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

milann

Exciting 😃

EssexHebridean

Morning all - yes, safe to assume I'm still grinning about the Spitfire thing - such an incredible privilege! 

All in all not a bad weekend - once I'd stopped being fumingly cross about EDF! MrEH dealt with the shopping on Saturday while I was at Duxford - there were a few bits he couldn't get, and again a few price increased he noted, but we're sorted for food for the week anyway. then yesterday we spent the day at Mum's getting her kitchen ceiling painted ahead of her new kitchen being fitted in a few weeks time. Now neither MrEH nor I are particular fans of or have much expertise in painting, and especially not ceilings - but we got it done, I am slightly surprised that either of us are capable of raising our arms above our heads today mind! Roast pork for lunch too - very tasty! Came away with a bag of frozen chicken wings and legs from Mum's last roast chicken too - she doesn't eat the dark meat but she buys a whole chicken as it tends to be cheaper than buying the two breasts, and cooks better too. Dad used to eat the legs etc of course but we're quite happy to help her out now!    I'll probably turn those into a curry or similar for a couple of weeks time. I've got the previously cooked bacon & mushroom and roasted butternut squash out of the freezer ready for tonight's risotto so that at least created a little more freezer space ready for MrEH to make rolls for lunches tomorrow. 

Collected my foldy bike from it's service yesterday and have ridden it for my usual car to office commute this morning and goodness me what a world of difference! Actually felt like a pleasure to ride this morning - I'll take that!  Cheery that's a pain about yours - sorry I did see your comment previously! You'd think a make like Brompton being seen these days as a bit "prestige" would be relatively easy to find someone to fix. Thankfully the shop mine went to is actually the sales & maintenance arm of the manufacturer so they're very well used to working on that make - having said that I may well take my big bike to them as well as I trust them to price things reasonably and they'll give me a look over it first to confirm what needs doing. I know that very likely has a fair bit needed to it so I'm keen to take it to somewhere I know and trust. It's certainly not going anywhere near Halfords - not after the saga I had with them! 

Gym tonight - it was looking a bit grey and wet this morning but has now blossomed into a glorious day so with luck it'll stay that way. Definitely getting chillier though - my fingers were quite cold on the bike this morning. MrEH and I did discuss that it might be approaching time to put the heated towel rail on - I think we're not quite there yet but not far off - although the telling thing will be when MrEH's towel starts being slower to dry without it I think. Ideally I want to hold off putting anything heated on until the electricity switch has been sorted though - I'd sooner pay 10p a unit less for warming the place up! I'm going to give the tentacled ones a call later to see if I can get things sorted. 

Survey update:
Prolific: £6.06 paid/£1.00 pending
OnePoll: 777 points
Ipsos: 796 Points
I reckon I can get to a £10 cashout value on Ipsos this week - which I'll send to iTunes credit again as I want to start rebuilding that. My Strava renewal used the credit I had but did mean I only had to pay £13.xx against it in real money so I'm happy enough with that. 
Prolific I plan to leave sitting until the end of the month I think - initially when I used it I was wary of leaving money sitting there in case they went under, but it seems to be a solid enough model now so happy to follow the month at a time routine with them.

Pleased to say that this week is a relatively quiet one - I'm at work the normal days and we have a meeting with someone in relation to our voluntary roles on Wednesday evening but aside from that I have nothing planned. MrEH has rugby training tomorrow, and a match on Saturday - as that's a home match there is a decent chance I'll head along to the club with the camera although that definitely depends on the weather! There will no doubt be a few beers afterwards anyway! We'll get to the Farmer's Market on Saturday morning, and right now we're planning on leaving sunday completely unplanned for a nice lazy day ahead of a few busy weeks. 

Spendiness:
Duxford on Saturday ended up being just £7 for  a jacket potato with cheese and beans - actually quite tasty compared to the standard of average airshow food!
I've placed a big river shop order for some new pens for my bullet-ish journal and a USB rechargable reading lamp that was recommended by someone on here - felt it wasn't a bad idea to have something handy just in case we do get the rollling blackouts that are being warned about and I wanted something a little brighter than our table lamp to enable me to get back to crocheting as well - the light the current lamp gives just isn't quite bright enough. The two things came to under £16 total anyway, and will be delivered tomorrow
The weekly shop was £31.89 - I'll be able to declare my grocery challenge month done now as well so need to add up my total spending, but I know it was under our budget by a good way - mostly thanks to us not being about for the first week of the month of course.  

Stuff to think about:
Need to get both the car and the holiday accounts transferred back from Sant-And-er > N@ti0nw1de I think as Sant aren't increasing the interest rates on their standard e-savers at all. N'wide have already put theirs up substantially and show signs of continuing to do so. 
MrEH now has an ISA so I need to transfer some money from our joint long term savings to make the most of his entitlement. We've agreed where from and how much. 

EssexHebridean

Tentacled switch all arranged - and to my astonishment supply starts on the 12th - how swift is that?! Very happy indeed to be escaping the clutches if the Extremely Difficult F.... lot - sadder to be leaving GEUK though as they have been a genuinely nice company to deal with. Ultimately though had they been cheap as well as nice we'd have stayed, so there you go!

Super-impressed with the Octopods so far anyway - genuinely smooth and easy process, lovely friendly lady on the phone, and very efficient. A moment of pause when I gave her my annual gas use - but I pre-empted the usual "I don't think that's right" with an explanation and all was well. ("I think that's the smallest gas use I've ever switched in!" she said!) And she laughed out loud in surprise when I ran through the unit rates - well I had said I had already done the homework! A bit of a wait to get through in the first place, but I expected that and in any case it wasn't a stupidly long hold.  

Now we wait, hope EDF don't decided to block it out of spite and cross fingers it all goes through OK! At least it's not long to wait! 

Oh - and for the avoidance of doubt, I used a referral code kindly given to me by an MSE member (I didn't even realise they did such things until the forumite told me!) so that should earn me (and the owner of the code) £50 energy credit each too - winner. 

foxgloves

Hello @EssexHebridean, I hope everything regarding your energy changeover goes well. We are happy with the Cephalopods. We are on a smart meter now, but before that, we used to submit monthly meter readings. The Tentacled Ones always emailed a reminder, I'd read the meters & submit the figures online & within a day, I'd receive a statement, so everything always felt much more up to date than previous providers I'd been with, when account balance information never seemed quite as clear or accessible. They take the readings automatically now we have the smart meter, but I still receive an emailed statement every month from which it is very easy to see how much credit has built up. Most energy companies end up seriously peeing me off one way or another eventually, but so far, this one hasn't, & Mr F & I are both agreed that their way of doing things somehow just seems a little bit more progressive than some of the others we have been with,
F

EssexHebridean

I've genuinely been wanting to switch to them for a while but this is the first time they've ever come up competitive for us Foxgloves. I am just massively impressed so far though - this morning I've checked my email to find the "sorry to see you go" one from GE indicating that today is their final day of supply to us. Unsurprisingly nothing from EDF but I have little doubt that they are NOT sorry to see us go, so...!   I've submitted readings to both GE & Octo this morning ready for the switch. 

A log in to EDF confirms that the cheeky devils have now removed the customer read I gave them (twice, including once to a named person over the flipping phone!) from our online account in favour of their own much reduced estimate. Fuming isn't in it - when you pay as little as we do for gas them inflating things to earn an extra couple of £'s out of us just feels petty beyond belief. Of course there is precisely no option for contacting them other than the phone, and I know from experience that will get me nowhere. To add to the frustration in spite of the fact that our current account status including this month's bill is £10 in credit - I find myself slightly wondering why it is they have said that they want to take £45.XX as a SD this month. I've cancelled the DD - and sent them a message on Twitter confirming that we're not happy, and that the DD has now been cancelled and they should take this month's bill from our account credit. Also giving them the screenshot of the correct meter read that WAS on the account and has been removed.  I can see them blocking the switch too, to be honest. Gah! Honestly - they truly are a bunch of inept idiots!  Anyway - I have also now made a formal complaint to them raising the whole list of points. I have to say I REALLY can't wait to see the back of them! 

Bacon, mushroom and butternut squash risotto last night was very tasty - tonight will be our separate meals night as himself has rugby training - I'll cook him some mushrooms to have with cheese in an omlette, that will use the last three eggs in the box. I plan to have one of those microwaveable sachets of mixed grains probably with some sauteed veg and some feta crumbled over. I like feta, he's not keen, so I take the chance to eat it when I can do so without it inviting low level grumbling! I also need to remember to take the box of black bean chilli out of the freezer ready for Thursday. 

Gym last night and signature updated to reflect. Again the bike felt lovely to ride - it's either the service or I've suddenly found a whole rich seam of energy and fitness from somewhere that I didn't have previously, I'm not complaining either way! In between the far easier feeling bike rides and what felt like a nice constructive gym session I definitely felt full of beans last night anyway! 

That's about it for today I think! 

RelievedSheff

Hopefully this energy switch will be an end to your energy company woes!!

It does seem to have been an ongoing saga  

savingholmes

Hope this latest switch is better.

EssexHebridean

Thanks RS & SH - yes, I certainly hope so too - and it must be said right now I have a good feeling about the Octopods so fingers crossed! 

Amazing how fast a complaint gets a reaction - had a Twitter message from EDF last night apologising for how long I'd waited for a reply, saying that they'd noted my points, confirming that the gas account had switched away from them, and telling me that a new - correct - bill was being raised. Looking at the account this morning that has indeed happened although it also looks like they've tried to change me back to the budget plan DD - and they are still ignoring the account credit. I'm not too worried - they'll find out soon enough when they attempt to take the DD that it is still very much cancelled! My maths seems to reckon that the £5.56 remaining credit after the September bill is accounted for will cover the 11 days use when the final bill hits with about £1 to spare so hopefully that will prove correct - in that event I won't be too fussed if I never see that remaining amount credited back - and certainly won't be spending any more time trying to contact them about it. I've made clear in my response to the twitter message that I still consider the complaint to be open and want a reply to it too - there is just the chance that they will offer us a goodwill credit there - although I suspect not now we have left. 

A little more savings wrangling has happened thanks to Sant-And-Er deciding to offer a 1 year limited term 2.75% easy access savings account. The remainder of my money from my great aunt that has not previously headed off to the ISA has now been moved across into the new account that I opened yesterday. Need to keep an eye on what other options are out there and also see what M@rcus and C0Ventry decide to do next - gut feeling is that we may well see an email from one of the two at least tomorrow with an update. Either way I don't plan to hang onto any feelings of loyalty with where money is. On the smaller "savings pots" there is something to be said for convenience - for example our holiday and car pots are both currently earning 0.25% - now a few months ago that was just about acceptable - now though, not to much so. I've opened a new account paying 2% for one or the other but that theoretically anyway is just for a year. I can't say I'm wildly keep on having the faff of cancelling/starting new SO's every year for accounts that don't have huge sums in them so a balance is going to have to be struck I think. 

We're heading out this evening to meet with the person about the froggy situation I had to write the email on last week. MrEH and I had a brief discussion this morning and know what points we want to touch on. Hopefully it will all go fairly smoothly - we have a hunch the person we're meeting might not be entirely surprised by some of the things we have to mention but we'll see. I have annoyingly managed to forget to pick up my purse - and so my 0yster card though so I'll have to use the phone instead, and of course make sure that the right card gets used  throughout my tube travel as well. Other spends tonight will be a couple of drinks, and some food too at some stage although we might well end up in w3thersp00ns for that I'm guessing. 

Other than that, banks all checked and OK, and surveys trickling along although Prolific seems to have died a death at the moment. Still hoping for an Ipsos cash out this week - I'm on 867 points at the moment. 

beanielou

Hope meeting goes well 

savingholmes

Hope the froggy meeting goes well.