The Ultimate Incentive to have an amazing 2010.

Lara44

Cinny, that sounds wonderful! You must be so excited. What else do you need? Have you got a sofa and stuff? It's carzy what comes out of the woodwork from family. My sister furnished a whole 3 bedroom house with donations from everyone. Are you going to buy some pretty things too, like crockery and little kitchen bits?

Well I woke up this morning at 6:50am to hear a rat scuttling about in the ceiling above my bed for 1 hour. :eek: So I showed the housekeeper this morning and told her I couldn't stay if the rat stayed. But I found some droppings on the windowsill in the living room. I will call the old place and see if they can have me back and then tell the housekeeper I am leaving this afternoon. She came and heard the noise herself, so surely she won't hold it against me leaving. It's cheaper at the other place so with a bit of budget re-jigging I think I could take real taxis and not motorbike ones, so that would be everything sorted.

Thanks for the advice it was really appreciated.

clearmydebts

Lara44 wrote: »

Cinny, that sounds wonderful! You must be so excited. What else do you need? Have you got a sofa and stuff? It's carzy what comes out of the woodwork from family. My sister furnished a whole 3 bedroom house with donations from everyone. Are you going to buy some pretty things too, like crockery and little kitchen bits?

Well I woke up this morning at 6:50am to hear a rat scuttling about in the ceiling above my bed for 1 hour. :eek: So I showed the housekeeper this morning and told her I couldn't stay if the rat stayed. But I found some droppings on the windowsill in the living room. I will call the old place and see if they can have me back and then tell the housekeeper I am leaving this afternoon. She came and heard the noise herself, so surely she won't hold it against me leaving. It's cheaper at the other place so with a bit of budget re-jigging I think I could take real taxis and not motorbike ones, so that would be everything sorted.

Thanks for the advice it was really appreciated.

I am glad you are going back to the other place Lara. I was worried about you in this one. There is no way you could get a decent sleep knowing that there were rats all over the place.

Dinah93

Tete_en_l'Air wrote: »

:eek: Oh my god! Haha poor you! I'm impressed that you can do spinning tho, I really couldn't

Yeah I remember you getting stuck on the ice Dinah ... and a big car will come in handy for a family... *touch wood* my little micra was fine in all the snow and ice actually so hopefully will be again if we have a bad winter again. I might go and live in it if we do, it'll be warmer than the house!

Shhh, no family! Don't encourage him! Your house still that cold? Have you put on the heating yet? No point saving money and getting frostbite in the process!

Cinny91 wrote: »

What is happening with this? They charged more than they quoted, right? Was it due to extra works popping up or just they massively under estimated the work as a whole? If it's the latter, and you have a hard copy of the quote I'm sure you'll be fine. I'd be worried about them having the keys too. I'm not saying this to scare you, just something I've noticed but most subbies we work with put something like 'goods are property of *insert company name* until paid for in full' or whatever. But anyways, fingers crossed it gets sorted.

We added a few bits on, under £200 worth which we had quoted for seperately, so yes mostly it just seems they needed more stuff in terms of time and bits than they had in the quote.

Little bit of news from my end. Me and OH have a house, and we're moving in next month. Part of me is thinking 'FINALLY' but the other is thinking 'I'm only 19, I'm a baby!' Still, really excited!

That's so exciting I'm really pleased for you! Half the population moves out at 18 when they go to uni, so consider yourself lucky to have gotten the extra year with your family. 19s an adult, as you'll painfully discover when arguing with council tax or waiting 2 hours on hold to talk to BT!

Birdie85 wrote: »

You're a bunch of foodies with knowledge... we're hosting Christmas dinner for OH's family this year since his parents new house is too small to fit 7 people round a table and OH kindly offered up our place and I've been thinking about what to do (MIL bless her isn't the best cook so I want to show them how it's done!) and I need to know whose path to follow... Nigella or Delia? Which one? Any ideas?

How confident are you? Delia is idiot-proof good results everyime type cooking, but more traditional. Nigella is often a bit more exciting, but I've found her recipes a little more hit and miss.

Has anyone who does Tesco points noticed the changes? Its going from 4x face value to 3x on partner rewards at the start of December. Vouchers ordered usually last 6 months, so worth ordering any now you might want in the next few months. Virgin are also reducing the amount you can use from £700 per person to £525, so after Novembers mailing we're going to pool everything we have and order as many virgin vouchers as we can at 4x, and then top it up in Feb at 3x, and that should give us enough for our holiday next year. We were hoping New York, but the prices seem to have gone up a lot, so may have to go at a different time of year, or use Virgin vouchers for something else and pay for New York in cash when we clear the debt (in under a year, ha!).

Birdie85

Dinah93 wrote: »

How confident are you? Delia is idiot-proof good results everyime type cooking, but more traditional. Nigella is often a bit more exciting, but I've found her recipes a little more hit and miss.

Hmmm... as tempting as the exciting Nigella stuff is (and I do love her, I've got her Express book and it's brill) I may have to go idiot proof with Delia! I've never cooked a proper big meal for any more than 4 people and even then the meals haven't been as challenging as a Christmas dinner! Delia's Christmas book is cheaper too!

Dinah93 wrote: »

Has anyone who does Tesco points noticed the changes? Its going from 4x face value to 3x on partner rewards at the start of December. Vouchers ordered usually last 6 months, so worth ordering any now you might want in the next few months.

That reminds me, I have to dig my vouchers out (not that there's a lot) and decide what I want to do with them before they go down in 'value'! Job for tonight! OH goes to the gym with the local news lady from ITV (we're hobnobbing with the stars over here!) who said that there were rumours of Tesco taking over the posh supermarket just around the corner from us which will be great if it happens; more clubcard points and it'll save us a fortune on emergency shops... although it'll probably actually cost us more because instead of just buying some slightly overpriced milk and bread we'll be buying loads of extras because it's cheap!

:eek: Rats, Lara?! Ick! Fingers crossed you can get a room at the other place right away!

clearmydebts

Birdie85 wrote: »

Hmmm... as tempting as the exciting Nigella stuff is (and I do love her, I've got her Express book and it's brill) I may have to go idiot proof with Delia! I've never cooked a proper big meal for any more than 4 people and even then the meals haven't been as challenging as a Christmas dinner! Delia's Christmas book is cheaper too!


That reminds me, I have to dig my vouchers out (not that there's a lot) and decide what I want to do with them before they go down in 'value'! Job for tonight! OH goes to the gym with the local news lady from ITV (we're hobnobbing with the stars over here!) who said that there were rumours of Tesco taking over the posh supermarket just around the corner from us which will be great if it happens; more clubcard points and it'll save us a fortune on emergency shops... although it'll probably actually cost us more because instead of just buying some slightly overpriced milk and bread we'll be buying loads of extras because it's cheap!

:eek: Rats, Lara?! Ick! Fingers crossed you can get a room at the other place right away!

Just to confuse things further, OH swears by Neven Maguire and he has cooked 2 really good Xmas dinners! I don't think this is the exact recipe OH has used but will give you an idea.

http://www.nevenmaguire.com/roast-turkey-with-sage.aspx

I think OH has also used Delia's recipe for ham and loved it

Birdie85

Oooh that recipe looks a bit good CMD!

I do know that I'll be making Jamie's roasties, my dad has been a Jamie convert for a couple of years and his roasties are amazing, really fluffy and crispy.... mmmmmm. Why isn't it time for christmas dinner yet?!

clearmydebts

Birdie85 wrote: »

Oooh that recipe looks a bit good CMD!

I do know that I'll be making Jamie's roasties, my dad has been a Jamie convert for a couple of years and his roasties are amazing, really fluffy and crispy.... mmmmmm. Why isn't it time for christmas dinner yet?!

I really like Neven Maguire. We have one of his books and the recipes are really good!

Yum yum to Jamies roasties - will be trying them this weekend with my roast chicken!

Tete_en_l'Air

Morning all, lots to read through here today!

Birdie85 wrote: »

I need to know whose path to follow... Nigella or Delia? Which one? Any ideas?

I'd say Nigella - I incorporated a few of her tips into Christmas dinner last year (her roasties and maple syrup glaze for the turkey) and they were lovely! Hoping to do Christmas Dinner myself in our house this year and maybe invite Dad and Gran ... will need a couple of trial runs though!

Lara44 wrote: »

Thanks for the virtual hugs you guys. Honestly I'm in bed and there are some weird eggs of something about 10 inches from my head Help!

My god Lara! Horrible AND a rat??! Glad you've sorted it in the time it took me to catch up. You want to look back on your time there as an amazing experience, not remembering stuff like insect eggs and rat droppings. You've done the right thing (hug)

Dinah, yeah the house is still freezing, getting more so! We do have the heating on for a couple of hours in the evening but even then it doesn't really warm the place up, just stops you from being able to see your breath And the house retains no heat whatsoever. We're going to look for a 'new' house in Feb when the lease is up. I'm tempted to say 'I told you so' to OH - remember when he was so adamant that we'd have a lovely old house and I was trying to steer him to a 70s semi with a garden? But I won't say it because I'm lovely (even though he'd probably say it to me!)

Cinny the house sounds fab - and you're lucky that you know the landlord! Also V lucky to be getting stuff given - when we moved people kept saying "ARGH, I've just got rid of *insert very expensive and useful item here*!" We still don't have wardrobes! Seen some we like but I'm wondering whether to buy them now as after the Spending Review today we might both be out of jobs and homeless anyway

I'm not surprised Tesco have reduced their points value - just as I was about to start looking into how it all works - this always happens to me!

PS I keep meaning to check out MemoryGirls's thread - I'm sure I've even read about her on OTHER forums!

Birdie85

I hope the spending review isn't too harsh on you Tete (and the other public sector-ites), I'm so sick of this recession now! I just keep wondering what's going to happen next; we're already noticing a difference with inflation and whatnot, it's going to be even worse next year with the VAT rise! I really hope council tax doesn't go up too much, we're already paying far too much IMO for what we get and where we live! I'm hoping that the dossers near me are the ones who suffer more than us real workers, we found out last week that we're the only people on the block who don't have Sky because we can't afford it but everyone on the dole/working the bare minimum to still get benefits have the top packages!

I had a little look on Memory Girl's thread last night but I got confused as to the whole Matrix thing that they're all on about and don't really have time/energy to read everything to make sense of what they're all talking about!

clearmydebts

Birdie85 wrote: »

I hope the spending review isn't too harsh on you Tete (and the other public sector-ites), I'm so sick of this recession now! I just keep wondering what's going to happen next; we're already noticing a difference with inflation and whatnot, it's going to be even worse next year with the VAT rise! I really hope council tax doesn't go up too much, we're already paying far too much IMO for what we get and where we live! I'm hoping that the dossers near me are the ones who suffer more than us real workers, we found out last week that we're the only people on the block who don't have Sky because we can't afford it but everyone on the dole/working the bare minimum to still get benefits have the top packages!

I had a little look on Memory Girl's thread last night but I got confused as to the whole Matrix thing that they're all on about and don't really have time/energy to read everything to make sense of what they're all talking about!

What is the Matrix thing? I see Lara is part of it, maybe she can explain?

I am sick of the recession too. I just want to move home to Ireland