Expenses – Word of the Week

This week could easily be titled Spend, spend, and more spend! It seemed like there was an unending stream of money flowing out of our household. That said, there are no regrets as there was no frivolous spending at all. All the ‘spends’ were necessary.

So our oldest daughter turned 23 this week and of course, there was a celebration at home, which added up to quite a sum. There were gifts, cake, decorations, and a big Chinese takeaway. She appreciated it all so that was good.

Our oldest son had recently moved into his new apartment which we are slowly furnishing. So from the coffers this week came his dining table and chairs. We set those up ourselves whilst he was at work and it was not easy! I’m glad there are some people who find assembling furniture easy and I agree they should be paid for such work. Normally we would pay, but because this was such a ‘spendiferous’ week, we decided to give it a go. I’m glad we did! It was very frustrating at times but we managed it in the end. The apartment is coming together nicely and I was pleased to see that the plants we had gifted him are not dead and in fact, are thriving.

The biggest expense this week was our fence. On one side of our backyard is a fence that I paid to install many years ago. That is still going strong. On the other side was a high hedge made predominantly of conifers and a very prickly tree with some red berries. Well, interspersed between these was ivy! Wretched annoying ivy! We have hated it since we bought this house but to be fair, the previous owners maintained their garden to a high standard and they never let the ivy get out of control. Since these neighbors moved in though….

The ivy is so invasive. It grew up the walls, over the conservatory, and almost completely covered the upstairs bathroom window! Ugh! Over the years, we had trimmed it back and then this year we decided to trim the trees all the way back. We did, at a cost of £250. But it was so ugly with the almost bare brown trunks and there was still the problem of the ivy! So this week, we decided we must take it all out! Some fellas quoted us £650 and then settled on £600, so we had that done.

But the problem of the ivy still remained. You see, we have a conservatory and so do the neighbors so there is a very narrow passage where the ivy thrives! How to get to it has been a challenge. So this week, we purchased a specialist weed killer for nearly £100. It is meant to be sprayed, so now we are waiting for someone to be able to do that for us – at a cost.

With the hedge all chopped down, there was one big space available for us and the neighbor to share. We did not feel comfortable with this open-plan living situation. So although we had planned to eventually put in a fence sometime in the future, we decided to do it this week rather than later. We were quoted £1250 for materials and labour but we thought that was exorbitant. So we decided to do some leg work. We stopped at our local timber merchants and were given a discount as we are regular customers there. The material cost was £603 with the discount and they also delivered for free! They recommended someone to install the fence and his cost was £350. It is almost completely up now and it is looking dandy and I love the feeling of privacy it offers.

Well now there is a tonne load (just exaggerating) of rubbish to be cleared from the back garden and that too, will come at a cost. However, it shall not come out this week.

Hopefully, your week was not as ‘spendiferous’ as ours. I would love to say next will be a no-spend week, but we do need to eat so there is that! Although the expenses were a bit much this week, thank God we are able to afford what we need. Thanks as always to Anne who allows us to sum up our week and share the highlights/lowlights with you via this link. Have a lovely week ahead.

Jo and Leisa