Halfway through the month, a look at spending and my "to do" list

 Half way through the month, so I thought I would look back at my November Plans list.
This is what I wrote at the beginning of the month

1. Continue eating our own fresh apples and fruit from the freezer so that we spend no money on fruit apart from an orange and a lemon for the Christmas cakes.✔
2. Make a double batch of Naan bread✔
3. Make a batch of Tomato and Herb rolls✔
4. Do the main monthly shop✔
5.  Sort the seed/veg plant order and make sure it is less than the £100 that it was last year.
6. Get chicken feed on the way back from Ipswich when C has his 24 hour heart monitor fitted✔
7. Christmas cakes to make, 1 for us and 3 small ones for gifts
8.  I need to find out what Cs Dad and Brother would like for Christmas and get them sorted out
9. We need to clear the 2 runner bean beds and store the canes away and pick off some beans for drying.✔
10. More clearing in the 3 poly-tunnels
11. Chop a few more sacks of kindling wood✔
12. Clean out the empty chicken shed✔
13. Clear a few veg beds - at least 3
14. I want to fit in  some cycling or swimming or both for fitness
15. Go and see the sea✔
16. Visit charity shops in a different town✔
17. Confirm how many people will be here on Christmas day✔ 

11 out of 17 things ticked and I have asked Cs Dad (a blue shirt) and brother what they want for Christmas, but his brother hasn't a clue - no help. He is the only person left with a blank space beside his name in my Christmas book.
I've looked at what seeds we have but as we can't decide if/what we will be growing for sale (or not) in 2015  I've done nothing about ordering.
 So overall not too bad. Plus some things have been done that were not on the list like hiring a breaker to finish the old shed base, clearing the broken concrete away and moving some wood from the open fronted cart shed into the wood shed for cutting.

 As for the plan to keep spending well below November of last year, that's on track apart from the cat costing me a small fortune.
So far this month
Direct Debits for Council Tax, Water, Phone, Charity donation, Business and Campsite insurance =£227. Diesel £49, Birthday and Christmas Gifts £228,( from money saved all year for gift spending and some was clothes for C) Huge sack of Peanuts for birds ( will last all winter) £25. Smallholding £55, Chicken Feed £61, Printer paper £3, Bathroom stuff £6, Stamps £6, Laundry Liquid ( years supply online bulk buy) £32, Me ( secondhand books and yarn) £6, Food inc. some for Xmas £117. And the Very Expensive Cat £121 ( 2 months of food as on offer)
Total of £933.
In the second half of the month I will be sorting out some more Christmas gifts and buying milk and a few bits of fresh stuff.

I was looking back at last years posts and found the one I did about how little do we need to live on.

This suddenly seems very apt as we try and decide what to do here (or somewhere else). We've been talking ourselves around in circles for the last few weeks and seem to have these options.

• Stay here and scale down on the strenuous work, live as simply as possible but perhaps forcing us to use savings to live on.
• Move somewhere in Suffolk that's much cheaper, leaving enough to also buy something to rent out for income.
• Have a complete change of scenery and move to another part of the country to somewhere a little cheaper and use savings to buy holiday flat/caravan in the same location to rent out for income.

• Get proper jobs. ( C says not an option!)

So that's half of the month gone, perhaps we will have more idea of what we are doing by the end of the month - but I doubt it

Back Tomorrow
Sue ☺