Cheery's country living adventure

edwink · 31 May 2018 at 4:02PM

Fortune_Smiles wrote: »

chickens are in next year's plans for us Fortune x

So great to see another on MSE getting some little feathered friends. We have a hens and duck thread here on MSE and it would be lovely to have you on board too. Our friend cheery one of the most hard working people ever pops on to it from time to time. How she finds the time I'll never know but she does.

Cheery another £80 is great isn't it? and maybe some more from BT too. Doesn't sound a lot but over the years it is surprising how it all totals up. I have all these running totals in our house from money saving improvements we have made with regards to keeping costs down. We have been here 9 years now and boy have these running totals risen. For us our one of these is from having our gas switched off so I total up what we would have paid in gas bills now we run 2 wood burners with one being our cooker.

Just in case you don't know if you put a soak-a-way in your patio or anywhere else as we have done and the grey water from your kitchen sink, washing machine and dish washer drained in to it you can apply for an Abatement on your sewerage costs with your water company. When you have filled in the forms and it is all set up they will apply a discount towards your future sewerage costs. They will apply this discount to each water bill you get. We went for gold on this by installing 2 x 1,000 litre storage tanks and long story short but the rain from the house roof guttering, bath, shower and basin all go in to those tanks. One of these tanks had a Well pump installed in it and now we flush our toilets with the rain water and the grey water mixed. So we get a huge discount on our sewage because the only water that goes from our property for treatment is for loo flushing. Doing something like this has now given us water bills of around £80 to £100 max per year even though we have a water meter. The discount makes such a difference. Might be worth you thinking about something along those lines and maybe a future project for you once you get yourself sorted. By the way you can buy the storage tanks on eBay for around £80 to £150 or there about. So you would be paid back for them quite quickly because of the discount you will receive. Or you could ask around and see if any of the farmers etc. have any of these tanks hanging about that they don't want. Sorry for such a long post trying to explain all that but I hope it gives you food for thought. I can just see your cogs going round and round now :dance:

Keep up the good work. Oh I do wish I had your energy:) You always appear to be so full of beans running about here, there and everywhere:D

Edwink

Cheery_Daff · 31 May 2018 at 5:33PM

:rotfl: Thank you edwink

I assure I am not ALWAYS full of beans

:rotfl: It just seems like it sometimes

Ooh, you actually had your gas supply switched off? I'm intrigued! Were you on mains gas or LPG? We're on LPG and have just switched suppliers (tying us into a two year contract which seems to be the norm). Much cheaper than the existing supplier though.

Thanks for the info about drainage, I didn't know you could do that! Unfortunately it doesn't apply to us as we don't have mains drainage anyway, we have a septic tank, so our water costs are only about £13 a month anyway I think (we're not on a meter). I do need to investigate the septic tank though - I have no idea how big it is, when it was last emptied etc :eek: Been completely head in the sand about this one I confess :eek:

I also suspect the bath water doesn't drain into the tank as there's an ominous gurgling outside the bathroom window whenever you pull the plug out, but I only ever remember *as* I'm pulling the plug out, at which point I'm usually clean and not-very-dressed, and therefore not at all inclined to run round the fields to the other side of the house to investigate :rotfl:

No idea where the washing machine goes. I assumed into the tank but for all I know it's just running into a field... :eek:

Karmacat · 31 May 2018 at 7:39PM

Very interesting about the water ... ohmyword, I really, really, really want to be a smallholder. Never mind, I'll do it in the next life

Great news on the wheelie bins, Cheery

greenbee · 31 May 2018 at 7:46PM

There's lots of knowledge (and discussion) about septic tanks of the 'In my home' forum Cheery, so plenty of help about. I have a treatment plant (which I own, and share with 5 other neighbours) so it's slightly different, but does mean no drainage bills. And I'm on a meter and pay slightly less than you for my water (probably because I'm away for work so much so never around to use the stuff...).

Cheery_Daff · 31 May 2018 at 8:01PM

Ooh, thanks greenbee, I'll investigate :j

Aw KC, you can smallhold (is that a thing?!) vicariously through me if you like

even though I'm not entirely sure that's what I'm doing :rotfl:

No idea what it is that I'm doing actually

:rotfl:

Whacked today. Left at 8, an hour's drive to work (plus traffic), worked 9 hours, an hour's drive home - at least it would have been had I not been singing enthusiastically and missed the turnoff from the main road :eek: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Oh well, I thought, I'll take the next one - except there wasn't a next one, so i ended up in the supermarket, and figured I might as well pick up a few bits while I was there.

Finally got home at 7.15 (after my 12 mile detour), Mr Cheery was distressed about something, which apparently I didn't respond to appropriately enough (being rather preoccupied with making my own cup of tea and bowl of porridge for dinner), and now he's in lying in bed, probably cursing me

Oh well. Going to take advantage of the brief lull in arguing proceedings to get back out to the greenhouse with my spirit level.

At least the sun's shining out there!

edwink · 31 May 2018 at 8:20PM

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

:rotfl: Thank you edwink I assure I am not ALWAYS full of beans :rotfl: It just seems like it sometimes

Ooh, you actually had your gas supply switched off? I'm intrigued! Were you on mains gas or LPG?

I also suspect the bath water doesn't drain into the tank as there's an ominous gurgling outside the bathroom window whenever you pull the plug out, but I only ever remember *as* I'm pulling the plug out, at which point I'm usually clean and not-very-dressed, and therefore not at all inclined to run round the fields to the other side of the house to investigate :rotfl:

No idea where the washing machine goes. I assumed into the tank but for all I know it's just running into a field... :eek:

We had our gas turned off when we installed a wood burning stove that has a back boiler and heats our hot water and 10 radiators. In the summer our solar panels give us our hot water in case you wondering if we had the stove running all year so we could have a shower in the summer:rotfl:

I had a neighbour that had a septic tank where her water went in to except for her shower and the bath water because that drained across her patio and in to her flower beds to save money. You could do similar I suppose. I think it was mainly her loo flushing that went in to the tank. Not sure about her kitchen grey water though.

For those on a meter I believe that the sewage is worked out by charging 90% of what is used. In other words if you use 100 litres of clean water you are charged for 90 litres of sewage. That's what I was told by Affinity Water where I am in the South East.

Right I'm off to put my jim jams on (favourite part of the day):D as whacked like you Cheery:).

Edwink

Karmacat · 31 May 2018 at 9:59PM

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

Aw KC, you can smallhold (is that a thing?!) vicariously through me if you like even though I'm not entirely sure that's what I'm doing :rotfl:

Aww, thanks Cheery! I'm trying to set up a Tom and Barbara, but you've got the makings of sumfink proper out there

Whacked today. Left at 8, an hour's drive to work (plus traffic), worked 9 hours, an hour's drive home - at least it would have been had I not been singing enthusiastically and missed the

turnoff from the main road :eek: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Well, its a good reason, anyway :rotfl: I like that :rotfl:

Finally got home at 7.15 (after my 12 mile detour), Mr Cheery was distressed about something, which apparently I didn't respond to appropriately enough (being rather preoccupied with making my own cup of tea and bowl of porridge for dinner), and now he's in lying in bed, probably cursing me

[/quote]
Uh oh! I hope you sprinkle some seeds or spices in the porridge, Cheery? With that level of manual labour, you really need *something*.

Oh well. Going to take advantage of the brief lull in arguing proceedings to get back out to the greenhouse with my spirit level.

At least the sun's shining out there!

It's such a new life for both of you, isn't it ... hope the spirit level and the greenhouse both cooperated.

rtandon27 · 1 June 2018 at 11:04PM

Hope the lull continued & all is now well!
xxx

Cheery_Daff · 2 June 2018 at 9:24AM

These things always pass eventually thank you ladies! :kisses3: Storm in a teacup usually...

KC, I always put sultanas, peanut butter and a few seeds in my porridge (and salt and sugar and cinnamon) so it's a pretty fair mix of carbs, protein, fat, fruit etc :rotfl: Wouldn't want to survive off it indefinitely, but the odd meal won't do me any harm (I hope!)

So - today the sky is grey and it's going to be a day of getting things done :j Here's a vague list, in no particular order (which I may or may not achieve some things from....)

* start putting greenhouse up
* dig some barrowloads of soil and make the rest of the no dig beds
* YNAB and banks
* blog post
* tip run (and hopefully collect some free manure if there's some out, and definitely buy a couple of bags of municipal compost for potting on)
* put stuff on freegle
* repot lettuces etc
* tidy the kitchen
* hoover
* put clothes away in bedroom
* change sheets
* sort out diploma stuff for Monday

That might do :rotfl: Clearly not going to get all of that done today, but I might get a fair bit done over the weekend.

Also need to get Mr Cheery to get me some cash out of the bank - I've lost my card :eek: Goodness knows what I did with it - I used it on Thursday night in the supermarket and I'm pretty diligent about putting it back in my purse, but it's just not there, or in the bag, or in the car, or anywhere else, and the supermarket haven't found it.

Rang the bank and cancelled it yesterday (and I'm now quite pleased that it didn't turn up 5 minutes later as that would have been most annoying :rotfl: ) So now I don't have one for a few days, which means we have to be rather more organised about stuff like filling the car with diesel as I can't just do it while I'm out :eek:

Right, off to do YNAB while I'm sitting here, then going to get outside for a bit...

Cheery_Daff · 2 June 2018 at 9:50AM

Right, YNAB done and I an SO cross with myself - hadn't reconciled my cash account since early May! :eek: I'd done the bank, but not the cash :eek: So it was all over the place, obviously there are a million things I can't remember and I've not been very diligent about using the app... :mad:

Budget fiddling category got a big wodge and I am rightly annoyed with myself :mad:

All balanced now but I'm still adjusting to not having as much spare cash as we did before

It's not as tight as it was in the olden days, but we didn't have a mortgage before, and now it's nearly £900 a month :eek: We are by no means extravagant - but we *do* tend to nip out for a cup of tea several times a week and £5 here and there adds up...

Need to pull my finger out :eek:

Anyway, enough berating for one morning

Off to request payout from Prolific and transfer the £10 from the other survey site out of paypal :j

Cheery's country living adventure

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