Annual Spending Review - 2014

It's that time of the year again.  Here's a breakdown of where all the money went in 2014....click for a larger image...

Basic ground rules are generally as last year's post, and a few points of note are listed below :-

Hedgehog Rescue....

Around six weeks ago, we spotted a small hedgehog wandering around on the lawn in the middle of the afternoon.  It's a bad sign seeing any hedgehog out during daylight hours, and particularly autumn juveniles, so we picked him up and took him inside in a cardboard box. The wife fed him some cooked chicken while I set about building a hospital enclosure in the garden from some old materials and wire mesh, basically anything we had lying around.

We kept him confined in a remote area of the garden down the side of one of the sheds, made a nest box from an upturned plastic container with an entrance arch cut into one corner, and stuffed it with shredded paper.  

He took to his new territory immediately and soon lost his fear of us, even allowing the wife to stroke his nose without him curling up into a ball !

We fed him on tinned cat food, mashed-up boiled eggs, pet shop hedgehog food* and assorted kitchen scraps, and after four or five days he'd returned to more nocturnal habits.

Investment Review - November 2014

I'm considering posting updates of my investment pot progress on a more regular basis, maybe even at the end of each month if I can find the time and energy...

In theory at least, it shouldn't be too much of an effort.  On the last working day of each month, I usually log the portfolio component valuations based on bid prices refreshed at some time when the London market is open.

Anyway, we'll see how it goes over the next few months.

With each update, I'll also include the preceding post's dataset alongside, for comparison.  Therefore, in the first of such posts in this format, the right-hand columns in the Table below are those from this previous post.  

Investment Review - October 2014 Portfolio

I'm full of cold and feeling a bit under the weather, so I didn't fancy working today.  

Instead, I thought I'd create a new spreadsheet which pulls in the data from the various individual investment sheets, and take a look at the values and weighting of each component against the greater whole.

This new worksheet includes the SIPP and the various ISA accounts, current and historical, plus those bonds which are held outside.   I'm getting closer to the age when the SIPP could be drawn down against if I wanted to, so I'm simply lumping everything in here together.

However, the cash component in the worksheet only represents the cash held within the SIPP & ISA accounts and available for immediate investment, and not any other cash I have in accounts outside.

Why does Daylight Saving Time start so much later than it finishes ?

From looking at my earlier post on growlights, it again raises a question that been puzzling me for a long time.  

Take a look at this sunrise-sunset-daylight hours graph for our location. from that post, but with a few extra intercept lines I've added.  Click for a larger image....

British Summer Time (BST) will end this year on 25/26 October 2014, but it won't begin again until 28/29 March 2015.  

Why should this be ?

Fitting a Roof Dry Verge / Roof Tile Edging System....

Our house was built in 1939, and the original three-up two-down building from that period is a really decent piece of construction.    

However, the kitchen and garage extension was added in the mid 1980s, according to the neighbours who've been here for thirty years, and the whole thing is just very roughly put together.  

One example is that the edges of the roof pantiles which overhang the brickwork are sealed either by mortar or, even worse, simply filled with expanding foam.   Although mortar was an established method of verge sealing, it wasn't the only option or the most decorative even 30 years ago and it's not particular suitable for this type of roof tile.

the short upper gable, with expanded foam and mortar joints....

Garden Review 2014.... in Pictures

In, around or over our garden ....