EH - Essex > Hebrides...the next step of the adventure?

EssexHebridean

Got a reply from Nationwide by phone on Friday - which i was impressed about. I was correct in my assumption that it came down to being a flexible ISA as I already thought. however the chap who called me agreed with my complaint re the wording of the messages and said that it definitely pointed to them needing to do enhanced staff training for those who are dealing with questions like that. My complaint is upheld, i have an official apology and £50 in compensation which wasn't necessary but was certainly appreciated - I've transferred that across into the ISA already. At the moment I think we've decided we're content to leave our business where it is - at least while we do more research around the possible change - at least with Nationwide when they do get things wrong they're quite efficient about dealing with it and putting them right again.

"Using things up" continues - some more of the stir fry pork and a batch-cooked bolognese came out last night ready for dinner tonight and tomorrow, and I'll be using the final portion of biryani for my lunch on Friday. Think I'm also going to factor in an "easy" day for one day this week which will mean we use some of the bread that is currently cluttering up more freezer space than I'd like - that'll either be scrambled eggs & toast or soup & toast. I also took a pack of hot cross buns out yesterday evening which will be finished this evening after dinner.

We had a cracking weekend in Manchester including at the beer festival on Saturday (which turned out to be FAR cheaper on beer than we expected thanks to some lovely friends and a seemingly never ending supply of "free half pint" vouchers.) then a couple of pubs after the festival closed.

Got home early evening yesterday and I actually made it to bed at a sensible time which felt wonderful and started me off well on this week's main focus which is SLEEP!

Only other set plan for this week is that I have an appointment for an Openreach engineer to visit on Friday which will hopefully sort out our lack of broadband at home (now going into its third week) - I wasn't best planned that the 31st was the first available appointment - and had I not been free then it would have been even longer - goodness knows how on earth they think this is acceptable. I felt quite sorry for the lass at Sky as she was saying that their own engineers work evenings and weekends to make sure they can cover the fact that people (obviously) have to go to work - but as soon as anything goes over to Openreach it's back to "business hours" and takes forever. Oh well - we'll see how things go - hopefully he'll be able to fix the problem anyway, whatever "the problem" might be!

rtandon27

Well done on the bank compensation!

Love your tales of freezer decluttering - gives me hope that one day I'll see the bottom of ours

beanielou

Nationwide are all for the members
Good result.

EssexHebridean

Thanks RT and Beanie - and yes, it's the fact that Nationwide ARE a building society rather than a bank that has kept us with them this long.

A bit more "using up" happened last night as I rinsed out the end of a bottle of Ketjap manis that had been in the cupboard for yonks to use for a stir fry for dinner. Lovely stuff and I'm delighted to see that there are several recipes for it online so I might even make some more of my own at some stage. the stir fry also used some pork strips from the freezer and rice from the cupboard - it would have been with noodles but there were none in stock (we prefer the fresh ones as they taste miles better than dried) so that forced a bit more "using what we have" to be done. The hot cross buns also got eaten, and very tasty they were too!

I have decided that the bolognese can sit in the fridge until tomorrow and I'll do couscous salad for this evening now - that will be with roasted chickpeas and halloumi, plus the rest of the veggies bought for last night's stir fry I think. MrEH has rugby training tonight and the couscous is so much easier to portion up for individual meals than the bolognese would be.

Upcoming expenses:
1) MrEH's car is due for MoT Test in the next few weeks. I fear that there is a strong likelihood that it may well be that it won't pass, and as the changes to the London ULEZ in 14 months time will mean that the car is entirely useless to us at that stage anyway, we've already agreed we will not be throwing any appreciable sum of money at the Citroen to get it through another MoT test now. This may mean that we will need to find funds for a replacement fairly rapidly, and in any event that will likely happen before the end of the year or at the latest very early next year. The plan will be broadly similar to when we replaced my car last year - we'll put as much of the purchase cost as we can on the cashback card, and apply for a further 0% card to transfer it to immediately thereafter. Any balance will be covered from our EF, the 0% card will be set to a monthly payment just above the starting minimum payment, and any balance remaining at the end of the 0% period will be cleared using funds from a regular saver which will have come to maturity in the interim.
2) A group trip to York with some friends in April for CAMRA's AGM & conference - the balance for that is payable in match and I will get back the share that belongs to others ahead of that being due. As I have already paid out a 50% share of the cost that means that at that stage we will have nothing more to find from our personal finances, and indeed some money is actually due to come back to us which will be replaced in the account I paid out from in the first place.
3) A week on Lundy for a friend's 50th Birthday - the accommodation for this is now paid but there will still be ferry tickets to purchase, plus money for food and drink while we are there. (Usually fairly substantial, but accounted for). This will be sitting in an account ready by the stage it is needed - that account gets fed a set amount each month.
4) Our Hebrides trip - again this is accounted for with an account that gets an amount paid in monthly, plus money from the pigs at home, and any excess in our food account goes to this as well. A quick review suggests that we should have enough to cover all costs from those methods.

Ticking over...

savingholmes

You're sounding super organised EH. Well done on getting #50 compensation too.

EssexHebridean

Thanks SH - hopefully trying to organise everything a bit more this year might help to stop me getting ludicrously overwhelmed with "stuff" in my head when the Beer festival role kicks in fully in a couple of months!

The opening payment into my new Regular Saver account has now been made, and the balance from the old one transferred to the longer term savings. I have also decided that Coventry Building Society's online login is a right royal PITA - give me an account with a nice user-friendly app any day! Just need to wait for MrEH to tell me that his Reg Saver is ready to go and then I can get the remaining £500 in the old account lined up for hi to pay in, then sort out the regular transfer from the beginning of March onwards - but I'm going to leave that until after 1st Feb as it also means amending another one that currently goes elsewhere.

Had a bit of a shock when I checked the CC statement online to find that the second payment for some accommodation booked for August had been randomly taken - messaged them to see what was going on and have had an immediate apology back and they're crediting it - it was taken in error by the sound of it. It's at times like this that I'm glad I always have a reasonable grasp on where the balance on the account should be - it was the fact that it looked too high that made me scrutinise it a bit.

EssexHebridean

Well - we may be looking for a plan B with MrEH's car as it now seems that the changes that were due to happen on the London ULEZ in a couple of months have been shelved, and the full expansion right out to the point where it will start giving us issues now isn't happening until October 2021 - so all of a sudden it seems more logical to pay a small amount as needed to get his through another MoT test and get another year out of it if we can. That will have two massive advantages - first that we'll have cleared the 0% card that the cost of mine was on by that stage, and started paying that monthly payment into the car account, and secondly that one of the regular savers will mature at the beginning of February will have enough money in it to cover the cost of the (second hand) replacement outright, with change.

The Citroen goes in for a pre-MoT Test check next week - so we'll then know what we're playing with.

savingholmes

Lucky save spotting the holiday over-payment. Good news on the car. Hope it gets through its MOT on budget for you.

lucielle

Fingers crossed for the MOT
L

EssexHebridean

Thanks SH & Lucielle! fc fc fc indeed! :rotfl:

The bolognese last night was delicious - it was one of a batch that I padded out with finely chopped mushrooms and red lentils to stretch a smaller quantity of good quality mince that bit further - and the mushrooms in particular add SO much added flavour and texture too, I'll be repeating that! I need to remember to get the biryani for tomorrow's lunch out of the freezer, and I have already pulled out half a small loaf of sourdough ready to be toasted to go with soup for dinner tonight. There is starting to be available space in there now! I'll likely take out another (reduced, posh) loaf for the weekend I think, and perhaps muffins for tea one night or the other as - guess what - we have some of those in the freezer too!

I need to think about food for tomorrow evening too - I ideally want to not use my car tomorrow so really want to put together tomorrow night's tea from a combination of things we have fitting in with the "use it up" theme!) and things I can get from Aldi (walkable). I'll have a dig through the freezer tonight but I'm thinking a sort of mixed plate of various stuff might well be the way forwards, and might allow a bit more "using up" of freezer contents.

I got a text this morning confirming the Openreach appointment for tomorrow morning so I'm starting to feel vaguely hopeful that they might actually turn up. (Too optimistic?) As the lack of internet at home now is starting to get VERY old I certainly hope that a) they do and b) they fix it immediately. A deviation from either of these things may well cause a degree of displeasure being voiced on the phone to Sky, anyway. Regardless, as I have to wait for them I'm planning on having a bit of a declutter attack I think - seems to make sense to try to allocate the time to something constructive anyway. I joined the decluttering thread on Old Style yesterday to try to gain some sort of incentive anyway.