It was difficult to get motivated in January. After a chilly bright start to the year, short days were made to feel even shorter by seemingly endless cloud and rain. It didn’t help that the jobs that needed doing were not ones I was looking forward to tackling.
First up being decorating the hallway and stairs that I had been putting off. There was still bare plaster on the ceiling above the stairs where insulation had been added and skimmed over. Being above the stairs meant difficult access and lots of spray from the watered down mist coat and lots of cutting in at full stretch on a ladder. I can’t say it was fun, but it needed doing. Mr Wombat took the opportunity to move a light switch which had been annoying us since we moved in. It is now next to the door out of the kitchen, and easily reached in the dark. It is definitely handy having a qualified electrician in the family.
The other awkward job that needed finishing was the repair of the main downstairs bathroom wall. When we took the plasterboard down in this room, we discovered someone at some point had decided it was fine to remove a section of the bottom of the wall to feed the drains through. They took entire stones out and left the ones above unsupported, which would explain the crack outside in this location that we had been monitoring. The wall is about 0.5m thick and the hole is almost full depth, so has taken a lot of filling. I started in October and have done it in layers, allowing the lime mortar to cure between layers. In January, I did as much as we can do for now. Until we finalise the bathroom layout, I don’t want to impede moving or reorienting drain connections. I was careful not to rest stone onto connections and pipe work, which made the 3d jigsaw quite a puzzle.
I may not have been looking forward to doing it, but I’m pleased with how it is turning out, and it’s definitely a big improvement on what was there before. It was time consuming, and being so low down and having to reach in and manoeuvre heavy stones behind the pipes made it quite physically demanding. There are plenty more stone repairs to do in the large fireplace, so there is more practice to come. We have plenty of stone around the place to use, which is just as well, as it would be quite expensive to buy in. The rubble construction of our cottage means I’m using very similar materials and methods as would originally have been used in 1750. They wouldn’t have had the benefit of latex gloves though.
I spent time in January summarising the Freedom Fund’s performance and our spending on 2025, so I wasn’t sure quite what to expect when it came to totalling January’s numbers. We didn’t do much, but we did seem to be ordering something new every day at the start of the month.
Freedom fund value – £1,504,010 (almost £23k up on last month)
Expenditure – £3,946.78 (or a 3.15% withdrawal rate) including renovation costs, or £2,262.84 (or a 1.81% withdrawal rate) without renovation costs
Earned income – £30
Expenditure tends to be lower after Christmas for the first couple of months of the year, and 2026 seems to be following the same pattern, when you exclude the one off house project costs. We finally paid for the balance of the battery install in January after it was finally officially signed off (£1295). This accounts for most of the house project spending in January, but there was also a large paint order, a long corded curtain rail and an outdoor WiFi transmitter in the mix.
The biggest non- renovation expenses in January were a new track saw – £170, a large bird (and pine marten) food order – £90 and the vets bills associated with having the dog spayed – £174, subsidised with a voucher from the Dogs Trust. Other than that it was all routine food and utility bills, with no outlay associated with vehicle or insurances etc. The air conditioning on the campervan has failed, so there is a large bill to replace the compressor looming on the horizon.
The £30 income was from selling the towel radiator we had installed in the wet room for 2 months, before the heat pump install required a larger one. I do have a new client for my micro business, but it equates to about an hour or 2 a month, so I haven’t invoiced anything yet. I have a PO for 6 hrs, so there will be a trickle of income over the next few months. I am enjoying this small role, secured through an ex-colleague who got in touch before Christmas. A little bit of using my brain in a different way from what is required by the house renovation and creative pursuits, provides variety.
Speaking of creative pursuits, I started clearing my studio space again in January – for about the third time since we moved in. I am hoping it will not fill up again this time. Even once I have space again, it is very cold in there at this time of year, so in the mean time I have been painting on the walls again. I’ll share a photo in February’s update, which can’t now be far away.
From a frozen start to the year (I actually went swimming in that loch once we found a liquid part to get into!) – to a wet and grey month. A few photos of our January – including those sheep:
Finding Enough 