so reared, it fell out, hit me on the head and there was blood everywhere. Vet was traumatised - I was completely fine and it didn't even hurt just made rather a mess.

Vet couldn't find thermometer, didn't check his teeth but did make me trot him up and decided he was a bit stiff on his hind legs ( we already know this is an on/off thing for him and which is why we rarely do more than walk him under saddle unless he's feeling lively and suggests it) and next thing you know I have a box of anti-inflammatories for £115 and the vet saying he may need to be on them forever! Well, that won't be happening because if he needs medicating in order to be ridden then we would prefer to retire him and let him live an even more relaxed and easy life than his current one.

So, no conclusion for the symptoms I actually asked the vet out for and not everything tested anyway although vet assured me it was unlikely to be tooth-related… but I did get a gash in my head, a bill for £375 and a 'suggestion of long term medication' which would potentially bring in around £6k for the vets over the rest of his life time…

Saturday was a nice sunny day so I tied HRH up on the yard and let him munch away on hay while I did some much needed tack cleaning. He didn't have a single episode. YD came to ride on Sunday and declared him to feel no different than he ever does and although she was kind enough not to say it I know she thinks I was too hasty calling the vet out but at least we know his eyes are fine.

After leaving the yard i decided to take my blood-encrusted hair to Sainsbugs and stock up on a few essentials ( these turned out to include some beautiful pink towels which I absolutely blame the head injury for) which came to a rather alarming £108 (excluding towels) and then the next day I had to pop to Waitrose because it turns out that I'd completely forgotten to buy any bread, rolls, salad stuff or medicines for my cold - which was why I'd gone to Sainsbugs in the first place 🙄. So that was another £50.58.

I gave YD a lift home after the yard visit on Sunday because she finally decided to come and take her sewing machine which has been sitting in the spare room since she completed her A levels a fair few years ago. I also managed to offload a plant to her and on the way I decided to get some fuel because I'd joked to colleagues that from now on I would only fill my car from half a tank rather than a quarter because the prices were so scary…. Freaking terrifying more like, it cost me £55.51 😮 for half a tank of fuel.

It's not been a great few days for money since payday and granted the vet bill was unplanned hence it came out of my emergency savings because I didn't want to withdraw from my ERF just before interest payment is due or my PB's just before the next draw is due.

Life feels more like a precarious existence rather than a fun adventure at the moment and I know there are still things I need to spend a good chunk of money on; the garden needs attention; all the hedging and trees need trimming far beyond what I can do even if I hadn't sliced through the cord last year… I have indoor plants that need bigger pots but I'm scared to go to garden centre as I now once I start buying things.. I won't stop 😆

Right, I'm tired again now so will return with figures update soon….

Have a lovely day x

Skint_yet_Again

I’m not surprised you are tired Arrietty after all that and a blow to the head!! 🤕😵‍💫🤪

Take it easy and be kind to yourself. Can you take the towels back for a refund? Petrol prices seem to have shot up and vet bills always seem to come when you least expect it. I hope HRH continues to recover. You would not have forgiven yourself if you didn’t call the vet out and he suffered because of it 🥰