Cheery's path to fulfilment - finishing the DIY, looking after myself, appreciating the garden 🌻

themadvix

Looks like excellent progress Cheery! What a difference in the before and after pictures 😊

redofromstart

Another one who can clearly see the difference you have made. We bought a decent shredder our first year here (all of conifers - I am sadly allergic) which reduces the volume by a good two thirds.

Cheery_Daff

redofromstart said:

Another one who can clearly see the difference you have made. We bought a decent shredder our first year here (all of conifers - I am sadly allergic) which reduces the volume by a good two thirds.

Ha, do you know I never even thought of the shredder 😂😂 That would have been ideal for this job, none of it was that thick (although it was all quite damp). Never mind - two tip trips and it's all gone 😊

Got an evening to myself now 😊 I had a list, but I'm quite exhausted after this gardening, so I think I'll be mainly sitting down 😂

Cheery_Daff

Yep, sitting down is definitely featuring heavily this evening

I had some hay box soup, and did the washing up, and have just done YNAB/banking. All looking ok. 

Extra income this month has had a nice boost from the bank switching: 

£2.80 - TCB cashback
£4.09 - Ziffit
£137.47 - ALCS (author's licencing and collections service)
£125 - TSB switch
£200 - NW switch
= £469.36

Added to the cash I'd already put aside from the normal monthly income (£408 as a starting point, but there was a bit extra, I had over £900 to redistribute to various savings pots

I like to put £408 aside at the start of each month, before I distribute anything to extra pots. It started much lower, but I've slowly increased the amount as I've had a couple of pay rises. I leave it in a virtual holding pot until the last day of the month, in case it's needed to top up any slight overspending - rather than pull from longer term pots. I know it's all the same money, but psychologically it feels better to have to pull from savings within the month, although I haven't actually had to use it at all yet. 

Anyway, it added up to around £970 this month Very unusual!! I topped up the 'replacement income' pot so that has a month's worth in it, added £50 to the car fund (it's got as much as we spent on each of the last two cars, but they're both over 15 years old and it's entirely possible we might have to replace both this year, so I'm chipping away). 

Also entirely funded the pot to decorate the stairs - we'll be doing it ourselves, but will need to pay to hire a scaffolding tower for over the stairs. Not decided whether we're plastering or cladding yet, and it won't get done til after the skirting in the kitchen, but nice to have it funded. 

Also put £400 into the holiday/weekend away pot. There's a chance we might have an impromptu night away this week, and I'd quite like a night or two for my birthday at the end of the month. We'll see. 

Anyway, that's all very pleasing, and also doesn't include £125 for Mr Cheery's bank switch (paid, but not pulled into the main bank account yet so I've not added it to the budget yet). He's also due another £200 but I've not seen evidence that's arrived yet so not counting. Will be a nice start to the April savings fund. 

Next savings pot to be funded will be window replacement - and depending on timings we might switch the stairs to fund this one, would be good to get it done in the good weather. I've put a notional figure of £1000, but actually if all bank switches arrive as planned, and nothing else untoward happens, we'll be able to add about £700 in April, so I might get a quote and get it booked in if appropriate. It's only one complete window, but there are a few panes of misted double glazing that could do with being replaced too. 

Ooh, Prolific money just arrived in the account too, so that's another £9.16 - I'll add that to the windows fund

Right, I was going to do some sewing, but it's that time of day where I start making drastic mistakes, so I think nightie and a film

Cheery_Daff

Ah, forgot about MB/casino - in this case minus £23.10 this month... 

So total extra income for March = £455.42. Not to be sniffed at!

beanielou

That's an amazing amount of extra income in a month 

Cheery_Daff

I know!! It's very unusual 😂😂 It's the flurry of bank switches that are mostly responsible. It won't last! 

Some more admin while I've been sat here...

* remembered a £25 I got for taking part in some research a few weeks ago. Came in the form of a weird pre-paid Mastercard but there were limits on where it could be spent. It was nagging at the ba k of my mind but I kept forgetting about it. Spotted a £5 body shop voucher in my emails and decided to combine the two, so have ordered myself some treats 😁 Yes, I could have spent it on something more useful, but I've forgotten to use it at several points lately, so have extravagantly ordered moisturiser, shower gel, and some kind of hair serum, all for the total cost to me of £0, including postage 😁

Thinking of it as a personal reward for all the bank switching admin 😂

* also checked when the LPG switch is due. We've got 26% left, which at this point in the year should last a few weeks at least, if not most of the summer, so no particular worries there. Old contract ended 17th, had confirmation 15th that paperwork our end had gone through, and new supplier had requested the tank paperwork from new supplier (they have to buy the tank from the old supplier 🙄). Anyway, should be 14-21 days, so if I've not heard end of next week, I'll chase.

And now that's really it for admin - I wanted to be asleep an hour ago! 

(I have also remembered I have about £4 of book tokens to spend, not even sure if I can do part payments with them online which is annoying. So another job! I bought them to get a bit of cashback - in that case I'm not sure the messing was worth it but hey ho!)

Right, bed!

~FlowerPot~

Hello, your before and after pictures look amazing. Ivy is a night mare. We have a ton of it in our garden and ive pulled a muscle in my back today from tugging it out.! Blasted stuff. Its looks pretty, but not when it takes over!! 

Viking_mfw

Cheery_Daff said:

I know!! It's very unusual 😂😂 It's the flurry of bank switches that are mostly responsible. It won't last! 

Some more admin while I've been sat here...

* remembered a £25 I got for taking part in some research a few weeks ago. Came in the form of a weird pre-paid Mastercard but there were limits on where it could be spent. It was nagging at the ba k of my mind but I kept forgetting about it. Spotted a £5 body shop voucher in my emails and decided to combine the two, so have ordered myself some treats 😁 Yes, I could have spent it on something more useful, but I've forgotten to use it at several points lately, so have extravagantly ordered moisturiser, shower gel, and some kind of hair serum, all for the total cost to me of £0, including postage 😁

Thinking of it as a personal reward for all the bank switching admin 😂

* also checked when the LPG switch is due. We've got 26% left, which at this point in the year should last a few weeks at least, if not most of the summer, so no particular worries there. Old contract ended 17th, had confirmation 15th that paperwork our end had gone through, and new supplier had requested the tank paperwork from new supplier (they have to buy the tank from the old supplier 🙄). Anyway, should be 14-21 days, so if I've not heard end of next week, I'll chase.

And now that's really it for admin - I wanted to be asleep an hour ago! 

(I have also remembered I have about £4 of book tokens to spend, not even sure if I can do part payments with them online which is annoying. So another job! I bought them to get a bit of cashback - in that case I'm not sure the messing was worth it but hey ho!)

Right, bed!

You can use book tokens online to do part payments. Also worth knowing that blackwells online do free postage - as well as taking book tokens in part payment

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, that's very useful, thank you! I have a book in mind so I'll try to get to that today 😊

Been swimming - first time since last May I think! Trying to make good use of my £10 gym membership 😊