Giving every £ a job

Makingabobor2

We are talking about going back to the IOW again this year. I know what you mean about the price of ferry tickets. It is apparently the most expensive crossing for cars. £ per mile, in the world!

RebeccaPAgain

I love your monday morning briefings with Mr BC!  Funny, a family member was saying just Sunday that the cost of ferry tickets to IOW has gone extortionate.  I just can't believe the cost of literally everything these days!

Blackcats

Thanks all.  We do love the IoW and once we are there it's usually a very budget friendly holiday.  I just calculated that sailing time works out at about £9.50 per minute but it's cheaper if you take account of waiting for the ferry 😂

We did our weekly shop today endeavouring to buy only what was on our list.  Mr BC enjoys meandering through the middle at Lidl aisles finding things we never knew we needed.  

Bank account and savings pots all looking ok.  After reading Martin's tips on possible criteria for the nation wide £100 fair share payment we have switched to using our nation wide debit cards to try to tick the spending from account box.

Makingabobor2

Do you get an early sailing to save a bit of money? We went on the 7 or 7.20ish am one last year & year before, then drove straight to Ryde, parked up & had a walk then into Alamo opposite the Esplanade for breakfast. That is the only meal we have out, the rest is cheap SC. But that seems to have become our tradition now. 

Blackcats

@Makingabobor2 - That sounds like a good plan for IoW travel and a nice start to your holiday.

Another "working" week has flown by - Monday to Friday never seemed to go this quickly when I was at work.

I had a nice catch-up with DD and my grandson.  DD succumbed to a very pretty Valentine's themed cake with lots of icing and chocolate hearts and I had a slice of lemon drizzle.  It was good to have time to chat and I was able to hand over a few bits from home that might be useful for her.

a low key Valentine's Day here.  We swopped cards that we had already sent in previous years and I'm combining Fakeaway Friday with Valentine's Day by cooking Malaysian style spicy noodles and then I'm making chocolate melt in the middle puds in our heart shape ramekins.  The advantage of having spent lots of money on lots of stuff in the past means that there is always a good stock of things to accessorise with.  I've laid the table with a heart runner and pink placemats and lit some tea lights.  I may have agreed to watch another Lethal Weapon film - a film that captures the spirit of romance???

savingholmes

It looks like I need to look into the rules on that - I don't spend from the account really... Off to investigate. It would be gutting to miss out. Of course to spend from the account I'd need to know where my card was... 

RebeccaPAgain

Your vals day soiunds lovely, particularly the cakes and time with DD/DGS!

I kept my nationwide savings account even though it has only £100 in it.  My dad (I'm talking like 30 years ago or more) got a "windfall" when a BS changed to a bank and so has told me to hang onto it and leave at least £100 in there.  30 years later and I'm still waiting! 

badmemory

I keep mine active just in case, but they have always said that they would never want to.  That is why they stopped new openers from having a vote.  I did quite nicely out of Northern Rock buying the Lancastrian & thankfully was out of there before NR lost the plot.

joedenise

RebeccaPAgain said:

Your vals day soiunds lovely, particularly the cakes and time with DD/DGS!

I kept my nationwide savings account even though it has only £100 in it.  My dad (I'm talking like 30 years ago or more) got a "windfall" when a BS changed to a bank and so has told me to hang onto it and leave at least £100 in there.  30 years later and I'm still waiting! 

To get of the payouts you need to have 2 accounts - so a current and savings or mortgage account.

Blackcats

will be interesting to see if n'wide make a payment this year and if so what eligibility criteria they use.

Over the weekend we had a lovely catch up with family (nice family not shlonky family).  It's always a treat to spend time with our grandchildren (and then come home to a less frenetic pace 😉).  I've totted up what we spent and in terms of smiles per £ spent it's exceedingly good value.

I've just updated week 3 of this month's spending budget.  February is such a neat month with exactly 4 weeks.  It might be cold but at least it's neat.  Budgets are looking ok.  Regular savers are all funded and I'm contemplating opening a Skipton regular saver too.  I'm aiming for some underspends which can shuffle across to the Dentist/optician/vet pot which is my focus until it reaches £500.  It's currently at £172 so there's a way to go but I'm using odds and s*DS to build it up rather than throwing lump sums at it.