Goals 2021 Update #3

As I expected, especially with the way that August went, this quarter was definitely a bit of a flop.  It's to be expected really, what with the loss of two weeks earnings and added expenses for our holiday (which I spoke about in the August budget blog), and the additional expense of having to get the car fixed and then two of the tyres changed.  It also probably doesn't help that I just lost the will by this quarter and couldn't be bothered to worry about where the money was going anymore.  I guess we might as well get on with it - I'll keep it short.

Starting with the positives.  The plan to not accumulate any more credit card debt and to keep our own personal emergency funds has remained this quarter.  I have had to use my credit card on purchases, such as when I had the tyres replaced, but made sure that I paid off the debt straight away.

The Christmas and car repair sinking funds have unfortunately gone to the wayside these last few months, without any payments not only in August but also in July and September.  To catch up we will need to find £310 over the next two months for the Christmas fund (so that it's ready for December spending) and £230 for the next three months for the car repair.  We decided to not use the car repair sinking fund when we got the car fixed in September as we had enough to cover the repairs that month and decided to just use that instead of basically starting the fund from scratch again.

We also didn't put anything towards the four months emergency /expenses fund over these last few months.  It's unlikely that we'll be able to make up for this over the remaining year and so I think the best thing to do now is to concentrate on getting the two sinking funds completed over these last few months and move this goal over to next year.  The sinking funds are a bit more pressing right now.

Lastly, my pension.  I didn't put any payment into it in August but did manage to contribute in July and September so I am happy about that.  The last time I missed a payment I then spread it across the remaining months of the year, but I don't think I can manage that this time.  If I can carry on with the same contributions over the last quarter I will be happy.

I completely dropped the ball this quarter and lost the momentum that I had built up in the first two quarters.  I'm not that surprised really as it's not that unusual to have a blip now and then when you're building on your goals, but I do need to make plans for the last quarter to hopefully end on a high. The aim for this last quarter is to complete our two sinking funds, carry on paying into my pension on a monthly basis, and keep the credit card debt to nothing and the emergency fund at £1000.  Oh, and I need to look at life insurance, always a joy.  

I think I'll calm myself now with some beautiful scenery.

Project Pan 2021 Update 3

And then there was one.

As I had hoped in the last update I have managed to completely use up the Cien eyeliner pen in Black, mostly by wearing smoky eye looks every weekend.  I've looked everywhere I can think of but haven't been able to find anything on Cien's cruelty free status so it's not really a product I would recommend to anyone.  I also found that, on my eye lids at least, it transferred quite easily, though it was very easy to put on.

So that just leaves The Balm highlighter in Mary-Lou Manizer to go.  The chance of me using this product up by the end of the year is unbelievably small and right now I'm in two minds as to whether or not I want to keep it after the end of this project.  I'm not going to lie, I do really like the look of it as an eye shadow in conjunction with a blusher, but do I really need a highlighter in my make-up bag.  I'll keep using it until the end of the year and then maybe take a little break from it before I make my final decision.  It is a beautiful product though.

And that's it, a very short post as there really isn't much to say here.  It's just as well I'm going to do a 'what's now in my make up bag' with the next update otherwise it would just be a paragraph.  Bring on me highlighting absolutely everything for three months.

Crafting 2021 Update 3

It's been another three months of crafting and, if I'm being honest, I really hadn't expected to get that much done this quarter.  However, it has turned out to be the complete opposite.  In fact, I've done so much better than I thought I was going to do I'm almost proud of myself - almost.  Admittedly the two weeks off I had in August with more down time them originally planned probably helped.

The 1940's Trousers

Not only have I managed to start and complete these trousers, but I've also managed to make the top half the overalls pattern which I plan on adding attachments to so that I can either wear them as trousers on their own or the full overalls.  There was a lot of fiddling I needed to do to this pattern to make it actually fit my figure, but it's been worth it as I now actually have a pair of trousers that fit me properly and which I don't have to wear a belt with.  Unfortunately I haven't actually had much wear out of them yet as the weather's been far too hot, but as soon as I can I'll be putting them on.  I'm actually going to be writing a more in-depth post of this so I won't add anymore here.

Christmas Cards

Oh look at the year zooming past and I still haven't gotten very far with these Christmas cards.  I have given doing watercolours another go when we were in Lundy, just not with much great success.  I just need to put aside more time to practice really and stop being so lazy about it.  Definitely a most do better here.

Lord of the Rings/ The Hobbit Cross-stitch - The Shire

This is at least coming on nicely and I'm pretty close to finishing it now.  I finally got around to removing that dark mark at the bottom of the fabric and am expecting it to be done by the end of the year, if not quite a bit sooner.  It's probably coming along so well as I'm finding it quite a nice way to wind down at the end of the night.  It does look really good and I can't wait to see it on the wall as I work my way through the next one, which I've already brought all the thread for in preparation.

The Fantail Skirt

I have brought all the fabric I need to make this skirt now (as well as the top I plan to go with it), as a mock up and as the real thing.  It's sitting in a big pile on the side of the desk just staring at me.  Whilst I haven't started this yet I have finally cut out the pattern.  The biggest issue was not really knowing how I wanted to final skirt to look and so what changes I needed to make to the pattern, but now that I've finalised it in my head the process can now begin.  I can see this taking quite a few weekends.

Two Pairs of Paper-bag Shorts

I wasn't originally going to make these, but I didn't really like the shorts that I have already which either don't fit properly or were falling apart.  I also have this problem where the waist band rises up to the small part of my waist, taking all the shorts with them and making them a lot shorter than I actually want.  So I decided it was time to make myself a pair and brought the Ellen Woven Shorts pattern which was the closest to the style I really like.  I had planned on making just one pair using the goldfish African fabric I had made the culottes out of, but I liked the outcome so much that I've made another pair (mostly for walking) using fabric that has the map of Middle Earth on it.  I absolutely love this fabric and just couldn't resist getting it.  The pattern didn't quite fit my figure and I had to make some changes before it fitted the way I wanted, mostly heightening the waist line and bringing in the leg width a little, but I love this altered form and am definitely keeping the pattern for future use.

Harry Potter Nightie

I've already written a post about this so won't put in too much about it here.  Only to say that I could no longer use a nightie that I loved the shape of, so I made a pattern from it and have used that to make another nightie using fat quarter fabric in a Harry Potter pattern.  It's turned out pretty well and I've already used it quite a lot.

Ed's Project Bag

After making my nightie I still had quite a lot of Harry Potter fabric left over and, as my partner is the real Harry Potter fan and has no where to put the hobbies he's working on, I decided to make him a project bag and corresponding case with lining to fit all his smaller items.  I think they turned out pretty well, even if I do say so myself, and it was actually the first time I had properly put in a zip - which was an interesting learning curve.

Clara Bow-Panel Sweater

As I apparently always have to have a knitting project on the go at any time I decided to start one of the jumpers I've been wanting to knit in a while.  It's another pattern from the Knit Vintage book I have and where I had originally gotten my cardigan pattern from.  Add to the fact that I found the Rowan yarn I needed in the colour I wanted on sale and it seemed like it would be silly to not start it right away, despite the heat we're experiencing at the moment.  I do love knitting.  There's something so calming about it.

And that's it for this quarter.  I still can't believe just how much I've managed to get done, especially as I really didn't feel that I would have the time to do it all.  It'll be interesting to see how much I manage to do this quarter, but mostly I'm just hoping that I get the Christmas cards completed - that's my main aim for these next few months.

Starting the Coast to Coast/ Two Moors Way

This post was meant to be part 1 of our Coast to Coast / Two Moors Way trips that we attempted a couple of weeks ago, but things didn't exactly go to plan and we had to end it before it had properly begun.  I still wanted to write about it, however, as it's good to talk about the bad as well as the good, and you can still learn something from it.

We knew that this wasn't going to be one of the easiest walks we'd ever done as we were attempting to cram the sensible eleven days trip into seven and we were having to bring more food than I would have liked as our itinerary meant that we couldn't guaranteed we were going to be near any of the shops when they were actually open.  We had managed to get the rest of our gear quite light, with the main weight coming from the food and water.

We started pretty early at the beginning point, Wembury Beach, and completed the Erme-Plym Trail part of the trek in the first day.  The distance was quite a long one, just over 17 miles, but the terrain of fields and country lanes was a pretty good one to start the walk with.  Unfortunately the views were pretty much obscured by the weather for most of the day.  In fact, it rained so much and so hard that I didn't want to take my phone out very often to take photos, and our guide book has taken quite a beating.

Despite the wet and windy weather wild camping on Dartmoor turned out to be a pretty good experience.  The food we had brought was enough to fill us and quick to make, and our tent (the Lanshan 2 which many people have said in reviews that they didn't think would hold up to wind and rain) worked very well giving us a sheltered but condensation free night despite all the rain.  The only issue I had is that I've now noticed that my hips have started hurting after a night camping, so I'll need to find a ground mat that gives me a little more support for future trips.

Day two was meant to be one of our longest days, just over 20 miles in total, and would see us travelling over Dartmoor, past Holne, and then back into Dartmoor again for another night of wild camping.  However, it turned out that this wasn't meant to be.  I have to admit that we didn't get up and as ready as early as we should have done, but the main issue was that the little niggles my partner had experienced the day before hadn't alleviated over night.  Instead, they got progressively worse as the day went on, mostly in his knees, and it got to the point where we had to call it quits on the walk.

Thankfully we had made it to the Avon Dam Reservoir, which meant we could take a nice slow walk down to the nearby car park where we could call in the cavalry to take us home.  The walk up until that point had been very, very wet and windy again, and shrouded in mist, but still beautiful in it's own right.  There's something about Dartmoor in the fog that is so attractive, maybe it's the added danger of getting completely lost.

So, what have I learnt from this incomplete trip.  Firstly, our choice in tent turned out to be a real win.  Light weight, capable of protecting us from some pretty bad weather, and the fact you need to bring your walking polls to use in junction with it turned out to be a win as my partner really relied on them in the end.  Secondly, I need to find a way of making our packs even lighter as I'm pretty certain that the weight along with the cold played a key role in the knee issues.  Thirdly, I really need to change my walking boots.  I love the boots I have.  They're sturdy and take quite a beating, but my feet are just too wide for them and no matter what I do I can't get them to fit.  On the plus though, I'm a lot fitter than I thought I was and my body actually took really well to the walking with the heavy backpack.  By day two it felt like my body had already gotten into the rhythm of it.

And the plan moving forward is this - we don't want to give up on doing the Two Moors Way, but doing it in one go probably isn't a good idea at the moment.  Instead, we're going to break it up into stages with shorter sections than we had originally planned to act as training for other longs hikes we have on the radar.  It was also great being back up in Dartmoor again and, once the knees have healed, we plan to spend a lot more time there in the future.

August 2021 Budget

So this month went as badly as I thought it was going to.  In fact, it probably went a little bit worse.  We had gone into August knowing it was going to be a financially tight month as there was going to be two weeks in which I wasn't earning anything and where my partner wasn't going to be earning the full amount he normally does.  We did expect to have one week where we weren't going to be spending much at all as we would be walking and camping, but unfortunately, due to some knee issues, that didn't really happen (that'll be coming up in another post).

Let's just get into it and start with the positives.  Our individual emergency funds have stayed at £1000 and we still haven't accrued any credit card (or any other) debt. Yay!  And now let's step into the bad.

Savings - haha.  This month was mainly about getting the balance in our current account back to where it needs to be to cover all the bills that will be coming out at the start of September.  We have managed to do that, but it has meant that we haven't been able to put any money into our sinking funds or into our four-month savings funds.  To make up for this and to reach the 2021 goals we need to now put away about £500 a month until the end of the year. 

I also wasn't able to put any money aside for my pension.  I would say that I had to priorities paying bills, and that is partially true, but I did also spend quite a bit of money on other things I didn't necessarily need this month and which could have gone towards pension payments and savings.

One of those things was eating out and takeaways.  The knee problems not only meant that we couldn't do the coast to coast walk but also meant that we weren't able to do any other walking or swimming that we had planned.  These trips would have helped get us out of the flat and away from possible spending.  I also find that when I sit around doing nothing much I get incredibly lazy and that laziness also includes not doing sensible, healthy, money-saving things like cooking my own food.  So, we got a lot of takeaways and snacks and ate out quite a bit.  Some of that is because we went out for my brother's birthday, but not nearly enough to really justify the amount.

We also had a lot more time to stare in shop windows and at things online, which is never good.  Some of it was on wedding things and things we needed to do the week-long walking that never happened.  But really those are just justifications and a fair amount of the spending could have waited until next month or, in fact, the next few months, to get.

I am actually writing this post a little bit early as there are still a few days of August still to go, but now that we're back at work hopefully the spending should be a lot less.  We've had two bad financial months now and we can only really blame ourselves.  So, goals for the next few months are to cut back greatly on our non-essential spending and to reduce our takeaway /eating out spending to just once a week (and this includes all the snacks we get here and there which will be the most difficult thing).  We pretty much have everything we need now and there are only a few items on our to-buy list - a pair of walking boats each and some elastic for a project I have going at the moment.   And as if looking at my budget isn't enough of a reminder that we need to do better I've actually put on a little bit of weight from all the eating out we've been doing.  I think my body is trying to tell me something. 😂

Tidying and Decluttering: Kitchen Cupboards

You know that thing where you're hoping that the few walking trips you have planned will mean that you can completely ignore the areas in your home that need sorting, but then one of you gets injured so that you now have extra time on your hands and no excuse not to do it.  There are two cupboards in my kitchen that fall under this category and, whilst getting a catch practise every time I tried to pull out something is probably quite useful, it really was time to get them sorted.

Before I started I brought some storage items I knew I'd need.  They're not ones that I really wanted, but those would take a while to find and I didn't want to give myself any more excuses.

I also finally brought a stool as I can't actually reach the top shelf, and even the middle shelf is a bit of a push.

The cupboard above the sink where we normally keep the food containers was the one that needed the most work, especially as it has become a catch-all for things that didn't really fit anywhere else.  First thing first, pull everything out and then sort them into categories.

Then get rid of (recycle) anything we hadn't actually used in a while and didn't seem likely to use again.

We had been storing the cooking outdoor gear in the kitchen, but it actually made more sense to store that in the outdoor gearbox in the wardrobe as we never use any of it at home - not surprisingly.

I also moved some utensils, colander, etc into more suitable places.  Which, of course, led to a little tidying up of those areas as well.  Though I tried to keep that to a minimum so that this didn't turn into a mammoth task.

The plastic food containers were organised into the storage bins I'd gotten.  

And everything was placed back into the cupboard in a way that meant it was easy to see where everything actually was.  It looks so much better now, hopefully, we can keep it that way.  One of the great things about those containers is that even if you just throw the stuff back into them you still know where everything is and it doesn't then take up the rest of the cupboard.

Next was the food cupboard.  This didn't really need too much work as we use the items pretty often, but we had gotten into the habit of just throwing the food back in.  We also had some glass food containers we use to use so we could contain the items better actually see what was in there but had stopped using recently.  As before I pulled out everything I could fit on the counter and then organised it into categories.

I used the containers we already had to store our most used items and placed them near the front.  Everything else was then put back into like for like areas.  In the future, I want to get some more storage solutions to keep them more contained, but as this cupboard is less of an issue it wasn't completely necessary right now and I can just pick those up from charity shops as and when I find them.

And that's it.  A pretty quick project really but I now don't feel so bad every time I open up the cupboards and I also don't have to worry about anything falling on me which is a bonus.  Now all I need to do is the same thing in other spots in our home........multiple times.  I'm going to loosely use the word 'fun'.

July 2021 Budget

It would be fair to say that July didn't go to plan at all when it came to spending and saving.  If I'm honest the main reason is that I just lost all motivation this month and there's not really much else I can say about it, so let's just jump right in.

Starting with a plus, we manage to build back up my partners emergency fund and still have no credit card by the end.

However, we didn't put any more money into four months funds or our car repairs and Christmas sinking funds.  Both of those are quite big ops and something we really need to do much better on over the next five months.

I did manage to put some more money into my pension though so that at least is a good thing which is marginally tempering the guilt of doing so badly this month.

And we also managed to reduce our household and takeaway spending this month as well.  If we can just carry that change over the next few months that should really help us out.  Food spending has remained high though and that is definitely something we need to work at.

Unexpectedly our flat and car parking rent came out this month which we thought wouldn't come out until August, and that is something that stopped us from being able to put money into our savings account.

There was also quite a bit of general spending happening this month.  A big part of this was me needing to replace my sports bras, and unfortunately, my size doesn't make that cheap, and partly because we're planning at least one long-distance walking trip in August and needed to buy a few things for that.

There have been some good things this month, but mostly it was a pretty down one.  I think I'm most annoyed at myself because I won't be able to earn for two weeks in August and so being good with our finances in July would have been a good idea.   However, there's no point in wallowing in it now, what's done is done, and now we just need to get on with being better for the rest of 2021.  No pressure then. 😂

To make myself feel better I'm just going to add a cute picture of a cat.