Countdown to Christmas 2022: The January sales edition (AKA, 'Where the bloody hell have I put that?' come next Christmas!) Thread 1

[ThatsMySantaHisBeardIsSoFluffy]

365

Here we go, roll up, roll up!

I can barely move; I'm full of cheese and Bailey's. 🐷

Here's our new thread for the new countdown! 🎄🎅🏻🎄🎅🏻

I've got housework to do today but have just spent an hour on the phone to o2 trying to downgrade to payg. Nightmare. And now dd is mad at me because I won't let her have Instagram. And I still need to have a shower and get dressed.

It's been sunny but chilly here today. We walked into the village as DD needs a chocolate bar wrapper for some art project in school next week. Then we went to Aldi for the pay day top up shop of dull stuff like loo roll and dishwasher tablets. Exciting times.

I made banana bread when I got home; it's very nice. 😋

We've got a load of washing dry as well today. Productive!

And we've also fed about 4 tonnes of sultanas to the birdies they love Puss for telling me!.

fluffy many apologies for adding the cost of sultanas to your shopping bill...don't forget to sprinkle some at the allotment for the blackbirds B&M sell massive boxes of mealworm suet pellets that they like too...

Oh, I got one of those boxes from Wilko the other month! They go down really well. 😁

And yes, I shall take sultanas with me tomorrow! They'll be very chuffed, no doubt. 😍

I went to Tesco rather than Sainsbury (just for a change)
You couldn't move for Easter eggs , they were at the first aisle , the seasonal aisle , the ends of the aisles , every space spare .
Bit early to buy , but they do sell out before Easter so I'll keep an ee out . I need to ask what they (DC) want .

Got a dress for going on holiday so pleased with that , nice enough to waft round at dinner in but a non iron fabric so easy to pack .

I put a couple of things in the Charity Shop ( Kitchen things)
Doing the usual round of washing .
Plan to get in the garden and plant up seeds I know there's still the risk of frost , but they;ll be in the little greenhouse anyway .
I don't buy plants till much later , learned that the hard way .

I can't risk feeding birds here , the cats would think it was their Christmases and Birthdays all at once

301

Morning!

It's lovely and sunny here, which makes a refreshing change. A little chilly, but it looks lovely.

The birds were sitting on the wall waiting for us this morning. They get shouty if we're too slow putting food out! 🤣

I have a few things to do at the allotment today, now the weather is better. Should blow the cobwebs away. 😁

The days are ratlling along , was it really nine weeks ago we were sitting in the aftermath of Christmas Day and thinking "Ahhhh , what's in The Christmas Fridge" (I know it wasn't technically Boxing Day but we always have pizza , put the dough on to prove then assemble and bake )

In a couple of days we'll be into the 200s

Spring is definitely within touching distance. The rhubarb is poking through and the fruit bushes I moved at the start of the year are in bud. Little signs of life starting to poke through!

I had a pile of 🐴💩 waiting for me today, so that's been spread around the plot! Couldn't get a better present!

I forgot to take sultanas. The blackbird was enjoying mealworms though! 😍

Couldn't get a better present

I have to say , I'd rather have the actual Horse

I wouldn't know what to do with a horse itself, 70!

Here's my 💩 pile. It is no more, as I've spread it!

That's a huge pile of 💩.
The horse must have been very busy...

We have about 4 people who deliver 💩💩 to the allotments. It was my first delivery in 3.5 years though! I've missed out for ages. 😭😭

300

Morning!

I've woken a bit before my alarm, so I'm lying here waking up a bit before getting up to do the cross trainer!

I ache a bit after the shit-shovelling, it has to be said. 🤣🤣

The weather forecast is dire today. We shall wash the towels tomorrow instead, so they have a hope of drying outside. DH said that not only was our bedding dry yesterday, it was warm. That is an improvement; first warm washing of the year!

Our rain isn't coming in until later this afternoon. Then it looks wet until the weekend back to work today. Bleurgh.

I had an empty washing basket on Saturday morning...how come there's already another load to do when there's only me n 'im? today looks like rain, dear sorry
I ordered DH some new trainers on Friday and they arrived (by RM) yesterday, a Sunday we don't get daily postal deliveries, so that was a bit surprising!

Speaking of rain coming in...we have a bloody great hole in the roof that we didn't know about (it's on the party wall side that we can't see from the ground) until it started leaking today. This is a bonus of renting, as it's somebody else's problem! But now we're going to need more scaffolding. Oops!

I have no idea how we missed the roof caving in. But we apparently did. 🙈

Bloody hell Fluffy - has the leak done much damage? And is your landlord good and will have repairs arranged straight away?

puss I left our washing basket with only a set of bedding in it when we went away.
I came back from a week away, washed all the holiday washing on Saturday and the bedding on Sunday. Today there's a full load of washing in there (it's DHs fault - I think he's found some hidden dirty washing and added things he forgot to when I asked for all his holiday washing) 🤬

I'm currently sat next to DH listening to him struggling not to lose his cool at the staff at Scottish Power - we had a letter while we were away saying we were using less gas and electric than we were quoted so our direct debit will be going down and we have a fair bit of credit, but we received an email today saying our direct debit is going to more than quadruple (from £75 to £360)
The woman he's speaking to is being less than helpful and his usual calmness is disappearing rapidly.

Holy shit, Crazy. Are you on a fixed rate, or is it coming to an end? That's a bonkers increase!

Other than the actual hole, there isn't much damage, I don't think. The water was running down the light, not through the ceiling, so that's not damaged! I'd think the chipboard boarding in the loft will dry out too. We don't have anything at that end, storage-wise, thankfully.

Our washing basket is only ever empty for a millisecond. Sigh.

Crazy we used to be with them...we're now with BG. Sometimes online chat is better you can screenshot it to prove you're right

puss the chat thing had been switched off. It didn't help that so many people are calling them that it took loads a few attempts to get through.
I feel like there are no good options when it comes to which company to go for - they're all a bit shit but the ones that were trying to be nicer / more ethical have gone bust.

fluffy we're coming to the end of a fixed deal. I knew it was going to increase but I just don't understand how they can say based on our usage, our costs will go from £75 to £56 then 4 days later say the dd is increasing to £360.
I know prices are bonkers but they've clearly made a mistake - which they confirmed before saying they can't deal with the issue right now (some bollocks about their system) and they'll call us back tomorrow....

I don't believe them but I think they close at 7 so were desperate to get DH off the phone so they could go home.

New rates are 45p a day standing charge for Electric and 27p for Gas,
28p per kWh Electric and 7p for gas. MSE link here.
Ours is fixed until end of June, so we'll work out from tomorrow to end of March to see how bad it will be...I suspect pretty bad.

Don't forget you get £150 back on your Council Tax, although ours is going up by more than that🤦‍♀️

We've not had notification of our council tax rise yet. I've worked it out to be about £9.50 per month if it increases by 5.99%, which I'm anticipating. I got my bill on March 16th last year, so I'll find out any day now, no doubt.

I worked out that with NI, CT plus broadband / mobile phones (11.7% increase from O2! 😱), I'm about £45 a month worse off from April. Hurrah. 🙄🙄

fluffy there was a thread in Chat about student loans - did you see it? here

You might get a bit of a refund (going back 10yrs) 🤞

I did, thank you. However, mine isn't that type of loan, so I won't. Mine is the mortgage-style, pay back over 5 years, type, where you defer if you're not earning enough. I've earned over the threshold since I started paying back, and I've only got 13 months left now. Whoop!!