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

GeorgianaCavendish

I share your frustrations about the screen outs on Ipsos. I don't mind if I'm screened out after a few demographic questions, but only getting "rewarded" with 3 points after answering numerous survey style questions is cheeky. 
What I have started doing is making a note of the survey number and if something goes wrong during it (occasionally I'll get taken to a broken link page) I'll use their contact button to report it and ask for the points compensation anyway. I've had a couple credited to my account that way. 

Even though it is time consuming, I'm like you - I think that one voucher a month is pretty good, if it continues at this rate for the next 6 months I will have enough Amazon vouchers to cover my 4 nieces Christmas presents which is pretty good  

Prolific has slowed right down for me, I had a great few weeks but now I'm lucky to get a 13p survey every few days. I must check if I need to answer any more demographic questions as that does seem to make a difference.

girlatplay

I have stopped doing surveys for certain sites as I was answering all the questions then getting screened out at the last minute.  I complained about one and was told that I didn't fit the demographic so I asked why the demographic questions weren't asked first (as most are).  I got the points awarded.  That was the final straw for that site though.  It just annoys me as I take the time to answer the questions thoughtfully, I don't just click through.

EssexHebridean

Completely agree - the thing that's annoyed me with Ipsos particularly is that often the questions asked prior to screen out are of a pretty personal nature - to then just screen out feels all kinds of wrong.  And yes GAP - same here, I do take the time and do it mindfully. I had a Prolific one last week send me a message basically saying they'd had a lot of issues with people seemingly not completing and just entering "NOCODE" at the end so they were maybe not paying up - I went back and pointed out that it might have been because for me at least their final "complete and return to prolific" window failed, and that I fully expected to be paid in full. Payment turned up not an hour later... 

Lovely sunny blue sky day here today - I might be stuck in the office but at least it'll be free-heating my living room at home nicely!  Ended up leaving home a little later than planned this morning so no time for additional cycling distance but did use a slightly different route to usual which made a change, and as I packed in over 10 miles of it yesterday I'm none too worried! Plan for today is a walk (sunshine!) at lunchtime and then the gym this evening so another pretty active day all round. I did recce where the gym nearer to work was last night which was a good thing as it turned out to not be where I thought it was. In fact having found it eventually I suspect that the one down near the Olympic Park might actually be better so the plan is to head down and recce THAT tomorrow evening to find out. If I can adjust my working times to  make use of that at a lunchtime it might work well - we'll see how that looks but MrBoss has already said he'd be happy for me to do that. From my perspective if I could change one working day gym visit a week to a lunchtime one that would work well. 

Banks checked and looking OK. The £15 bill credit from V0d@fone for the inconvenience with the router playing silly bu99ers has come through and been taken off this month's bill - so just £5 gone out there. The other mid month bits have gone too and we're a whacking great chunk of surplus ahead of this time last month so unleash the party poppers in celebration!   MrEH took my bank card and went and collected my prescription this morning - it's not worth me getting the pre-paid card at the moment as I can keep it down to just the one every second month for a bit - next time I need the other two items on my repeat I'll get a 3 month card and make the most of it! My "budget" account is down to £90 but that's fine, and my spends account is looking OK too. Need to remember to claim back my bank card tonight though! 

Food last night was a tasty frittata to use up the last two rashers of bacon, the last 5 eggs in the box, and a couple of sprouty tatties as well. Might potentially change the meal plan later in the week to incorporate the remaining sprouty tatties as jackets as I believe we have more coming in the weekend's veg box. In fact while I remember to put it somewhere easy to find - veg box contents:

Potatoes, Carrots, Peppers, Spinach*, Spring Greens, Cauliflower, Leeks, Beetroot, Spring Onions.  

I've just updated preferences to remove carrots though as I still have some in the fridge.  The spring greens suggest a stir fry will make it to the meal plan, and the spinach - or at least some of it - would go beautifully in a pasta dish with the remaining flaky smoked salmon from the freezer and the last of the tub of double cream in the fridge. Cauli ALWAYS means a cauli & pasta bake to me - probably with some little chunks of chorizo added for additional oomph...  Hmmm....planning time! 

milann

Your boss is very accommodating 👏👏 hope the gym at dinner time works out for you. You’ll either be shattered or re charged 🤔 I think I know whic I’d be.Everything is sounding organised 👍

Sun_Addict

I found going to the gym at lunchtime worked really well for me when I was in the office every day.  I walk to and from work (3 miles each way) so I had chance to recover before heading home and it energised me for the afternoon session at work. Kept me out of the shops at lunchtime too so an added bonus 😆

EssexHebridean

My Boss is lovely Milann - we've found a degree of flexibility that works for all sides - I'm fortunate to have a job I truly don't mind getting up in the morning for. 

SA I'm really hoping I can make the lunchtime thing work - the gym is about a 2 mile cycle away so theoretically 10 minutes there (plus 5 to chain up the bike and get inside etc) and probably 15 back allowing for it being more uphill plus me being a bit knackered! I reckon allowing for Mr Boss saying I can nick 15 minutes off each lunchtime that gives me time for my usual workout plus a 10 minute warm-up/5 minutes stretch afterwards with a bit of time to spare "just in case". If I was going to use that lunchtime session for cardio I'd need to factor in the time for a shower as well but my cardio sessions are shorter so that would still work.

Right then - middle of the week already - how did THAT happen?!  Banks checked and I did the transfer of some of the surplus to PB's this morning as well. It's now that annoying time where nothing much happens. Just one DD waiting to come out (EDF - just £10 on that one) and the remaining bits of CC to sort out which I'll probably do in a minute. Then it's just a case of sitting and waiting for the end of the month - honestly, so DULL!  

My car went to the rugby club with MrEH last night and then off with Neil later - and I think he'll be dealing with the service and MoT today. I'm not expecting to see her back until the weekend but it could be as soon as tomorrow depending if anything needs doing. That's a straight bank transfer for payment and will come from the car fund. In spite of no service last year I think she's still just about under the required mileage for the next one - or if not under, not over by much anyway. 

Just had a decent Ipsos survey and I'm now up to 301 points there again. This includes 100 I got for something yesterday that I've no idea where they came from - oh well!
OnePoll is at 1102 points and I've not logged in there yet today.
Prolific £0.89 paid/£3.75 pending (got a nice chunky one last night that accounts for that full pending amount!) 

Our weather forecast today suggests a LOT of rain later - although I'm hoping it might have stopped by the time I come to cycle back to the car. I managed to get 4 miles cycled this morning anyway so I have some extra for the day even if the weather doesn't allow more later! 

girlatplay

So does the car play or does she just sit and have a beer? 😆😆

savingholmes

girlatplay said:

So does the car play or does she just sit and have a beer? 😆😆

I love that!!!

Well done EH on all that exercise and sorting out your house. Sounds like you are making great strides and cycles as always.

EssexHebridean

girlatplay said:

So does the car play or does she just sit and have a beer? 😆😆

Well as she's my car I reckon she'd definitely have the beer!   Pleased to report she made her way back to the club again last night (with Neil - she wasn't just so desperate for a beer that she drove herself!) and is now fully serviced and MoT Tested. A clean pass with just one advisory which I already knew about, and a "slightly more than minor" service because she missed last year all for £210 - I'll take that! (And so will Neil when I log in to the bank to pay him...which I should probably do right now while I remember...)  Yep - paid now. Car account now an annoying £25-odd below the £1k threshold but that will right itself at the start of next month and anyway we're well ahead of ourselves for the year - Insurances and breakdown cover don't renew until August, MrEH's car will need it's MoT test and a service sometime in July I'd think, and neither of us have road tax to pay these days so I reckon theoretically we have enough to cover all those things in there already which feels remarkably cheerful! 

SH we're really trying to take a solid step forward with the house stuff each week now where it's at all possible. It doesn't have to be anything huge - just "something". I reckon we're not all that far off being able to set a date for the plasterer now to be honest.  Another job I want to make a start on at least being ready to tackle is the stained ceiling in the kitchen and bathroom from the numerous leaks from upstairs - the plan is that we will stain-block it, then when Steve-The-Handyman (long term readers will remember Dave-The-Builder but as he will never be coming across the threshold again, thank goodness for Steve!) is doing the stuff in the hallway he'll hopefully also be able to give both ceilings a quick coat of white emulsion and that should sort them out. So this weekend's job is simply to buy the stain-block - that easy. On the hallway, I want to get the last bits of skirting out (a tricky job thanks to closeness to electrical wiring and it being jammed in between the floor and the switch box for the Storage heater) and also hopefully deal with deepening the channel to recess the electric cable and avoid needing trunking. That also requires heavy-duty cable clips which can be purchased at the same time as the stain-block, hopefully. 

Celebrations occurred at home this morning when our electricity overnight use showed at under £1 for the first time since about November - that was with the WM running too. I'm hoping that the heating will be able to be turned right off before the prices go up but we'll just have to wait and see what the weather forecast allows on that. Either way the days of the cost of power used being that low overnight are numbered now I think - even our background use is likely to be in that region if appliances run after April 1st I suspect. I've also just had a sudden flash of inspiration (steady!) about our hideous bedroom light fitting. It currently has three massively power thirsty "reflector" bulbs in it - one is of a low energy type I think, but nothing like as efficient as LEDs and it really does create a drain when it's switched on. It's also the default light we switch on whenever we go in there so probably over a year not insignificant use. It's just occurred to me that there might be no reason other than habit that we've always had the same bulbs in them, and if so, they can simply be changed to standard LED's of the right fitting type... 

I'm also determined to keep food spending down this month while still building up storecupboard stocks a little. We've got a lot more space for tins in the storecupboard as yet and it feels to me as though with costs rising everywhere building those up might be a sensible thing, so I think I'll add a few extra tins of various regularly used things to the list for each of the next few weeks, then look to replace items as they are used, going forwards so we maintain that stock. We'll be stocking up on meat at the farmers market again - mince, and some lamb I think although I do still have a lamb breast in the freezer. I might buy a shoulder this time (or better still, see if he has any mutton shoulder) and then that can be slow roasted on Sunday and be portioned up for the freezer. 

Right - time to crack on with things I think - have a lovely day all! (It's gloriously sunny here!) 

EssexHebridean

Right - I've just had a mental trawl through the larder veg basket, fridge and freezer (I'm nowhere near any of the above) in a bid to make a start on next week's meal plan.

There needs to be food prep tomorrow as I have things to rescue - the remains of a cabbage which is looking a bit sad, plus a soft small beetroot and a Mooli radish in a similar state will go into coleslaw I think - along with some carrots as that is one way I can get MrEH to consume them!
There's a swede too - just a small one, but not many tatties until the veg box turns up so I can make three root mash (or rather - three root "ish" as the third component might be butternut squash!) which will then go to top a cottage pie for tea tomorrow night - I'll make the mince base into a double batch and the other half will get frozen. 
Any remaining suitable veg that needs dealing with can be chopped and roasted when the oven is on for the cottage pie anyway - off the top of my head I suspect the rest of the squash and the other beetroot might be the only candidates for this but we'll see. 
The remaining kale will get lightly sauteed and a splash of lemon juice added and go with the cottage pie tomorrow.

And I still need to come up with "something" for tea on Wednesday and Thursday next week - although a stir fry might beckon for one day, and maybe that cauliflower & pasta cheese bake I was thinking about when I noted the veg box contents for the other? We have one mystery item coming in the box to replace the carrots that I'm opting out of - I suspect it will be onions as it is a "staple" item replacement, but we'll see. 

I wonder if I can keep the grocery shop to under £25 this week even allowing for all the storecupboard bits that are on the list? It's going to be an Al's week, I know that much!