EH - Keeping on track. (AKA focus Woman! FOCUS!)

Cheery_Daff

Good work lass! :j :j :j

I need to think about ISAs too - started to waffle on about why but quite frankly it's late and I can't even make sense of it enough to write it down :rotfl:

EssexHebridean

:rotfl: Cheery I have days like that too! :rotfl: It came as a surprise to me that I could get a normal savings account that actually pays me more interest than my ISA will. Seems crazy I know but the Nationwide one I'm looking at pays 4% net, whereas the current ISA is 2.07%. Ideally i need to note everything down and make sure there are no pitfalls that I'm missing, and then I can crack on and open that. By the time the year term on that interest rate expires I'll be able to lump the money from it into the ISA and and give that a boost too - which will help things along even more.

Boux Avenue order arrived yesterday - their service is absolutely superb. Tried everything on when I got home last night and it all fitted just fine so that's brilliant. Financially it's also worked out well as I had £30 in PayPal from surveys which I used against it, and MrEH has given me £10 towards it too as he was wanting to get me vouchers for there for my christmas but never got to a store to get them! So 2 bras and 2 vests - real cost to me £6! :T

Some discussion last night about the Life Insurance question. After looking at the paperwork and for various reasons we've come to the conclusion that we're going to sit tight as we are at the moment. Once the mortgage is gone we'll cancel it immediately obviously as it won't do us any good at all at that stage, and MrEH has a general accidental death policy in place already that covers both of us so we may well leave it at that at that stage.

Updated list for tomorrow then:
Friday Admin-ny type jobs:
Update tax spreadsheet ready for April.
[STRIKE]Check on ISA details [/STRIKE] The monthly paying in limit is removed from March 1st.
Sort out CC statement
[STRIKE]Ring Life Insurance people[/STRIKE]
Ring CC people to change date on DD.
Review savings situation
Back up PC files onto Ext HD.
Shopping - including the farm shop as we want Seville Oranges. :j

Got my own car today so no sitting in the freezing cold waiting for MrEH's train tonight! :T We agreed last night that with the fall in the cost of diesel recently in the cold weather it probably makes sense for me to bring my car two days a week so that will start from next week.
As I'll be home a bit earlier tonight as a result I'll aim to do 15 minutes in the bedroom first off - the damp wall needs a wipe-down, and the door and frame too - so I'll do that, and a bit more general clearing up I think. Then I'll do a 15 minutes for me, and follow that with another householdy one doing a general whizz around with a cloth, bathroom, kitchen, front room surfaces. I've got a bin bag to fill too so will empty the bins. Go me!

EssexHebridean

Just been emailed a code for £10 off the little business cards I like - as I like having them for the photography stuff, makes it easy to exchange details with people etc, I'll probably design and order a new batch tomorrow!

It also came with the link to the bouncing cats that I've just put on Mooomin's diary...

mooomin

The only pitfall with putting money in a normal savings account rather than the ISA is that if rates rise again, you can still only top up your ISA with the annual limit of funds. This only applies really if you're saving a lot in an ISA (if you can afford to save the maximum amount per year)

If you have a large lump sum, it makes sense to keep it in a tax-free wrapper, in case of rises, but rates have been low for so long it's a gamble either way really!

EssexHebridean

That's a good point Mooo. I'm currently thinking that as the maximum we can save in the other savings account each month is £500 (and I'm well aware that this *sounds* like silly figures I'm talking about here - but we're currently limited to our contractual payment only each month on the mortgage itself, so all the rest that we would otherwise be paying to that is currently getting stashed ready for the fixed rate to end so we can hurl a lump-sum at the thing - that happens next autumn) I'll throw that £500 in there each month with the balance going to the ISA as normal. In theory that should still leave me with scope to transfer at least some of the non-ISA based savings from there into the ISA to make the most of the tax-free-ness. There will definitely if nothing else also be scope to transfer it to MrEH's ISA...good job I trust him eh?!
So shortened version is - being an old boring and settled married couple we effectively get the benefit of 2 ISA allowances and won't fill both, so it's probably a safe bet!

EssexHebridean

Afternoon all!

Well "mission Friday" seems to have gone well enough! Time for a TA DA! list I think...

Meal plan done for next week
Shopping list done off the back of meal plan
Updated tax spreadsheet ready for April.
Sorted out CC statement - just need MrEH to claim the last bits
Reviewed savings situation - plan now in place
Backed up PC files onto Ext HD.
Shopping - farm shop, nice bakers and Tesco
Washing from airer > folded and away
Washing from machine > Airer
Next load to machine
Grill section of the oven cleaned
Washing up done
Train tickets booked for a trip we're taking in March (Remembered TCB too!)
Rubbish taken out
Been for a muddy stomp through the woods to make the most of the wintry sunshine!

And after all that I'm going to spend the rest of the evening curled up on the sofa with a chinese, crap telly and a good book!

Cheery_Daff

Well done! :j :j Good work And book and crap tv well deserved

EssexHebridean

Yay - remembered the Farmers Market this morning - and have now discovered that pretty much all the suppliers we like best from the other market we use which is a lot further away now attend the closer one. The one this morning is literally about 2 villages away so ticks all my "local" boxes brilliantly. Came away with a large lump of pork belly, 2 packs of bacon, a pack of beef mince and a bulb of fennel. Yum. Whole lot came to just under £16 so I'm happy with that. I'm going to slice and roast the fennel with the duck crown we've already got for tomorrow I think. The meat has gone in the freezer for now.

Off to London later for the "Lumiere London" festival. Probably going to eat out as well although not sure where yet - depends where we end up and what we feel like! Rather than driving into London we're going to park the car at the end of the Central line at Epping and go in from there - far easier and not a lot more expensive. We might be able to street-park the car but if not the car park at the station is only £2 for the day so not too bad. Hopefully I've got enough on my oyster card to cover the travel too.

Credit card bill is now sorted and agreed - MrEH needs to do the transfer for his share over the weekend then I can make the payment across. I also went ahead and opened the savings account we were talking about last night - so it's all systems go on that one too. :T

starnac

You are sounding so organised EH. Well done.

Yay to local farmers market. We had a great one near us when we lived up north so nothing down here compares. That's no excuse though! I should go back to supporting our local market.

Great news about the savings account too. Is it really next Autumn you'll have the mortgage paid off? Wow! bet that can't come quick enough for you x

EssexHebridean

Well the fixed rate finishes in October, so after that we're not tied to the 10% limit on overpayments, which means we can at least throw a lump of money at it at that stage...beyond that our "official" date we've set for finishing it up is still 2017...

We've strayed away from the farmers markets a bit in the last couple of years, but that's mostly as I've been so busy on weekends, particularly in the summer months of course. The very local one, however, is so close that MrEH won't have an issue with just popping there himself even if I'm not about - so hopefully we'll get back to doing that again. I'd really like to get back to the point where almost all our meat comes from there rather than buying supermarket stuff, with the exception of Morrisons who are so good on everything being British, of course.

I did indeed have enough on my Oyster card to cover Saturday's travel - not much left on there now mind you! We've decided that I'm going to routinely add £10 of credit to my card each month regardless of whether I'm using it or not - that way by the time I'm using it more in the summer there should be a bit of credit built up on there. Having said that I'll be using it on Friday so that'll eat up the next lot of credit!

Need to sort out booking my ticket for the Air Tattoo in July - earlybird booking finishes at the end of this month and I want to buy it at the discounted price ideally. Need to keep my eye on what else I need to book along those lines too.

Meals are planned for the week and are all written up on the calendar in the kitchen. In fact next week's are up there already too - how good am I?! We're in Manchester over the weekend so I'll be shopping next Monday evening instead I think, and I've started putting together a shopping list for then too. :A :rotfl: Using up is still going reasonably well too - the fridge is looking astonishingly tidy and we're working our way through the freezer nicely too. Talking of things looking astonishingly tidy - Fly-Lady-ish-ness is still doing the trick...in fact a few more odds and ends of tidying got done at the weekend - a cupboard which gets used for all sorts of odds and ends in the front room got tidied, some stuff binned and other stuff reorganised. A drawer also got sorted out and all the camera battery chargers, phone chargers etc now have a home. :T