Riding the wave

Keep_Buggering_On

Further progress on the gate- got the other two joints made, the frame glued and dowelled together and once that's cured, I am going to drive a few screws in as well to make sure it is nice and solid. I am only managing an hour or so straight after breakfast in this heat. Tomorrow I am going to cut the diagonal that stops the gate sagging and fit the slats and then its ready to hang and paint. Money saving went out the window this morning, but it was in a good cause. The house across the road has a plant sale once a year. They foster special needs children and the money goes to pay for them to have a summer holiday with all the right support etc. I went across and came back with a big white daisy thing (with free forget me nots hitching a ride in the pot) and a triffid that will apparently have big lupin like flowers. They are perennials so will last many years. OH lent me £10 out of her shopping budget until I get paid on Thursday. I wasn't planning to buy anything, but the plants are massive and its for a good cause. I will get them in the flower bed tonight when the sun has gone in, along with a big fox-glove that has set up home in a pot in the back garden.

We have a disposable barbeque ready for tea tonight, yes its a cliche, but when the sun is out like this it would be rude not to! We haven't gone mad, but there is a burger each, a sausage each and I got a chicken thigh out of the freezer that I will bone out, chop into pieces and make a chicken/mushroom/pepper skewer for each of us. I have plenty of beers in the fridge and will make OH up some cocktails and we can sit outside and enjoy the weather. I also made sure there were ice pops in the freezer so if the kids hear the ice cream van and start asking for something, they can have one of those instead!

Keep_Buggering_On

Decided to bite the bullet and finish off the gate as the back yard was still shaded. I am very pleased with how it turned out and its certainly solid! All the wood was salvaged out of skips and too useful for firewood so went in my stores. The screws were salvaged the same way, so its not cost a penny so far. I am going to reuse the old hinges, but I might have to buy a new latch as the old one was broke and I don't know if I have one in my workshop (again scavenged from skip wood) or not. Next job is to hang it and make sure it all works, before taking it back off and painting it. The shorter central rung is because I ran out of long bits of wood. When I find a replacement piece I will swap it out to match the others.

beanielou

Good job..

vampirotoothus

Great job and all for free. Well done, enjoy your evening, you deserve it. V x

Keep_Buggering_On

Payday tomorrow and very excited as my first debt will be cleared- its the tiny Klarna one but at least its one paid off! I will then look to shove an extra £50 a month to the PayPal debt to bring that down a little faster. I am having to put a big chunk of money into the holiday fund as we need to pay for the accommodation in July- its £990 and after the vet's bills last month, the holiday fund is currently sitting at £100! OH borrowed £100 to pay for little kitty's injections so that is going back in tomorrow and I am putting in £400 from my wage so that will bring it up to £600 and the rest will come out of June's pay packet. I am going to treat myself to a bookzine on modelling Network South East trains I want tomorrow (£12), but that will be my treat for the month! I am trying to fall back on my resources rather than buying more things I can't afford at the moment- I have loads of books and magazines to read and hundreds of DVDs I need to get around to watching, so the aim is to start working through the stash, rather than adding any more to the pile of things I need to get around to reading/watching!

Keep_Buggering_On

Payday! Hooray! Feeling quite pleased today as the first debt is paid off and my Help to Save account has passed £1000. Both feel like good milestones to celebrate (will have to have a beer with tea tonight!). I am sat in my garden office and the rain is beating down on the roof and I can hear thunder rolling in the distance- quite a change from the last couple of days. I need to go into the village on my lunch break and get some pound coins from the post office for the kid's pocket money, so I am hoping the rain has eased by then…

in_need_of_direction

well done on the first zero. Which is next.

Keep_Buggering_On

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82014334#Comment_82014334

Not sure, at the moment the plan will be to bring them down together, at least until the summer holiday is out of the way and I can put a bit more money towards it and decide which one to focus on, at the moment I am just keeping them ticking over and not adding to them. OH has said I can give her £50 less from next month as the UC has gone up and I haven't had a pay rise this time. My plan is to put that £50 extra in my budget into savings to build up an emergency fund so we have a little buffer. My Help to Save will have its first pay out of £600 in September so that will go into the emergency fund as well and we will be on the way to having £1000 as a buffer (barring any more emergencies, which I suppose it what its there for!)

I managed to avoid the showers and get to the post office and back without getting drenched- the sun is out now and you wouldn't believe that three hours ago it was like a monsoon outside! I spent 50p in the charity shop on a silicon kid's fidget toy. Yes it sounds daft, but I have seen a video on Youtube recommending them as a pallet for acrylic paints for model making, each little pocket can be used to mix paint and when it dries, you just turn the poppet inside out and it drops straight out into the bin with no messy cleaning up, so for 50p I am going to give it a go!

Keep_Buggering_On

Unfortunately I haven't managed to find a gate latch in my stores, so have had to order one from Amazon. It was £5.44 and is due to arrive today. It annoys me I had to spend some money on the project, but under £6 for a new, non-rotten garden gate isn't too bad really. Depending on when it arrives I will get it fitted either today or tomorrow and the house will look less of a run-down shack from the road!

I had my Sainsbug's delivery last night and there were five bags of cat litter for mini-cat (not carrying those if I don't have to). Unfortunately as I was putting them away in the shed, I managed to catch one of the paper bags and rip it and had a cascade of litter all over the floor. Some spicy words might have been said, but I did manage to save 2/3 of the bag and put it into a bag- there was quite a mess to clean up though. In the grand scheme of things its nothing, but it was rather annoying!

Me and my best friend have booked free tickets for a talk in the city next weekend by a fellow model maker about his techniques and how he built a card model of our local cathedral over the last two years. It should be an interesting afternoon and will only cost the price of bus fare. I also have a living history event later in the month where I am displaying and talking about the uniform and equipment of a National Serviceman in the 1950s which will be fun. I am going to see if any of my friends who are also displaying can swing by and give me and assorted military junk a lift- if not it will be the bus again and the odd funny look as people wonder why you are dressed as a soldier from seventy years ago!

Keep_Buggering_On

A very productive day- I got out into the garden straight after breakfast and got the new latch fitted to the gate, then I fitted a new section of fence to bridge the little gap between our old fence and the neighbour's new fence. Its only 10 inches wide, but needed filling. Then I got half the fence on the road side painted (its a big fence) and the new gate painted before lunch time, by which time I had had enough painting for one day.

After lunch all four of us went for a walk over to the park in the next village, then back through the woods. We even got DS (who is a typical 14 year old who never leaves his room) to come with us and it was glorious in the sun with a gentle breeze blowing. On the way back we dropped into B&Ms in the village and picked up a box of their own brand cornetos to munch as we slowly made our way home. It was £1.65, but it felt like a good way to round out a very nice day. This evening I am making Italian spaghetti and meatballs, made with some sausage meat I got in the chuck out for 68p at Christmas, but we are being naughty and having a 35p garlic baguette with it as its the weekend- we know how to live!