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

girlatplay

I can't (do) believe the power company issues that you have had!  What sagas indeed.  We're with 🐙 that's who we changed to when our old company (from the flat) wouldn't take us back.  We've been with them just over a month now.  At the beginning they said they would take an up front payment on a certain date as a deposit.  Fine.  Then changed the date to earlier.  Fine.  Then changed it to even earlier.  Still fine but make up your mind.  All three dates came and went and money stayed in our account.  Two days before the DD was due to come off I made a manual payment (I wanted to be in credit and had enough in the account if they still took the deposit). They have never taken that deposit.  Apart from that, they've been transparent, communicative around new tariffs and the discount.  Easy to provide readings.  Bill quickly.  Reply to emails (although a bit delayed).  I'm happy to stick it out with them as everyone seems to like them.

Sunshine_girl2

You have the patience of a saint dealing with the utility companies , hope the outcome is favourable .
Is an Oyster card cheaper than using my debit card in the underground ? . My DS has one night top it up if it is . 

Always enjoy your photos , the Hebrides is beautiful, no wonder you love it . 

EssexHebridean

Thanks guys - the 🐸 meeting did go well, we got the impression that little of what we had to say came as a surprise - meaning that other people have the same issues and have raised them too, so that’s good, and means that hopefully steps will be taken to sort out the things we are concerned about. Plus a nice opportunity to catch up with a pal over a few beers, so good all round! 

The Octopods 🐙 seemed quite happy that we’d just start paying without usual DD at the beginning of next month GAP - but then I guess we have the address history here so that might be why. So far, so good anyway! Still waiting for a complaint response - or in fact even acknowledgement - from EDF. No surprise there though. 

SG2 I think these days there’s no advantage to using an Oyster over debit card contactless -  we usually prefer to use the Oyster cards simply because it means we see less transactions on bank statements - significant for us as of course sometimes MrEH uses his daily. As long as you use the same debit card for all journeys in a day though it should cap out at the same levels. 

So - a Friday actually just to myself, and MrEH has had to go into the office so I have a truly peaceful day as well…ahhh! I love him to bits, but sometimes it is nice to just have the place to yourself, no?! I’ll head to the gym in a bit  - I confess I’m not quite feeling it today - TOTM kicked in yesterday and is a bit grim, and I’ve already ditched plans to cycle to the gym in favour of taking the car as a result of that. I’ll see how I feel whenI get there but I suspect once I’m there and in my routine I’ll be fine. If not I’ll shower and hair wash at their expense and come home again! 😆

Couple of jobs already done here this morning - the big boat vacuum has been round,  the time switch is re-set for the towel tail in the bathroom meaning we’ll start getting an hour of heat from that from now. That hour of heat will cost us a grand total of about 7p so I think the family finances can stand that! Also a bit of bank account wrangling - I’ve decided to use the new account I opened with the better interest rate as a secondary car account rather than transferring things across to it entirely. This means that I can just periodically shuffle money across - but the payment path for the monthly transfer remains the same. We’ll use the existing car account as our incidental fund but the other one will be there for anything bigger that’s needed. Also taken the chance to set up a payment path from my “budget account” with one bank to my “spends” one with another so I do have to do everything via the joint account which should mean less confusing payments in and out of that, so making it easier to check through. 

Right - I think I’ll get the washing out as while grey and dreary it is at least dry, then get myself sorted for the gym. Will likely be back later but happy a Friday all! 

foxgloves

Urrrghh - TOTM. One thing I absolutely do not miss at all! Be kind to yourself.
F x

EssexHebridean

Thanks Foxgloves - I’m at the “will it appear or won’t it” stage each month now - skipped a couple entirely and this one arrived at day 41…let’s just say that I would have made an excellent scout as “be prepared” is very much my motto these days! 

Gym done - and, as predicted once I was there it was fine, I’d go so far as to say I even  enjoyed it! Certainly felt like a decent workout - and I managed increased load or reps on a couple of things as well which is the aim. 

There *is* such a thing as a free lunch too - in the shape of a mushroom stroganoff ready meal I inherited from my Dad…yes, really! It was one he had in their freezer and not something Mum would eat so she passed it to me, MrEH has had to buy lunch today as it was impractical for various reasons to take a packed one with him as we usually do, so rather than use a single roll from a set of two HM frozen ones I decided the ready meal May as well make an appearance. Not the sort of thing I’d buy, but tasty enough and a nice change!  We’re having treaty fish & chips tonight too so all in all a nice food day all round. 

I’m getting odd jobs done here and there as I go around the place today. A tidy in the bedroom earlier including getting clothes that had accumulated on the chair that’s in there put away, a load of washing from the machine hung out, and another load now in the machine ready for tonight. The second mechanical time switch set up for the Vacuum cleaner battery charger so it will automatically charge an empty one overnight. A bit of dusting. The rubbish taken out - including the vacuum cleaner box as it would appear we’ve decided it’s OK and we’re keeping it!. Bathroom sink cleaned and I’ve established that the long term drippy leak from underneath it is getting significantly worse so that needs a look at this weekend I reckon. There’s always something isn’t there! Oh and I’ve finally got round to opening the FD bank account I’ve been banging on about for ages and requesting a switch of the spare Sant-And-Er account to it, need to make a note to transfer the required sum into it at some stage and hopefully that should see £175 in free money hit it once the qualifying period ends. All in all in spite of it all being small stuff I’m feeling suitably productive, so I think now a brew, some non-challenging TV and some more photo processing is in order! 

savingholmes

Good luck with the plumbing 

Good luck with the account switching - energy and bank

Have a lovely weekend. 

On the stroganoff - nice to think of your Dad still providing for you now.

redofromstart

A ping earlier for me to say that Mark Us has gone to 2%. I've sworn never to touch the S-Der bank again or I'd be jumping over. 

I bought a finned upright hoover. It's really rather good, thank you to everyone who recommended it. 

EssexHebridean

SH hopefully the bank switch will go as well as the energy one did - that was seamless! The bank one won’t be an issue in terms of the account going over as it’s the secondary account in Sant that I’ve switched and I don’t use it for anything! 😂

Redo I spotted the Mark Us email earlier - I confess I thought “hmmm, must try harder” and gave them a mental D- (in red pen of course). At the moment we still have money in there, but I’m now actively looking for the next option for it doing better for us - I’m reluctant to use my Sant 2.75% account for it as I’d prefer not to muddle the money from my Gt Aunt with our joint savings too much. 

EssexHebridean

Well, we seem to have had a reasonably productive day. The plan for today was always to try to get lots of odd jobs dealt with but also to just have some time to relax a bit - so we went for a walk this morning, MrEH wanted to get his paper and we did a nice 4 mile  loop round by the common. When we got back the most important job needed looking at - namely the leak under the bathroom sink - it has always had an occasional slight drip but it always seemed to stop after a few days previously and a small plastic tub in place underneath dealt with it. Over the last few weeks though it had got significantly worse and was a real problem. Anyway - a full dismantle of the bottle trap and surrounding pipe work, cleaned it all out, got rid of some limescale, added some PTFE tape to a joint that was clearly a bit dodgy, and hopefully we now have one non-leaking sink waste. Other niggly jobs - finally got the stain lock on the bathroom and kitchen ceilings - super impressed too - with both being relatively recently painted it looks like we’re going to get away without needing to repaint. There is a couple of bits we’ll go over again at some stage but my goodness it works incredibly well. Mr EH also got round to cutting the small piece of coving that was needed to fill a gap in the hallway- and we’ve plotted out how we plan to deal with another bit too. 

The beef stew cooked overnight in the slow cooker was delicious - we’ve had half of it today and the other half is in the fridge for later in the week.I also divided one pack of mince into two and popped that in the freezer, the other has been turned into keema and sweet potato curry (again - it’s definitely turning into a favourite!) - I’ve still got to divide that up but I think it’ll make 4 double portions - again one of those will get stashed in the fridge probably for tomorrow, the rest will go in the freezer. 

Spendiness - ordered a smart plug which also features energy monitoring - we were planning on buying a new digital timer switch anyway and this one was literally £2 more than an ordinary one would have cost us. £9.99 - we need to swing round via Curry’s tomorrow night to collect it. The energy monitoring will be interesting too - I’m looking forward to getting updated costs for things like the breadmaker - I can see a new list coming on in my journal! 

Right - time to divide up the curry and head to bed I think! 

foxgloves

A tidy bit of plumbing there, @EH!
F