Finding Enough

The birds are starting to sing, so they must be noticing the lighter evenings and snowdrops too. February brought an occasional glimpse of sunshine and slowly but surely, slightly lighter evenings. A bit of sunshine on your face suddenly makes you realise you’ve been feeling a bit flat. Maybe that’s normal for January, and it didn’t seem depressing at the time, but a hint of spring has definitely lifted my mood.

In previous years, we have travelled over the winter and broken up the dark winter months with holidays and visits to friends and family. On reflection, I think there are a lot of advantages to this approach, and it is definitely something to think about for next winter.

We made steady progress on the house in February. I finished my second mural, which took longer than just using a roller with a single colour, but was definitely more enjoyable. The wall up the stairs will be a gallery wall eventually, so the birch trees will be a background. I also spent a lot of time making the lighting for the bedroom. This was another example of saving money by not paying for convenience. The component parts (ceiling roses, lamp holders and vintage style fabric cable) cost far less than a similar assembled light, but it did take a few hours to prepare the cable and wire it all up. I am pleased with the result, and once again, I benefitted from having a qualified electrician in the house to make sure I wasn’t going to start a fire.

As well as adding some finishing touches to the upstairs rooms, I got to work on repairing the large fireplace downstairs. It is a slow process, as some of the damage is deep – especially where the vent to outside was. The rest is just a giant 3D jigsaw puzzle with whatever rubble I can find. It’s difficult to show the holes in a photo, as the depth doesn’t show very clearly, but the below gives you an idea. There’s plenty left to do, but once it’s finished, it should clear the way to start thinking about plastering and flooring.

As well as indoor work, we managed to get a little done outside this month too. Ever since we moved in, I had wanted to plant some sweet chestnut in the garden. I didn’t get around to it last year, so after a bit of research on the best variety for our climate, I ordered 2 trees. The specialist nursery takes a deposit and then ships them in ‘early spring’. They arrived bare rooted at the end of February, helpfully just in time for a sunny weekend for planting. I finally found a use for the offcuts of chicken wire we had left over from building the fruit cage last year – makeshift deer protection.

We need to think about sowing seeds and planning veg for this year very soon. We have 4 new raised beds to assemble and fill, so hopefully the weather in March will continue to improve and we can get more work done outdoors.

February brought another nice increase for the freedom fund, and fairly average expenses.

Freedom fund value – £1,559,471 (over £55k up on last month)

Expenditure – £2,409.66 (or a 1.85% withdrawal rate) including renovation costs, or £2,704.77 (or a 2.08% withdrawal rate) without renovation costs

Earned income – £100

I haven’t made a mistake with the expenses numbers above – the ‘without renovation’ total really was higher than ‘with’ this month. We sold our very old leaking hot water cylinder and other scrap copper pipework that we wombled when the installers were here, and astonishingly the local scrap dealer gave us £326.40 for it! I accounted for this as a credit on renovation costs on the expenses spreadsheet. As there weren’t any other big renovation expenses in February, this resulted in a negative number on the spreadsheet.

In addition to selling our reclaimed copper, I also managed to sell the stainless hot water cylinder that had only been installed for 2 months before it was superceded by one compatible with the new heat pump. Practical rather than decorative items definitely sell better round here – a notable difference from selling things on Facebook marketplace when we lived in Cambridgeshire. I accounted for this sale as income, as we didn’t pay for the replacement, so it was a bit of a windfall, like the towel radiator I sold last month.

Expenses were about average this month, with the biggest outgoings other than food and utilities being car insurance and tax (£343 and £195 respectively), those 4 raised bed kits (£210) and the chestnut trees (£90). We also paid for a couple of days away in a hotel with friends later in the year (£306). Once again, the renewal quote for car insurance was ridiculous (£646), so I had to spend time on my least favourite job of shopping around to bring it down again. Sadly the days of free road tax for EVs has come to an end, so that’s another annual bill to add into the mix. It’s so cheap to charge at home overnight that electric still adds up for us.

There are definitely more vehicle bills heading our way in March, as the van needs a new compressor to fix the air conditioning and the boot catch on the car has just failed (thankfully closed). We’re hoping we can fix the latter ourselves, but we’ll see.

So, that bittern – we have stopped being surprised when rare wildlife randomly shows up in the area, but February’s random sighting was a bit special even for here. We were on the way home from dropping off the scrap copper, so were in the van, which gives a superior view. It was hanging out in a wet area between the road to our house and the river only about 3 miles from home. I only knew what one looked like, as we used to live near the restored wetland and Wicken Fen, and was often featured on the local news. Even there it is more often heard than seen.