julicorn's journey 3 - The House on the Hill

powerspowers

Happy New Year Julicorn, that’s amazing progress! 

julicorn

powerspowers said:

Happy New Year Julicorn, that’s amazing progress! 

Thank you so much, and happy new year to you too!

julicorn

Really productive weekend here. We spent some time on the allotment yesterday, Mr julicorn chopped down a sycamore that's just growing out of control, and I started clearing the space where we want to put a polytunnel. We've put aside the eye-watering amount of money that costs, now it's just about getting the space ready. It's all bramble with rubbish, rubble and bits of concrete underneath, hurrah! It'll be worth it though I'm sure. 
We then took our Christmas tree to the tree recycling / collection point so he can hang out with his other tree friends before they all go on their summer holiday together. 
Today we did some re-arranging and reorganising of various storage spaces in the house. Somehow everything takes up about half the space now, what a result! 
Starting work again tomorrow. We'll see what that brings. I really need to find some more motivation and purpose in what I do again, at the moment I'm really struggling with a lot of it. Or change things more drastically, I'm not really sure just yet. All I know is that I need to make some sort of plan because that always helps me. 
I hope you're all having a good weekend too and staying out of the dreadful weather today  

julicorn

Gosh it's been a couple weeks since my last update! Had a really nice weekend, Mr julicorn's parents came to visit and stayed over, it was nice to see them. Also did some more bramble clearing on the allotment, more of that to follow this weekend hopefully. 

Really stressful week at work this week, but also a productive one. Still a work in progress, that's for sure. We need more projects in order to stay afloat. 

Little finance update, I just passed £100k in my own pension pot which is great, and £210k in total (actually > £211k). That's all market swings though, an increase of £5.5k since the end of 2024, rather than new contributions. I've requested to lower my pension contributions now so that we can fund our instantly accessible investment accounts more aggressively. 

Choir tonight, looking forward to that! Might meet some choir peeps at the pub beforehand, but I'm also doing dry January at the moment. Most pubs around here seem to have a really good selection of non-alc drinks though, so that should be nice. 

julicorn

Managed to spend a whole £1 at the pub by getting a lime & soda. Maybe I should extend dry January for an additional month, this is good for the budget!  

I made a cross stitch pattern today and am working on a test stitch for that, feels like a chill but productive day off. 

badmemory

You might even get very lucky with the lime & soda.  I used to go to one place where they said it wasn't on the till so it was free.  I was just pleased they didn't refuse to serve it.

julicorn

badmemory said:

You might even get very lucky with the lime & soda.  I used to go to one place where they said it wasn't on the till so it was free.  I was just pleased they didn't refuse to serve it.

That's excellent! I actually really enjoy it as well, just hadn't had one in a while ❤️ maybe I'll have to run a little experiment and find out how much different pubs charge for it around here. 

seventh88

Hi @julicorn congrats on getting the pension past 100k, that's great news! I have also been debating the 'how much do I put in a pension vs mortgage OPs' (or other investments etc), so I'm interested to read others journeys/decisions around this. Ha ha, sounds like dry january is indeed a good choice on the wallet!! Hope you enjoyed choir

julicorn

seventh88 said:

Hi @julicorn congrats on getting the pension past 100k, that's great news! I have also been debating the 'how much do I put in a pension vs mortgage OPs' (or other investments etc), so I'm interested to read others journeys/decisions around this. Ha ha, sounds like dry january is indeed a good choice on the wallet!! Hope you enjoyed choir

Thanks so much! I reckon pensions are definitely the best choice when it comes to maximising one's money / minimising tax, but I'd much rather have more flexibility earlier in life, and therefore need more money to bridge (hopefully) the gap between finishing full-time work and being able to access our pensions. It's definitely not a one size fits all thing. Looking forward to seeing how you get on  

And choir was fantastic, thank you. An eclectic mix of Let the Sun Shine, Nobody's Fault but Mine, and Bohemian Rhapsody. Sounds like we'll be doing a show for Brighton Fringe this year as well which is very exciting. 

Looking forward to The Traitors tonight, anyone else watching?

RedLipstick

Oh well done on the choir, the Fringe show sounds fantastic, what a great achievement! Not watching the Traitors but everyone in the office was talking about it today with the mandatory "please no spoilers"!