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

EssexHebridean

Morning all - well, I'm emerging from the other side of the cold which absolutely came and WALLOPED me! Felt grim on Saturday but dosed up and got out because both the things we had planned for the day were paid for and couldn't be rearranged. Felt grimmer still on Sunday, and Monday was a write-off - there was never any chance I was making it to work! Stayed off yesterday as well as still coughing to the extent that it was making me dizzy so driving not an option. Back in today and thank goodness feeling far better although still going through tissues at an alarming rate and featuring a nice rattly sounding cough... the sun is out and the sky is blue though so that at least is perking things up a bit! 

SG2 we really enjoyed Shepherd's Bush - it's always fun poking around in old tunnels, and never more so than when you get told you have five minutes to wander about an area and make faces at passing commuters through the grille to the "outside world" - also it's always great to have a direct view of trains from a different-to-normal angle. I particularly enjoyed disappearing up the stairs at the end of the platform too - many bemused travellers wondering what was going on at that point! Also - the glass tiles in the abandoned tunnels...wow! 

Beanie I'm really trying to fight the dilemma about what to do with FD - I would really like to stay with them, and we have discussed possibly moving the joint account from Sant-And-Er, but equally we like their app and it does seem to be working quite well for us so...it is slightly addictive getting the switch bonuses mind you SH - I can well see why you're repeating it!   L - well done on the savings thing! I've just shuffled a bit more of ours but that's gone into another fix...I won't know what to do with myself once everything is where it needs to be! (But then again, just a couple of months until Regular Savers start needing attention so... )

So as said above - a bit more money shifted - to a 1 year fix this time as the smart minds over on the savings board seem to think that rates aren't going to go much higher any time soon - and right now the 4.35% we have for the 1 year seems to be about the best out there. That leaves us a chunk in easy access paying 2.5 - and we're hoping for that to increase at some stage. Everything in fixes is in accounts where we know that the interest rates *could* be beaten by easy access within the time period, but right now, the rates are higher, and looking to stay that way for a while, so better to get the money earning a higher rate, sooner. Once we have a pot of regular saver money from accounts that have matured we'll take a decision about what to do with that - some probably will still make its way to PB's, but not the amount we'd considered originally. 

Spendiness: Lunch on Sunday was delicious - pie and mash with veg, followed by a bit of cake each, washed down with a very welcome hot cuppa! The cost for that will be settled from our personal spends when I next balance the CC. And that's it! Travel on Saturday was covered on our Oyster cards - MrEH will need to top his up again possibly tomorrow, I think, but that will hopefully see him through the rest of the month. 

The electricity spend is definitely creeping up but thank goodness both storage heaters are now doing what they're supposed to after a few days running. We'll be continuing to cut back on use where we can, but that won't include being cold. I am debating when it's cost effective to turn the immersion heater off for a few days though - MrEH will be shaving again tomorrow morning as he has to go into the office for a third day this week, but I reckon that it can go off from then - and that should leave enough in the tank for face-washing and washing up on Friday. I've had the final bill from GEUK now too - hopefully that should mean that the Octopods are now in a position to do their thing and raise me a bill as well. I'll do readings either Friday or Monday I think and that should trigger a bill if nothing else does in the meantime. 

Food is still under control - the cauli cheese pasta bake for tonight has been defrosting in the fridge since yesterday, and I need to check the meal plan tonight for the next couple of days and get anything else needed out. The chicken I bought at the weekend did Sunday lunch, has done lunch rolls today, and there are three more meal-sized portions away in the freezer, so it's earned its keep reasonably well - a good thing considering the price. 

Upcoming spendiness: Another "not-cheap" weekend coming up but again all planned for - it's our annual trip to the Good Food show on Sunday, and we have a night out with members of our beer festival team on Saturday which will be fun - when MrEH finally gets around to planning which pubs we're visiting, anyway! Food show spending money is saved across the year - I'll take some out in cash and the balance will be stuck on the CC and transferred across later. We almost invariably buy various bits of Christmas food and usually some presents there too, as well as stocking up on various things that get eaten during the year (my peanut butter!) and that spending doesn't form part of our grovcery budget because we save for it separately. Saturday night's spends will be from personal money. We might visit somewhere on the way back on Monday - will depend on weather probably though. There will be a refuel of one or other car off the back of that travel too.  

lucielle

Wow!  You still are as busy as ever, even whilst poorly.  The Good Food Show sounds good and probably lots of lovely goodies to be had.  Enjoy!
L

EssexHebridean

I promise you L, I have been the very opposite of busy over the past few days - the mind might have been occupied, the body definitely wasn't! 

Ooh - I know what we DID get done on Sunday though - the next section of coving up in the hallway (this is the bit at one end that the decorator didn't quite do what we'd hoped with) and pretty much all the caulking of the skirting done too. Only one section of coving was because the area it was being stuck up in is a bit shonky so we took the view that having finally got the one section to stay where we wanted it, we were going to leave it well alone until the adhesive was thoroughly gone off! The caulking meanwhile turned out to be FAR easier than expected. He squirted it on, I smoothed it off, and apart from a few slightly tricky areas it was done in a flash! Thee are a few small bits to go back over - where there were slightly larger gaps, and we're also in agreement that we're going to caulk a couple of gappy bits on the coving too. Next job on the skirting will be the painting (I need to nick the masking tape back from Mum for that!) which is going to need a steady hand as I'm happy to mask the floor, less so to stick anything to the paintwork though after the rather annoying "paintwork pulled off the wall" incident in the kitchen... Hopefully there's just one bit of coving still to do as well - I'm hoping I can modify one of the pieces intended to work in a corner for a tricky section (which IS actually a corner, but doesn't quite work as one for various reasons) and then one little straight bit which might need to be whittled slightly to make it fit. 

milann

The Good Food Show sounds great - enjoy. 

I’m with you re masking tape. I've got to touch a bit of white paint in the bedroom where I’d put tiny bits to mark where mr m had to screw the curtain rail 😳

RelievedSheff

A lot of people at work have had a horrible cold this last week or so which has knocked them off their feet. Our team has been three people down this week. Thankfully work is a bit quieter at the minute.

Glad to here you are coming through the other side of it. It doesn't sound pleasant.

savingholmes

I was recently ill with a similar sounding virus and felt it was worth than covid. Hope you recover completely soon - I found the cough likes to hang around.

EssexHebridean

Hey all, thanks for popping by!

Milann - the food show is usually good - we found last year a little disappointing as a lot of the regular exhibitors weren't there and it was very small in comparison to previous - this year feels like things are picking up again though, so fingers crossed!  RS & SH there seems to be a lot of people getting the same thing - MrEH has had it too as I think I said, and also my boss, plus numerous friends etc. It's not fun - I felt worse again this morning, probably because of being back in the office and doing quite a lot of walking yesterday. I'm also still running through tissues at a rate of knots - I'm glad we were well stocked for them! I'm thinking that tomorrow is going to be a nice quiet day as I don't want to end up still feeling grim by Saturday really. 

Got our weekly stint of voluntary role work done last night - so far it's been quieter than we expected but it seems that our notification hasn't gone out to the organisation's wider membership yet so we're only getting responses from a small sub-set of other volunteers. We also suspect that the regional co-ordinators for that volunteer role are haven't all bothered to send the details out to those under them - probably because they're being huffy about the fact that we've (and one of the organisation's Directors, too) asked them to do it...we're not bothered, we've made the request, if that never gets to the people it should it's not our fault, if it has the knock-on effect of giving us less work to do then all good in our world! We'll probably need to do next week's stint slightly early as there is some stuff we did last night that needs a follow up - we should have time on Monday when we get home though. 

All quiet on the financial front here - it's "that time of the month" in terms of money out isn't it - I'm not going to square away the joint account surplus yet simply because I know there is still travel spends to add in. Having said that, a small win has been scored as MrEH's need to go to London today was scrapped - that's his tube fare saved. 

MSE Stuff:
Need to finalise next week's meal plan and also put together the weekly shopping list - that's probably a task for tomorrow. Won't be doing the shopping until after the food show though as we may well get stuff there that will change the plan a little. We also need to put some ice packs into the freezer to freeze tonight - we take the cold box with us in the car with ice blocks inside as this means that we can throw any meat products we purchase on Sunday in there to make sure they stay cold. 
I just had an email from the rewards side of our TV provider confirming that I was entitled to a free film download under their VIP Rewards thing - so have downloaded Top Gun Maverick to the box - if we can get it for free we might as well see what all the fuss is about! 
We need to decide how much of the money saved for food show spending gets taken out in cash - we'll need enough to pay for our traditional Sunday Night Indian Takeaway in any event - but last year nearly all the exhibitors at the show took cards, and a good number were card only. It might be that we ensure that we have a small cash reserve from those funds, and each have some personal cash with us too to use if needed, that might be the easiest. 
Need to renew my subscription for the Good Beer Guide App as this may be useful at the weekend. It's not possible to do via the app at the moment which is annoying, but it does at least mean I can direct the payment straight to the Credit Card as it is a joint expense.

Surveys:
A little Prolific flurry has seen me at £6 odd payable and £5 odd pending at the moment.
Also had a nice little run on Ipsos yesterday and might get to another T's voucher level today with luck. 

EssexHebridean

It just occurred to me re Ipsos points - you can buy iChoons cards as gift cards on the big river site can't you - and right now there is a price reduction on the Big River cards too...so 878 Ipsos points have just bought me a £10 voucher - bargain! I'm calling that a definite win - and credit is already smugly tucked away on my iChoons account - go me. Next challenge is to see if I can get to that level again while that promotion is on! I'll still need to go and pop the T's one on at some stage although I might look at doing that one electronically as well now I come to think of it. 

We might also have come up with a new plan for maximising savings interest earlier - to be pondered this evening. 

Makingabobor2

Just realised what the Big River is.....Gosh I can be stupid at times, took me a while.....lol

redofromstart

I took the eldest boy to good food a few years back, partly on your recommendation, and because he went with school for gcse food and didn't get enough time to look. We both enjoyed it.