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

KajiKita

Sitting here, gnawing my fingernails, wondering if colleague responded …

KK

Cheery_Daff

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81988714#Comment_81988714

😂😂 not saying that never happens, but in this case it was unshiftable... 😂

Delighted to report that colleague did indeed get back to me quickly, the whole thing was sorted out and finished, and submitted with 57 minutes to spare 😂

HaHad to hang around for a meeting this afternoon so have sorted through emails and done some prep for tomorrow, and now the laptop i off and Mr C and I are heading out for cake 🥳

beanielou

Enjoy your well deserved cake.

KajiKita

Oh well done! 👏

Hope the cake was excellent, it was very well deserved 😊

KK

Cheery_Daff

Wasn't really excellent, just a bog standard almond croissant in the end, but I did enjoy it 😁 I was exhausted 😭 But Mr C made me veggie sausage and mash for tea 🥰 and then I had a shower and washed my hair, and was revived enough to go to the local history talk, and now I actually feel quite lively 😂

In the office tomorrow (although quite frankly I feel I deserve a week off after working Friday, and bank holiday Monday, and 14 hours yesterday😴 but I'm finishing at 3 to go to the dentist, and then heading to my friend's house to stay over - not because I need to for once, but because she's quite down and her husband is away and I can be useful for once rather than just using her house like a hotel 🥰

dawnybabes

57 mins spare, loads of time (I’m a last minute queen ! I work much better under pressure …… got to love ADHD 🤣🤣)

Hope you’ve had a good time at your friends

Cheery_Daff

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81989569#Comment_81989569

Ha, I work much better under pressure too although I wish I didn't! In my case it's because the weight of the pressure finally drowns out my inner voice which usually gets in the way with nonsense like "nobody's going to like this anyway" "and you're such an idiot, why didn't you do this before?" 🙄 no space for that when the deadline is right there!

Obviously my long term aim is to get rid of that altogether 😂

Had a lovely time with my friend and her kids 🥰 A lovely long chat while the kids were otherwise occupied, then we watched some TV together and had another chat when they'd gone to bed 😊

Mr C and I have had a lazy one today, with some charity shops, 2 cafe trips, and I went outside to do a spot of gardening but I was so worn out that I actually fell asleep in the greenhouse for an hour 😂😂 Not very comfy but I was flipping exhausted! 😂 I was at least on the flap bench thing I made to sit on, and had pulled half a bag of compost under my head as a makeshift pillow (i don't recommend, it was quite unyielding 😂)

It was toasty warm in there though 🥰😂 and some seedlings have arrived! 😃 beans, peas, radish, cabbage. Lovely.

Right, bath is run

Cheery_Daff

Oh, but before that, let me pick your collective minds. We are considering an electric car. We currently have 2 diesels, both 18 years old, both bought in the last 5-6 years ish, one's done 174k miles and the other 197k 😬😱 197k one is due in the garage next week because there's an ominous rattle 🙄 other one is due an MOT later in May.

We're suspecting we'll have to replace at least one sooner rather than later.

We've only ever had cheap old cars, which we drive til they go to the scrapyard. So the prospecting of having something shiny and new is daunting 😂

Not in a position to buy one without a loan, so I suspect we'd lease, just for a couple of years to try it out. Have any of you done this?

Need to work out the figures properly, but it looks like the Octopods would do something small on the mileage we'd need for about £350, with about a £1k upfront payment. That includes all MOT & servicing, plus a free charger installed at home.

That would have about 160 mile range.

Commute is about 56 miles so easily within that, even allowing for messing about and detours etc. Wouldn't get us to Mr C Snr's, but we'd have to keep a second car anyway so we'd still have a diesel for longer trips.

Definitely cheaper on fuel. Bizarrely more expensive on tax and I suspect insurance (current cars are £300 + £250)

We currently do 12k a year in one and 8k a year in the other but it wouldn't necessarily split the same - we don't have his and hers cars, we have a big one and a little one. I commute in the little one, Mr C knocks about in the bigger one, and we do longer trips in that too.

Do need to work out current costs properly. We spend between £300 & £400 a month on diesel at the minute 😱 We've also spent £250 per car at the garage already this year, and neither of them has had an MOT yet and one of them is rattling 🙄😂

Any thoughts from any of you who have made the leap??

KajiKita

Can’t help at all with the EV thought process but there has been quite a detailed series of posts from Organgrinder, here:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6228191/how-much-to-live-on

He explains his thinking before making the plunge and is just starting to get into the practical use of his ‘new’ EV. Well worth a read I think 😊

KK

Cheery_Daff

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81991850#Comment_81991850

Thank you,that sounds interesting! I can't find what you're referring to you - that link goes to a thread about how much to love on in retirement? I read the page you linked to, and a few after it, but nobody's talking about cars! Will see if I can find Organgrinder independently...