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

capuchin

EH, you certainly have an eye for the vantage points! A drone is on my wishlist, but priorities must come first.The whole of the region is quite wonderful as you say, rugged and somewhat alien. (Well, to us Englanders!) The Bealach na Bà itself is worth a trip if you're in that area at some point! There's also a beautiful place called chocolate mountain or something you may have visited.

Must take some batch cooking inspiration from you, I should update my own blog

savingholmes

Good luck with your long list of home improvements... Do you have the money set aside for it all?

EssexHebridean

There are so many places on the mainland we are keen to visit but we seem to have got hung up on Islands currently! Maybe if we reach the stage of being permanently based up there we’ll finally get round to visiting more places! 

EssexHebridean

List update:
List for the remainder of this week - stuff that needs doing! 
- Get pork steaks out of the freezer for tomorrow night
- Re-set the electricity monitor with the right rates & time  
- Book Ferry Tickets
- Book Travelodge
- Decide on and book return overnight stop
- Make Lakeland purchases (bread maker, bread tin, stayfresh bags) using 20% off voucher 
- Sort out Santander banking login
- amend transfers from new joint account
- Remind MrEH he  needs to sort out his S2S transfer which failed last week
- Sort out shopping list - above
- Another gym visit 
- shopping
- buy next batch of premium bonds
- Charity Shop trip (saturday morning probably)
- financial discussion - we do these from time to time and it's about time it happened again! 
- Check in the Marcus accounts to see if there is any updated bonus - there is, same rate but longer time period, now applied
- Set up new regular payments to the new santander "savings pot" accounts
- cancel the payment (which will fail anyway) to the old Nationwide Holiday fund account
- trip to Santander to activate cards for contactless/amend pin numbers

Re-setting the electricity monitor was a bit terrifying and has unquestionably given us a new focus relating to what we use. We are already pretty good, WM & DW tend to run overnight for example, and of course our heating charges up overnight too once it is on (not yet - how much longer though?!) but we definitely need to focus on really pinning down as much as possible overnight. The dehumidifier is a good example - it's not a high power use item but we have previously often run it right through the day - that's going to need to go to overnight anywhere aside from the bedroom I think. Similarly showers - once the clocks change it's going to make a lot of sense for me to just get into a routine of showering before I do anything else in the mornings - OR having a quick bath before bed which would have several advantages - the water re-heats overnight anyway and I could start working my way through the bubble bath mountain too! The new bread  maker will do a lot of it's working overnight and we will very likely go back to loaves again for at least some of our bread once we have that - the current one can't be used overnight because it has a leaky bread pan. 

£200 of Premium Bonds bought last night, (which have not appeared on the account yet nor have I had any form of email confirming it so I'm a bit twitchy about that - hoping it is just taking slightly longer this time as I'm sure the first one was quicker!  Also while he was in the banking sorting out his bounced savings transfer MrEH also transferred the £60 refund from my folding bike replacement to the 0% card that he has in his name, where the cost of the original bike was put. 

Financial discussions were also had - we've agreed to less "random" stuff being put on the credit card - unless and form of cashback returns to it. It made sense when it was paying us to use it, but now it's not it's just increased workload for me having to do the money shuffle. MrEH will pay his oyster card top-ups using the Joint Account debt card from next month, and I'll be switching my Apple Pay to be my own account as primary. (In fact I've just done that). Amazon, meanwhile, needs to be changed to the new joint account card as default to save me having to switch stuff about there. (Also now done - For goodness sake why do I put things off when they turn out to be THAT simple?!) All personal spending will now go off our own debit cards. won't see any significant difference this month, but next should be more straightforward.

I'm actually really enjoying being back here regularly and focusing on things more - and I know from experience it makes a heck of a difference to the way things run with our finances too. we're incredibly lucky  grateful that we did the hard work which  means we are no longer in a position where we're stuggling with debt , but I'm still inclined to feel that the banks have had quite enough interest out of us over the years, I'm now very inclined to make sure that every single penny we have works for us, instead! 

EssexHebridean

In the spirit of "not procrastinating about doing stupidly simple things" I've just applied for two new e-saver accounts off the back of the new joint account. Took minutes - although slightly annoying that they couldn't just use MrEH's details off the existing account. Sigh. One of the two already has the contents of the old N/wide Car account transferred to it, the other will get the contents of the old N/wide holiday account. It ay only be fractions of pennies but they pay *slightly* more than those N/Wide accounts do in interest, and it will make it easier to transfer money to and fro. I can honestly see the lot getting shifted across before too long, but I'm stopping there for now.  

I've cycled back to the car and moved it closer to the office during my lunch as well - I can't park round here until after 2pm hence the "car > office commute" but it definitely works well on days I'm doing the commute on my own to shift it closer at lunchtime as I then get home earlier.

EssexHebridean

savingholmes said:

Good luck with your long list of home improvements... Do you have the money set aside for it all?

I keep cross-posting with you SH - we must be tuned in somehow!

Yep - the hallway is the latest in a very long list. when we moved in the place was all "liveable" - and certainly better than the rented place we'd come from. We knew that long term there were lots of thigs we wanted to do, but nothing was urgent, and then we got into the overpaying the mortgage thing, and it seemed important to wait until that had gone for everything else... The bathroom was essentially past "liveable" by the time we got to it - that was done in 2016 - just  before the mortgage went but during the "limbo" when we were still stuck on the fixed rate and had already saved the money needed to clear the balance at the end. The kitchen followed a year later - those were both massive jobs even though neither is a big room - literally take everything back to bare brick and start again. the hallway - hopefully - is the first less "invasive" job although the foul water leak from upstairs the other month certainly gave us more that would need doing. Essentially it is a decorative job but with some bigger elements - and the money will come from our longer term savings which are set aside for that purpose, among other things. How relatively "new" the bathroom is makes it all the more irritating that we have to have the ceiling re-skimmed - that again is as a result of the series of leaks from upstairs. Unbelievably there is also some damage that ideally needs rectifying in the kitchen too - that happened less than a year after it was completed and literally reduced me to tears. 

savingholmes

Ouch to the bill from leaks.

Well done on being debt and mortgage free though. 

Glad being back is helping you keep on track. Nice having you around.

EssexHebridean

Aww thanks SH - it's lovely being part of this fab community again! 

OK - some notes to keep track.
Standing orders amended/set up.
Food account - new one set up, old one (12) cancelled. (N/W) (1st)
Car account - New one set up (Sant), old one Cancelled (N/W) (1st)
Holiday account - New one set up (Sant) Old one (16) cancelled (N/W) * (1st)
Joint fun - New one set up, old one (7) cancelled (2nd)
Household account - New one set up, Old one (13) cancelled (2nd)
AFKA - New one set up, Old one (9) cancelled (N/W) (2nd)
Christmas - New one set up, Old one (8) cancelled (N/W) (2nd)
S to S - me - New one set up, Old one (5) cancelled (N/W) (15th)
S to S - him - New one set up, Old one (6) cancelled (N/W) (15th)

* Balance to be transferred

Phew - glad that's done although my head might explode now!  

beanielou

Do you ever stop!!

EssexHebridean

Probably more than it appears on here Beanie! 😂😂 I am quite good at making progress with stuff when I get a bee in my bonnet about getting things done though! 

List update:
List for the remainder of this week - stuff that needs doing! 
- Get pork steaks out of the freezer for tomorrow night
- Re-set the electricity monitor with the right rates & time  
- Book Ferry Tickets
- Book Travelodge
- Decide on and book return overnight stop
- Make Lakeland purchases (bread maker, bread tin, stayfresh bags) using 20% off voucher  Also added a replacement for an extremely knackered small roasting tin that gets used a heck of a lot and now has to be lined with foil every time!
- Sort out Santander banking login
- amend transfers from new joint account
- Remind MrEH he  needs to sort out his S2S transfer which failed last week
- Sort out shopping list - above
- Another gym visit 
- shopping
- buy next batch of premium bonds
- Charity Shop trip (saturday morning probably)
- financial discussion - we do these from time to time and it's about time it happened again! 
- Check in the Marcus accounts to see if there is any updated bonus- there is, same rate but longer time period, now applied
- Set up new regular payments to the new santander "savings pot" accounts
- cancel the payment (which will fail anyway) to the old Nationwide Holiday fund account
- trip to Santander to activate cards for contactless/amend PIN numbers

MrEH has to go to the barbers tomorrow morning so will also do the charity shop drop off as that is nearby, and pop into Lil’s for bread flour too. Saves me a job. I’m debating between doing the gym this afternoon or tomorrow - undecided as yet. 

Now - time for a 15 minute timer and some house jobs I think..!