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

themadvix

That's quite a haul Cheery!

rtandon27

Wow @Cheery_Daff - that is a really nice a haul of fresh bits.  We have a couple of schemes around here that seem to always be giving things away, in fact one nabs random people on the sidewalk and actively encourages them to 'please take as much as you like' - sadly it is usually bread (we rarely eat this) & cakes/cookies/donuts (we should not eat this) so we politely decline - if there were more fresh bits, I'd make sure we went regularly!

Cheery_Daff

Thank you all - Mr C was impressed when he came in tonight too! 

There was LOADS of bread, but it was mostly white sliced. We've already got an emergency sliced loaf in the freezer, and a nicer one too, so I just had a packed of wholemeal pittas.

Nice day out at a national trust place with my friend 😊 Main cafe was closed but they had a few kiosks and a separate indoor place to eat so all fine. We did struggle to get a cake at 3pm though which was a bit of a poor show! (Managed eventually - just 😂). I was indecisive about buying a rhubarb crown - decided against it, then regretted it later and went back, but they'd shut that bit of the garden by then so my dosh stayed in my pocket. Probably no bad thing! 

Not much else to report. Today's trip was 3 hours worth of diesel, £3 to get in (used my 2 for 1 card and shared the cost), £8 for lunch and £6 for tea and cake, so £17 plus diesel. Not too bad.

Stopped at MrA on the way home and somehow spent £50 😱 Didn't need much in the way of fruit or veg (I did get some more apples, some celery, and some reduced rocket) but did a good stock up of yogurt, a few tins, some frozen veg etc.

Interesting day tomorrow - I'm booked on to a sewing day for a charity that makes quilts for all kinds of people. Apparently there will be 30 of us with sewing machines in a little village school, beavering away. Not something I've done before (I've done a fair bit of sewing but never made a full sized quilt) but I'm assured it'll be fine - I guess we'll find out!

Sadly it's also slimming world in the morning, in completely the wrong direction, so there'll be a faffy amount of driving tomorrow too 😬 must get my sewing machine ready tonight...

Cheery_Daff

Well, that's felt like rather a more energetic day than I was expecting! 😱

Lost 3lbs at slimming world this week - I am delighted, as I have properly stuck to the plan and posted all my meals on the group's FB page 🤭  Very pleased and will endeavour to do the same next week. 

Then whizzed to the next county for this sewing day. Spent the first 1.5 hours trying to figure out what was wrong with my damn sewing machine, which was working fine a few days ago 🙄 I did eventually figure out where the problem was, but wasn't able to solve it. The lovely leader offered to go and get hers from home, and disappeared before I could stop her (I was very ready to give up and go home at that point) so I then had to hang around lightly dusting my machine and pointless unscrewing bits and screwing them back up until she returned, with a machine that looked like it belonged on the deck of a space ship 😂 Made my 23 year old workhorse look positively ancient 😂

Anyway, I whizzed along after that, although I was quite far behind everyone else. All the kits were cut in advance, and I'd chosen one that seemed to be quite simple, but actually involved a vast number of small squares, which took forever 😬 I did eventually finish the top, although I had to stay behind a bit to do it and was the last to leave. Will have to go round to the woman's House to sort out backing and binding at some point.

So now I need to sort out machine repair (or replacement, I suppose) 😬

Hey ho, not super high on the priority list! 

Cheery_Daff

Morning chums 😊

I am just up for yoga before we go out for a weekend cuppa 😊 But just popping in to say I had a helpful email from a comparison site yesterday telling me it was 28 days til the house insurance is due. 

As Martin's guide says 26 days is the optimal time for price, I shall have a good look today with a view to refreshing searches and buying tomorrow. Where's that Martin Lewis spinning head when you need it?? 😂

The quotes the comparison site linked to (based on last year's info) were, as usual, varied 😂 cheapest at £350 ish, but last time I did that they cancelled a couple of weeks later when they realised we had a footpath through the garden 🙄 cheapest 'big name' one is a 'platinum' service at something like £500 i think, and the Post Office silver one comes in not much more than that. All cheaper than last year (which from memory was about £800 but I may be confusing with the car insurance, due at a similar time)

Will investigate later - yoga first. And now I think of it the actual date may in fact be later, as the cancelled one gave us about 4 weeks before we had to get a new policy which shifted the date...

Right - yoga, or there won't be time!

Cheery_Daff

OK. Car insurance is due on 18th Feb (so 26 days is tomorrow). Last year was £825 (up from £606 the year before 🙄). We've both been driving for over 20 years, one claim (20 years ago, when I slid backwards in our big van and bumped a stationary car slightly), no points on either licence 🙄. I'm hopeful that we can shave off a hundred quid at least. It's on a multi car policy at the minute, so I'll grit my teeth and see if I can cost them separately too.

Had a slight panic that we didn't have any house insurance when I couldn't find an email for the last couple of years 😱 but then remembered we renewed with JL and they send everything in the post. Phew 😂 Renewal cost last year was £935 😱 And I accept we are theoretically higher risk in relation to house than car (literally never claimed for anything on house insurance though).

So, we paid a total of £1760 between the two last year, and while we do have enough in the various pots, I'm determined to shave off at least a couple of hundred if I can!

Baileys_Babe

If you can bear it I would definitely do a multi car policy quote and a single car quote. When we had 2 cars I would find every few years it was better to switch away from or to a multi car policy.

EssexHebridean

Goodness I should think you could definitely get better as single car policies then looking at that cost - ours is several hundred pounds less than that for the two cars, and that included me having had that claim in 2023 (Although that will have affected policy cost but not NCB, as we pay to have NCB protected), and includes windscreen and legal cover. 

Pretty sure my renewal last time was straight through the supermarket of money folk - and then you get £15 cashback if you take the policy through them, too. 

Cheery_Daff

Thank you both! 😊 that does indeed sound promising. I shall investigate

Cheery_Daff

Right, I have a risotto bubbling away on the cooker, and I am GOING IN with the car insurance. Wish me luck....