Next steps; grip-relaxing bimbling, and avoiding the temptations

Suffolk_lass

They are funny old things, PBs. We have consciously ramped up the PBs in my name, rather than sharing them equally, between us, and apart from the £17 of childhood presents from God-parents (that have only ever won a £50, which I reinvested), I've tried to amalgamate them into bigger sequential blocks by buying a big bond. My earlier attempts of buying £250 a month have never won anything, whereas the maturing capital bond from the BS bought a £10,000 on that has repeatedly won. Of course, the more you have, the better your chance of winning, but it does seem to me that only the recent £10k bonds (the other was from my pension lump sum) win anything. I have considered cashing in all the reinvested winning ones and buying one big sequential range.

Right, last night's study group went better than I expected but not good enough for my personal knowledge. I need to decide today or tomorrow if I am going to take the exam in March. I'll set up the papers and see if that frightens or reassures me!

Our garage doors are here, ready to be adapted to fit the cart lodge, which I think we will call the barn. It will have one previous opening as a wall (done) and the other with two sliding barn doors that will run across the closed side. I might get a picture posted at some point. With the van hire to collect them the total cost is about £180 for doors where the wood alone would have cost over £500.

Right, I need to stop lolling in my nightie!

Suffolk_lass

A relatively late start again this morning. After two evening activities in a row, that involved leaving the house (bee club and book club) I was out until 22.00 or just after; and then sat and watched an hour or more TV, so a lay-in was welcome (still up at 06.30). I have been bimbling this morning - that sort of pleasurable, slightly unproductive thing where I wander from task to task with no list. Interspersed with coffee. Rather nice for a change.

• I have entered my March exam and paid
• Made some updates to the death file (for our son or MrSL) - music choices and put down the charities for which I am a trustee
• Put the bed linen on to wash with my towels and night-dress
• Read a few diaries on here
• Read an online catalogue for an auction
• Made toast with some of our lovely honey (so nice)
• Listened to Desert Island Disks - what a woman!
• Sent a link to someone so they can read what I referenced on Wednesday at Bee Club
• Tilly tidies to both bank accounts

Still to do:

• We have the village lunch today (someone else!) so nothing to do except attend
• Then I will take the dog to the auction house with me as MrSL is giving blood - This is to view the two things I have seen that I will bid on if they are good (not damaged). I also want to bid on an architectural salvage item, that I won't win unless the stars align. The auction is tomorrow - I could can't go...
• I need to send tomorrow's menu choices to the cafe where 9 of us are meeting for brunch (hence realising I can't go...
• We need to make up the bed, before we are too tired and grumpy!

Have a good day. It's officially P!ddling here so the dog's excitement/exercise will be wandering around the lots at the auction house (the outdoor ones)

foxgloves

You are always so busy & sociable, @Suffolk_lass. You make me feel like a hermit! Love that your lie-in still meant you were up at 6.30! I'm an early riser too, so am hopeless at lie-ins. I very occasionally decide to stay in bed to read a few chapters of my current book, but even then, I'm raring to get up, so it's never anything like most people would call a lie-in.
F

Suffolk_lass

It's all relative @foxgloves - after a very quiet January, I needed to get out a bit more. 

So yesterday, I was back unexpectedly early, from the auction viewing. I popped into the office there to check if I still had an account (I do) and was then told dogs are not allowed in any of the buildings. My shoulders slumped. After fighting through a detour and around a road closure, that had taken 45 minutes, which I mentioned, they kindly said I could look round, if I carried him! So I did, but it was a quick look, because he's a bit of a lump now, and my left arm certainly knows it carried a lump of a sausage for too long yesterday! Repeated excursions onto the dining room table, via chairs left too close, have enabled him to scoff the cat's food too many times. I digress.

So my viewing was foreshortened and the journey back (via another road closure that was not signposted) was less eventful and home by half past five.  I fed the animals, spoke to my Mum on a video call (a normal daily thing but not expected yesterday) and sorted out the laundry so it would all be dry by hanging on the aga, in front of it, and "ironing" using the hob covers that get hot and hotter.

All done by six, off I went to the Social Club (with the dog) for a couple of glasses of wine and a chat. The farmer where we keep bees popped in and we had a very amusing chat about his recent skiing trip (Klosters; a chalet, a bunch of "lads" [all around 60!] sans wives; how the other half live). He showed me footage of them and the snow looked perfect. Our days of skiing are behind us I rather think, but we shared some amusing anecdotes about said subject (I was a "good" [tourist] skier, when I did).

This morning I have elected not to bid on the pair of cast iron garden pots (beautiful, but we do not "need" them and bidding had taken off overnight; £340 so far...) but I have bid on the other items (three identical lots). We shall see...

Must dash - got our brunch at 10.00

foxgloves

Thank goodness I didn't discover going to auctions during my Spendy Decades. With my love of vintage stuff & financial incontinence, I think that could have been a disaster! I'm not 'backwards in coming forwards' either, to borrow a phrase from my Mum, so I'm sure my naughty little hand would have been shooting up into the air rather frequently.
F

Suffolk_lass

Lol, I am watching it now and have managed to page back to the two cast iron urns - they sold for £400 but with buyers' premium of 20% (maybe +VAT?) that is over £600. Good decision. Mercifully, the other items I bid on are right at the end so I have my mouse pointing at the other side of the screen so I don't accidentally bid on anything and have to go and collect it. Fine if we win one or more of the other items but not so if we lose them and still have to treck over!

LadyWithAPlan

3 bond wins!! wow - only ever managed one at a time..

I love an auction but now I am carless I have less excuse. Buying on the online auctions I have had a mix of quality plus always harder to guage something via a photo only so  I am less driven to purchase

Suffolk_lass

Premium bonds
I think the three wins is down to the size of the PB holding, LaPlan. I have over £30,000 in PB now, with the 3 big bonds responsible for most of the wins. I have considered selling the reinvested wins and buying another big block. I still might, if I get to £40k. It should not make a difference but having blocks of (eg) 10,000 sequential numbers has changed my winning profile. Whereas the £250 bonds I saved every month for several consecutive months? nada, along with the bond win numbers.

Auction update
We didn't win any of the three auction bids. They were estimated at £20-£40 - my max bid was £60 on each, because I thought, if we were to win all three, that is going to be over £300 with a van hire on top to collect them - £60 +20% Buyers premium = £72 +3% (on-line platform premium =£74.16 + VAT 20% = £88.99 each - £266.97 + van hire - the long wheelbase transits are about £80 per day + fuel. Anyway, that was my rationale. They were 9 foot oak benches (backless, like you find with trestle tables) - they were in good condition, but we can live without them. With about 15 items to go, someone outbid me online and I upped my £45 to £60 but their max was above that for all three - and in the end they sold for £120 each (£533.95). They were nice, but just not that nice.

Shopping
Up with before the larks this morning, I am going to have a quick catch-up on here and then do a spot of studying, before collecting my C&C from Morries. I do find it frustrating, using their online ordering system. It double-dips you for missing items. I lost four when I placed the order (not in stock at that store at that moment - but highly likely to be re-stocked in the next three days before I needed to collect it!!), and then, I will almost certainly get the email, ten minutes before I collect, to tell me the things that the basket picker can't find as it is Sunday morning. All that said (moan, moan, moan) - the staff are friendly and helpful and £12 off what needed to be £60 online but was going to be a big stock up shop anyway - still worth doing for my once-a-month big SM shop. 

My annual budget is £3000 again for 2025. This includes my SM groceries, the butcher, the market, my store-cupboard spares, and all the DD (milk) and subscription things from big river, (not all of the latter are Groceries, but I do track them, just not in the £3000 - things like a box of nitrile gloves for my beekeeping, dog and cat food, and the toilet rolls I buy every other month for the food bank - they are all out, but the things like toilet rolls for here, tea, coffee, bin bags - yes, I count those). I regularly check the prices to ensure they are still lower - buying four boxes of our preferred Tea - with £15% off, yes, still saving over the SM, even when there are offers.

So I stock up to keep myself out of the way of temptation, and when regular things are on offer, and occasionally I pick up YS opportunities for the freezer to stay on. We shall see this morning, but the order was for about £100. Milk (milkman) is a regular £7.50 weekly, with a winter top-up as Mr SL makes his porridge with all milk.Mine is all water (a pinch of salt) and a little splodge of milk at the end.

I need to shop from home today too - my produce store - it's an upright commercial freezer in one of the outbuildings that has all the pre-prepared fruit and veg I use to make up compotes for breakfast, soups for lunch and occasionally frozen veg for supper meals. The frozen fruit needs to be interspersed with the bottled fruit that we don't pay to store, and the jars of stewed fruit that I have made me lazy in winter - I just open a jar and we have that for dessert with yogurt or topped with the rubble of crumble. 

Today might also be the day for sorting out a few pots, seed trays and heated propagators, ready to plant some seeds. Our eastern springs are typically much colder than many areas so I go a bit later than many with planting my seeds. It is certainly time for tomatoes and chillies this week. Just that a peak temperature of 4c deters me from working outdoors for long, even rugged up today, so a kitchen deployment is needed to get me going. At least the potatoes are chitting and the autumn-planted garlic is sprouting, despite the naughty birds pulling it out at least twice!

Have a good Sunday

redofromstart

I always want to know with the subscribe and save how the pricing works? The cat food for example fluctuates a lot so if it is up at £20 the day my S&S is sent is that what they charge (less the 15%) rather than the £12 when I set up the subscription? Do you get a reminder to check the price before it is sent?

the local honey I got is glorious, I had been looking out for some for ages because of your posts so thank you for that. 

Suffolk_lass

Hi Redo, I don't get a reminder, and I am not sure I have ever checked. I look at the order and postpone, skip or cancel if it is too much. I don't always check pet food but I will check the dog food that is due on 18th.

I am so glad you like the local honey. It really spells out the difference. A totally different product.

Just unpacked my shopping and as anticipated, 1 item missing. No thanks, I won't take the brand substitution at 50% more money! Just packed it all away. Time for a coffee and to update my tracker