EH is Back - and going Onwards, and Upwards!

chevalier

It was 17 when i got up this morning:D

Pippajo

I've just bought a 2nd delonghi so the old nasty looking stoage heaters are gone off the walls :j. We've got the ones with in built timers.

The only thing we have been thankful for is that if we had oil central heating (no gas around here) there would have been times where the tank ran out and we wouldnt have had the money to fill it, where the storage heaters are on its just part of the monthly elec bill.

EssexHebridean

chevalier wrote: »

It was 17 when i got up this morning:D

You can go off people know know! It was still showing Zero on the car thermometer a little while ago - I knew it felt cold! Cat is now back in and showing no signs of wanting to venture out again - I however have to go out in a bit to collect the straggler Avon books.

Pippa - do you find people are a bit taken aback when you say you don;'t have central heating? I've lost count of the number of times that someone has looked at me in amazement and said "Really? Wow!" or similar! No particular wish to get it either - the upheavall here would be awful as we have solid concrete floors rather than floorboards so everything would need to be channelled out to run the pipes. It would also mean sacrificing my larder to a boiler, and that's not going to happen - 1950's tiled larders aren't easy to come across these days but it was a major reason why we loved the flat so much!

Pippajo

I know some of these houses have added central heating and I suspect one has added a wood burner in the garage they built and it then feeds the house. They are small houses so CH just makes them stuffy, plus like you say the mess and finding a home for the boiler.

Now a larder, I'd love one!

EssexHebridean

Pippajo wrote: »

Now a larder, I'd love one!

it's fab!!

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Lemon_Tree

my parents in law can't get their heads around the fact that there's no gas in my flat, it comes up our street but doesn't turn the corner into my bit. They have in the wisdom announced that we MUST buy a big house with gas. If only it was so easy.
If we were staying here i would contemplate oil fired heating but like yourself i have concrete floors so it would be very messy.

EssexHebridean

We only got our gas cooker back and hooked up three years ago - electric is *so* expensive to cook on, if you do a fair bit of cooking which we do. We practically threw a party when we got back to cooking on gas!

Quick financey update then:

Car has been taxed online - and to my delight the cost of the disc had dropped to £30 for the year, Mr EH's will be the same when his needs done, so have adjusted the spreadsheet accordingly - Ooh what a difference that made! :rotfl:

Car has also been serviced and MoT'd - the garage rang up to tell me it'd failed the MoT at the first attempt which was a surprise, apparently because the rear centre seatbelt wasn't releasing. "Oh, well that will be a warranty issue then will it as it's always been the same since I bought it" no, apparently it won't be warranty - as "it's rusted inside" !!!!!!?! I pointed out that I didn't spend 12k on a car three years ago just to find bits of it rusting now, so I'd be grateful if they'd just sort it out. They did. £268 down for the service & MoT but that's the last top level main dealer service it has to have now as the warranty will be up on Saturday when she will go over the 60,000 miles mark. I did remember to mention the finish lifting off the steering wheel and they are doing that under warranty - she will be collected from me next Friday morning and come back a little later with a new steering wheel fitted.

I took advantage of the second Boots xmas shopping evening last night - got a couple of photo albums for Mum in Law's christmas, (BOGOF) a toy for young nephew, a present for someone else who sometimes reads these forums so I won't go into detail something for OH and made the £50 spend, had the 1200 points from the shopping evening promo, a 500 extra points coupon on top from spending £50 at the last shopping evening, and a 150 points one from the ACM for photo albums - so all told a £50.79 spend, but £18.50 back on points, plus £23 to come back from OH for his share of the presents bought.

Did well with todays list - have been updating the one a few posts up during the day and have actually done pretty much everything on there. Will continue with the listy thing for the foreseeable future I think as it does act as a motivator.

Grocery challenge: No further spends through this week in spite of temptation beckoning several times. Current "per day" spend across the month is showing at £2.65 although I will have to get some bits on either Monday or tuesday, I'll be trying to keep this to a minimum. I have to get my head around not just squirrelling food away when it's reduced or on offer - it *does* make sense, but only if you have space to freeze it, and as we will want to uy salmon on Tesco's New Year half price whole salmon offer I need to make space in my freezer!

mineallmine

HI EH, just stumbled upon this new diary. Boy you have been busy. You have reminded me I need to do a good stock take of what food we have. I've written up a 30 day menu plan - not all balanced and nutrious but 30 meals - and this is helping when I think about the 7 day meal plan.
I need to get the grocery spend back into control - gone very mad recently. Started doing sarnies for work again which has helped.
Keep up the good work EH!

[Deleted User]

Hi EH
Just found your new diary - subscribed now
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Pippajo

Love the larder - proper old fashioned with the tiles . My friend has a Georgian house and it still has the cold slab in the larder and she says it works even in the summer!

Dh doesnt like pasta or rice so food can get boring for him and means having to cook 2 different meals so DS and I can have what we like. Writing out say 20 or 30 meals so I've got some recipes to choose from is a great idea, as we always just stick to the regular stuff that we remember.

Our income is greatly reduced next year so some canny shopping and meal making will be required, although the bread maker has easily paid for itself in a year and we can get free potatoes, so chip butties are a quick and cheap meal if people turn up unnanounced over a meal time