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

EssexHebridean

Those are cracking rates SH - I've not got accounts with either bank and realistically right now I'm not going to complicate things by going there I don't think - I've been eyeing linked savers from current accounts with interest though and those clearly are the benchmarks right now, aren't they.

The floor is indeed now finished and we're thrilled with it. It's taking a bit of getting used to as it's obviously slightly noisier than what we've had before (the Marley tiles were absolutely solid - like walking on concrete, and of course prior to that we had the carpet) so particularly at night I'm quite conscious of it, but that will wear off fast enough. Not possible to see any benefit from the extra level of insulation yet as obviously the last two days the front door has been open a lot, other doors have been missing etc, but fingers crossed by this evening we should start to feel an effect - it felt noticeably chiller outside this morning first thing and the front room was still mid-18's so that seems like a reasonable place to start. I'm going to hold back the amount to pay Davy's invoice plus the balance of the cost of the flooring from the money that's coming from C0v3ntry - if they ever get their act together to send it, that is - as there seems little point in transferring it to M@rcus only to have to transfer a chunk of it back again!  The skirtings need painting yet and there are some gaps to be caulked/sealed but we reckon we can deal with those bits easily enough ourselves - the skirtings are just going to get emulsioned though - I'll work on the basis that any scuffs will get touched up when needed! I need to message Steve to find out whether he's still OK to do the shelves for us too. 

Good stuff financially - interest has landed for my first month with the ISA - it's going to be nice to see that grow as time goes on! 
Bad stuff financially - the thieving g1t5 at NS&I have decided not to give us ANYTHING on the PBs yet again - honestly, it's not right! It'll be interesting to see if the most recent £2k addition which becomes eligible for the draw next month will make a difference as that took us over the £10k level in there. 

Still don't seem to have a tentacled bill which is peculiar - the DD went today so we'll see if that prompts anything. It looks like the gas bill is generated but not yet visible to me, as that account is showing a negative balance. I'm seeing nothing on electricity yet  though. Also need to decide when/if to transfer money from the buffer fund over to them as well - although it might as well stay where it is at the moment as the October bill when it does turn up should be well below the DD amount, plus somewhere along the line there is the EBSS payment to take account of as well. 

Tonight's plans are to head to the gym straight from work, and then once we've eaten it's our evening for doing stuff relating to our voluntary role - today that will mostly be sending emails to people I think - including the two which really start the ball rolling on work for next year. I'm going to try to keep up with the idea of a short list of priority jobs for each week I think - partly to keep things manageable, and partly because there's no point in a long to-do list which then gets quick/easy jobs cherry-picked from it while perhaps the more urgent stuff gets pushed back. So last week we wrote the contents of the two emails  that are to be sent this evening, plus their attachments. Tonight will be getting those sent, plus drafting some more emails which will probably need to get sent next week, plus I have to text someone to find out what is happening re one of our team who essentially stormed off last year when something happened elsewhere in the organisation that upset him (with some justification, I have to say!) - we need to know whether there is any chance that he's open to returning to his role or if we need to sort a replacement/do the job ourselves this year.

The priority list is going to cover other stuff too - so this week it had 4 financial items on it, then 4 voluntary role tasks. Next week's is drafted and so far includes 3 "home" items, 1 financial one, and 3 voluntary role. The voluntary and home sections are now considered to be full I think. I'm keen to see how this works for me going forwards as it shifts my focus away from great long ever growing lists that end up feeling daunting, into specific tasks that are targeted to achieve something and then be moved on from. In theory good - I do have to enforce the maximum of 4 items in each section (and I think maximum 3 sections) though else it will all get unwieldy again!

Spendiness - none yet this week - obviously there will be the floor fitting invoice, and I do need to acquire a couple of the "dirt trapper" style doormats for the hallway as well. Undecided whether to just chance a Prime order for those, or go somewhere to look at options at the weekend... 

lucielle

Glad the flooring is finished and you’re pleased with it. Sorry the PBS aren’t doing there thing, I’ll give them the mum death stare!
L

EssexHebridean

Haha - thanks L - I definitely need someone to take them to task I think! 

Used a bit of my lunchbreak to do some money-wrangling. Weekend spends now balanced up - I've already transferred my share back to the card, MrEH will likely do his later. I also decided that as I currently had the balance of the money transferred from the C0v3ntry sitting in the joint account I might as well give it a job to do - so I have now set up a transfer path from my spends account to my new FD account, and have transferred £1000 across there to qualify for the switching bonus - need to keep my eyes out for that to land in the next 28 days now, and also need to transfer that money back again - probably either this evening or tomorrow as I'm not sure how easy it is to send money to a new payee from the FD account. 

I'm still undecided about what to do about the new FD account - I'd like to stay with them but it's not really practical to have three different accounts with two different banks and one building society. The N@t1onwide account is staying put - they've really raised their game in terms of interest rates of late, for a start, but also I have in excess of 30 years banking history with them and that I don't want to lose. (That account also qualifies for any windfall payments that should come about should they ever get turned into a bank - not though I think that's likely to happen now, but you never know!) My Santander Spends account is practical as it's obviously in the same bank as our joint account, but equally I'm not massively wedded to keeping it to be honest - so that could end up being a candidate to turn into a donor account for future switch bonuses - although it has no DD's set up on it, I could easily enough change that by switching my Paypal one to it and coming up with another to add to it, I guess... Needs some pondering.... 

savingholmes

It's easy enough to set up an extra dummy account with 2 direct debits - swish some £ through it and switch it. I did that last year and switched after about 4 months...

milann

Nationwide is one of the accounts I’ve been looking at as they have a bank in my town and a reasonable interest rate for an in bank rather than on line account. 

beanielou

As yu say very very unlikely that Nationwide will ever be a bank. All  for the members

EssexHebridean

milann said:

Nationwide is one of the accounts I’ve been looking at as they have a bank in my town and a reasonable interest rate for an in bank rather than on line account. 

We've generally been really pleased with them over the years - and only ditched them for the switch for the joint account last year as their interest rates had plummeted and they'd stripped the benefits we previously got with the account back to nothing. Fair play to them, since then their interest rates have come back up again and they're reasonably swift at increasing them once BoE rises are announced. They do have a very decent switch deal at the moment too. 

On the very subject of N/wide and switching, MrEH and I had a discussion last night about whether in fact just to switch back to them from the existing Sant-And-Er account. It would really simplify things in terms of moving money about. I'd keep my spends account separately as that's working well for me, but longer term my sole Sant account would become a donor for further switch options as I was musing on previously. We certainly seem to be eligible for NW's £200 switch bonus as well as we've never switched an account to them, only away. The only specific advantages to the 1-2-3 Lite account are the cashback, but we get so little it's only just in profit (indeed, on the months with no Council tax we either break even or lose out by a few pennies!), and the ease of setting up new payees for money transfers which is very handy indeed - NW still demanding we use a card reader is irritating. More chats needed I think.

Spendiness: The veg box has landed on the card - I'm now at £171.59/£200 for the October grocery challenge but with only one further shop to do. I also now have Davy's invoice so will get that paid later. MrEH collected and fitted the stop for the rear of the internal front door yesterday so that's another small job done and £5.49 spent on that. (Worth every penny to avoid the plaster getting damaged where the door hits it!) I also nipped to T's after work last night (the gym missed out - the weather was rubbish and I just wasn't feeling it on ANY level!) and bought some essential ladies items, let's say. £3.20 spent there. 

Still no tentacled bill - but the £66 EBSS money is showing today so I'm assuming all is good and we just need to sit tight and wait for the bill. I did notice that the £66 showed a credit date of the 1st but only showed on the app today, too. I do wonder whether for new customers they are now producing bills on the anniversary of the date supply started, I guess the 11th will tell us whether that is the case if so. If nothing appears from them by a day or so after that I'll email and see what's happening.

Once Davy's invoice is paid for the flooring I'll be able to transfer the remaining money that came from the C0v3ntry from the joint account to M@rcus - the balance there is already looking nicely healthy mind and I'm really looking forward to seeing the next lot of interest land later in the month. When I do that transfer I also need to shuffle across the £200 a month that was previously going to our Start to Save accounts - at the moment the decision to close those early and shift the money is still the right one. 

The priority list is now looking mostly ticked off - we made good progress on the stuff on the voluntary role last night although for the future we do need to consider what we do with emails that arrive while we're working on other things. We've almost got a bit of a jump on next week's list too due to managing to send some additional emails that technically speaking we were only intending to draft last night. 

Hmmm....nothing much else to report I don't think. Have a good Thursday all - hopefully your weather is a bit better than ours! 

savingholmes

Sounds like you are controlling all you can. Nice that you are improving your spaces debt free too

beanielou

My DS worked for NW.
The card readers are all about fraud.
Where's that rolling eyes smillie when you need it.

RosaBernicia

The card reader drives me nuts as well.  I just send money to my St4rl7ng account and set up transfers from there, it's less clicks and hassle and grumbling.