This month saw me celebrating my birthday by playing crazy golf and drinking in the sunshine! It’s a sign of age experience and knowing my limits that the following day, I was able to get up and go to the gym the following morning, instead of feeling utterly cabbaged and wasting the whole day hungover in bed!
I’ve loved all the hot weather we’ve had, but was glad of the rainstorms that followed, as was my poor parched garden!
Anyway, after last month’s ‘property post‘, I am so excited to announce that ‘tenants’ have moved in!
My little house appears to have attracted a diverse community – I believe I have leaf-cutting bees (yellow arrows) and mason bees (red arrows). Apparently, it’s not unusual for solitary bees of different species to nest near one another. I wonder who moved in first though? 🙂
I had noticed funny little circular chunks chewed out of the leaves of some of the shrubs in my garden, the leaf-cutting bees’ trademark. Anyway, I am delighted that these little critters have deemed my garden worthy enough to live in!
Since that photo was taken, at least another two bees have moved in and a spider or two, judging by their webs!
This month was rather expensive – car insurance renewal, breakdown cover renewal, washing machine repair (5 minutes to fix, £107!) and a new shed (to replace the dilapidated/unsafe one) – the pounds are getting really stretched, especially as I’m struggling to say no to social outings (went to another enjoyable and interesting Manchester FIRE pubmeet this month).
MOT on my car is due next month…maybe I need to just get past this expensive summer and cut back on the expenses in the latter part of the year.
So, how did I get on with my savings?
I saved 16.5% of my net salary. The above includes £59.62 from doing Prolific surveys and £10 from a charity lotto win.
Shares and Investment Trusts
I offloaded Civitas Social Housing and used the funds (plus new funds) to top up existing investments.
Current share/IT portfolio can be found here.
(Entire portfolio here)
Future FundÂ
My Future Fund seems determined to crawl along sideways. There’s not a lot I can do except to keep on investing. As at the end of the month, it stood at £229,441.
Dividends and Other Income
Thank goodness for a great month of dividends.
I received £838.82, of which £436.71 was from my ISAs, the rest from my SIPPs.
All dividends were reinvested.
Here’s what the graph looks like:
A couple of late payments meant that I just missed out on a record-breaking June but never mind, that time will come!
Matched Betting (MB)
End of season European football matches saw me eke out just £23.02 this month. I think I shall take a break in July and hopefully resume in August.
Goals Update
Halfway through the year, how are my goals looking?
Reckon I’m still pretty much on track for all of them aside from the emergency funds one.
Blasting Fasting
These past couple of months, I’ve been trying out intermittent fasting.
A member of the family has cited that such fasting has enabled her to (safely) lose a couple of stone in weight, and keep off the weight.
Whilst I’m not seeking to lose any poundage, I read with interest the benefits of intermittent fasting, which apparently includes improved gut health, better sleep, reduced cardiovascular risk factors, including lower blood pressure and lower inflammatory markers (linked to many chronic diseases).
Fortunately, I don’t eat an English Breakfast very often but I could polish most of this off!
The 16:8 plan (eating only during an eight-hour window and fasting for 16 hours) is probably one of the least extreme ways of fasting and is what I want to achieve ultimately.
However, as I often eat late in the evening on gym nights, I’m following my own 14:10 plan – I eat between 11am and 9pm and fast for 14 hours.
So I will have a late breakfast at around 11am (usually get up between 6.30-7.30am, depending on whether I’m heading into the office), followed soon after by lunch. Or sometimes, if I’ve been busy at work, I end up just having brunch around noon.
This would have been impossible when I was younger, when I could barely function (due to hunger pangs) if I didn’t start the day off with something to eat.
I can’t say that I’ve experienced any noticeable benefits thus far – except that I can get into a pair of shorts which were on the tight side last year – but I think I’ll just continue as it seems to fit in with my lifestyle (still eating and drinking what I want), with very little effort.
Anyone else tried fasting before and how did you find it?
Next Update
My next update will either be early or really late, as I’m due to go away on holiday.
If I’m organised, I’ll do a short post before I go away.
Anyway, hope you all had a great June!
I guess the animals found the homes thorough Zoopla
Haha 😀
Hi Weenie – That’s wonderful that some solitary bees have moved in. I have a solitary bee hive arriving shortly and I hope I get the same results as you too, I’m very much into my garden being for nature. I’ve got log piles for insects, we’ve got a good “crop” of Stag Beetles (rare) this year as a result. I grow wild flowers, herbs and fruit bushes/trees generally, so it’s all good for the birds and pollinators, the end of the garden is the wild area.
I’ve got 3 Hedgehog nesting boxes around the garden, although one has taken to nesting in my shed instead! I leave out cat food and biscuit in a feeding station every evening, weighed down with bricks and a CD sized entrance so cats/foxes can’t get to it. There’s also CD sized holes in or under my fences so the Hogs can get in and out (lack of access is why people don’t see them). It’s so important to leave fresh water out all year round for whoever needs it too. Next project is to build a small (2 x 2 metres ish) nature pond, this will replace the temporary “tub” pond I have. We see frogs occasionally but hoping to attract some permanently.
While we all spend a lot of time investing in our futures, the real future to invest in is nature and the planet, so little changes by everyone make so much difference.
Hey Starla
Sounds like your garden is a wonderful place for insects/wildlife so I’m certain that you will have bees living in your hive!
My back garden is all paved so not a lot of crevices or places for bugs to hide in, aside from my compost bin. I have this year allowed a couple of the shrubs to grow a little wild and I have a large tub where I’m growing wild flowers.
We used to get hedghogs and foxes at the last place I lived but the only animal-life I get these days are pesky grey squirrels which dig holes in all my pots (and my front lawn).
I hope to continue to make my garden greener, grow a bit of veg and do my bit to help nature.
I think you may need to serve notice to the eight-legged predators if you want to look after the little pollinators!
Re the fasting, i’ve been watching a few Dr Eric Berg videos on youtube recently – he’s a big supporter of the movement, but i’ve never practiced the discipline. Rightly or wrongly i’ve always tried to eat breakfast, ‘the most important meal of the day’…..according to Kellogg’s i believe!, and after 50+ years of having that approach drilled into me i am now just questioning the statement a little. I suspect there’s some merit in the 16:8 plan, which probably helps people to become a bit more disciplined with their eating and cut out the dangerous snacking etc. I think a lot of it is down to common sense though, and simply eating more of the good whole food and less of the processed rubbish. And only eating when you are actually hungry. That could be the most crucial point about eating. For a healthy gut, i’ve been making my own kefir for the last 6 months (live grains can be bought online for ~£10). I can’t confirm that it’s helping at all, but psychologically it makes me think it’s doing something positive, plus it’s saving me a fortune not having to buy the inferior stuff (far less beneficial microbes) in bottles from the supermarket. The natural flavour is definitely an acquired taste (think sour milk), but if that’s the thing putting you off then adding a bit of lemon rind as a second ferment makes it taste very nice indeed. Goes down well on a hot summers day. Hopefully there’s still a bit of summer left!
Hey KC
I’m the same, I was always taught that breakfast was ‘the most important meal of the day’ and when I was younger, I must have suffered a bit from low blood sugar levels as I had to eat something in the morning in order to not feel a bit shaky or light-headed. Looks like now, I can take or leave breakfast.
I’ve not quite got the taste for kefir, wasn’t my thing, although it’s been many years since I tried it – I might give it another go.
Keifir or kamboocha can be fun to make and I really like the taste.
It is supposedly good for your gut (along with sourdough and stuff like that).
Hi GFF
As mentioned earlier, I haven’t got the taste for kefir (although will give it another go) but I do like kamboocha/kambucha. Thus far, have only occasionally bought the expensive stuff from supermarkets so I might consider trying to make that myself. Cheers!
It makes an excellent alternative sipping drink to beer or wine.
Of course, it’s alcohol free!
I’m in Holland at the moment and enjoy a Radler in the sun – beer and lemonade like a shandy.
I’ve not tried making it myself. I’d baulk at the amount of sugar in the lemo
Ooh, hope you are enjoying your stay in Holland!
My kefir solution is the bees’ knees; whenever it’s on offer I buy the Biotiful Morello Cherry kefir. Mmmmmm.
Moreover according to medical folklore cherries protect against gout. Double whammy!
Cheers dearieme, I’ll give this a go!