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

EssexHebridean

Not much to report really. Meal plan being jigged about this week as I'm away tomorrow night at my pals - I'll be eating steak & chips in the pub is the plan - MrEH can have the leftover mince mix from the cottage pie last night on a jacket tattie - that'll keep him happy. Meal plan for Friday night is currently showing a big fat blank - I'm not 100% sure what time I'll be home as I'm hoping a good friend can sort out meeting up Friday, if he can then I'll be late back as a result. Either way realistically speaking Friday night will almost certainly be a takeaway. Away over the weekend now too so only Sunday tea to think about on that front, and that will almost certainly be cheese & crackers. Hoping that we can pick up the shopping on the way home on Sunday too as that'll save me doing it Monday evening.

Adding things to a shopping list as I go along and realise I need them, then simply taking that sheet off the pad, adding the regular stuff and taking it with me to the store is working well, as is focusing on things that need used up when planning meals. I do need to factor in somewhere to use a small chunk of swede now though...hmmm. :rotfl: Oh and a squash - I impulse bought a rather lovely large Crown Prince squash at the farm shop the other week...it's still sitting in the larder staring at me, currently. Roast squash, squash risotto, baked squash with cream, bacon and cheese... :cool:

Payroll stuff now hopefully sorted - and I have a job title - I'm back to being a Personal Assistant again, which is fine, it comes up easily on the employment search for insurances etc. Also have my salary confirmed - again fine, my take home pay will increase as I knew it would but that's the tradeoff for lack of flexibility. (Although I'm hoping that there will be a decent bit of flexibility to be honest - might have to put that to the test in the next few weeks if my friend can't sort out anything for meeting Friday!) Once everything is settled down on the tax front I'll be able to set up automated transfers for all the regular stuff - we're leaving money going into my personal account for the time being as that earns interest if it's credited with over a set amount each month. My personal money will increase a bit, and there will be a surplus each month which will go across to the mortgage OP fund too. :T

All good!

Pippilongstocking

sounding fab - especially the squash

hve a great weekend!

I'm in denial about packing......

YAY to job title and more dosh.

EssexHebridean

The squash is half-used! Roast squash done the other night with chicken pieces, lots of smoked garlic, sweet potatoes....Mmmmmm! I do need to come up with something food-wise for Thursday now though as we were home earlier on Sunday than we expected so the whole meal plan for the week shuffled forwards a bit. Having said that I may well make Thursday cheese & crackers...that would be easy!

All good - weekend was fun, there was indeed a takeaway on Friday night but we went for Fish & chips and our loyalty card was full so mine was free. :T

Pay landed in the bank on Thursday - and (hurrah!) they'd somehow sorted my tax so I wasn't on emergency coding. No idea how they achieved it but woo hoo for them anyway. So money shuffling all done and my account is feeling the benefit of the bit extra we agreed I would get.

New super-interest-rate savings account fed with money from various places this month - Council tax & water rates not needing paid this month amounted to £160 of it though so that's good. I reckon I can go one more month feeding that by moving money about before I need to drop the amount going to the ISA - we'll see.

Remembered something I'd been meaning to do for ages yesterday - tried to log in to the gas account to see how our account was looking. Hmmm....seems I've never actually got round to setting up the online access for it. Now done, however it also appears that the gas meter hasn't been read since August 2014. :o Our gas use is SO tiny (£5 per month, and that's too much for what we use) that it's always tended to get overlooked - British Gas used to read it every time they came round as it's easily accessed, but the new people use SSE for their readings and SSE obviously don't come round as much! SOOOO...job for MrEH tonight is to read the meter son I can update the account - it's currently showing £44 credit based on their estimated readings - we'll see how close they got!

Made a start on booking bits and pieces for our holiday too - currently deliberating over which route to take back as our old favourite ferry back has been scrubbed in favour of a rather less helpful one...currently think we've found a way round it by hopping back via a different island... (This also potentially means that all ferry tickets can get booked in one hit rather than having stray odd ones to book separately).

Cheery_Daff

All sounding good there lass, well done you! :j

EssexHebridean

Well....the gas meter got read, and when I logged in to provide the reading it appeared that the figure they had for this time last year, is pretty much exactly where it's at now, so there will be a year's worth of credit to come back on that. The new reading isn't showing on the account yet though - probably because they're scratching their heads and trying to work out how we've used NO gas in the last year... :rotfl:

Meal planning going well still - last night's risotto used up some more of the squash, the last two rashers of bacon and the last bits of chicken...and it tasted gorgeous!

Need to think about lunch for tomorrow now as for a change at this time of year I'm actually at home! Got some salad to use up mind, and still got pitta breads in the freezer...and some more bacon....so.....

*Might* have a wee trip across to RAF Brize Norton coming up later this month. One of my best pals is currently on a course there - for a MONTH, yeah he's thrilled :rotfl: so hopefully I might be able to work in a day there photographing giant RAF transport aircraft with catching up with him too. other than that there is planned spendiness around as many trips as I can squeeze in to Lincoln to catch those Little Red jets before they head off to warmer climes for their final pre-season workup. March & April will be pretty quiet on that front though so the extra diesel and mileage will even itself out.

Pippilongstocking

Maybe you need to buy gas off them and sell it them back?

Well done on tax codes and wages being paid correctly. Nice to hear adventure plans!

Kittenkirst

Ooooh jealous of your upcoming trip to Brize! :-) bet it'll be an awesome day!

boredofbeingathome

Just caught up with your diary. Sounds like it is all going to your plan..did i say i like a cunning plan or two? Bob x

EssexHebridean

Yay - ey-up Bob - how goes it?! I am indeed familiar with your love of a cunning plan....and a turnip of course. :rotfl:

Kittenkirst If it comes off it should be fun - well assuming any of the lovely A400M's are active. Friend should get this week's course programme today so hopefully I'll know whether it's doable for this week or not. Fingers very tightly crossed.

Stripes Bearing in mind the comparable price most other companies want for gas that's not a bad plan! :rotfl:

New reading STILL not showing on the gas account - either there's a lot of head scratching being done or they've decided it must have been a mistake and are waiting for me to submit another one.

Friday lunch was a flatbread with bacon and salad and lashings of mayo and was absolutely gorgeous. Normal service is resumed today mind with a roll (no idea what the filling is) and fruit... Meals for the week are pretty settled I think except that I need to work out if I'm in or not on Thursday night...
Stir fry with the remains of yesterday's pork
Sweet potato, squash & bacon bake with salad
Salad again - probably with Bacon and Halloumi
Omelettes - that works well even if I'm NOT in as MrEH can easily sort that for himself.

Bank is looking content enough - I took absolutely nothing out over the weekend which I was quite pleased about. CC is looking rather eye-watering but then again it's got Air Tattoo tickets on there - less than half of the value of which is mine, Mr EH's car service, and my walking boots - the money for which is set aside waiting, so it becomes slightly more sensible once those are taken into account.

All good, I think. If the Brize trip comes off for Thursday then the accommodation will come from my fun account, and I'll take cash out to cover my dinner as that works easiest. :T

EssexHebridean

MORNING! Sorry to have neglected this - life's taken over a bit in the past week!

The trip to Brize *kind of* came off Kittenkirst - in that I did indeed go across but only overnight - dinner and catch-up with my gorgeous bestie on the thursday night, just ace to see him and have a proper setting-the-world-to-rights natter. The decision was taken to head down to RAF Odiham for the day on Friday though to stalk the mighty Chinooks, and we were glad we did as got some cracking shots out of it. I've turned into a traffic magnet though it seems - took me three hours to get across on Thursday night and another 3 hours to get home from Odiham on Friday evening! Anyway accommodation was £45 and that will come from my fun budget. Ross would only take £10 off me for dinner and drinks so that was done in cash, and lunch the following day was also cash.

Did a flying (sadly not *actual* flying! :rotfl:) visit to Scampton yesterday for photographing of Little Red Jets and dinner with some pals. Car needed diesel but that was only about £45 - a far cry from the bad old days when filling her up cost £60 plus each time! Long may 97.9p a litre diesel last! :T Diesel on a card and will come from central funds - dinner (£20) also on a card and will come from my funds. More shenanigans planned for next week and probably the week after - but the guys are all off to Greece for 5 weeks after that so I can catch myself up again then. All good.

Working today - switched my day off to yesterday as that fitted better for Scampton. Tomorrow we'll whizz off to the farmers market in the morning and then MrEH has a rugby match in the afternoon. It's too flipping cold to go and stand on the touchline though so I'll be leaving him to it. Sunday he's got to go back to the opticians to sort out contact lenses - I've got a 30% off food deal from Pizza Express so that will probably sort lunch.

Credit card bill came in and was sorted - bit of shuffling about of funds needed but ends just about met. Do need to try to reign it in a bit this month though I think...at least the joint expenditure. Bank looks OK...need to catch up on clicks and OnePoll though as those have been neglected.