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

EssexHebridean

I'm absolutely CERTAIN that the trends will always come round again Paws - you see it in clothes after all albeit things always change a little to make clear that they're a modern twist on another era!  Milann I discovered on Sunday that at some stage someone used that wood effect sticky-back plastic stuff on our inner front door - bizarre! Love that you found the brick stuff all over the place too! And SH - your sponging experience is making me feel a bit queasy...particularly the khaki....ugh! What on earth were these people thinking?!  

Had a LOVELY evening last night with my friend - even if it did go waaaay too fast and she nearly missed her train because we lost track of time chatting! Thankfully she made it with a few minutes to spare, so all good! I had a most tasty pizza (which looked massive, but was actually beautifully thin so while filling, still left room for pudding!) and then a salted caramel cheesecake which was actually salted caramel and chocolate as they'd run out of caramel sauce and substituted chocolate instead! Still delicious though. I used my converted Clubcard vouchers against mine - had been intending to use them on the split bill but my pal was expensing hers as it was a work trip she was down on, so ended up with just £7.25 plus a tip to pay on my share - marvellous! So nice to have an evening like that catching up - I'd not seen her since pre-covid! 

Right - I've just transferred over the month's food spend to the CC - £166.69 which is actually not too bad allowing for a fair bit of stocking up done this month. It also sets us up nicely for March as if I can spend less than the amount from THIS month, in the next, we'll finally have reached the point where we do have that full month's budgeted "buffer" in the food account, I think. Incentive!  While CC fiddling I also moved a small amount of "joint fun stuff" spending across. I reckon once MrEH moves his dentist cost over, and the Lundy "night before" accommodation sorts itself out (one booking to refund, the other to have the cost moved from the relevant "pot" there will be a teeny £23 to shift from the joint account which I'm pleased with. We seem to be back on for a decent surplus this month...hopefully!

Water bill has arrived - just a small increase on last year so will make under £1 a month difference which I'm OK with. (Note - "ok" rather than "happy"!) Still waiting on the council tax - our local council have been making much of their own share actually dropping by £55 a year this time, but I suspect this will very much NOT be true of Essex's share and frankly I'm still expecting to see an overall increase, regardless. The service charge meanwhile is increasing by £30 a month which is distinctly ouchy - and all the more so because the extra is stuff that they REALLY shouldn't be charging leaseholders for. The garage rent is also increasing but only a couple of £ a month which is bearable. I'll need to amend the standing orders for those last two from April - I refuse to set up a DD for them as frankly I REALLY don't trust the council!  

EssexHebridean

Survey update:
Prolific £0.22 payable/£0.67 pending
OnePoll 967 Points
Ipsos - just cashed out to an iTunes voucher - 67 points remaining

Ipsos is still a bit frustrating but that is still a voucher earned in just over a month, and for something which will be of real benefit too, as I can stash those on my iTunes account against subscriptions renewing, which will save me money along the line. The main issue I have with them is the amount of times I seem to end up giving them a lot of information only to be screened out - I'm sure their take is that in that event none of the information gets stored/used but I'm never entirely sure I believe that! I'll stick with them for now anyway! 

RelievedSheff

boxofpaws said:

I do wonder if all the garish colour combinations will come back around, and in years to come people wonder why everybody painted their walls cream or grey all those years ago.

I'm sure more bold colours are already making a come back. We have noticed with the show homes on the developments here and the homes that are a few years old that are now coming for resale that more bold colours are becoming increasingly popular.

Anything has to be better than the grey monochrome phase!!!

beanielou

The house I live in now had the sponging in the hall & the kitchen!
Just the dab 30 years ago 
Until I got the new fridge freezer last year there was still a part of a wall still sponged (WAs hidden)
Was great fun doing it at the time!!

EssexHebridean

Oh it was absolutely the thing wasn't it - I blame Changing Rooms and Laurence Llewllyn-wotshisface ! 

Gym last night - need to amend my signature but that takes me to 13 visits since joining. Decent session although like most Tuesday evening ones the place was quite busy which invariably means some compromises are needed about which machines I use. All good though - I usually manage to get round most of the things I want to do. 

Nice quick to prepare tea tonight - I'll add some chilli flakes, smoked paprika and kidney beans to a tub of the ragu I made at the weekend and do some rice to go with it - good thing too as I have to get my camera kit sorted tonight ahead of an early departure to Lincoln in the morning, plus get clothes packed for the overnight stay...well done past me! 

Banks checked and all OK - the money I transferred to the CC yesterday has cleared onto the account so that's looking better - I get the feeling the accommodation refund isn't going to come through ahead of the statement shut-off tomorrow though which is irritating. Not the end of the world because I'll still just leave it sitting so that when it does appear it just balances itself, but I do like it looking all neat and tidy! Oh and got an email this morning from the C0v3ntry confirming a 0.1% increase on the rate on our main savings - not going to make our fortunes on that sort of increase but at least it's heading in the right direction. Just need Marcus to get with the programme now - I've tweeted them to ask whether they plan to make changes or whether we need to think about moving our money... in fact the Coventry rate now comes to a level where it's equal to that Marcus rate - but if it goes up again - which it could... 

savingholmes

I think colour is fair enough - it was the ineptitude that was the issue

boxofpaws

Well done on another bargain gym trip! 

EssexHebridean

Bargain gym trip is right, eh?! It didn't get any cheaper as I didn't manage to get there again last week in the end either - oops! 

Fun but busy few days - headed off to Lincoln on Thursday morning at the crack of dawn - delighted that the forecast grey cloudy weather stayed away and we had a day of lovely sunshine. Unfortunately the flying wasn't the best but hey-ho, you can't predict these things, and the company was good! Pub dinner win the evening with 2 pals (and Dex the Springer Spaniel!) then back to Claire's where we demolished a bottle and a half of white and put the world to rights. More photos (and even a bit more sunshine) the following day before I headed off home just after lunch. Saturday was an online Beer Festival meeting in the morning, then we dived out and got the shopping, whizzed home and got it unpacked and away, and then headed down to the rugby club to watch the England match (SUCH a good effort in the circumstances after what even the Irish fans were saying was a ludicrous decision in the opening minutes) with some of the guys from Ben's team and a few beers. Grabbed a chinese takeaway on the way home because we both fancies it - but it came from our weekly spends rather than hitting any other budget. 

Yesterday was some more hallway prep - a most satisfying few hours in the morning involving a chisel, a hammer and a crowbar has seen almost all the remaining skirting boards gone, the telephone "in cable" removed from where it was fixed and all bar one stretch of gripper rod levered up and removed. We're getting there! We've decided the focus right now isn't on any particular timescale for getting it all finished, but initially just on doing something solid each week to advance things - and so far that approach is working. Then we wandered out for a walk for MrEH to get his newspaper - it was going to be a longer loop but ended up with us mostly retracing our steps as it started bucketing with rain. Of course needless to say it stopped pretty much as soon as we got home! In the afternoon we turned our attention to our little bit of garden - the annual removal of the grass that encroaches over our paving slab "path" (we chop it off alongside using a spade which does as good a job as one of those fancy edging tools), some general tidying up, fixing a new bit of (cheap Poundland) trellis in place behind the Winter Jasmine as the old one had disintegrated and some weeding etc. A good and actually quite exhausting afternoon! 

Shopping this week included some storecupboard bits - mostly tins this time - and came in at just over £32 once a couple of vouchers had been used. Happy with that - next week's spend will be higher as it will include famers market purchases AND a veg box but I'll be aiming for the supermarket spend portion to be lower as a result. My Car was filled with fuel when I got back from Lincoln on Friday - an ouchy just-under-£60 for ¾ of a tank - and MrEH's was topped up yesterday with £19-worth. We both paid 165.9ppl.   Car related spendiness will continue this week too as Neil is taking mine away for a service and MoT tomorrow - fingers crossed she'll get through without too much cost. I'm certainly not aware of anything that might be a problem. The money is sitting in the car account ready anyway - I'd just sooner not have to spend too much of it!  

Only plans this week are another online meeting on Thursday evening, MrEH has a third day in the office which will annoyingly be on Friday but can't be changed - still it'll give me a nice Friday to myself. 

Banking is checked and all looking OK - I should be in a position to put some of the surplus across to PB's later this week. Also just need to get the last bits sorted for the CC bill but that won't take long. 

milann

Sounds like a productive and fun filled few days. I think it’s much wiser to set a ‘getting there’ target rather than setting unrealistic targets 👍

EssexHebridean

Yes - a "getting there" target really does make sense of it Milann - well put!

I've also just remembered the two other jobs we did yesterday. MrEH turned our glut of veg box beetroot into pickled beetroot, and I turned out glut of veg box parsnips plus a chunk of the huge butternut squash we bought on Saturday into soup. Three double portions of soup to be exact - excellent value!