And now we go again...

milann

Happy birthday. 

Sorry I’ve missed lots of posts but I’ve been trying to catch up on various diaries and decided everyone just chats too much and I’ve got no chance of catching up if I ever want to do anything else with my days. Hope life has been treating you well since I last read in June.

savingholmes

Hope you're having a lovely day.

Makingabobor2

Hope you had a lovely day. X

redofromstart

Hope you had a lovely birthday 

rtandon27

Happy Belated Birthday EH!!! 🎈🎁🎉

Blackcats

happy very belated birthday.  

EssexHebridean

Oh how LOVELY are you lot - thank you so much, and I'm sorry for not having got back sooner to see all your lovely messages!  I had a very lovely, fairly lazy birthday. Ran first thing which was a delight - just a steady run/walk but I thoroughly enjoyed myself! Then did very little else through the day - a bit of garden pottering, quite a lot of photo processing, and some just sitting about reading. Very pleasant indeed! MrEH bought me a record player - just a little stand-alone one but it means that for the first time in around 20 years I can actually play my vinyl so that is fab! (And yes, much of Thursday's activities were to a soundtrack of various bits of music I'd not played in a good long while!)  Also got some nice bits and bobs from Mum - a much needed new facial SPF moisturiser, a book I wanted, and one she thought I would like, and a fruit-based manufacturer's tag thing which will be extremely useful and I'd been debating for a while! Also - and perhaps most importantly - a lemon drizzle cake! Yum! 

Friday was spent mostly at IWM Duxford - one of their Flying Day shows which are free to members, so the only cost there was fuel to get there and back, and a delicious sausage in a bun for my lunch. The weekend was mostly spend in a meeting to do with our voluntary role - two days of it! There were drinks and a night out on Saturday though which was fab, and we will be reclaiming expenses for the cost of the travel up and back to the meeting venue as well so that helps. The spending around that was from our joint fun account (the food on saturday night and the travel into the nearest city to the meeting venue) or from our personal spends (beer) so budget neutral. 

MSE Stuff:
- Saved a bit of cost on food at the meeting venue for lunches by grabbing supermarket meal deals.
- Shopping done on the way back - came to around £35 once the above was removed from the cost.
- My birthday takeaway deferred from Friday as neither of us could make up our minds what we wanted - that will likely be this week now though so not really a saving as such.
- CC money shuffle mostly done - just the last bit I need to sort out tonight/tomorrow so we start the new month from zero.
- Monthly surplus was decent, and has been split as:
- £200 to PB's - meaning just shy of £700 in there now
- £153.xx to the mortgage - end of month balance £106,100 (which means we will end year 1 down in the £105k's which I'm delighted with!)
- Balance to the joint EF/long term savings pot. 
- Food was mostly thought through/planned for the week - salmon salad on Monday, couscous with veg & feta (me) and eggs (him) last night, garlicky prawn stir fry for this evening, and another salad for tomorrow I think. 
- Garden is now definitely starting to produce: cucumbers are coming steadily, we've had our first ripe tomato, and courgettes are starting to get there as well - I should be able to pick one this evening for the stir fry. Beans are flowering too, and even the pea plants are producing a few more flowers so I'm glad we left those alone once we thought they had finished! 
- My car insurance has been sorted - just £100 more than last year which as prices have gone up generally AND I have a claim on there, I'm pleased with.
- MrEH needs to sort his insurance, breakdown and MoT - I've just nudged him on these.
- Home insurance is also coming up - I've run some comparisons but will also be running them again at the 21-days-out point as well - hopeful on getting better cover for (slightly) less money though. 
- MrEH's car got fuel this morning - had I realised it was that low it would have come from the July budget but I didn't, so I had already balanced that so it will now be a bite out of Augusts instead. 

Plans:
Very little for the remainder of this week/the weekend, I'm thrilled to say! I feel that a quiet weekend is very much needed at this point. I am obviously working today and tomorrow and plan to run this evening (I ran on Monday too so that would make it a solid 3 times in 7 days which is what I want to aim for ideally) and then again on Friday I think, although that could slip to Saturday. 
I'm looking at getting a load of washing through and out to the line as soon as we get home tonight - I should really have got it in the machine and set it to run later today but there you go! 
Friday will realistically be a household jobs sort of day I think - upstairs could do with a good dust, and I'd like to get at least Jaws round up there too, if not the steam mop. A quick swish of the bathroom as well....

That's about it I think - apologies for a lengthy one, I need to get back to more regular posting here but time seems to be against me, currently!

lucielle

It all sounds like you had a fab time. Partial to a lemon drizzle myself especially as I can bake them in the air fryer. 

L

milann

Lemon drizzle cake……mmmmmmmm😁

EssexHebridean

Mum does her cakes in the air fryer as well L!

Forgot the most important bit of news above - finally got to cash-out on OneP0ll. Now to see how long they take to send the money!