Ding! Ding! All change, please... (now replaced with new diary on MFW)

EssexHebridean

joedenise said:

Have you thought about using the last 4 eggs in your curry on Friday?  We occasionally have an egg curry for a change but not often as DH definitely prefers something with meat!

You see, that last bit absolutely informs why the answer here is "no" - MrEH definitely prefers a Friday night tea to contain meat! (I'm kind of with him, too!)   Although the recipe mentioned by Foxgloves does sound really tempting! 

Makingabobor2 said:

Gosh you seem to have so many different accounts...feeder accounts, going into main accounts and "on going" car accounts into main ones....lol.  How do you remember it all?  I must admit though, I need to sit down and take a good hard look at ours and see how I can improve things. 

Well sometimes I don't...! I did end up with a lot of complicated stuff around regular savers and feeder accounts last year - mostly it was a simple matter of automating things at the beginning, but there was one which needed a manual transfer every wretched month, which was a pain. Currently I've got my own reg saver - a small £50 a month one, which is an easy manual transfer when I get paid. Then a handful of joint ones - we both have one with the Welsh building society linked with a certain stadium, and both have one with Sant-And-Er, then I have one with FD and one with C0ve3ntry as well. Some of those are fed from income, and some from previous savings. For all those it's automatic because I've set up standing orders so it's dead simple though! The experience of having masses to need to remember each month as things were for part of last year has definitely made me think that streamlining at least a bit is the way forwards! The car account is a temporary situation until I can be bothered to just switch everything back to N@t1onwide too - it needs a change to the standing order details!  Going forwards I would be very put off a reg saver where I couldn't easily automate the process, I have to say. 

Humdinger1 said:

@EssexHebridean you are indeed back in the game! Hope this isn't too painful a story for anyone but your comment re witchy  (quichey if autocorrect has its way!) SIL reminded me.  At the funeral of a dear friend's dad, her BIL tried to replace one of the pallbearers...as they were about to process into the church.  We put it down to grief and social uncertainty but it will never leave me.  You're doing brilliantly love Humdinger xx

Oh good lord - that's awful! We were one short before we got to the church on Thursday (wow - hard to believe it was just a week ago!) but MIL's nephew stepped in to make the 6th which was lovely of him. The situation you describe does indeed sound like something stress and anxiety related though doesn't it - painful for all concerned. 

CL21 said:

Oh Shakshuka - love it. Joe Wicks does a lovely recipe with chorizo (not sure if that’s traditional but it works) and I always make some for the freezer too

Mine will be using the two remaining cooked sausages so I'll have a look at his recipe for some inspiration I think! 


Oohhhhhh MrBoss is making himself toast downstairs and the smell is drifting up...Mmmmmm!  Sorry - morning all - hope everyone's doing OK? It's a bit grey and cloudy here today sadly - in fact it was almost trying to spit with rain as I walked from the car, thankfully held off though. 

Another small CC transfer wrangled this morning - this time for snacks on the way back on Sunday. Also noted on the email "account" so I know where I'm at. Just need to get MrEH to sort out the bits he owes on there at some stage today and then I just need to keep up with ongoing stuff during the day. 
MrEH has transferred his C0v3ntry reg saver money from last year over to the Limited access account (which is our "cash house buying" funds - so a decent enough chunk in there now - that will be left to sit until needed as it's earning reasonable interest. Our EF will see a bit of extra interest as well as M@rcus have stuck their rates up a little. I'm being driven positively barmy by the hard headed lot over on the savings board snobbily taking digs at anyone who still has money in there because "you can get better rates elsewhere" though - sure, you can, but right now, it doesn't suit me to open any more new accounts, and it actually ISN'T that easy to find a higher interest genuine easy access which allows a joint account anyway. And as this is our EF, it NEEDS to be proper easy access for both of us! Sigh. It'll do just fine for now - once we're moved (if that ever happens!) then I'll have a proper look through everything, but right now I have NO intention of rocking the (credit file) boat. 

One job I did tick off earlier in the week was to get my car tax sorted as soon as the letter arrived. There's nothing to pay anyway (hurrah for zero tax rated cars!) but it's just the faff of doing it - anyway, straightforward enough with the letter in front of me so that is a job done with NO prevaricating at all - go me. Then in a week I can get the MoT sorted (and make a decision about the service too) and that will be my car spending mostly (hopefully) sorted for a while. 

I do need to write this week's Frugal February blog post at some stage today - going to have to think what it's going to be on the subject of mind you - savings maybe? 

foxgloves

Interesting how you manage all.your savings accounts, @EH. You have a lot more going on there than we do. Of course, saving is still a relatively new concept for Mr F & I, as before the LBM, we only had debts & we prioritised paying that off rather than saving. We have 4 savings accounts. The 1st is linked to our current account & holds the money in our 10 savings pots. Truly pitiful interest, but the priority here is being able to transfer funds to & from our current account very easily & immediately. 2nd is an ISA in which we have a lump sum which mostly only grows from interest accrued. If there is excess spare money, I add to it, but feel no pressure to do so, esp as everyday living costs have risen so much. 3rd is a regular saver with a standing order into.it of £200 per month..4th is an online account which holds both our emergency fund & our savings for replacing our car in 5 years time or thereabout. The EF is currently at a level we are both happy with but we pay £100 per month into the car fund as would be reluctant to go down the route of car finance again. The key thing is to start saving for the next car as soon as one takes delivery of the current one, which makes it doable (also factoring in an estimate part-exchange value, no of years & working backwards) I am.not nearly as diligent as you at chasing better interest rates. I'm aware I could increase our interest if I did so, but we favour mutual organisations rather than banks, which reduces options. I'm happy with how things are going though. Saving still feels pretty new to us, so the main thing is that we have made it a regular habit.
F

themadvix

foxgloves said:

I I'm aware I could increase our interest if I did so, but we favour mutual organisations rather than banks, which reduces options.
F

It ain't necessarily so Foxgloves - there's plenty of decent rates out there with BS at the moment (another non-fan of banks here). And the new disruptor banks often are fossil-fuel free in terms of investments, so much better for the planet than the big ones (esp HSBC/FD and Barclays who I will not touch). Appreciate that there are other ethical aspects to the BS than the climate though

EssexHebridean

Most of the reason for our separate savings accounts for the various “pots” is that I find it far more straightforward than managing “virtual” ones - the idea of having all our various balances in a single big account and then having to manage keeping track of where it’s contents have to be shared between scares me rigid! 

As for providers - we’ve always been building society fans, I opened my N@t1onwide account when I was 15 and have had it ever since! We still use them for the vast bulk of our savings pots too, and then also have dosh in with C0v3ntry and Pr1nc1pality as well of course. 

On the subject of all things money I’ve just checked the banking and done the VSP transfers for today - amazing how it adds up! All under control anyway - MrEH transferred his CC money across last night too so that’s now all squared away for the month. 

It’ll be a heavy week on the grocery spending as we’ll be off to the farmers market tomorrow morning. I also realised a while ago that I wasn’t going to be cooking curry for tonight as I used the last onion in the shakshuka (which was lovely!) last night - so once MrEH finishes working we’ll nip to Al’s for supplies! My suspicion is we’ll end up with either pizza, or fakeaway fish & chips - but either will be a bargain compared to the cost of heading to either the Chinese or the chippy! 

Went to the gym this morning - need to update my signature - so took the chance to shower and wash my hair there as usual, it beats using my own electric after all! The WM is set to run through tonight with towels, we’ll likely have another few days of consecutive loads now as the weather is looking decent so a fair chance of free drying! 

Oh - did forget to declare one grocery win from last weekend. Seems that Sainsbugs are discontinuing their “Hubbard” branded peanut butter - which is one MrEH likes - and they were selling it off at 60p a jar. It won’t surprise you in the slightest to know that 4 jars headed home with us! 

And on that note, I’ll sign off I think - it’s about time for another cuppa! 

EssexHebridean

Afternoon lovely DFW crew - the glorious spring like sunshine we have had for the past few days seems to have departed today - hopefully one of you is at least enjoying it instead? 

Relaxing weekend with us - I was determined that it would be as MrEH was definitely in need after the past few weeks. 

Farmers market on Saturday morning - a couple of packs of mince and a pair of our monthly treat sausage rolls (beef and horseradish ones - or as MrEH always asks for "cow and horse!") from Catherine, and then I initially picked up a shoulder of lamb from Peter on the lamb stall before realising that he had a mutton shoulder in his frozen box so swapped for that instead. Two packs of sausages from him too - total £33 spent over those items, and I bought a sourdough loaf too as a treat. (£4 from my personal spends). having popped home to deal with the frozen stuff into the freezer we headed for the main weekly shop - in T's this week. £41.XX but that included frozen white fish fillets, frozen king prawns and frozen salmon pieces - yes, there will be a fish pie or several in our future! (I'm blaming all the mentions of fish pie on the reverse meal planning thread!) Some other "stocking up" bits too - tinned soup, a bag of frozen sweetcorn and some other odds and ends. What I DID forget was that we needed butter - so ended up having to dive into Poundland to get a block while we were in town yesterday afternoon, bizarrely that was cheaper for a branded block than buying T's own brand at the T's local store in the town centre. Their loss! 

The town centre trip was because we wanted to stock up on the kibbled peanuts we add to the bird food in the feeders - as it was a glorious day we decided to walk in - warm enough to not even need a coat which was lush. Got three bags of the peanuts for £7.50 which represented a bit of a saving on buying them separately, and then another £1 spent on a bottle brush for feeder cleaning. We then ambled back via the slightly less direct but far nicer route involving the old road/cycle track, through the woods and alongside the brook almost all the way back to home. Only other spending was a swerve into the shop near home for ice creams as we really fancied them on such a lovely day - not cheap (convenience store!) but frankly worth it for a nice treat. Again, that was from my personal spends.  

I think  my targets personally for this week are going to be to really crack on with the surveys - I've like to get OnePoll to over 2000 points by the end of the week, and make some inroads into building Prolific again - I've about £8 payable on there at the moment but wonder whether I can get that to nearer to £15 by the end of the month. Also to mix in a bit more activity again - I was back on the foldy bike for the car > office commute this morning, and will try to cover a bit of extra distance on it on the way back to the car this evening I think, even if just a relatively short extra loop to add a mile or so. I'd like to get a run in later in the week, and maybe a longer bike ride on the big bike next weekend, too as well as the gym on Friday as usual. Then my usual fair bit of walking and some yoga sessions into the mix too - I have one more day of the Yoga with Adriene challenge to do which I'll most likely do tomorrow, then I may go back and redo another of those I think to keep me focused on it.  Both those things are really about remembering my aims and actually being mindful about knuckling down to it - so are achievable.

Staffordia

Beautiful day here, about 50 miles northeast of you.  Have been for a dog walk in the woods, the birds were singing away, and snowdrops on show. 

foxgloves

@EssexHebridean - I'm with you on the survey intentions! Usually, my PA survey earnings goes into my Personal Spends, so can be useful if I'm saving up for something or want a little boost for treating myself if we're about to go on holiday, etc, but I pledged that all of my Feb PA survey earnings would be for the savings pots this time. I'm at over £37 so far, so am hoping I can squeak it over £40, given that I've still got a week left to put in the effort. 
F

Seasidegal58

Finally got through the last month and a bit of your very interesting and lively diary EH!👍
Belated condolences on the loss of Mr EH's dad - the family appear to have 'done him proud' at his funeral though. 

Reading your last post you've got quite a lot you want to do this week - I'm always amazed on how much you do get done! - you are very highly organised and i should really take a leaf or two out of your book!😀. 

lucielle

Any viewings EH?  Still not managed to do any yoga!  Really must try harder. 

L

EssexHebridean

Honestly SSG - I'm bone idle - I make it sound like I do a lot, but actually feel like most of the time I do very little!  The exercise thing is all worked in around routine too - most of my cycling is at one end or the other of a workday, walking is either ditto, or at lunchtimes, and the gym slots neatly in to a Friday morning (otherwise I just won't end up going!) I've sort of nominally decided in my head that I'd really like to hit 4 different activities most days this week, so we'll see how that goes - yesterday was two rides on the foldy bike, and two walks. 

Staffordia I'm glad you had a beautiful day - it did actually improve down here late on and the light as I squeezed in a quick walk while waiting for MrEH to get back to the car last night was glorious! 

Foxgloves we'll have to egg each other on on surveys then - annoyingly I narrowly missed out on a decent 10 minute Prolific one this morning. 

Hey L - no - still nothing more. Agents said to MrEH when he spoke to them the other day that across the board viewings have slowed to almost nothing, which is frustrating, but very probably also helps us on the purchase as we think that at the moment the sellers are probably working on a "bird in the hand" theory with us - we reckon they realise we'll honour our offer, and of course if they remarket they'll lose that as we'll withdraw, but stay "interested" until such time as we're in a position to re-offer, and at that point, realistically we'd now offer 15k below where we're at right now. Clearly they could just get someone else pop up and we lose it altogether, but that's life. At the moment they are seemingly going with it, though. 

Last night's tea ended up being chilli and rice - using half of one of the farmers market packs of mince I made three double portions - the other two will just need beans added when they are used, but have gone into the freezer for now so that's a couple of effectively "home made ready meals" in the bank. Tonight will be an assault on "using things up" - I'm going to explore the two elderly avocados in the fridge - pretty sure one has had it but the other may still be OK. Then there is also some beetroot in there - so some of that is going to get peeled, diced and roasted I think - in fact, I might even just do the lot then divide up and freeze what I don't want to use tonight. I also plan to use a couple of the remaining carrots to make a salad component for my tea - it will likely be with a handful of sultanas and a peanut butter dressing as that's a combination I know works nicely. Those bits will all be thrown together with some couscous as is standard for a Tuesday night. 

Banking checked and all good - we're firmly into the quiet bit of the month now, although I think it's safe to say that MrEH's car will need fuel tomorrow - not least because mine also needs more before it goes anywhere much now I think so I can't fall back on using that! I'm hoping to squeeze mine into March though by virtue of just not taking it anywhere! As far as I can think there is one more lot of interest due to land - in M@rcus - and that should be tomorrow (with a teeny bit to land in my own account there too - although that won't be much at all. I've just done a money shuffle of a bit more of my personal money from various places across to @t0m too - it might just as well be there where it's earning a bit more interest than in accounts at lower rates, as it's still easy access just the same. 

That's about it I think - all quiet here really. Good in some ways, but less in others!