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

Scott_Weiland_2

EssexHebridean wrote: »

:rotfl::rotfl: Cheery for goodness sake don't put your postcode in to check it on the Postcode lottery then - you'd be gutted if it turns out you'd won and missed it! Good reminder on Prolific Academic login too - just checked but nothing for me at the moment, apparently.

Beanie / Scott Funny how what works for one person doesn't for another eh. I've decided that one's not for me - in part because I don't want another one that I need to remember to check daily. Also because I definitely ain't giving my phone number out to ANYONE! :rotfl:

I'm thinking I need some aims/ideas/plans for this year then. In no particular order:

- Continue with "eat less/Move more" - keep up with step tracking but keep it realistic
- Give conscious thought to the amount of sugar that's in my food choices
- come up with a plan that will properly tackle the arthritic pain from my hip
- Get the kitchen sorted!
- Kitchen window and door - contact man for a quote.
- Get the hallway sorted!
- Check whether Dave has a contact who can do the gloss paintwork for us on the windowsills in front room, bedroom and spare room.
- Sort my flight over London in the Dragon Rapide
- Aim to clear as much as possible off the 0% card via surveys etc.
- consciousness of thought. Thinking before speaking/typing. Being nice without turning into fluffy and overly PC. (As if!)
- Handwriting. Slow down and aim to improve.

Think there will be more to add to that. I might take a leaf out of Smolly's book and paste it into the first thread so I know where to find it.

Need to check paypal to see if that money has landed yet, and withdraw to my bank if so.

Just had my bill alert through from EE - this month's bill is a grand total of -14p! :rotfl: - so I need to remember to account for the amount that *would* have been payable when I pay across to the CC. Wish they'd hurry up and tell me when my statement/payment date for that is!

Yeah i am the same giving out my phone number nooooooooo noooooooo i found last time i did that i receive a lot of marketing calls from indian call centres at random times during the day

EssexHebridean

Had a little flurry of nice short Power Of Opinions surveys through today - I'm now up to 440 points on there - that one pays out in vouchers (there is a PayPal option but it costs another 54p) at £10 so it's impressive that I'm already nearly halfway there. Once I hit the payout level I'll probably turn it into Amazon credit I think.

Mealplan is done for next week - sticking with the focus on using up what we have for the time being, So we've got 'Spy (Shepherd's Pie), Liver & onions and a veggie stir fry in there, and there will also be cheese & crackers for tomorrow evening. Oddly enough we have quite a lot of cheese. :cool:

Turned out that the car only needed one tyre :T which was a win - so just under £38 there. While they were doing it I wandered over to T's to get some oddments of shopping - I'll need to go back as I wasn't going to carry the lot back across to the tyre place! Got a couple of yellow stickered bits though, and actually managed to get some bananas as they were nice and green and not too bashed about. £5 (exactly! Couldn't do that again if I tried!) spent but I will need to go back for the remaining bits either tomorrow or Sunday.

We've got to be adults at some stage over the weekend as well and go and buy a bed. :eek: Current one (base & mattress) is over 13 years old, and was a relatively cheap one when we bought it, so we've decided both bits are for replacement. We looked a few weeks ago and found the base we liked - still got to find a mattress though - and that seems to be easier said than done!

Greying_Pilgrim

EH - is that a picture of yours of the lil' red jets on the front of 'The T1mes' today????

Greying X

EssexHebridean

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

EH - is that a picture of yours of the lil' red jets on the front of 'The T1mes' today????

Greying X

No - but it is my friend Claire's! SO proud of her! I personally won't let pics go to picture agencies - there's too much risk of them getting used in the wrong way - and that's not a risk I'm prepared to take. Each to their own though!


Just done another Populus Live survey so that's now up to £9 on there. Payout is £50 so a way to go yet. Also checked TCB and the phone cashback is payable so I've extracted that and my 10p Christmas promotion win to BACS - when it hits the bank I'll throw it at the card. :T

Shopping procured this morning - £17.51 in Tesco and £3 on the market - that £3 bought us LOTS of crisps (Should keep us going for well over a month even if Mr EH has a packet daily with his lunch) and two boxes of crackers as while we have a lot of cheese the cracker supplies aren't that plentiful.

Hopefully got the window man coming this afternoon to establish how much our new kitchen window/door, and new front door, will cost us. (And when he can do it - hopefully soon!)

Tomorrows plans are buying a bed, and wandering round the DIY places getting ideas for the kitchen. Including the dreaded paint samples.

Scott_Weiland_2

EssexHebridean wrote: »

No - but it is my friend Claire's! SO proud of her! I personally won't let pics go to picture agencies - there's too much risk of them getting used in the wrong way - and that's not a risk I'm prepared to take. Each to their own though!


Just done another Populus Live survey so that's now up to £9 on there. Payout is £50 so a way to go yet. Also checked TCB and the phone cashback is payable so I've extracted that and my 10p Christmas promotion win to BACS - when it hits the bank I'll throw it at the card. :T

Shopping procured this morning - £17.51 in Tesco and £3 on the market - that £3 bought us LOTS of crisps (Should keep us going for well over a month even if Mr EH has a packet daily with his lunch) and two boxes of crackers as while we have a lot of cheese the cracker supplies aren't that plentiful.

Hopefully got the window man coming this afternoon to establish how much our new kitchen window/door, and new front door, will cost us. (And when he can do it - hopefully soon!)

Tomorrows plans are buying a bed, and wandering round the DIY places getting ideas for the kitchen. Including the dreaded paint samples.

RE populus people rave re them i hit the 50 points mark way way before the fat man in the red and white suit came down the chimney i am still waiting on the cheque. Hmmmmm not impressed.

EssexHebridean

Scott_Weiland wrote: »

RE populus people rave re them i hit the 50 points mark way way before the fat man in the red and white suit came down the chimney i am still waiting on the cheque. Hmmmmm not impressed.

That's not good - hopefully it will arrive soonest Scott.

Weekend was actually quite productive.

- Window man visited - hopefully we should have a price for the new kitchen window and door, and new front door, in the next few days.
- Bed got purchased. Found the base we liked, and a comfy mattress. Should have been £1039 (how much?! :eek:) but talked down to £893 and some pennies. Still ouchy but needed buying. We've discussed transferring that to the 0% card as well but currently have decided against as it will complicate things with my payments.
- Had an interesting "tour" of the kitchen section in Wickes. We were at the point of saying "no that's fine, we're just looking" when she asked but went with it and both agreed that in fact we got a lot from it - not least several new ideas for storage that might really work for us - fingers crossed. Need a visit from the people we'll actually be buying the units from now, and also a natter with our builder. And lesson learned about being open minded to "sales pitches" sometimes!
- Colours are currently still under discussion - but we are looking at the same tiles on the floor as we have in the bathroom, and considering a sort of sage-green for the walls...could look OK with cream units, and a cream tile splashback, we think? worktops are likely to be dark I think - we ought to be able to get away with that, allowing for the light units & wall, and the fact that we have relatively little bare worktop.

Had another couple of OnePoll Surveys this morning, and a nice short Opinion Outpost one that gained me another 5 points with them.

Beyond the extortionate amount of money on the bed yesterday we avoided going anywhere else that we'd be tempted to buy anything - went for a walk in the afternoon so MrEH could get his newspaper but he has a subscription for that. Did manage to get some sorting out done in the kitchen which was a bonus - there's going top be a lot more to do before it can all get ripped out, though!

My step count is still looking OK - I managed 6k on Friday, and 7k+ both days over the weekend - I'm happy with that, as it's more than I would have done without having raised my consciousness on it.

Food tonight is a "use up" meal - stir-fried veggies with noodles and grilled salmon. Got mushrooms, peppers, a bit of broccoli, carrots and a courgette in the fridge, so that'll deal with the veg aspect. Oh and a bit of cabbage that may or may not still be OK - I'll have a look. I cooked extra mash when I did the 'Spy's yesterday so that's all ready to have with liver and onions tomorrow.

Spendiness for me this week will be a meal with friends on Thursday night - and diesel to get to and from Lincoln too. There will possibly be a small spend of some sort for lunch on Friday too as Claire and I will either grab a sandwich, or we'll be on base at Scampton and the Photo Section usually visit the chippy on a friday! I do currently still have £20 in my purse so I'll probably visit the cashpoint and extract my "standard" £30 - and then pay everything in cash.

Bobarella

Hi EH

Probably not useful now but we went with Dreams for beds, bought three in total over a period of a few years. They aren't cheap but they have a 10 year warranty. And they did 0% over a year which was great. Obviously you have to be careful to pay within that period or end up with some horrible interest added on.

Bob

FrugalinShropshire

Hi EH, we too had window man over as we needed 3 small windows for the side of the house. We had 5 large windows done in the summer and the price quoted this time was stupid. We had saved what we thought was enough to get this done, but sadly this will have to be put on hold now. I canny understand how they work these quotes out.

EssexHebridean

Bobarella wrote: »

Hi EH

Probably not useful now but we went with Dreams for beds, bought three in total over a period of a few years. They aren't cheap but they have a 10 year warranty. And they did 0% over a year which was great. Obviously you have to be careful to pay within that period or end up with some horrible interest added on.

Bob

Hi Bob! We looked in Dreams - they're right opposite Lewis's where we'd seen the base we liked. Had to laugh though - the salesman in there was terribly keen, and very determined to tell us all about their 40 day good-night guarantee thing, where if you don't get on with your mattress you can change it for another one in their range...except that we only found ONE mattress that was comfortable, so that was pretty much useless as we'd have had nothing to change it for! :rotfl: We ended up going to Lewis's for both bits as they were open to a deal, too - the comfy mattress from Dreams would have been over £100 more and the chap in Dreams looked MOST put out when I mentioned the word "Discount"!

FrugalinShropshire wrote: »

Hi EH, we too had window man over as we needed 3 small windows for the side of the house. We had 5 large windows done in the summer and the price quoted this time was stupid. We had saved what we thought was enough to get this done, but sadly this will have to be put on hold now. I canny understand how they work these quotes out.

I've been pleasantly surprised with ours FIS - he came back to us with the quote today and it's very reasonable, or at least seems that way to me, window novice that I am! All being well should get them fitted in a few weeks time - very exciting! :T I wonder whether when you go quiet on them yours will come back to you with a revised price - although that's a practise that's sure to put me off using an organisation.

So far then the next crop of flat refurbishments are set to follow an ethical path I'm pretty happy with - Window firm is a small independant local business. Builder is a local small trader. Units will be coming from a national company but if you start going down the "independant" route on that you're talking rather too much money, round here! :rotfl:

MistyMountainTop

just popping in to say hi, it sounds like things are going well! It must be so nice to sleep on a new mattress. I think sage green with cream units would look lovely - what style are the units? I used to have a nice kitchen like that with country cottagey looking units, the green was a very soft shade of sage and did look really pretty. I had a belfast sink too that added to the overall effect.

Surveys have been coming thick and fast here, I've not managed to do all of them. I prioritise anything from Pinecone and Yougov. I'm a long way from a Yougov payout but do find the surveys much more interesting than most.

I hope you enjoy Lincoln! I've never been there when there hasn't been major roadworks everywhere so tend to take the train if I can. It's a very beautiful city with so much going on, and the steep street is so interesting!