A lot of rain means no shortage of rainbows, and apart from a brief cold spell, there was a lot of rain in November! The update is very late this month, despite starting it on time. We seem to be juggling lots of minor things and I’d forgotten how much time walking a dog takes out of the day – especially when the daylight hours are so short at this time of year. Then there’s all the fun of the self assessment I have been putting off. The great news is that we finally managed to move back into the house towards the end of the month after the plastering was finally completed, dried and we could decorate. It was about time, as the novelty of sleeping in the shepherd’s hut in the garden had well and truly worn off – especially with all that rain and mud.
As I write this, the install is complete, but the installers are still to-ing and fro-ing with the funders and coming back to take seemingly endless additional photos as evidence. Once it’s all signed off, we will receive the handover pack including completion certificate and the paperwork which will allow us to register the solar panels with our energy supplier and be paid to export any excess power (not that there’s much chance of that until spring). I am holding back the 20% balance we owe them for the batteries until the pack arrives, as we’ve had promises many times before.
Our experience of the heat pump so far has been very positive, but the cost of running it has definitely been helped by the ability to charge batteries overnight at cheap rate and discharge during the day. There was a noticeable uptick in running costs during the cold spell, when the efficiency would have dropped considerably. The house was still nice and warm, the meter just showed that we’d used more power to achieve it at the end of the day. We plan to double the battery capacity in the coming months, so that should make a difference too.
It is great to have the 2 bedrooms upstairs finished, even though the plastering in our bedroom leaves significant room for improvement. We did a lot of filling and prep before painting, but it still isn’t great. The plasterer that did it was subcontracted by the installers. He is quite young and disappeared part way through the job. After all sorts of excuses, it turned out he got a new job working in a creamery. Plastering obviously wasn’t for him. The replacement took a while to arrive, but was definitely more skilled.
November saw a quick trip down south for me. My father’s birthday was the first since we lost mum and we won’t be spending Christmas with him this year, so I felt it was important to make the effort for his birthday. With the new dog still settling in and it being a short trip, it was simplest for me to go alone and I decided to take the train rather than drive all that way and almost immediately back again. This turned out to be a mistake. A cancelled train in Carlisle was not a good start, 3hrs sitting in Warrington due to a signal failure, only to be diverted to Wolverhampton instead of London Euston was not helpful either. I eventually managed to fight my way from Wolverhampton to Birmingham New St and onto one of only 2 trains to Euston that were not cancelled. When I finally made it across town to Waterloo, there was only one train left that night running on the line I needed, and it terminated a stop before the one I had a ticket for, due to more signal problems.
What should have been a 7 hour journey on 3 trains, took over 14 on 5 and I finally arrived at my destination around 12.30am, rather than the planned 3pm. Certainly not a good advertisement for rail travel in the UK, but I did meet a lot of nice people along the way, all late for their various weekend plans. When I applied for compensation, amazingly I was refunded not only the entire fare, but the cost of the return ticket. In fact, because I booked through Trainpal, with a £5 voucher, I paid less than face value. A £5 profit definitely wasn’t worth all that hassle though. Fortunately the (free) return journey was much less eventful.
At least I was able to be the first to wish him happy birthday. We spent the next day together at a military aircraft museum at the birthday boy’s request.
The dog is settling in pretty well considering, and is proving to be quite clever (possibly a bit too clever!). We could definitely tell when she started to feel more settled, as she started testing the boundaries. She has a strong chase drive, which we will need to work on managing with all the livestock around us.
The freedom fund had a very average month in November, falling back a little from the end of October.
Freedom fund value – £1,471,507 (down £8k on last month)
Expenditure – £2,867.04 (or a 2.34% withdrawal rate) including renovation costs, or £2,640.55 (or a 2.15% withdrawal rate) without renovation costs
Earned income – £0
That amazing upward run had to slow down some time, and the freedom fund finished November down, but only by 0.6% overall. There was no income generated in November, but after chasing again (and mentioning debt recovery and adding the fees to the invoice) there is finally something to show for December.
It was a fairly average month for expenses. It felt like we were ordering something every other day, but it was a cheap month for groceries and there were no major annual bills. The pet category totalled £338 as we stocked up on food, bought a decent extending lead to stop the long training one getting filthy on long winter walks and also included a routine vet visit.
The home and garden category was definitely above average, with a carpet cleaner bought to allow us to re-lay the original carpets in the upstairs bedrooms after plastering was finished. Buying a cleaner was about the same as hiring one (£160), and from some reviews I read, probably more effective. We also bought a small antique wardrobe from facebook marketplace (£240) and a dehumidifier (£89) this month.
There was also just over £200 for that ill fated train ticket, but the refund has already arrived to offset the inevitable uptick in expenses in December. November was also the second month in a row of no winnings from premium bonds. We have had a steady return for the last 5 years, but it is definitely slowing considerably. Originally it was attractive to avoid tax on income, but now we are low earners (taking our daily spending from ISAs) we probably ought to move this cash.
I fear my non-financial goals have still been taking a back seat while we get the house back into a fully functional, if not finished, state. I have no idea what my focus for 2026 is going to be.
Reduce plastic waste by making one change every month – Nothing to report in November, but now we are more organised, we have reverted back to leaf tea to save all those tea bags from the bin.
Do something creative every month – My artists group organised a needle felting workshop making Christmas tree decorations in November. It was good fun and definitely something I will have a go at again. There was also a bring and share lunch, so a nice social occasion too.
Record the birds and mammals spotted around the house each month – I found the book! Only part way through November, but I’m back on track. We also now have a new streaming wildlife camera, so we are alerted of movement through an app. This makes it very easy to monitor pine marten activity. We need to install a post to get the best view, but we definitely have more than one marten visiting, as the have seen 2 at the same time. We think one of the kits has hung around with mum, so there must be plenty of food to go around. Best buy some more peanuts…….
Publication of this post is now so late that I can wish you a relaxing holiday break and best wishes for 2026, whatever your goals will be.
November’s photos include a sunrise charity swim, the dog learning lots of new things (she still hasn’t quite worked out the washing machine) and some atmospheric local landscapes.
Finding Enough 