Steel Kitten

Another car boot

I umm'd and ahhh'd about going to the car boot this morning. As cheap a past time as it is, I'm acutely aware the money spent adds up over the weeks to some hefty cash as well as bringing too much stuff into the house. Just yesterday I turfed out five carrier bags of stuff to the charity shop and four bags to the tip, so that I'm not one day found by the fire brigade lying underneath a horde of clutter.

However, it was a lovely morning and I fancied the exercise, so as a bit of a compromise, I resolved to stick to hunting for things that were directly useful for the house and garden, or something I needed to replace. For the most part I was pretty successful.

Let's start with the bargain buy - an apparently new pair of John Lewis curtains for £12.50. I remember looking at this fabric a few years ago as a possible material to run up some cushions for, but thought it was very thick for what I wanted and didn't get it.

John Lewis curtains normally retail at £120 for a ready made pair of this size, and a great deal more for ones that are made from scratch. I'm thinking these are made from scratch as a) I cannot find the usual label that comes on the ready made pair and b) you don't get goblet headings on the ready made pairs, only pinch pleat or eyelet. I can also see where the curtain linings have been hand stitched to the fabric, and the ready made cutains don't have that detail. I am super chuffed.

These have replaced the velvet door curtains, which just yesterday I washed and put up ready for winter. However, the velvet was starting to look a little rough in places and I had it in mind to try and find a pair of replacements soon. The velvet curtains will now be relegated to the back of the house to replace an even rougher pair of thick blue curtains that hang at the back door and across the back corridor. Those blue ones will now go into the garage for Martin to use.

The rest of the finds:

Decorator's caulk 4 x 50p - forgot to buy some at homebase on Friday (and now glad I did!) so I can finish some bits of the bathroom pipe boxing.

Turtlewax car wash (1L), T-Cut and red colour restorer; £1 for all three- barely used and about £20 for the three new. We had just run out of car wash and the T-Cut was running low so great find.

New Chubb security chain for the back door 20p - we'd had a discussion about securing the back door better, so I wasn't leaving this behind when I saw it.

Four new cushion pads £4 - I washed a lot of my cushion pads, only to have them break into pieces and ruin. Now I can replace them.

Plant propagator set £2 - I went to buy a small unheated propagator set back in March that I could leave outside and didn't bother when I found out it was £8 for three bits of plastic. This set has three 24 cell trays, three seed trays and three propagator lids.

Oak wooden utensils £1.50 - to replace some manky wooden spoons and plastic utensils.

Bulb planter 50p - I was looking out for one of these as I was sick of trying to dig down into hard soil to plant bulbs.

Fixing blocks, 50p for around 20 - for fixing two boards at right angles to each other, and I needed a pack to finish off the bathroom pip boxing and the kitchen worksurface.

New linen tea towel 10p - now I can replace the mankiest from the kitchen.

A new Allmay lip gloss and Avon mascara, £1.00 for the two. I have already used and thrown out their predecessors last week.

So that was the stuff I needed and will be used straight away.

Now for the stuff I didn't really need but bought anyway :(

A complete set of period costume dramas produced by the Daily Mail in conjuction with the BBC. There around 16 in total and I was charged £1.There are so many here I haven't seen so I'm really looking forward to Sunday afternoon's from now on :)

The DVD Contagion, which is tonight's viewing pleasure.

A new M&S desk planner 50p - I realise I'm fighting a losing battle trying to keep Martin organised but I have to keep trying. This will sit on the living room desk right next to the phone in the hope it will be remembered by him when he takes phone messages.

Elizabeth David's French Provincial Cooking 20p - I sold a copy of this a few years ago and it was snapped up so fast the buyer nearly took my hand off. I always regretted selling it.

Napolean Hill's The Law of Success, complete and unabridged £1. This was the predecessor to Think and Grow Rich.

A soft bag featuring sights of the UK, like stonehenge and Windsor Castle, £1.

A 70% blue wool cardigan with little hearts £1 - couldn't leave that behind!

A pair of size 10 knitting needles £1, some interfacing for 20p, and a pack of balsa craft wood for Martin.

***

I could have bought a lot more. A lot more. However, it would have been a lot of wants, not needs, so I walked on by and left the rest of it.

 

 

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Some food bargains

A couple of quick trips out to a couple of supermarkets has yielded a few bargains this week to top up the food stores.

• Three packs of trifle sponges 3 x 89p 39p - Martin has been making trifle noises lately. The closer we get to christmas, the louder the noises get.
• Jar of decaff coffee £1.75 88p - because the label was loose!
• 480 teabags £5.50 £3.85 - because the corner of the box was crushed!

• Three chocolate and orange large loaf cakes 3 x £2.99 99p - I very rarely buy basic cakes, but ones like this I tend to snap up as I can't make it cheaper by the time I buy the chocolate and oranges.
• Four packs of 300g venison pieces 4 x £4.00 £2.86 - however, the supermarket had an offer of 3 for £10 on its meat products, so when the meat went through the till it went through with an additional £2.00 discount.

In addition, I found that our usual packs of fajita mixes, curry and chinese sauces were on offer for more than a 50% discount, so I've stocked up to see us through the next few months.

I'm off now to put on our early evening meal - venison stew - and brave the stinking rain to do some cleaning up in the garden.

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Financial planning - again

 

I'm in the grip of an obsession with financial planning at the moment.

I'm back trying to figure out how we can get the mortgage paid off so the pressure to work is reduced. Mostly for Martin's benefit, as his firm has decided to ratchet up his workload to such an extent over the last 5 weeks I think they are trying to get him to physically collapse so they can medically retire him.

I'm looking at two possible ways to pay it off:

Overpaying: we pay a shedload extra every month, the number of years you have to pay it over drops and we're mortgage free in three, maybe four, years.

Pension lump sum: we increase our pension contribution into Martin's pension by the same amount as our overpayment by dumping some money into an AVC (a fund that allows us to make Additional Voluntary Contributions to pump up our pension). Then when he is ready to retire, we take the optional 25% lump sum and use that to pay off the mortgage.

Both have their good points and bad points.

Making overpayments is simple, and we can physically see the mortgage being paid off every month. That will spur us on to keep going. But on the negative side, we won't have much in the way of savings for retirement, and when it comes to compound interest we need as many years between us and retirement to accumulate the cash as possible. Paying off the mortgage and then going hell for leather for the last few years saving won't give us as much as we might need. Mind you, compound interest probably won't help as much as getting out if a toxic brutal workplace as soon as possible will. Finally, it won't save us much in interest to do it as we are now into the phase of the mortgage where most of our payment is going towards the capital repayment.

That's how mortgages work - in the beginning the majority of your payment goes towards the interest not the capital and then it slowly shifts the other way during the mortgage term.

On the other hand, putting more money into Martin's pension requires steely nerves, as we won't be able to see what is going on until the yearly statement comes in, and have to invest on the basis that one day we will reap the rewards. But he will end up with a bigger retirement pot overall, even after the lump sum has been taken, because the lump sum comes comes from his AVC and his normal pension stays untouched.

I worked out that for us the amount of money we could make through extra pension contributions outweighs what we would save by directly overpaying the mortgage.

In fact, theoretically if we remortgaged and increased the term from its current term of 12 to 20-25 years, we could reduce our monthly payment right down, and put the difference between that and what we currently pay into the pension as well. Along with an overpayment, it would come out as an even bigger pension pot when he retires and we still get to pay off the mortgage early with plenty left over. Being 12 years younger and having 24 years until I am 65, I would have to have the mortgage in my name as our lender won't allow Martin to have a mortgage which takes him past his retirement age.

There's only one problem, and that is the variable deal we are on is so good we cannot find anything else that comes close, either in interest rates or terms and conditions. By remortgaging we would end up with a worse mortgage product, to the tune of almost doubling our interest rate and with less flexibility to overpay. We've ruled this option out now unfortunately. It was a great sneaky plan though.

So I'm sitting here this morning working out a detailed spreadsheet of all of our forecast monthly expenses based on the detailed expenses tracking I've been doing for the last seven months. Martin is pretty adament he wants to work until he is 60, as he wants to chance to earn the maximum possible so he has enough money after to do whatever he wants. Also there may be an opportunity to take voluntary redundancy with a large payout.

So first of all, I'm working out what the remainder of our mortgage payments will be every month until the end of the term in 2026. Then alongside that, I'm working out the potential figures for accumulating savings and investments in a number of different places. What I'm looking for is the savings/investment vehicle that gives me the earliest month when the forecast amount matches the amount left on the mortgage. That's the time we'll be mortgage-free.

While it sounds daft to plan in such detail so far in the future, you have to start somewhere. If the savings amount goes up or down I can adjust the figures very easily in a spreadsheet.

 

 

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Boot sale goodies again

 

As Martin was off out for the day, and I was at a loose end I went along to the local car boot sale this morning for a snuffle. Another good one. Tons of sellers and not many buyers, presumably all on holiday. That means only one thing - very low prices!

I managed to find a lot of stuff I had been looking for, and some things I was about to buy new, so I am very pleased.

New laptop bag £1 (had this exact one in my basket on Amazon for £15)

New union jack cushion 50p (for the study when the Blighty makeover is finished)

 

New London toiletries bag £1 (trying to find one to replace one where the lining had split)

New Monty Don's Gardening at Longmeadow book £1 (on my christmas list)

New Tommy and Kate shoes £4

New fleece 6-in-1 headwear £2 (was looking for a versatile item to keep Martin warm on delivery in winter)

New door handle for the bathroom 50p (the exact one I was going to buy in B&Q for £13)

 

New metre of Amy Butler Lark fabric 50p

New green tarpaulin for garden 50p (looking to buy one to cover beds for the winter)

New two sets of grease filters for range chimney hood £1 (needed replacements but normally £10)

New knitting Jenny 50p (been looking for one of these for a few months)

New kitkat chunkies (4) £1.20

New over the knee socks 20p

New H&M linen napkins (4) 50p

New mini winter waterbottle 50p

New Cath Kidston hand cream and Body Shop cocoa butter body lotion £1

Three vintage book of tea cards from Brooke Bond, including 1937 King George VI Coronation £3

 

Large amount of vintage Sanderson William Morris Golden Lily fabric £2 (I wonder if my sister recognises this. When we were growing up our parent's three piece suite and curtains were made from this).

 

Aircraft book for Martin 20p

Monsoon off the shoulder top £1

Five DVDs; Fawlty Towers series 1, Father Ted series 1, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Pam Ayres Live, £4.50 the lot.

All told, a very good day of snuffles.

Then I came home and blew up the strimmer.

 

 

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Life goes on

 

Life is moving on since Sophie went.

Martin misses her a lot. I sit on the sofa with Fleagle snuggled up to me and see Martin feeling a bit left out. When you have a cat each for evening snuggles, it can feel pretty lonely when they disappear. Martin's cat snuggles were pretty sporadic towards the end, but he still managed to get one every day from Sophie somehow. Fleagle picks up on how he feels every now and then and goes and sits with him for a while, which is lovely and chuffs him to bits.

The garden got a bit neglected while Sophie was ill, but I've almost managed to get back on top of it.

 

Food production is going great guns, so much so that at the moment we are self sufficient in fruit and veg. I only need to add some kind of protein to our meal and that's all. I have managed to compost into the raised beds and get some plants in, just a few winter brassicas, some peppers and cucumbers, so I'll be interested to see how they do compared to being outside.

 

I've been rootling around the freezer and discovered that I still have blackberries, sweetcorn, leeks, apples and plums to consume from last year's growing season, which makes me very happy. Last year was a good one :)

The strawberries and summer raspberries are done, as are the white and red currants. The lettuce has gone over and bolted, which was just as well as I was getting a bit sick of it to be honest.

All of the potatoes are dug up and stored, as are the onions. I'm harvesting tomatoes, broad beans, runner beans, blackcurrants, chillis, and cabbage with regularity, and fairly soon I will have to start freezing or bottling some. The number of blackberries is almost overwhelming.

To add to that I still have the bell peppers, kale, apples, greengages, plums, autumn raspberies, grapes, sweetcorn and more broad beans to come over the next couple of months.

 

And let's not even go into the number of eggs I've been using, freezing and giving away. The chickens are going fast and furious at the moment, so much so I'm fearing for their health and have to start supplementing their feed to make sure they're getting everything they need.

All in all, it's been a half decent year so far in the garden. I just need to work out how to extend the growing season in the polytunnel during the coldest months to help keep our food bills down.

 

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