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

Cheery_Daff

I'm currently sat in my study, which is the coldest room in the house whatever the weather (exposed on 3 sides, under a tree, barely any sun, tiled floor) - I've got a cardi and knee high boots on and a hot water bottle on my lap 😂😂 It was quite a shock when I just nipped outside! 😮😂

beanielou

Sadly not a heatwave up here though it is warm. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🌻

savingholmes

It's been hot but manageable here today. 

Great news on the gig tickets. Glad you are doing fun things.

foxgloves

Enjoy the gig, @EH. That's what savings pots are for. We've just booked tickets for a lovely classical Christmas concert we go to most years. Our absolute favourite seats were available but at nearly twice the price of the cheapest ones we mostly buy. We decided to treat ourselves to the more expensive ones. We don't do it all the time & .....my main point here, is that we had the money saved in our Leisure/Entertainment Pot. Back in the Spendy Era, we never saved anything at all yet would book multiple concerts/gigs simultaneously - all on credit cards, of course (because we were idiots!)
Enjoy!
F x

EssexHebridean

Yep - this is precisely why we feed our “fun stuff” pots each month - and it was most satisfying to know I could go ahead and book that ticket and not have to worry about where the money would come from!

Well today has been food shopping day - farmers market, supermarket and veg box delivery too. Eye watering spend of £68.47 I think it was I declared on the GC thread. However some of what was bought will make multiple meals - and some has already been converted to meals, or the basis thereof. A big pan of the keema and sweet potato curry I came up with the other week, and a tray of tomatoes and peppers roasted off which should make the base of two pasta dishes have both been done tonight and will be divided for three freezer and frozen when cooled.

We spent several hours earlier in an online meeting for the beer festival - this will be our last full meeting ahead of the event, although there are still huge amounts of work to do in the next 6 weeks! It did feel quite scary when our festival organiser closed today by saying “see you all on site” though! Then another couple of hours for us doing more work towards it for our own role in proceedings - we should have our database handed over tomorrow from our IT guru and then we can start entering up the info we have currently and seeing where we’re at. Lots to do! 

savingholmes

Sounds busy busy but fulfilling. Meals sound good too.

EssexHebridean

Morning all! Got past the 2500 point level on OnePoll over the weekend so that can be cashed out - it needs me to reconfirm BACS details though so I'll sort that at lunchtime. I also went past the 1000 level on Ipsos this morning and have already cashed that out to an iTunes voucher again - and have just applied that to my account. while that one isn't clocking up that fast it does mean I should be able to make  my handful of regular subscriptions for apps cash-neutral which was the plan. 

Banks checked and fine - I think we'll see a few further small interest rate rises on various accounts from the start of next month - with N@tionw1de anyway, Sant-And-Er haven't volunteered anything yet so far as I can recall, I might need to just open new savings accounts there and transfer money across as it appears that once you have one of their eSaver accounts they just leave the rates where they are. I logged in to M@rcus the other day to check on balances and renewed the bonus rate there while I was about it - that's actually crept up to a moderately decent rate again (comparatively speaking anyway) which is nice. Need to decide whether to add anything to PB's this month or assume that the joint account surplus will go towards paying the bill for the plasterer.

Delighted to say that the plasterer did indeed arrive this morning, too - he had just parked as I left for work so I left MrEH (WFH) to deal with him. Just relieved that he turned up to be honest - hopefully all will go well, I'll look forward to seeing progress when I get home tonight although he won't finish until tomorrow. 

Other than that everything's quiet at the moment - it's that point in the month isn't it! My Oyster will have enough on it to cover my travel tomorrow night - I really hope this wretched strike gets called off otherwise I have only the sketchiest idea of how I will get there/back! If I had to I *could* use the cablecar both ways but that would definitely increase the costs a lot - I'd far sooner be able to find a less costly route. Preference currently would probably be cablecar across on the way there, and the free shuttle boat 9that is apparently being run) back as that would get me to Canary wharf at least, then to Stratford on the DLR - and I'd most likely then have to get the bus back to Leytonstone as the Central Line isn't expected to run at this end I don't think. Honestly - it's such a nuisance! 

EssexHebridean

With everything going on round here at the moment I think I need a mission list to get my head back in the game. So - plans for this week:

- decide whether we're both going away at the weekend, or just MrEH.
- Go through the fridge and list what needs highlighting to use up
- Meal plan for next week - freezer, fridge & cupboards and as little extra bought as possible!
- shopping list for next week - milk & fruit only? How low-spend can I get it?
- Roast veggies for couscous (Thursday) ahead of time?
- Focus back on planning wash-loads ahead of time and thinking where I can do a quick wash rather than a full programme.
- 15 minute tidy-up each night we are both in just to keep the place "decent" while we're otherwise so busy



Thoughts on next/future week's meals from memory:
- Jacket tatties with beans and cheese for one day
- sausages - quick & easy, and give an extra day's meal as...
-...sausage pasta - use one of the tubs of roasted toms & peppers plus a healthy dollop of pesto
- Lots more curry in the freezer.


Future batch cooks:
- Dhal - this works best done as a big batch ahead of a friday night curry meal, with the  balance being frozen
- Ragu which will expand out to either bolognese or chilli
Both of these need enough freezer space to get the tubs in though. 

foxgloves

I like to do a bigger batch of dhal as well, @EH. I most often do the one from my newest slow cooker book now. It does have a few more ingredients than the Madhur Jaffrey one I used to do but nothing outlandish & it's nice to have a big crockful for freezing extra portions. I also like the chickpea curry from the 'I heart my SC' book (the one where I usually substitute shredded chard instead of buying baby spinach) as part of a varied curry night type of meal. Another cheap option which freezes well.
I need to do a tighter meal plan this week - we aren't going to have the leftover grocery budget funds I hoped for, despite the fact that I always budget generously for monthly grocery shopping - we did do our 6-weekly A*di stock-up this month, so I suppose that accounts for some of it, but not a huge amount tbh.
F x

savingholmes

Hope you manage to get the transport sorted. It sounds complex.