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

EssexHebridean

The card readers are frustrating Beanie because I inevitably never have one with me when I  need it - and sometimes they even want you to use one for transfers between your own accounts! Honestly - pretty much all other banks seem to manage without them. Pah! 

SH we held out so long to do stuff that really needed doing because we wanted to be at the very least debt neutral - so the bathroom was done in 2016 once we had enough in savings to clear the mortgage when the fixed rate ended, AND pay upfront for the bathroom works too. Then we saved what was needed for the kitchen before that was done a year later. It still feels odd to just be able to get stuff done like this though - it’s only our own tendency to put stuff off getting in the way now! 

Flooring man is paid and his checkatrade review done. 

Balance of the money from the C0v3ntry sent to M@rcus
New Pr1nc1pality regular saver opened - at 5% on up to £125 a month it would have been rude not to. MrEH will open his tomorrow and then that takes care of the money that used to go to the StartToSave accounts too. 

Draught excluder in place in front of larder door.
EDF sent our account refund for the gas account by cheque - what’s the betting they thought a cheque for £1.76 would never get cashed? Anyway I had a vague recollection of Mum mentioning that you can pay in cheques via the FD app so I checked and yep, job done. Sorry EDF - not today! 😁

EssexHebridean

Hello all! 

Well I blew the grocery budget - ended up on £209.79/£200 after realising we just needed more bought today than I originally thought we would. Next month is going to be a toughie too as it’s a 5 week month - and with the rising prices it’s going to be interesting I suspect. I’m just thankful that the savings made in previous on this are here to pad out the tighter ones. 

MrEH got his Pr1nc1pality account opened OK, both have now been funded manually for month one, and mine has it’s standing order in place for future months too. At some stage I want to sit write out our financial planning for the next few months - January will be busy with regular savers finishing, and with interest rates on the up I’m no longer convinced that our original plan to put half the proceeds of those into PB’s is the right one - it needs some thought. 

Other spendiness today:
One new bathroom hand towel, and one new oven glove bought - totalled £11 and both needed. We were in Dunelm looking for doormats for the hallway (cue planned spendiness)  and decided we might as well get those at the same time. Still not found the right doormats though! 

Veg box contents should be: 
Potatoes, Peppers, Cucumber, Pak Choi, Sweet Potatoes, Cauliflower, Fennel, Lettuce, Mushrooms,
It will be slightly different as there’s a couple of opt-outs in place but I’m hoping that the basic bones of it will be right. Some of it will find its way into a stir fry later in the week I think, I’m earmarking the sweet potatoes for the following week as they’ll keep well - ditto the cauli - that’ll be going into a pasta bake. I’ve got a smoked ham hock out of the freezer defrosted ready to go into the slow cooker overnight - and I’m hoping to get the makings of several meals out of that, it’ll be starting off providing a roast dinner tomorrow though. I also got extra mushrooms with the shopping as I’m planning a batch cook of ragu probably tomorrow morning - using the finely chopped mushrooms should stretch that into  double the amount with the usual quantity of mince. 

Other money stuff:
The £1.76 refund from EDF cleared into my FD account so I’ve shifted that to the electricity buffer fund.
The Tentacled lot have paid the £50 referral credit into my account with them which was a nice surprise - didn’t expect it that fast!
and also on the subject of energy suppliers, I’ve had an acknowledgment from Util5h1tty Warehouse’s CEO that the £75 compensation ordered by the Ombudsman will be paid to us by BACS - after ai pointed out to him that there wasn’t much sense in them “crediting it to our UW account” - a shame he didn’t bother doing his research before he made a fool of himself, really! 😂
I’ve opened a new Sant-And-Er account which is paying a slightly more sensible interest rate and shifted the electricity buffer fund to it - it now has enough stashed into it that I’d like it to be earning something I think, and 0.20% doesn’t really cut it!

Today has been generally chilled - just the shops this morning and then my afternoon has mostly involved a bit of pottering plus some sofa time with a fleecy throw. I ran the hallway storage heater for a short while on boost earlier to check everything worked as it should and also to double check the consumption of the boost setting. 500w which isn’t too bad, although we won’t want to use it at peak rate more than we can help. It has gone back off for now but the temperature has definitely dropped over that last few days so I suspect it won’t be off for much longer!

beanielou

Enjoy the rest of your weekend 

savingholmes

I love that you completed a review of your tradesman immediately too. Very nice.

Jellytotts

Wilkinsons and the Range normally have some good doormats, depending on what you're looking for.

We went with washable "magic"mats inside the front and back doors as they really do help keep the muck levels down (from humans and moggies) and wash brilliantly...I've had one set for around 10 years now and they're only just starting look a bit tired.  

RelievedSheff

Funnily enough we had to get some new oven gloves this weekend as well

EssexHebridean

Morning all - thanks for popping in! 

Jellytotts - we actually returned to Dun-3lm to buy the ones we'd seen that were roughly the right colour, and then by chance spotted that they  had a slightly different colourway which we agreed would work better, AND they had two of them - so sorted! I tried The R@nge but they had nothing much aside from coir ones (which really weren't what we wanted - and I'm astonished that they seem to have made such a comeback!). And yes - it's the washable "magic mat" style ones we went for in the end - we already have one just inside the balcony door and we've been pleased with that - very efficient! 

Spent yesterday afternoon giving Mum a hand with various bits - she's having a new kitchen fitted this week so needed a hand getting the last of the bits cleared out of the cupboards, and we also spent a bit of time in the loft making a start on sorting stuff up there - a few bits to go to the charity shop, and a few bits to head back with us too - including a small suitcase that included a load of my old Childhood books (think very battered copies of What Katy Did, Black Beauty etc!) I've sorted those into ones to keep, and ones to send to the charity shop too. I reckon if we can spend an hour or so starting to sort stuff each time we're over there we can make a decent impact. 

The priority list for this week has a number of "home" bits - mostly to do with the hallway - one financial item - for me to make a decision on whether I open myself a Start to Save account with N@t1onw1de - and some bits for the voluntary role which we'll look at on Wednesday. I'm still undecided about the savings account - and right now I'm inclined to wait and see what Nationwide do with it when they next make an announcement of interest rate rises I think - ultimately it does only take £50 a month though. 

The veg box contents were indeed pretty much as slated - and we've already used all the mushrooms from it, a chunk of the cauliflower, and a couple of potatoes too. Batch cooked a nice big pot of ragu last night with the addition of the mushrooms - a mix of very finely chopped and slightly chunkier - plus several handfuls of red lentils and the same mince I've usually use in a two double-portion batch - I'm thinking this lot will do 4 double-portions. The ham hock I slow cooked overnight did us for lunch yesterday, and will do two more meals as well I reckon - it wasn't quite so big as I hoped but still definitely good value. The meal plan this week will involve a mushroom risotto, omelettes again, tonight will be a chilli using some of the ragu, and I'll do a stir fry one night too using the pok-choi from the box. Friday is going to be a fry up so I'll need to remember to get the bits we'll want for that out of the freezer to defrost on Thursday night. 

No gym for me tonight as we were horribly delayed getting in by yet more protests which blocked the M25 in several places and so caused massive knock-on effects onto the M11. As a result I had to jump out of the car as we passed the point nearest to my office and just walk the rest of the way - infuriating but I've have been even later if I'd stayed in until where we usually park then taken time getting the bike out and unfolded etc. Hopefully now the police have an injunction in place they'll just arrest and charge the flipping lot of them - the additional pollution from the thousands and thousands of cards, coaches and trucks that were crawling along for an additional hour or so today must be horrific, never mind the added costs to hard-working folk who right now can ill-afford their commutes costing them any more money, and far less to lose working time for those who are paid on a time worked basis.  I'll aim to do the gym on Wednesday instead - today will just be a fair bit of walking now I think - although I am debating a short run after work tonight instead - I'll see how the weather goes I think.

Spendiness: Just the doormats yesterday - so £12 each. Today should be a NSD I think. 

Surveys: 
Prolific: Claimed just under £12 at the end of October that I don't think I've declared yet. Now standing at £2 paid/90p pending
OnePoll: 1172 points
Ipsos: 1370 points

milann

I’m a fan of the magic mats . My last one got wrecked with workmen but I replaced it with the exact same one. 👍

savingholmes

I sympathise on the impact on your commute. I was bemused when I saw them while travelling last/earlier in the year as we don't have that where we live (or I don't go out enough!). 

At the same time the govt are too slow on dealing with climate and the potential impact could be disastrous for us and other countries. Something has to change... But as I still have a diesel car I have no room to talk... but then few do ...

EssexHebridean

Milann so far the thing I'm most impressed about with the new magic mat style doormats is how well they've living up to their "non slip" claims - they've literally not budged at all since we put them down! I expected at least a bit of movement, I confess! 

We still have diesel cars too SH - I first got a diesel in 2007 when they were being touted as the thing to do, and didn't hesitate to replace with diesel again when that car was replaced in 2019. MrEH's cars have always been diesel I think on the basis that it's safer to have two taking the same fuel than run the risk of a slight lapse in concentration meaning a potentially pricey petrol-into-diesel-tank misfuel. Diesel suits our use far better anyway as we do a decent amount of longer distance/motorway travel, and also suits our preference to run cars pretty much into the ground before replacement due to the generally far more resilient engines.  We're also fans of the fact that both of our vehicles weigh in at zero road tax too! 

Right - drumroll please......UTIL5H1TTY WAREHOUSE HAVE PAID OUR OMBUDSMAN COMPENSATION!  It landed in the bank first thing and I have already transferred it to the buffer fund ready to use against energy costs when needed. I honestly wondered if they'd pay it - particularly after their initial claim that they'd "paid it to our energy account" which of course must have been blatantly untrue. So that is now two out of three old energy Co's sorted out and history - bills have been either downloaded or printed from both and the apps now deleted from my phone in a little bit of tidying up this morning. Really very pleased to be done with both of them. Still no tentacled bill though - my gut feeling is that GE are dragging their feet and that is slowing things down as I've not seen their final bill yet - might actually drop them an email to see what the situation is I think, although I'll give it another few days yet so we're more than a month clear of being on supply with them.

Some CC money shuffling done yesterday - I decided to transfer over the food spend for the past month as I am most certainly not intending on spending any more on food this week! At the same time I also shuffled the cost of the travel insurance from the holiday account, the small spend from Dun3lm on Saturday, and totted up what the "random spends" balance was going to be, and began to plot out how much of that would come from surplus and how much from our personal spends. 

It's at that "middle of the month everything a bit quiet" stage really so very little to report. 2 NSDs so far this week and I see no logical reason why today wont follow suit. (Realistically tomorrow should too, although I do have a hotel room that needs booking at some stage before prices increase.) I have decided that I have nothing to lose by opening the Start 2 Save allowing that N@t1onwide are pretty good at adjusting interest rates when things go up so that is probably a lunchtime task. It's a "fund during the calendar month" one too so might work well for me to transfer surplus from my budget account rather than setting up a specific standing order to it. It'll either increase it's rate, or it will stay where it is and they will decide to open a new issue in which case I can open one of those too assuming that it comes with a higher rate. 

Right, nothing more to witter about today I don't think - happy wednesday all!