Giving every £ a job

lucielle

I like mine to end in zero or five!
L

savingholmes

What flavour was your ice cream? Mine was butterscotch.

Blackcats

Ice cream was from Lidl Italian range - almond with amaretto flavour sauce.  Very nice too.

Spinayarn

Hi - just dropping by again to say how inspiring and motivating I am finding your diary. I have been reading it through and I'm still in the pandemic years. How weird it is to read those entries looking back. In some ways it seems so long ago and in other ways so short a time.
Anyway, there are lots of little comments that make me smile or that I can relate to. I recently read about how you had your own little weekend away in your own house - moved into the spare room with the posh bedding on. Made me laugh at the daft things we did then but I also love your imagination to do this!
Oh - and I bought some yummy looking Bisc0ff type ice creams from Aldi today. Might have to have one this afternoon...

Blackcats

Lots of nice ice cream flavours being enjoyed in MSE world.

@Spinayarn - oh yes the pandemic years - when we were all trying our best to follow the rules (with the obvious notable exceptions)
we actually moved back into the b n b at home room for a few weeks in the winter.  It's a smaller room than our main bedroom and has less windows and more internal walls so it's much, much easier to keep warm.  We called it our Winter Palace.

Had to go to a local town today to do some chores.  The town centre looks very bleak - lots of closed shops and very few people about.  I went to the bank to pay in a cheque - no counters, just machines and it's closing altogether in 2 weeks.  That's the 3rd bank to close and from what I can see there's only nationwide left now.  The bank employee who has to stand around to help people use the machines that have replaced humans said to use a paying in slip at the post office in the future.  Thanks very much HSBC!

in money management news I've decided to give up on premium bonds.  I buy them for the grandchildren and I've won diddly squat in 3 years.  My strategy is to put the current balance into a 1 year high interest account and save an amount each month into a chase savings account.  At the end of the year I'll toll the 2 amounts into another savings account.  I think that will work ok when interest rates are high.

I also had a look at one of my existing ISA accounts and changed it to one with better interest - will result in an additional £500 interest when it matures in 12 months.

In de-cluttering activity I've officially served notice on MrBC that we will be visiting the garage of doom on Friday to deal with 6 unused: unwanted and unloved dining chairs.  I'll try them on freecycle and if not they will be off to the dump (household waste disposal centre).  Don't worry I haven't actually served notice on MrBC but I've given him advanced warning that I shall be entering the garage at the end of the week.

he's got 2 things to list on eBay which I'll gently remind him about this afternoon (like I reminded him on Sunday too).

Off to do some ironing now - will listen to my book while I iron.  Really enjoying hearing Samuel West narrate Inspector Morse.

ladyholly

If its any comfort my dh has had a very few premium bonds since they started in the 1950s  and has never won a bean let alone any money.

lillypoo

I've had premium bonds I was given for my christening in 1962 which have never won anything! 

Just popped in to say hi ...new reader of your diary ..also in pandemic era. 

savingholmes

I think if you need the tax breaks PBs can be useful - but an ISA can do the same things and have a guaranteed rate of return.

Good luck with your garage project.

EssexHebridean

Our PB's will be getting cashed in when we move as they form part of the cash part of the price of the house. I'll leave them in place until then because after all, you never know, but at that stage their days become numbered as the return simply isn't good enough now to justify raising other savings which are actually giving us a return each month. 

I love reading back on people's diaries from the beginning too - fascinating particularly around the pandemic stuff to see how the way we were all reacting to it changed over the time things ran on! 

Sun_Addict

I still shudder at the memories of the beginning of the pandemic and the sheer greed of people. I remember going into Mr S just before lockdown and people were clearing the shelves of anything and everything. It upset me to be honest I’ve never experienced anything like it 😠