Greetings from the far side of the 60 shore, comrades! Devon was amazing, sunny, beautiful and made me hanker to move back west. Plymouth has had a mighty upgrade since I was an habituée. South Hams estuaries and beaches incredible. I did notice, however, that towns like Dartmouth, Seaton and Beer were decidedly old in demographic profile outside the school holidays. Glebe House, where DH booked us in for the actual birthday weekend was glorious. Step count is through the roof - even Fat Spaniel is looking much slimmer! - and the challenge now is to keep it up - south London not so picturesque as south Devon, sigh.
Anyway, back home, and working my way through financial admin. Lump sum from pension scheme received, so I'm basically doing a 3 way split: some to fund renovations, some to go into cash savings/resilience fund, some to go into S&S ISA investments. The first monthly payment should come in on the 10 November, and will cover my basics/essentials. Once I get the rental property back out on the market, I will be able to resume saving/investing/and more fun spends.
I am now the happy possessor of a 60+ Oyster pass, so can have free travel on most TFL networks, and subsidies on others. I am busy booking free/low cost outings so that I can use my magic pass to get to stuff where previously the £8 or so travel costs might have made me pause. So far I am going to the Millet exhibition at the National Gallery on Friday (free entry); Blue/Orange at the Greenwich Theatre on Saturday (£5 ticket via ShowFilmFirst club); an IFS seminar on 4 November at the British Library (free), plus two book groups (free, books from library). I am very happy to be able to cruise around London and plan to use it whenever I can.
I also have the flat to renovate - works start on 27th and there's prep I need to do beforehand. And DMum and Ddad to visit and take to appointments - seeing them on Friday and again next week. DS is back and forth on work gigs, so eating at odd hours. I am attempting to batch cook decent meals so that he doesn't just jam a frozen fish fillet into the oven and put it on a bagel. I listened to a Guardian podcast about the rise of bowel cancer among young people and the evidence is pointing to UPFs....
BTW: if anyone listens to Making Money podcast (with Damien and T) and hasn't yet tried their get.most AI advice app, I'd recommend it. I have been using it to help with some planning and questions over the last couple of days and it's really helping sort out some points I'd been struggling with. Obviously it's still not personal financial advice, and you should double check, but it's pointing me towards all the right questions and sources. It will help you draft emails as well.
Right, off to ALDI: step count, ingredients for next couple of batch meals and podcast time. I gave the house a good clean before we went away, so I don't have too much to do on that front, but the garden needs some love as well.