Busy Mee's Last Leg

themadvix

That tends to be my feeling on sweet potato!!

 Hope meeting goes ok.

Suffolk_lass

Me too! I add a sweet potato to my courgette soup, for a bit of thickening, and because I add chilli too and the slight sweetness offsets the sharpness. I might have to freeze the rest of the bag I bought for £1 though - peeled and chopped into either a soup dice or a roast-able chunk

savingholmes

Hope your meeting goes well and that you get better sleep tonight.

Busy_Mee

Good morning. It has been another wild and windy night here. It feels like the weather is never going to get better. However I did notice that it is starting to get lighter in the evenings as I drove home from the station on Thursday. It was 17.40 and still light, let's hope that spring is actually on the way.
I have a had a frantic week at work, lots of big meetings but lots of progress made and I was glad to make it to the weekend yesterday.

I had some annoying spends on Thursday, I was travelling to a meeting and left my insulated cup, complete with cup of tea in the car when I parked at the station, which meant paying for drinks all day. I drink black tea, so £2.30 for a tea bag and hot water really annoys me However as I consider a cup of tea a basic human right, it just had to be done.Three cups of tea and £6.90 later 

In other financial news I received £480 extra this week. 

When lovely MIL died I paid for the funeral tea on my card (FIL won't use his bank card for fear of being scammed). He forgot about it and I didn't want to remind him and didn't mind paying for it in any case. For some reason he remembered this week and insisted on giving it to me. So I have some extra money to play with and I think I am going to pay £500 off my mortgage to celebrate the extra day in February per Shanghai Jimmy's suggestion 

In diet news I have lost another lb. This is very slow going, but again I have hardly done any exercise again this week, because I have been too busy at work. I must try harder this week.

We are doing the gutty road trip to visit my elderly stepfather on Sunday and will go to FIL's today. 

We have ordered FIL an Echo Dot and need to set it up for him. We got one for my Dad at Christmas and it has been brilliant for him. He is disabled and partially blind and we set it up with a WiFi plug on a lamp so it will turn the light in and off and he loves being able to play all sorts of music on it. That is when he gets her name right  ....we have had "Alexis play Matt Munro" and  "Amy play Matt Munro" .  Dad it is ALEXA !!   

Have a great weekend and stay dry x

Suffolk_lass

Our office coffee shop used to do a deposit scheme for cups so that visitors to the building could use it for the day and return it. Only trouble was that the restaurants and coffee shops often all closed before our meetings finished. Of course it depends where you are going but I thought most places had spare mugs people could use.

We have not gone the route of a home hub. It is already clear that one of our devices is listening in to what we talk about (I know, because weird things pop up in my tailored adverts and things i might be interested in) and we don't want that really. It already feels a bit like we are being infiltrated with all the scam attempts. Just my average paranoia!

Thanks for the savings suggestions, by the way.

Have a great weekend and I hope the fathers are fit and well

themadvix

Love the story about Amy/Alexa! (SL, completely agree with you, and we don’t have or want one, even if I do call my mum paranoid sometimes!)

I don’t blame you for being so cross about paying  so much for a teabag and water! That’s extortionate!

Busy_Mee

SL and MadVix shhhh don't put any doubts into either FIL or Dad's heads. They are paranoid enough and the benefits of the hub for both of them far outweigh any risk. My Dad has even had Alexa reading audible books to him as his sight has worsened.

Anyhow we have done the gutty journey to see my elderly Step Dad. He was well considering he has outlived the Dr's predictions by 2 years. He has cancer, but they decided because of his age (92) not to treat him. I firmly believe that this lack of intrusive intervention that his given him this extended life. No Alexa for him though, as he has no internet.

The journey was a good opportunity for me to have a good chat with Mr Mee about a couple of things. Firstly I am thinking about partially retiring from July and working 3 days a week. This will mean I can use my best final salary ( which ended July 18) . I could bat on and hope my current temporary promotion lasts for a full year, but tbh there isn't much point. I definitely don't want permanent promotion at this stage in my career and although I enjoy my job I would rather have more time for myself. I am going to check all the figures and speak to my boss.

Also we discussed investing in a SIPP to get the tax relief and I have only gone and done it ! £12k invested in the new Vanguard SIPP to which they promptly added £3k. It seems unbelievable and I haven't added this to my totals yet because I can't quite believe it. I have sent off to HMRC to get registered for self assessment so I can claim back a further 20% as I am a 40% tax payer.  I will do this for every year I am still working as effectively earn the same and pay the same level of tax even when partially retired ( pension + part time earnings).

I feel like that has been a very productive day and even cooked up a large pan of chilli and a batch of Tesco's Nana's Magic Soup ( Sweet potato, carrot, red pepper, chilli and coconut milk). It is our favourite soup recipe and we have snow forecast for this week, and will probably need it.

themadvix

That soup sounds delicious, will have to look it up!

Your plans sound exciting!

beanielou

Good idea to go to 3 days 

savingholmes

great about the sipp and tax relief. Good to have had a refund from the wake. 

I think devices definitely listen in - however I love listening to audio books - and it is good to have one thing in the house that obeys you - 'shut up Alexa' can be quite stress relieving!