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

EssexHebridean

There was a single drip showing under it this morning - we suspect it's the attachment directly between the bottle trap and the sink - and it probably needs some PTFE added to the thread, but as it was just a single - small - drip, it can wait until a few weekends time when we should hopefully have time to take it apart again. I have a sneaking feeling (hope - lets be honest!) that limescale might have done the job for us in the meantime but we'll see! 

Plans for this week
- hopefully should get the email from the electrical store I purchased the energy monitoring plug from later saying I can collect it this evening - although I confess I'm starting to wonder whether in fact they were selling non-existent stock as when I ordered it the website definite said it was available for same day collection. We'll see, I guess! If the email arrives we'll swing round there on the way home anyway.
- I'm aiming to head to the gym after work tonight I think so long as I feel a bit less achey by then - Friday's session is still making its presence felt! 
- MrEH has rugby training tomorrow as usual
- I've got a day off work booked for Thursday and am intending to head up to see some Reds training ahead of them disappearing off on their planned foreign tour. Fingers crossed the weather behaves itself. If the times stay as I've been told then it'll be an early departure from home though. Claire's working so I'm doing it as an up-and-back - and again if the timings stand I'll probably nip into the pub for lunch. 
- We have a meeting on Saturday in connection with our volunteer role - it's the first face-to-face one we've had since early 2020 so that will be a novel experience! We do need to write a report and do a couple of other bits ahead of that but we already have the bones of the report sketched out and it doesn't need to be anything lengthy.  We've also got an overnight stay off the back of that to spend some time with the people we're meeting - we claim the mileage for the drive up and back, but the cost of the overnight plus food/drink is ours to sort but all budgeted. I do need to establish where we can park ahead of that - I think the hotel has a car park but we may not be able to access that at the time we need to. 
- Whether we drive straight back on Sunday or stop elsewhere on the way hoe will be weather dependent. 

Trying to work out where on earth we stand now that most of the mini budget stuff AND the longer term EPG aspect have been scrapped. Honestly - it's bad enough for us, goodness knows how on earth a more financially vulnerable household can be coping with all this and possibly more importantly feeling about it right now. We obviously jumped out of our energy fix (albeit knowing there was always an element of risk involved in doing so) on the strength of what was being promised, but that remains the right decision for us and it would only have run on until September 2023 in any case. I'll be continuing with plan A for now - setting aside the amount we believe that our energy will cost us religiously each month and ensuring that the DD reduction for the bills support scheme is factored into that too. That *should* mean that we continue to build our energy savings pot through the next 5 months, then depending what the real-world prices do in April, we may be in a position of continuing to add to it through the summer months too. at some stage I will be throwing a small chunk of it at my Octopus account as with the winter months imminent I want to keep the account running in the black until spring I think - then the standard DD payments through the summer months should start to build a cushion ahead of next winter.  I'll still see a small financial gain personally from the NI increase being scrapped as I understand that is being honoured. 

Food for the week is roughly planned:
Curry & rice tonight
Couscous salad tomorrow - that will be with roasted veggies and either roast lamb chunks from the freezer or halloumi depending how what I feel like tomorrow
Probably pasta in some form on Wednesday
Other half of the beef stew on Thursday night as long as I think I'll be home in time to sort that - otherwise it will be a reversal of weds and thurs. 
Friday is still to be decided but may well end up being a pasta & cauli cheese bake.  

RelievedSheff

Like yourself we should both benefit a little from the NI increase being scrapped. Not a lot though.

I really do feel for those struggling with energy prices. What little comfort there was in a 2 year energy price cap has just been pulled from under them. Who knows what energy prices will be come April?

We are living in very strange times at the moment.

Makingabobor2

Agree, the energy price cap is a worry. We are on fixed tarrif till next August, but dread to think what it will be by then. We're trying to shave bits off our usage where we can, but its not easy. All we can do is keep going and support each other with tips along the way. 

EssexHebridean

Strange times about sums it up RS, agreed. I think like a lot of people I've got a feeling at the moment of constantly "waiting for the next instalment!"  Makingabobor2 - I think a lot of the difficulty for so many people particularly on here is that they've already cut down almost everything they can on use - meaning it's harder to get any sort of "wins" that will be noticeable any more. It's definitely a worry - but this place is great for the support and tips isn't it! 

Not much to report today really - banks checked and all OK, my personal "budget" account is a little on the low side but there's nothing else to come out of it this month now so it should be fine. My spends account is showing very little out of this month's money yet as it was in surplus to start the month - it will see some spending over the weekend though as there will be beers to be bought on Saturday no doubt!  I do need to balance the credit card statement at some stage and get that sorted - I also need to get back into the habit of religiously noting when I transfer money to it to balance spending as I've lost track a little - it's easy enough to sort out but I could have saved myself a job with a little more organisation. One of those small MSE habits I need to get back into I think! 

MrEH opened one of the Sant-And-Er 2.75% accounts last night - we're not absolutely sure we'll use it but it did seem sensible to nab a second one between us before it was pulled. Mine is being used for personal money and I'm quite keen to keep it that way, so depending on what M@rcus do after the next BoE rate rise we'll need to make a decision on whether to stick or shift with the shared money in there I think although there are ramifications around shifting money currently in a joint account to one solely in MrEH's name. My suspicion is that once things in the financial markets have settled down again, and post the next BoE announcement (I reckon still at least another 0.5% up - possibly as much as 0.75%) we'll see some more accounts being offered with good rates - hopefully so anyway.  

Collected the Tapo plug last night and have already started experimenting a bit with power monitoring - my cuppa yesterday evening took 66w of power - boiling just the required amount in the kettle - I'm calling that as acceptable! I think I'm going to pop it onto the towel rail tonight. It means I can also then try it out properly as a timer as that was the real purpose of buying it. I played about with it a bit last night just to see how it works - and seems to be easy enough to set although I was slightly thrown initially by the "on" and "off" needing to be scheduled separately - not a problem just not what I was expecting I guess. 

Also got to the gym as planned - again I wasn't really feeling it and feeling very low on energy so reminded myself from the start that just getting there was an achievement. In fact I did get a decent workout - it just felt a bit hard work! I'll update my signature with my new tally - creeping up on the cost figure per visit starting with a 7 though - and that is when it gets into the realm of where I know the annual membership was good value. 

Plan when I get home this evening is to get the oven on then prep and roast two trays of veggies - one with tomatoes and peppers from the veg box - those will get turned into pasta sauce and frozen. The second will have beetroot, probably some more peppers, mushrooms, the last of the sprouts, possibly some broccoli and whatever else tells me it needs using when I look in the fridge - some of that will get used with couscous tonight and the rest again will get frozen, assuming I can magic up freezer space! 

Spendiness: The collection of the plug did mean yesterday turned into a spend day as we popped into the new B&M store - it's MAHOOSIVE! I thought the one in Lincoln was huge but this is a whole other level!  Anyway two bottles of the yogurt & mint sauce we're practically addicted to purchased - £2.18 to add to the grocery spend - MrEH also bought a bottle of beer but that is NOT being added to the GC! 

Surveys:
Prolific: £8.96 paid/£0 pending
OnePoll:  877 Points
Ipsos: 929 points
Need to keep a close eye on Ipsos today to see if I can get that one into the cash-out level. 

foxgloves

I'm also keeping a close eye on Ipsos.....cashed out £10 of 'turkey tokens' yesterday & am aiming to work my way to the next cash-out asap. I've never been to the B&M in Lincoln......it's our nearest city centre (by a whisker) & I was wondering why I've never been in that branch, then realised it's actually because I don't shop at B&M. Mystery solved! Think I've had too much screen-time today & the little grey cell is complaining!
F

Makingabobor2

I had a right faff with Ipsos. Signed up with a new email address that I'd created just to do surveys. Got as far as first cash out and wouldn't work. In the mean time I got locked out of my email and had no way of recovering so had to try and get the to change my email address. Have had a right faff trying to get them to understand the problem and they take soooooo long to answer a message. Still not sorted after 7 weeks so I've resigned myself to the fact that I've lost that £10 and will just rely on the other ones I do. 

EssexHebridean

Haha Foxgloves that would indeed solve that mystery! Making... - a faff indeed. I've had issues with them several times making me spend anything up to 10/15 minutes on a survey including lots of pretty in depth questioning and then claiming I've been screened out - but on each occasion I have complained and as if by magic for a while after that it doesn't happen any more. when it works, it mounts up well - I just have my suspicions that they aren't the most ethical in the way they get and then use information! (And today's gripe which is the discovery that suddenly the £10 value iTunes option has gone from under 1000 points last time I cashed it out to over 1200 this time. Sigh. 

Morning all! It's a bright cheerful one down here albeit not actually that sunny, it's not that cold either. I've left the bike in the car today to get some additional walking time & distance in, and for a bit of a change. Thankfully the idiots have now been got down from the bridge at Dartford (and hopefully thrown in a cell somewhere) and so the traffic was a little less challenging this morning so the earlier arrival into London meant I had the time spare to make the choice to walk. 

The Tapo has now been moved to operate the bathroom heated towel rail - and has provided me with the first really useful information from it too - the element is 300w, but in an hour and 20 minutes on early this morning it pretty much only used that 300w from what I can see - meaning a cost for today of no more than 5p. Realistically at that sort of cost we will likely make more use of it overnight through the winter as it will make a difference to the warmth of the core of the building. it would be a rather different picture if it were used during the day on current rates though so being able to time it to make sure it only runs on the off-peak is important and the plug does make that super-simple. I'm thinking I might play about and increase it to a straight two hours tonight so I can get a picture of how much work the element does have to do once it's actually fully heated up. We also want to get it onto the breadmaker to give an accurate up to date idea of how much a programme just for dough, and one for a full bake uses. That in turn informs whether we make a real effort to avoid using it during the day for a full bake (we don't have a choice on the dough option as it has no delay option on that programme). 

A NSD yesterday, but not today as I've renewed the travel insurance. Cost for that (£31) is budgeted and will come from our holiday pot. No other spending expected today though. Tomorrow might now be a NSD as well as I have cancelled the planned trip to Lincolnshire in the ight of a truly dreadful weather forecast. Mist and drizzle pretty much all day really doesn't lend itself to aviation photography, sadly! Right now it doesn't look to me as though Friday will be good enough to justify the travel - both time and costs - either. This is the issue with being so far away - I do have to justify it. 

Banks checked and all fine - it's that quiet time of the month now after the DD's have all gone so it's just a case of sitting tight and double checking nothing untoward goes on before we get paid again. Interest will land on the M@rcus account in a few days - which will be interesting as we have seen another interest rate rise which will have taken effect since last month. That account and the C0ventry limited access one will be on borrowed time if they don't start keeping up a bit better with what is available elsewhere now though. MrEH and I also had some further chats about savings options going forward last night - I will likely be adding a FD regular saver to the equation in a few months assuming that's still a vaguely competitive rate - hopefully they'll increase it before too long as I seem to recall it's been 3.5% for a while now. We've agreed that will replace the 2 N@tionw1de regular savers we have on the go when those finish early next year. We'll also be looking to immediately cram whatever we can into our ISA's at the beginning of the new financial year in April.

Surveys:
Prolific: £9.66 paid/£0 pending
OnePoll: 962 Points
Ipsos: 1114 points - so nearly at cashout. 

Plans for tonight:
We need to do our report for our voluntary role ahead of the meeting on Saturday - that shouldn't take long. Also have a couple of emails to send various people on that. 
Food will be pasta - probably with tuna or maybe sardines and I've dragged a YS'd tub of sauce out of the freezer as it's been taking up space in there for ages. I'll cook off the last of the mushrooms, a red pepper and an onion to get a bit of extra vegginess in there too. might actually also throw in the small tin of butter beans I've got in the drawer which I'm struggling to use as it's too small for two of us in a dish where the beans are a main feature. 

savingholmes

Caught up again. Good luck with the report... 

Food sounds interesting - as does the energy monitoring. I am in theory on an elec fix until June next year so that bit should be okay a little beyond April. Gas still trying to minimise it's use. 

milann

Hope you don’t have any problems cashing your Ipsos points when the time comes. I got so sick of being screened out of various sites I packed the lot in. I used to do quite well a while back but decided my time was worth more to me. 

The energy monitoring is interesting. I do wonder what  the difference between the  tumble dryer versus the iron would show. I haven’t used my dryer for months but end up with a lot more ironing.

EssexHebridean

Hi SH & Milann, thanks for popping by! As I think you know we dropped off our fix due to it being more expensive for us - whether that will turn out to have been the right decision remains to be seen, but all things considered allowing for the saving we'll make over this winter and if Octopus don't decide to increase our night rate disproportionately then we will hopefully have jumped the right way - we'll see. As for ironing -v- tumble dryer I can be of precisely no help there - can't recall the last time I ironed anything - MrEH does a shirt occasionally but with so much WFH and a more casual dress code in the office most of the time now when he is in even that's dropped to at most a couple of times a month now! The tumble dryer bit of our WD gets used maybe once a fortnight in the winter months only for 30 - 60 minutes just for towels and bedding! 

Milann that's a great point on the survey sites too - if we're not reliant on the extra income from them and it is just a nice extra then we absolutely should weigh up that extra money in against the time being expended, and the value of it to us.

More energy monitoring - the bread maker on a dough programme last night used very little from what I could establish - I'm going to have to guess a bit as it wasn't enough to be absolutely clear on it but I'm reckoning no more than 10p worth even allowing for it being on daytime rate.  The plug went back on the towel rail overnight too - and again that's showing no more than the 300w being used which suggests that as I suspected once the thing has actually heated up it requires almost no input from the element to keep it to temperature. Good to know, and means that our estimate of costs for even it being on throughout the cheap hours is even lower.  Hot water was switched on for a 20 minute or so burst this morning but at the time I left home for work the main monitor was showing under 2.5kwh total use and that almost entirely at the night rate, so not even quite 35p of cost at that stage - bargain allowing for background use as well! Having switched the water off this morning it won't now go back on until Sunday night. 

It is what I would classify as Very Wet Indeed here today so far - I'm very glad I cancelled my originally planned trip to Lincolnshire! o got pretty damp cycling from the car, and that was even allowing for the fact that the torrent had largely eased off at that stage. The forecast suggests that it should have stopped by mid/late afternoon which I'm hoping will be the case. (In fact, having said that, it does suddenly appear to be brightening up outside so fingers crossed!)

We got our voluntary role report and a few emails done last night - never week's main job will be a request for feed back to go out to the organisations wider membership - we write it and send it to certain people, and then they and the Organisation's HQ deal with the wider distribution from there. Then the first flush of hard work begins as that feedback starts to roll in - but it's that which will begin to inform the process for next year.  

No specific plans for this evening - food is organised by way of the second half of sunday's stew - I might do that with dumplings, we'll see. No plans at all for tomorrow evening yet although I strongly suspect it might be fakeaway curry night - I have some of the curry I made last week in the freezer, and a portion of dhal, and I'd make a small batch of flatbreads to go with it in lieu of naan breads I think. that does depend on my eventual decision about heading to Lincolnshire but right now I don't think the forecast is likely to turn round sufficiently to make it worthwhile for me. 

Jobs needing doing: 
Flooring to be ordered for delivery next week 
Need to decide when shopping is best being done allowing for weekend plans
Credit card statement needs reviewing and balancing.