And now we go again...

Staffordia

Just to add to the boot/shoe sizing chat. We went into an specialist outdoor store and the assistant told us that each brand would be slightly different with their sizing and the only way to accurately size was to use cm rather than size 5 etc.

jwil

Ouch to the new roof! Great to get solar done though

Cheery_Daff

Ouch indeed to a new roof 😬 Hope you can at least get everything else done at the same time.

EssexHebridean

It is indeed the in-roof panels we’ll be looking at - our roof chap has worked with them before so already has a bit of knowledge there - I can’t see the sense in having panels fitted on top afterwards when we could just have the inbuilt ones which look so much better and have less risks of issues with birds/wind too. 

Today has been a good day! My understanding was that the lovely sunny weather we’ve been enjoying was meant to ease off for a bit today, but that wasn’t the case at all and we’ve had another glorious one. 

MSE stuff:
- free exercise this morning with a walk - tried the new boots and they were actually really comfy over the just under 4 miles we walked so I’m pleased with that!
- shopping dealt with - c0-0p for MrEH’s paper (25p off voucher) and milk (which got the benefit of the voucher as MrEH has a subscription for the paper) and picked up a tub of salsa reduced to 75p but had a 40p voucher off that too. Then Lil’s for most of the rest of the weekly shop 
- came back and decided to get a batch of daal going in the slow cooker and a pot of curry on the hob while the electric prices were decent. Doubled up on the daal quantity because that always seems to make sense (yes, freezer 2 is not going off any time soon!) so there is plenty of that to divide up and several portions of curry too - that will sort out feeding us this evening anyway. Curry ended up being lamb, butternut squash and chickpea.
- got out on the bike this afternoon - 11 miles mostly round the lanes and I now also have some ideas about how I can increase the distance over that side of town as well  - feeling quite achey now but definitely seeing signs of my cycling fitness coming back which is fab. 

- a load of washing out first thing came in absolutely bone dry this afternoon - no need of even a short time on the airer, it’s just gone straight away! SO nice! 

- bit of pottering in the garden too - hoeing over some more weeds, got the redcurrant we managed to get to root from a bit that got broken off the main bush outside as it’s probably warm enough for it now, and took the fleece off the two pots that were covered out the front as well - I was pleased to see that’s survived well enough that we will be able to reuse it too. 

- watered out the front with a can filled from the run off from running water for washing up this morning.

- electric use today is showing at 4.5kWh at the moment for about 98p - which considering quite a bit of cooking is pretty decent. 

Right - time to go and throw together a curry plate I think! 

PennysIntoPounds

Hurrah for new boots being comfy

Temperatures in London showing 0 or 1 degrees overnight all next week so don't take the fleece too far from the plants just in case! 

EssexHebridean

Ugh - thanks for the warning PiP - although hopefully we ought to be past any hard frosts now… 🤞🏼 The hydrangea should be OK anyway - I only fleeced her as a precaution. Haven’t worked out if the geraniums have survived anyway - we’ll see in a few weeks if they do anything about producing new growth! 

jwil

Sounds like a lovely day!

EssexHebridean

Morning all - sorry for going AWOL again, I just seem to have brain overload at the moment and trying to get the motivation to do ANYTHING non essential is a bit of a struggle. Work is still vile - I do need to do something to tackle it aside from keeping a diary of the poor behaviour and trying to work out what I might want to do next! Anyhoo - that's all very dull and boring so let's recap some MSE type stuff instead...

- banking all ticking along as it should be 
- most grocery spending now being done using the A's cashback card - and while it's not earning much cashback everything helps doesn't it. We think we might do an A's shop this week so that will boost it a bit hopefully and there are some offers that might save us a few pennies as well. 
- Grocery spending is still pretty under control although I will have to do some proper stocking up at some stage. There should be a chunk of surplus from that account to use for holiday food spending though, which is good news. 
- Meal planning is still eluding me but we're fed and mainly using stuff we have, so a win there.
- Made use of Lil's garden middle aisle deals to purchase a pack of 2 mini cold frames and one bigger polycarbonate type one which I am hoping will work to grow herbs in (and so keep the squirrels/pigeons from digging them all up. If we relocate is a bit it may also work as extra space for seedlings - we'll see what will work on that.
- Found Mozza's deal on soft fruit bushes at the weekend - £3 each but 3 for 2 for £6 got us a Tayberry, a Wineberry and and an Autumn Fruiting Raspberry. They have all been planted out the back to join the two summer raspberries we got the other week. 
- Also found that the Y/S'd area in Mozza's included some of the big salad bar tubs of chicken couscous salad for £2.50 - that not only fed us both for 2 dinners, it did a lunch for me too, and gained us another useful plastic tub so a bargain all round.
- Garden waste bin went out and was hopefully emptied - although annoyingly I didn't actually remember to check it last night, it did feel light enough that I think it must have been, though. We'll not be renewing that this year, so will need to work out where the bin will live going forwards. 
- Prolific has been - well, prolific! Snared a £15 study a few days ago, and another which paid £4.50 in spite of only taking about 10 minutes, so those are wins. Currently sitting at £49.90 and as soon as it trickles over £50 I will cash it out I think. 
- Balance paid on the holiday cottage which is exciting!
- My car went for it's MoT and passed effortlessly, so I am told. A couple of advisories but one of those has been kicking about for a few years now with no change so I'm not too concerned. Also had a minor essentials only service done so all fit and healthy for another year. 
- I'm going to have a lean year as my tax code has been quite dramatically changed to account for savings interest, and that hits me in the personal-spends pocket sadly so I may have to give some thought to how I can work things going forwards. 
- A pal has agreed to buy my old camera and lens for a price which is substantially lower than he would get anywhere else but from my perspective feels reasonable allowing that both have had VERY heavy use and I have no idea how much longer they will go on without attention! I need to send him bank details for a transfer.

A trip to Birmingham at the weekend nominally for a meeting also included time for socialising and having fun - and was covered from personal spends. We also made use of the journey back on Sunday to do the main weekly shop, although there were bits we then needed to get elsewhere. (Apples and MrEH's milk which we didn't want to carry back in the car for 2 hours!). Not a cheap trip as there was accommodation and fuel but lovely to spend time with pals some of whom we don't see often. 

Once the camera money lands I should have sufficient in my tech replacement pot to replace my phone. That will be via a refurbed eyePh0ne 14 pro I think- which is a nice compromise between something far more expensive but newer, and something so old it will be time-limited on support from the fruity organisation. I would ideally like to do this before we go away really. 

joedenise

Back Market are quite good for refurbed eye phones and they'll also give you a reasonable price for your old one.  DH recently got nearly £50 for a very old eye phone 8 Plus so a good reduction on the price of the newer phone - he got a 14 for a decent price too.  Worth having a look I think @EssexHebridean.

PennysIntoPounds

Great you and your friend can both benefit from camera sale.
Sorry work is miserable. What are the possible outcomes?
Can the savings interest be rediverted to your personal spends?