December 2022 Budget

So this is the last blog of 2022 and it's definitely been an 'interesting' year to say the least.  I guess it's sort of fitting that my last blog is a financial one, seeing as everything has been about finances this year.  The December's budget went better than I was expecting seeing as Christmas was involved and having our Christmas sinking fund definitely helped with that.  This fund is something we'll look to build up again next year.

Apart from one week we've actually been pretty good when it came to spending on groceries and eating out.  It shows that we can do it just fine and I plan on carrying that on to next year as well.

In November we did have to do quite a bit of spending on the car which ultimately led to us having to get a new second hand car.  This time we had to get the car on finance, which we'll need to factor into our budgets over the next few years.  This month has been much better when it comes to the car and we did get our car tax for the previous car back again, which I put straight back into our car repairs sinking fund.  This month hasn't really been the best month to determine how much we're going to save on fuel with our hybrid car, so it will be interesting to see that in the future.  Another positive is that I managed to pay a full year of my pension in, the first time I've been able to do that - go me!

Our spending has also been pretty good this month, but probably because we've been so busy sorting out other things as well as presents for other people that we haven't had a chance to spend on ourselves.  Looking back over the year it's pretty obvious that we not particularly good on that front so that's something we'll need to think about budgeting next year as well.

We're also ending the year with no credit card debt and our own emergency funds still in order so I'm very happy about that.  Unfortunately the four months saving didn't exactly go to plan, but at least the money was there when we needed it which is kind of the point of it in the first place.

And that's it.  This year has definitely shown us how important having the sinking funds and savings have been when it comes to helping make things less stressful.  This adds a bit more of an incentive to get them back up and running next year so that we're ready for the next set of problems, or hopefully just reading for Christmas 23.  

Happy New Year everyone.

Crafting Goals 2022 Update #4

First of all, Merry Christmas.  I hope you're having a good day.

This has been quite a year for crafting for me.  It was a very ambitious list that I'd given myself and I even added to it along the way.  Though I haven't actually managed to complete it, I'm still amazed at how much I did actually manage to do.

The Wrap Dress

This was from the pattern Butterick B6554.  I really love how this dress looks and feels on, and I absolutely love the pattern on the fabric even though it wasn't initially what I was looking for.  It's nice to also have a dress that fits me properly and doesn't flash parts of me at unexpected moments.  The only issue is that,despite making the top part already and doing a practise run that went well I still managed to get the bust darts wrong and had to do them again, which means the inside isn't as seamless as I wanted.  If I'd had more fabric I'd probably would have redone that part, but I'm still happy with the outcome and I plan on wearing this quite a lot.

Guernsey / Gansay Jumper

This is a Christmas present for my husband, at his request.  It's a really interesting pattern (from Frangipani), but the size of the needles required are quite small and that meant that, despite doing a lot of knitting, there hasn't been as much progress as there normally would.  That has meant that, despite my best efforts, this isn't completely complete for Christmas and he has had to open it with needles still in the garment.  However, it shouldn't take me much longer to get it completed, hopefully by the end of the year.  Despite that length of time the process has been quite interesting due to the Gansay jumper specific elements such as the false seams, and the gussets under the armpits and around the neck to give that extra space and movement for a jumper that it meant to be quite fitted otherwise.  I would recommend trying this jumper, especially if you're interested in the history of garments.  Just make sure you have plenty of time to make it.

Christmas Cards

(I completely forgot to take photos of the finished cards before I sent them all away.)  Speaking of Christmas, my decision to make the Christmas cards using paper crafts this year definitely saved by quite a lot of time but was still quite enjoyable.  Mostly it gave me the opportunity to use my brain in a different way to create a design.  It's been a while since I've done something like this and I think I might also start making birthday cards in this way in the future.  I do need to make sure this doesn't turn into another money sink though, so possibly a bit of planning first.  Still I think they turned out pretty well.

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

My plan to get everything done before December so that I could concentrate on just doing this cross-stitch went completely out the window when I realised that the Guernsey jumper would take as long as it has.  This has meant that I haven't actually touched this cross-stitch at all this quarter and it has remained the same as before.  I'm not sure I'll get to it at all this year so this will probably carry on to the next where I plan on it being one of the first things that I finish along with some smaller completion projects.

And that's it for crafting in 2022.  Getting all of these crafting projects done did mean that there were some other goals I had for this year that I didn't complete as a result.  The highlight this year for me was making my wedding outfit and even though I had planned on shortening the skirt afterwards to that I could wear it other times I just haven't had the heart to do that yet.  Though I am partly glad on that now as I've now changed my mind on the length I'd like it to be.  Still, every time I open up my wardrobe and see the skirt I get to think 'I did that'.  I have started to think about what I'd like to do next year for crafting, but I haven't completely decided yet.  All I know is that it'll be a lot less than this year and will mostly involve using up products I have rather than buying more.

Goals 2022 Update #4

Well this quarter rushed by quickly, along with the good intentions I had to catch up on all the goals I had planned for this year.  I did have other things on my mind this quarter, such as trying to get everything ready for Christmas and dealing with multiple car issues.  I'm sure if I'd really put my mind to it I could have come along much further, but where's the fun in that.

Financial Fitness

Getting our two sinking funds sorted out early on in the year couldn't have been more of a blessing for this quarter as we were able to do Christmas shopping for all our family without having to stress about money.  The sinking fund for the car also meant we were able to get the tyres fixed without too much bother, deal with a couple of breakdown costs, and have money to help with the deposit for our new car.  It definitely meant that an already stressful situation wasn't made even more stressful, especially around this time of year.  They will need to be saved up again, but it's been worth it.

Unfortunately our attempt to save up our four months emergency savings went out the window.  This was partly due to me working less hours and my husband not having the extra hours available at his work over the winter.  However, it would be true to say that our spending on food and other things we didn't necessarily need also played quite a bit factor in this.  I've definitely spent more money on crafting than I probably should have and whilst it has produced items that I use all the time I could have done without them to reach this goal.  

I also haven't managed to work out an additional income as I had planned to do.  I would have needed to dedicate some of my free time towards it to get it to work, but I was too busy crafting to do that.  I had set myself quite a few crafting goals this year, which I'm not doing next year which might make it a much better time to get that done.  I also haven't gotten around to changing my bank over to a more ethical one, though I have done all the research into it that I wanted to do and have decided that Triodos is going to be the best one to go to.  I still have a little time before 2023 arrives and I'll be off for part of that so that'll probably be the perfect time to make this change as it shouldn't actually take that long.

To end this section on a plus I have managed to pay a full year of pension this year and we've managed to end the year with our credit cards being zero.  In the last week of 2022 I'm going to have a real in depth look at our finances to get an honest idea at how we've been doing and where we've been sending our money.  There will need to be quite a few changes next year even just to ensure that we can pay our bills.

Sailing Around the World

We haven't been able to take any sailing lessons this year, but we knew that was going to be a bit of a long shot anyway.  However, I have been doing more research into electric motors on sailing boats.  Do I completely understand how they work - not really.  Do I at least have a better understanding - definitely.  Maybe sailing lessons could be one of our sinking funds for next year, but we'll see how that goes. 

Long Distance Walking

I've done everything on this that I had planned to do.  Our finances and fitness levels means that this won't be anything we can do anytime soon.  Good to have a distant carrot to work towards though.

Learning New Skills

We haven't managed to get any more surfing in this year, but we have asked people to put money towards surfing lessons for our Christmas present so hopefully we'll be able to get back to that soon.  Possibly another sinking fund.

The skateboarding has gone right out the window.  I am annoyed with myself on this one as I seem to get better at it each time I practice, but I'm just being lazy when it comes to getting up and giving it a go.  I'm not going to let this one go though as I'm still keen to learn.  I just need to make it a habit that we do.  At least my husband is also wanting to get back into it so that's a partner in crime now.

I'm aware that this year I did give myself a lot to do on both the goals and crafting front.  In fact, I probably gave myself a little bit too much to do and, though I'm disappointed I didn't get more done, I know that what I have managed to do is still good.  I am at least a little bit further forward than I was last year and that's the most important thing to me.  

Additional Crafting

I keep remembering, and then forgetting, little crafting things I need to do to finish projects, or make things more wearable, or use up fabric and yarn I have left over from previous projects so I decided to write them down in a list.  It turns out to be a little longer than I was expecting.  My main aim at the moment is to try and get my husband's jumper finished before Christmas, but I might try and fit some of these in now and then as a break from continuous knitting.

The first is some dismantling projects, which includes removing reusable bits from some shorts I made a while ago whilst getting back into using my sewing machine and taking the arms off a t-shirt I don't really wear anymore so I can use it for exercising. 

I also need to fix a couple of finished projects as well.  I noticed a little while ago that one of my jumpers arms is actually on inside out which means that you can see the threads.  I'll need to unpick that and put it back on properly.  I also need to downsize the pompom on my hat I made recently.  I love how massive it is, but it does pull the hat off my head so it unfortunately needs to be downsized by quite a bit.

A project I need to actually finish is my convertible overalls from Simplicity S8447. The trousers are of course finished and I've been wearing them constantly.  I have also finished the top, but I need to change the strap lengths which are actually way too long and I then need to add the hook and eyes that will attach the top and trousers together.  None of these will take particularly long, I've just been lazy about it.

To use up some fabric I have left over from this year's projects I'm going to make a matching tie to my dress for my husband (at his request) and a top using what's left of the dress fabric and the fabric I used for my wedding skirt using the Prima pattern for a fitted peplum top and pencil skirt I'd made my skirt out of before.  I'll need to patch the fabrics together before I cut the pattern, but I think it'll look good.

And finally, to use up the large amounts of wool I've acquired from previous projects I want to crochet or knit a strappy top or two and knit a cover for my hot water bottle so that I don't have to keep wrapping it in a towel every time I use it.  I do also have a ball of wool I brought specifically for making myself some socks and it would be nice to actually get that done.  

It's very unlikely I'll get even half of these done before the end of the year, but I wanted to actually write them down so I wouldn't keep forgetting about them or even think about starting completely new projects.  These will at least give me a break from the neverending knitting in the round that is making a jumper.

November 2022 Budget

November has been a pretty pricey month, mostly because we have done a whole lot of Christmas shopping and have had to get a new car after a few problems with the old car, including a breakdown.  Thankfully we do have sinking funds for these, but it's still unpleasant watching them go down.  Probably because I know we will have to build them back up again.

Of course, if we're being honest, we have also spent more than we should in other areas - like things for the flat from charity shops and IKEA.  I also brought a refill for my perfume, which was pricey but should laste a few years, and we've spent quite a bit on eating out.  Ones of those times is when we went to see family, which also put up our fuel bill a little bit.  We did keep within our budget for groceries though, so I'm going to count that as a win.

On a plus we've managed to keep our own emergency funds where they are and I've caught up with my pension payments so I'll now be able to go back to £50 a week for the rest of the year.  I'm not going to say anything about the four months emergency fund though, which I'm just going to gloss over this month. 😂

In all honesty it's been a bit of a disaster month when it comes to money.  However, the Christmas shopping is now complete and the issues with the car fixed.  We're also not going to be travelling anywhere in December so it should be a much cheaper month then November.  Now we just need to start saving up our sinkings funds and four months savings again - oh joy.

Update On Our 'Homely Home'

I'm still working on making our rented flat as homely as possible.  Whilst there is one thing we unfortunately can't do, which is put up pictures as we can't put holes in the wall, there are a few changes we have been able to do.  We have tried those Command Hooks for the pictures, but so far only one has actually worked so I might need to play around with that a bit more.

We now have two covers for the sofa as I brought an extra one from a charity shop and we also have two table clothes for the coffee table (also a charity shop find).  We rotate these to keep them clean, but it also means that we can make the room look slightly different each time, which works with my restless brain.  We've also changed the candles a little on the coffee table as well as adding a cup that I had made when I was looking after my niece and nephew.  I haven't decided what to put in there yet, but it's a nice little personal touch.

One of the most awkward things about our home was the amount of stuff we had tried to fit under the desk and which I have to squeeze between whenever I use the sewing machine.  It also meant that the chair couldn't fit under properly, making it awkward to walk by.  To make this area work better I've removed the two storage boxes that were there and move the contents of them elsewhere (more on that later).  The empty storage boxes I've hidden beside the sofa and am using as a type of stand for my craft projects bags.  It's much easier to use that space now.

We've added a bookcase (borrowed from my Dad) to our sitting room area and filled it with the smallest books we have, including what was left in one of the storage boxes under the desk.  The ornaments that were on the collapsing side table have now been placed on top of the bookcase and the side table moved closer to the sofa and now contains my knitting projects and our wedding photos.  There's something about books that makes a space so much more colourful and we both really like this area now.

There's now quite a bit more space on our old bookshelf and I'm using that to store the craft items that were previously under the desk as well as the stationary that was in the other storage box, which I've put into these recycled paper totes I'd found in Wilko's.  Doing all this has actually meant that I've been able to take a proper look at what I have and organise everything into categories a bit better.  There isn't much I'll need to buy in the future and I was able to get rid of some things I wasn't using.  These bookshelves will obviously change a little as we go through the books and crafts, but I plan on letting the spaces that appear remain until we're back down to just one bookcase again.

The next real project is to sort out the airing cupboard which has literally turned into a catch all area for things I'm not sure where to place.  I definitely need to give it a good declutter for starters and probably move all the cleaning products to underneath the sink with similar items.  I can definitely move the food dehydrator to the back corner as we don't use it often enough for it to be at the front.  Then I'll need to find proper storage for my tools and the plant pots that we got for when I replant the cacti.  I think I can reuse a storage container I freed up when I reorganised the car boot, but a proper tool box is probably a must.

Unfortunately not my cat.

Our flat definitely feels more like our own place now and it'll keep evolving and changing as we do.  We have had to be quite good with our storage as we don't have a lot of space to store all our things and when there's two people there's always quite a lot of things, but we're getting better at that.  All we need to do now is remember where we've cleverly stored a number of these things when we need them.

A Trip to Brittany

One of the perks we get from my husband's job is good deals on ferry trips to the continent and, when coupled with the fact that we got two nights at a hotel as a wedding gift and which included hotels in Europe, that meant that we were able to take an relatively affordable trip to Brittany.  We knew this was going to cost a bit more money than we should really be spending at the moment, but we wanted to enjoy ourselves one more time on a long weekend before things became a bit more tight financially speaking.

The ferry we took was a return to Roscoff, going over on Friday night and returning on the Monday afternoon.  We would be staying two nights at Morlaix at a place called B&B Hotel (which turned out to be more like a motel) and, as we didn't want to bring the car, we just got a bus from Roscoff to Morlaix and back again.

The first thing we did once we were off the ferry was to go straight to a cafe, the Cafe Ty Pierre, and have breakfast, which included a lot of bread and large mugs of hot chocolate.  I had already realised that it was probably going to be almost impossible to miss out gluten and dairy, or at the very least butter, on this trip and I'd accepted what affect that was going to have.  It was worth it though and you can't go to France without having the bread.

We were catching the bus to Morlaix at lunch time so we had a wonder around Roscoff to get an idea of the place and see what things we wanted to have a better look at when we were back on the Monday.  We also brought some postcards because it's always good to get them done early.   Roscoff is a really beautiful little place and I'd happily spend a whole day here doing not much except for eating.  

Once we got to Morlaix we went straight to the Tourist Information place, unfortunately missing the market we were hoping to have a look at, to find out what was open over the next couple of days and where everything was.  They confirmed what we had already suspected when it came to what would be closed on the Sunday, though it turned out more would be closed than we had originally thought.  However, we were given a map which had a couple of recommended walks around the town which would take us by a number of historic sites there.

As we still had time on the Saturday we went to see two famous houses in Morlaix, La Mason a pondalez and Mason de La Duchesse Anne.  Both are lantern houses, so called because the central space goes all the way up to the roof which has windows in it.  This allows light to fall onto all areas of the building as the side rooms also have windows.  Neither of the houses had much in them and there weren't any rooms set up 'as it would have been', but they were amazing to look at and the craftsmanship of the items that were there were really beautiful.  We also had a look at some of the shops as we tried to find gifts for people (and maybe a few things for ourselves as well).  Morlaix is another beautiful location, but we decided to save looking around it too much on the Saturday so we could have a proper nosy about on the Sunday.

Once these had been looked at and we may or may not have brought some cakes from a patisserie we headed to the hotel.  We had brought some noodles with us to have for our dinners to try and help save some money on this trip, but we did take a quick trip to a supermarket to get some more food as we weren't sure where we would be able to eat on the Sunday based on the information we had been given.  That trip to the supermarket did involve a quick nosy around a craft shop that just happened to be on the way.  Then it was back to the room to relax and knit.

The next morning we had a little lie-in followed by breakfast at the hotel before heading back into Morlaix to explore.  We came across a market on the way in, with mostly just food, which we had a quick nosy around and brought some local cheese.  Even though there wasn't really anything we could take home with us I still love looking at what's available at these types of markets and what type of things people eat in different areas.

There were two different walking routes recommended around Morlaix and we decided to do a mixture of the two going by whatever we thought we'd be interested in seeing.  The first port of call (ha ha) was the little port where we had a nosy at all the boats, our latest obsession, and had a look around the outside of the Quay of Leon the Manufacture which use to be a tobacco factory but has now been converted into multiple public spaces.  We then headed back to the centre via Fontaine des Anglais (a spring that was said to run with the blood of the English after the local people attacked some invading English) and up to the viaduct which you can walk across.  Obviously I'm a little funny when it comes to heights but it was still a really amazing way of seeing the town and great to be able to get so close to such a structure.  

On the other side we headed to the Eglise St Melanie (Church of St-Melaine).  I wasn't sure if this was going to be open as it was a Sunday, but it was and I'm glad as I think this is now one of my favourite churches based on the architecture and mostly the decorations on the inside - specifically the painted ceilings.

Then it was back to the centre, pass the closed museum and up the Rue des Vignes which we wondered up purely because it looked pretty.  Unfortunately the route we planned to take after was closed, so back down the rood we went and then took a route that took us pass the Eglise St-Mathieu (closed), up to the Chateau Square with another good view of Morlaix, back down to the Theatre du Paysde Morlaix, a mini up and down to the Lavoir Collobert (an open wash-house from the 18th century), and then up a very steep walk up to the Eglise St-Martin (also closed).

By this time it was definitely time to have afternoon tea, but as it was quite late and the cafes seemed to be closing we ended up going to a bar, the Bar le Taylor, to have a couple of very tasty European beers.  Then it was back to the hotel, after buying some macaroons and more cake from a place called Stephanie Giraud (and I can confirm that it's a place that's definitely worth visiting) to have more noodles and pack for a travels back to the UK.

Monday saw us walking to a very early bus back to Roscoff, thankfully via a bakery that was also open early and did some yummy croissants and baguette.  We were worried that as Tuesday was meant to be a Bank Holiday that there wouldn't be as much open in Roscoff as we had hoped, but thankfully we were wrong.  So, after a lovely hot chocolate at the cafe again, we wondered along a part of the water front we hadn't explored yet by the Biological Station of Roscoff and sat for a little while enjoying the views.  

By this point the church was open and we got to have a look inside.  This church was also beautiful and had a similar type of painted interior as Eglise St Melanie.  I remember seeing somewhere that British churches use to be painted in a similar way, but that this was changed after the reformation so it's been really interesting to see how they might have looked in the past.  After that we had a quick look through the shops for more gifts (and we might have also brought some things for ourselves) before having lunch at one of the creperies, which produced nice food but they put us in some dark corner to eat - maybe we weren't the type of people they wanted to advertise eating in their creperie.  

There was still a bit of time before we had to get on the ferry so we decided to visit the Mason des Johnnies & de l'Oignon de Roscoff, which was basically a museum on the Johnnies who use to travel to the UK to sell onions from the region and, though small, is more interesting than you might think.

Finally we headed back to the ferry port and back to Plymouth and what turned out to be quite wet weather.  It was a very short trip, but we still managed to fit a lot in whilst still having quite a relaxed time.  The only thing I would probably change was our bags.  We didn't really bring anything we didn't need (apart from a couple of tops for me) bit they still weighted enough to make walking around with them on our backs for an extended period of time uncomfortable.  I'm not sure how I'd change that, but I'll think of something before we travel again.  And we definitely want to do this again in the future.  We will need to save up for it though.  It probably helped that, as usual, we lucked out on the weather.