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

EssexHebridean

Progress being made here! As well as the items now crossed off the list I have also:
- Folded and put away a load of dry washing
- Rubbish and one load of recycling to bins
- 1 load washing up - the last bits for now are now soaking in the sink
- Load to WM ready for tonight
- Bit of tidying in the front room
- bit of tidying in the bedroom
- refilled two of the bird feeders which were empty
- brought washing from outside in to finish off on the airer.
- Contacted Zipvit as I've just realised one of the items I had in my last delivery was entirely wrong! they are sending replacements
- Contacted Saffron about the small saver account I had that has matured - this was one of Martin's best buys a year or so ago and while only allowing a small amount to be put in it was unquestionably the best interest I was going to get anywhere! Now closed and the contents winging its way to my current account.

We have also just bought another batch of Premium Bonds - My personal current account is one that when opened paid a decent rate of interest on a balance of a certain size for the first year. it also, should you accidentally tip overdrawn, charges a horrible 50p a day OD rate. Originally for that first year we had a lump sum of joint money in it to max the interest - when the opening deal ended we removed that to elsewhere all bar £100 that was left there as a buffer to avoid the risk of fees should anything occur that sent me over - unlikely but a belt & braces approach. I simply treated that £100 base figure as my zero, and ignored it. I've now decided that I may as well switch that over to a smaller buffer of my own funds, so that £100 has now been dispatched off to buy some more PBs. 

The gym has been deferred until tomorrow - probably in the morning. Quite frankly I seem to be on a bit of a roll of getting things done here today, I'd need to either cycle there (and back uphill all the way) or get my car out of the garage as I emptied MrEH's of diesel yesterday on the commute and I can't be bothered! 

Today is feeling very spendy, but everything is budgeted for. The breadmaker is the biggie - but we have said for a long while the next one that is needed would be a Panasonic and we really do think it's worth the money. The ferries and travelodge will come straight from the savings that we have set aside for it, and the PB's were "money we didn't know we had!" so all accounted for - just feels like a big chunk of outlay in a single day!

savingholmes

Great budgeting skills there. Enjoy your new bread maker

EssexHebridean

Thanks SH - really looking forward to it arriving - hopefully towards the end of next week! 

Some more financial admin dealt with
- messages sent on all three Coventry accounts to change the named account as it is currently the old joint account.
- Also dealt with the same thing on Marcus - sooooo easy - just send a payment to the old linked account and they'll sort it all out. Bingo. Every time I use them, I like them a bit more. In fact, that has just increased another notch - they now have an app too. That's it - day, made!  
- Amount from that Saffron account also now transferred across to my Marcus savings - with an amount shuffled from another pot to make it into a round number. Poo - I'm not as clever as I thought I was as that payment has just been bounced back because - of course - the accounts aren't linked yet. Doh! 

Phew - I'm loving this productive little burst, been ages since I've got my teeth into the finances to this extent. Is it wrong I feel almost disappointed that there's not much left to sort and the end of the month is still a week away?! I think my next target might be to tidy up thigs with my own savings pots though - in the long term all the joint ones will be heading across to keep the new current account company so I may was well start thinking about streamlining my own stuff a bit and making the most of those with the better interest rates too. Hmmm...something to chew over I think.

Cheery_Daff

Very impressed with your productive little burst! Good news on the Premium Bonds too - am I righting thinking the upcoming draw will be your first time eagerly awaiting a call from Agent Million?? Exciting!

EssexHebridean

You’re impressed? I’m downright astonished!! 😂😂 And Yep - first draw for us, very exciting even whilst knowing full well there is pretty much zero likelihood of getting anything but there you go! The draw after we’ll have double the chances mind….yeah, still zero likelihood, I know! 🤣

savingholmes

well done on all that productivity. Sorry it didn't quite go as planned... Good luck with the PBs - I may have to invest post divorce.

Sunshine_girl2

Just for you EH 

EssexHebridean

Definite shop-envy SG2! Mind you my online order should hopefully arrive by the end of next week so I do have some Lakeland based excitement to look forward to! 

SH I’ll just sit on the money until Monday now when I should be able to have another go - and hopefully it will go this time! 

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 

Well that’s looking quite good isn’t it! Just that overnight stop to think about now - it’s between two options - one will give us an early finish on our first day travelling back as it’s literally half an hour from the ferry, but will leave us with a long drive the following day the first 4 hours of which could be incredibly challenging if the weather is grim. Option two is a around 3 hours driving that first day, so gives us ahead start for day two, but could lead us having to back-track albeit only a short distance if roads are closed for snow - which is very possible in early January. I am in more favour of option 2, Mr EH is leaning  towards option 1 though. Needs more thought/discussion. 

Today I have settle for mainly “getting things done” this morning, and a nice relaxing afternoon featuring the sofa, several cups of tea and some catching up on here with Queen videos on in the background - I no longer have a functioning video player so can’t watch my old VHS stuff but I’ve discovered that most are available on The Tube of You so loving that! 

This morning featured sorting out washing, getting tonight’s load to the machine, Shopping, then MrEH dropped me at the gym - I love going on Saturday mornings as it’s always stupidly quiet! Walked home, did a bit of washing up, ate lunch > sofa!  Only job I’ve done this afternoon is make muffins which were going to be chocolate and ended up as apple, almond and cinnamon when I realised I never did buy any more cocoa! 🤦🏻‍♀️

Currently working on thinking through our next financial challenge. As most of us have found, the last 18 months have been a bit chaotic in terms of spending on food for home - ours rocketed due to not eating out much/at all. We also had a bit of a knee jerk reaction to that and have got into the habit of far more regular takeaways - not surprisingly. Similarly we have also got out of the habit of meal planning - which when I was here all day was less of a problem but getting home at 7pm and realising you have no idea what’s for dinner is less entertaining. The final thing is that we’ve also got into a position where we’re constantly running a month behind with the credit card - it still gets cleared each month, and the money is there to clear it, but I’d really like to get into a position where they money is there BEFORE the spend goes on the card for things like food, travel etc. Need to think through exactly how we do it, but it will be an interesting challenge to see if we can “catch up” that month, and how quickly. Makes sense to try and do it now before MrEH returns to the office fully and our commuting costs go back to their previous level, or in fact higher as his fares have gone up and he also now gets on two stops earlier. 

Shopping this week - £16.xx for the veg box which will arrive overnight - that includes the addition of some soft citrus fruit. Masses of veg too - it’s decent value.  Today’s stuff was £37 - which seemed a lot for Al’s but did include a fair number of “stocking up” things. Oh - there were 2 bags of bread flour from Lil’s as well but those will last us ages. Next week should be a lot lighter but still some storecupboard bits to get - I’m aiming for November being a full-on win on the groceries front though. The other spend today was a full tank of diesel for MrEH’s car - £56. A bit ouch, but allowing that we will likely use mine for our planned trip next weekend, that will also last a while.

savingholmes

Sounds like you've flown through that list... I have a similarly long one in my journal - keep adding things to it as things drop off so never clear it. 

EssexHebridean

My standard with lists is that I always end up rolling at least a few items to the next one, and yes, they tend to grow whilst in play too as I invariably think of more to go on! 

Spent some time yesterday evening doing some planning for how to tackle the financial stuff I want to get my teeth into - I think we have a plan but I want to get it into slightly more coherent form before I add it here, at the moment it’s mostly a series of random sentences that make sense to us but wouldn’t to anyone else! 

Jobs for Sunday 24th

• balcony tidy - lift tiles to dry? 
• MrEH’s car needs a wash
• My bike needs dropping to the shop to get them to check on a random slight creak
• Freezer inventory 
• Hoover right through
• 15 minute tidy - spare room.
• Wipe down all windowsills 
• Washing from outside to inside airer to finish drying
• Washing from machine > outside
• Get clothes, bag etc ready for Monday
• Meal plan 1st week of November? 

Looks like a fair bit but actually not too bad - likely two trips to the bike shop will probably take up a bit of time but it’s only 10 minutes away by car so not too bad, and we can probably tie it in with washing the car anyway. Also need to sort the pork joint into the SC for later, and open/empty the veg box too. 

Already emptied the DW, now about to declutter some bread in the form of toast for breakfast! 😁