seasons ~ hibernation over…

The end of another month that has gone like lightening for me. I feel like I went to sleep at the end of January and have woken up in March.

There is a definite feeling now when I go outdoors that everything is slowly waking up. We are much slower to rouse here than in most of the country at an elevated 700′ (the Pennine moors above us are around 1480′). Amidst this continuous rain and drizzle we have had a few dry days – not enough to go out into the garden for any length of time, but here and there I spy signs of emerging shoots and the little buds on the trees are starting to grow and unfurl. The nights are drawing out and the mornings are becoming lighter so much earlier.

And occasionally we have sunshine streaming through the sides of our blinds.

My hibernation period is definitely over, spring is here and I am raring to go.

Let the spring cleaning and clearing out begin.

Yesterday I had to wait in for a parcel so I thought it was a good idea to clean the kitchen / dining room and sweep away the cobwebs (literally!).

I used the long handled duster to reach around the the top of the walls and wiped down all the tops and fronts of the cupboards. The china cupboard gleams again after thoroughly cleaning the glass with white vinegar, the worksurfaces are clear of those bits and bobs that accumulate and even the chair legs, the lampshade and the radiator have had a wipe over.

After cleaning the floor – I am still an old fashioned down on my knees girl to wash the floor – I decided not to make a start on the insides of the cupboards as these may need a declutter and I was all out of decision making by lunchtime, but the kitchen and dining room felt fresh and clean.

I have been trying to keep my ‘3 item’ task list going and it is helping me to get some of those small, stubborn jobs completed. Often they are just little jobs that hardly take any time at all and when they are done I wonder why it has taken me so long to do them. This week I had an old clip frame to drop off at the village charity shop, two pictures to put back on the dining room wall and my pension contribution request form to complete and post to the People’s Pension. I did all three in one day.

Now all three have been given a generous tick in my planner I can choose my next three. I am not always able to set and complete them daily or even weekly as it very much depends on what the task is, but so far I have managed to keep them rolling along.

My next 3 items are:-

• List my old pattern grading books for sale on Ebay
• Shred the remaining old receipts
• Finish labelling the photo box tab dividers

Originally, last month was going to be about improving our diet and fitness levels, but I decided I really needed to continue with the paperwork and budget.

February was a short month and was interupted with our holiday and then the week we were back at home was exceptionally busy. I had to travel up to mum’s for her social services assessment, have my MRI scan in Leeds, visit our new dentist to discuss the dental treatment I require and then our car broke down big time only 3 miles from home when we had two of the grandchildren in the back for a day out (the day out became a disappointing wait for the recovery vehicle to take us back home).

So not a lot of the financial overhaul got done and I find myself at the beginning of another month and there are still a number of financial things I need to address –

• a new passport each
• updating our wills
• making an LPA each
• using any remaining ISA allowance before the end of this tax year
• making another pension contribution
• setting the spending budget

Quite a list.

I have made a start on the pension contribution.

You might be wondering why I am making pension contributions when I am retired….I will explain. (For those of you reading from across the pond and in far away countries this will perhaps not mean very much to you).

When I retired from my job in 2018 the workplace pension scheme had only just been implemented at the company I worked for. The workplace pension is like a private pension where the employee and employer both pay a percentage of your monthly earnings into the scheme. As it had only been running for just over a year it had only accumulated the grand total of £390 on leaving work! So small I almost forgot about it. It would never have given me a pension and being such a small amount I decided to just leave it in the fund as I was able to manage adequately on the state pension.

After a year I noticed it had grown to £490 and then I found out that you are able to continue paying a maximum of £2880 a year into these funds until age 75. Of course, my employer had ceased to pay into it when I left, however, the money I have contributed myself since then is growing steadily and has become quite a nice little nest egg which I could draw on should I need it in future.

The advantage of making these contributions is that the government also contribute. If you pay in £2880, they give you £720, which makes it up to £3,600. Where else these days could you get £720 interest on £2880 worth of savings. It is one of the best decisions I have ever made and I always make sure we save as much as we can to do this each year. Knowing how much my mum’s care costs are it seems prudent to try and save towards our own future care costs, should we need them.

The down side is that you cannot just deposit this money into the fund without completing the form on the People’s Pension website and waiting for them to give the go ahead. Still for a free £720 a year it is well worth the hassle and a better return than the present interest on an ISA savings account.

Isn’t the first rule of budgeting to put money aside for savings first, then spend the rest?

Once the savings have been siphoned off, planning how to spend the monthly income wisely needs a lot of consideration. Some of the household bills we pay now are increasing year on year such as council tax, water charges, utilities, broadband and insurances – all things we need to pay and have little control over. You cannot shop around for the best council tax or water deal!

Reducing the bills can be a bit of a full time occupation these days and DH is in charge of researching the best insurance, utilities and broadband.

He does a great job. We don’t necessarily always go with the cheapest, often it is the best value and he always looks at their customer service record for problem sorting. He will ring up and haggle too if need be. Sometimes it works and we don’t have to keep swapping and changing companies just in order to pay less.

Where we can we aim to cut down on water use and heating, though this long cold winter, and the very dry summer last year has already made that difficult. We placed metallic sheets behind the radiators, used draught stoppers on the doors and have 2 water butts in the garden (but they soon ran out before we had any serious rain). Still there is always room for improvement.

After we have put some money into savings and paid the bills the residual income has to stretch to cover our food, clothes, gifts, medical and health, hobbies, leisure, travel, xmas and holidays.

Often it is a stretch, but cutting back on waste, overspending and impulse buying can save more money than just taking advantage of offers or coupons, especially if those offers are for something you hadn’t thought of buying in the first place! The internet is a very tempting place full of sales and discounts that land in your inbox and it is so easy to add on a few extra items to get free postage.

As my word for the year is restore and reset I am taking the time to overhaul our spending habits, identifying the waste and overspending and looking at what works well for us.

I have a pantry full of food, a craft room full of craft supplies, a greenhouse full of empty pots and packets of seeds and a wardrobe full of clothes all waiting to be used. I do need to take stock, reduce the waste and make better use of what we already have – so using up and turning what I already have into something usable is high on the list. Selling some unwanted items might be on the cards too.

I will no doubt be sharing more on my progress in future posts.

Thank you for reading, back soon x