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

beanielou

At last! Woohoo.

EssexHebridean

Hello all - hopefully one of you has some nice weather at the moment as it's certainly not here, grey and dreary, although I won't complain too much as at least it's dry! (I've jinxed it now haven't I?!)

A good session of voluntary role stuff achieved last night - everything on our priority list for the week ticked off although one thing proved to be unnecessary in the end as some bits that were reliant on others doing their thing hadn't happened due to some of them getting their knickers in a collective twist. We dealt with the knicker-twisting though (one phone call, several emails) and hopefully they'll now crack on without bothering about stuff that's well outside their remit - we'll see! Handily the phone call was with one of the organisation's directors who it sounds as though is going to be telling them to get on with things...   Some emails we needed to draft got not only drafted but sent as well, and we now just have one of our team to liaise with and we're waiting to hear back from someone else what we're doing about them, so all under control. I need to sketch out next week's plans now - although I suspect it will be firefighting lots of incoming emails and attendant data entry! 

MrEH announced this morning that he has a cold. I'm also back to feeling slightly as though I might be heading that way - we'll see though. Hopefully I'll stay clear of it as I want to get to Mum's on Sunday - I won't be risking taking a snot-fest with me though! 

Gym last night - and I have updated my signature to reflect the new per-visit cost. Planning on heading there as usual tomorrow morning, and if I then get two visits in next week as well then the second visit next week will be my last with a £7.xx per visit cost attached.. I was thinking a bit about this the other day - even if I just get a single visit per week in after next week before the membership renews, I'll drive the cost down to under £6 per visit across the year. Realistically at least some of those weeks I'll visit twice, so in fact it should be well down into the £5.xx's which I'm really pleased with as it definitely means it has been good value for me. The only real issue with it is that I'm really not enjoying the cycle to and from the one I use after work in the dark - but equally it works better than the far later finish I'd have if I travelled home and used the one near there I think. 

Spendiness: Nothing *yet* but I do have a pending Big River site order for a 4-pack of those energy monitoring Tapo smart plugs. It's got a cost of £35.99 but also a delivery date currently showing nearly a fortnight away - and I suspect that is going to slip. If they deliver at that price then it will be a bargain - and as Mum was asking me about them, one of them will go to her as part of her birthday present too. My suspicion is that the date will slip and then the order will cancel though. 

Financials: Banks checked and all good. I need to log into the Sant-And-er account online at some stage to change an account description and get the old electricity Buffer Fund account (grim interest rate) closed.  New Start to Save account opened last night - I'll feed it using surplus from my budget account as it can be fed in more than one transaction. It IS only £50 a month mind, so it's not going to be a big-bucks earner, but at 3.5% it's not bad, and there is a chance that N@t1onwide might increase that rate yet too - they have a good track record with that in fairness. 
We're looking at shifting a lump of savings into a fixed rate account but are currently hedging about what length to go for. The provider we're looking at has attractive rates for 6, 9 and 12 months - it comes down to how sure we are that rates aren't likely to move much more for a while though. My gut feeling is that we might do a 9 month now, with a possibility of either another 9, or a 6 for another lump in the not-too-distant, so creating a staircase effect on the maturities. we do need to be absolutely certain that we're not going to need any money we do that with though - although it's unlikely that we would, if the "perfect" Hebrides house comes up for sale, that could change. Decisions to be made...

Managed to salvage enough chicken from the portions stripped down for last night's stir fry that some will also go into the risotto for tonight so that's good. I need to get the ingredients for tomorrow evening's fry-up out of the freezer tonight as well - they can defrost in the fridge overnight and through tomorrow. A job for this evening/tomorrow will be to finalise next week's meal plan, sketch out the week after's and do an updated shopping list as well. 

The Tapo plug is definitely giving some interesting feedback on the general temperature of the flat - the towel rail is now taking a small amount of extra power to keep it to temperature for the 2 hours it is running for - so clearly it's having to work harder for the same effect. Interesting. We've also experimented this week with running the immersion overnight again - and the main energy monitor suggests that on an average night this costs around 40p - maybe a little less. I plan to switch it off overnight tonight, then pop it back on again either tomorrow or saturday night so it will be reheating from pretty much cold and we'll see how much that comes to. Needs to be a night without dishwasher or WM running though so we can get a proper idea. we also discussed this morning that we think it's going to be not too much longer before at least some of the storage heating needs to go on - the thermometer in the front room is showing that it's struggling to get above 18 in there now. Might hold off a few more days yet subject to what the forecast says, on the other hand we might pop the hallway one (the most efficient of the bunch) on overnight tonight to start taking the chill off as we know from experience that it's usually better to stop it dropping too far. 

savingholmes

Good news on the compensation. 

I think what single issue protesters ignore is that switching to a different fuel type wouldn't be without carbon impact as in most cases a different engined vehicle is needed... 

Enjoy your savings application - sure you will in its own way.

milann

The tape plug sounds interesting 👍

Seasidegal58

I've just read through your diary from your post on the Queen's funeral EH and must comment on what a lovely post it was. 👍
I'm pleased that you got your compensation through in the end after all that palaver!

EssexHebridean

Aww thanks SSG - that's a really kind thing to say! And my goodness yes I was relieved when that compensation finally landed! 

Milann the Tapo plug is fascinating - or should I say "plugs" now as to my astonishment the Big River order for the 4-pack of additional ones that I suspected would get cancelled got delivered on Saturday - I was very surprised, but pleased too! I now have three of those added to the app and set up ready to go - two are already in use: one running chargers in the porch (as it means I can just charge things like the big-boat vacuum battery on the overnight rate) and the other attached to the dehumidifier for much the same reason - it means we can set a schedule to turn it on - and off again - to take account of the off-peak. The third of those we are keeping is back in its box for now and will probably get used randomly either to establish costs of use for various items, or for using as a regular timeswitch. The fourth one has as planned headed to my Mum as she wanted to try one out and this way she can do it without cost as she wasn't quite sure where she would use it - I fully suspect that she will rapidly find all sorts of uses for it - we'll see! 

SH I think the biggest issue being at the least glossed over by that particular group of protesters is the sheer amount of additional pollution/oil burning they create every time they decide that stopping traffic is the way forwards!   

So - did we all have a decent weekend? Mine feels like it as a reasonable combination of restful and productive - and not just at home either as I ended up over at Mum's on Friday afternoon to help her get through a bit of overwhelm relating to getting things into her newly fitted kitchen, and again yesterday afternoon to do some more clearance of bits in the loft while she still had space in the skip. We got a load of random bits from the floor either rehoused up there or downstairs either for the skip or the charity shop, and an entire set of shelves sorted/cleared including what must have been 50 empty level arch files/ring binders of varying size and age - they all went to the skip as they were every bit as grubby as you might expect after probably 20 years in the loft! I found several more bits of mine - the train set needs thinking about but I think it will probably head to the charity shop - it's on a shelf for now though so not taking up floor space anyway. More trips up and down the ladder than I can begin to count and we ended up with one very snugly packed skip and a lot more space in the loft anyway! 

Odd jobs achieved at home too - MrEH has made a start on correcting the issues with the coving from when the hallway decorating was done - it wasn't quite finished as we wanted so we're finishing the last bits ourselves. I went round with the stain block on Saturday and touched in any areas where it looked like marks on the skirtings might come through when they are painted, and also got out the lighter of the two paint colours used in the hallway/porch and alcove and sorted out some bits that needed touching in/more coverage. the paint used was a one-coat - not something I'd go for as in my experience they rarely cover with a single coat and so this has proved! Mr EH also oiled the metal door on our meter cupboard - it's a brushed steel thing which looks lovely but does have a tendancy to rust - hopefully a light coating of baby oil will fix that problem. Oh and I have begun applying  pipe lagging to the pipes out of the immersion to see if we can reduce the heat loss there a bit. We may need another section of it yet - we'll see. 

Spendiness:
- The weekly shop is already declared on the grocery challenge - a little over £45 across two shops if I remember rightly. that included £9 for loo rolls, £10-worth of butter (hoping to pre-empt another price increase), and £2 spent on a total of 8 tins of N@p0lin@ brand tinned tomatoes for the storecupboard.
- £7 personal spending in T's - "lady goods" and a well priced pack of tonic water which I was dangerously close to running out of!
- £35.99 for the smart plugs - £15 of this will be accounted against Mum's birthday present though.
- £13.60 in B00ts for a deodorant refill for me and a starter kit (case and refill) for Mum as she has that on her birthday/Christmas list too. £9.60 of that gets balanced from the presents account. 
- Just under £20 of various DIY bits - annoyingly it turns out that some of what had to be bought isn't likely to be used but it was impossible to tell that until we had both bought the items AND opened the packaging. Oh well! There is a further small spend needed still too as the adhesive we had isn't quite right for the job so we'll need to buy some more. 
- £1 on a top in the charity shop - this is an absolute steal as it's almost a perfect copy of probably my most comfy "weekend" top (that also came from a charity shop at similar cost a couple of years ago). Nothing fancy but soft, comfy and practical. 
£32.00 diesel to top up MrEH's car - it looks like prices are increasing, we'll need it at some stage, so it made sense just to top off the tank we decided. MrEH has also put £50 on his Oyster card this morning.

Other MSE type stuff: Aiming for another run of NSD's this week allowing that I can't think of anything more that's needed aside from that adhesive - as that will come from Scr3wf1x MrEH will probably pick that up one morning before work. 
Mum's birthday present is now sorted/accounted for - the Tapo plug and the deodorant plus we're covering the cost of the new glass worktop saver she wants to order for the kitchen. Presents are budgeted for anyway so that will just be a case of transferring money across from the relevant savings pot. 
I might do the weekly shop on Friday this week as we are out on Saturday. I also need to take a look at whether I want to exchange any more Clubcard vouchers towards one of the places we are going on Saturday - I have £21 worth ready to go so will have a look at admission costs.  That day will also involve food bought somewhere plus some travel costs - that should be covered by our oyster cards though. (And yes, we absolutely could take a packed lunch, but we're not going to on this occasion! )

That's probably about it for now - we DID have a conversation over the weekend that might potentially mean a bit of a change of our "plan" for the future and also might prompt it being time for a new diary - I'm still mulling that one over. Nothing dreadful or worrying, but just a possible need for a voluntary change of direction. 

milann

Intriguing- change of direction and new diary possibilities sounds exciting 👍

Seasidegal58

Echoing @milann - v. Intriguing!🤔

foxgloves

Had to smile at "lady goods", @EH, because it reminded me of an older woman I used to work with way back when I was in my teens. She used to say "I'm just off to fetch my monthly present" & I initially thought she was planning to treat herself to something nice, before twigging what she actually meant!
F

RelievedSheff

Oh. Will watch with interest for news on the possible change of plans.