And now we go again...

EssexHebridean

Morning all - we have a glorious sunny Friday down here so hopefully yours is likewise! 

MSE Stuff:
- took the plunge and opened the new bank account last night requesting a switch of the one that is being discontinued. Once it’s open and switched, we need to ensure that we use the debit card - although as it is going to be paying cashback that shouldn’t be a problem. I will need to diarise when that cashback ends so we can then revert back to using the credit card instead. We should qualify for the £200 switch bonus. 

- Free exercise had already this morning as we went for a walk as usual on a Friday morning. Already into the 20° range with it forecast to get warmer through the day. 

- washing in the line to dry for free, actually I suspect it already has!
- nipped into Al’s on the way back from the walk and snared a white sourdough at 30% off, so that will sort weekend breakfasts. I also got my easy peeler citrus as that means I don’t need to shop until after lunch today, and a couple of red peppers from the super 6
- main shopping will be Lil’s later on - and I’ve already checked through the special offers and added some bits to my list
- meal plan for next week started, but needs work. 

Main plans for today will probably involve garden stuff, although we also have a unusual weekday meeting in a short while, I’ll need to check MrEH has the laptop set up for that, in fact. It will only be a short one just to go through some changes in procedure, but we are hopeful that it may be that in fact some of that procedure can now be done by others. 

In terms of the garden, I need to work out where the first of my grow bags is going to go and start getting tomatoes potted on, as my little bush ones should be plenty big enough. I think some of the plum type (Roma) will be ready to move into their pots now as well, so again I will need to work out positioning for those.  We’ve also got the rest of the courgettes to sort out, and a sneaky spy at the local allotments this morning gave us some added ideas for encouraging those to grow up and over the arches, so that is another task! 

EssexHebridean

Well that was quite a busy weekend in between usual life stuff, the garden, the voluntary role stuff etc! 

MSE stuff roughly tots up as:
- New bank account is open ready for the switch next week, so will need to keep a close eye over the end of month to make sure everything happens as it should
- Went to Lil's as planned for the main shopping on Friday and - delight - there were £1.50 boxes. Had a good perusal and selected one which appeared to offer a fair amount. the 2 avocados turned out to be too far over to use, but other than that everything was pretty decent.
- half a small red cabbage, a carrot and one of the two red onions that were in the box were turned into coleslaw
- the aubergine, red pepper (plus 1 green pepper left from last week's bag), one courgette and half a punnet of mushrooms (bought fresh) have been roasted off in the tin that yesterday's roast tatties were done in thus making best use of both the remaining oil in the tin AND the hot oven
- 2 x reasonably sized baking potatoes did our lunch on saturday
- A trip on saturday to a new-ish local market meant we treated ourselves to a nice sourdough loaf from our favourite baker - that sorted tea on Saturday, breakfast on Sunday, and some has made it to the freeze for next week, too.
- Combined that trip with a visit to our favourite nursery which was fairly close to the market - and took Mum with us too as whenever she goes in the week it's so busy they are turning people away from the car park!
- The nursery visit meant I was able to buy some more well priced herbs for planting up...
- ...one of the rescued wine boxes that I found near work a while ago - now painted in the same blue we are using for the shed and office, and lined out with some fairly sturdy plastic salavaged from a delivery to protect the inside, it looks rather good!
- 4 x minibel (bush) 6 x Roma (plum) and 6 x Alicante tomatoes now potted on to their final growbag/pots - and still more to do, although I need to work out what is achieveable in the way of pots for those too as we're running low of well sized ones! 
- Made use of cheap Agile pricing over the weekend to get washing up to date - and all line-dried as well
- Cheap electric also meant we cooked lunch, roasted that veg mentioned above and MrEH made rolls for the week all at a bargain price!
- popped to Al's on Saturday for a few bits I wasn't able to get in Lil's and found 50% off basil and coriander plants so those have now been re-potted into old peanut butter tins which I drilled holes in the bottom of. We've been wondering what to use them for!
- Bought some more of the cheap compost from Al's yesterday to act as a bulk filler for the tomato pots - they are being top-dressed with the posher stuff and also having a handful of that popped under each plant as it goes in. 

We have a meal plan for the week which will see us eating more of the stuff in the freezer - starting with pasta ragu tonight. Tomorrow is stir fry using some roast duck from a sunday lunch a while ago, that will also use some of the veg from the £1.50 box. (And a good slosh of our homemade plum sauce from last year's plum foraging!

I think I need to do a full fridge audit as the problem with having one which is basically taller than I am is that it's easy for stuff to get pushed to the back and overlooked, so I am going to factor in a few minutes each day this week to sort out each shelf in turn. 

rtandon27

I'm liking the thought of a freezer use it up and fridge audit! - we usually use up every last bit of the groceries, but OH often forgets to finish up leftovers for his lunch, instead having a ham roll or omelette in a wrap.

EssexHebridean

The fridge audit was worth doing - a manky jar of pesto of unspecified age has been binned, and the jar of Olives (again, unspecified age) which had just 2 olives left in it has been drained and recycled. Also discovered two "in use" bottles of our home made plum sauce so those are both now front and central and I will make use of a good amount of one of them with tonight's stir fry! 

As for the freezer, I just want to get to the stage of being able to easily access the bits that have been lurking in there for a while to be honest and get those factored in for use. Once we reach that point I plan to re-stock some things that have gone "off the radar" a bit - frozen raspberries for porridge, muffins etc, and a wider range of frozen veg too. We'll probably also do a farmers market visit with a higher spend as well to top up on meat etc from our usual favourite farmers. 

I'm also anticipating that the stir fry tonight will use up the other courgette from the Lil's £1.50 box, the other half of the punnet of mushrooms, and a few other random bits of veg as well. Maybe the remaining chunk of red cabbage, although I'm considering leaving that for more coleslaw at the weekend. There are still 2 lurking nectarines - MrEH may have one at lunch and I will have the other this evening I think. Carrots are always a challenge to use as only one of us actually likes them... 

We're settled into the money dead-zone at the moment, although MrEH filled his car this morning.

- A few small spends - and a new big river subscription set up for sea salt for cooking - reverting to the Maldon salt that we always used to have in the absence of any good offers on the Cornish variety.
- CC money shuffling done yesterday, and a wee bit more today to tidy things up a bit. Just the shopping to deal with shuffling payment for over the A's card now I think. I need the last item there to show fully and stop being pending and I can get the whole balance cleared.
- The garden fed us a few strawberries for after tea yesterday

The BIG spend I forgot to mention I think was an ouchy £640 on MrEH's car - rear discs and pads, aircon compressor replacement and the drivers side mirror needed the indicator lamp replaced from when someone clipped us passing us on a country lane ages ago. It all needed doing, but still - ouch. On the face of it we are also now low on funds for the insurance renewals, although I can tweak from surplus if needed when those come up as needing attention in a month. 

PennysIntoPounds

I love carrots, could happily munch one on the side of any meal I'm eating!
Well jealous of your strawberries.

£640 is ouchy, but how great you're in a life place where it's not a panic to be able to drive safely

Baileys_Babe

I'm with you @PennysIntoPounds and lovely crisp carrot to crunch 😋

EssexHebridean

I too am a carrot fan, MrEH pulls faces at them and declares them to be "not food". I did sneak one into a stir fry last night and I didn't actually notice him pulling the bits out though, so perhaps we have progress! 

My £100 Fairer Share payment has arrived this morning and has immediately been transferred to the mortgage so hurrah for that - if MrEH's one turns up in the next little while, and I make the planned end of month OP as well, we'll drop through another £k barrier at the start of next month. 

I agree about the car expenses - the time was when that would have indeed had us into a panic, as it was while not ideal, it was achievable. 

It's lovely to have strawberries - I'm now scratching my head wondering why we didn't do some sooner! They are also throwing out runners everywhere - I have another half dozen ready to shove into pots and let root, so our numbers will increase next year! 

Ploughing through the fruit and veg this week - a courgette, pepper, mushrooms, that carrot and some frozen sweetcorn went into last night's stir fry, and this evening is going to be a big pile of salad alongside Y/S'd fishcakes from the freezer. I noshed one of the nectarines from the green box last night as well - I suspect the other one is destined for compost as MrEH said he'd eat it but it started out a bit manky and is now getting more so. I'll factor in another stir fry for next week to use up the remainder of one bottle of plum sauce - I still have no idea how we ended up with two open in the fridge!

Prolific is a little slower this month but I still have £22 payable, I'll hold off until the end of the month to cash out though.

We're heading out straight from work tomorrow to a local-to-my-office football team's supporters club bar for one of their occasional "beer nights" - essentially a mini beer festival. Not been there in years so it will be fascinating to see how much it's changed. Meeting a pal there as well, and it will be tube and the last bus back home, having left MrEH's car in London for the weekend. I will have to feed my Oyster before the travel - although I'll probably claim some free exercise by walking there as it's only a couple of miles - and I believe MrEH fed his this morning. Beer & food spending will be from personal spends of course. 

EssexHebridean

MrEH's Fairer Share payment also turned up, so his too has been shovelled across to the mortgage. I'm now twitching at having to wait another week to transfer anything else, but equally I know it's the sensible approach so I will sit on my hands!

MrEH did indeed feed his Oyster yesterday, and mine has had £10 added today as well, that will deal with the tube fare back tonight with a chunk to spare as well. 

Base rate being held is a good thing for us - although, apologies, I know that it isn't going to be for some of you. Not seeing savings interest drop again at a time when our mortgage is fixed though is a definite win in our world! 

Remembered last night that there was no point leaving the roast veg in the fridge to use with couscous tonight as we were going to be out - oops. That's now gone to the freezer and will sort the veg for next week's couscous instead, so future me can feel smug. Spotted that Lil's have the 15% off the halloumi again this week - so I'll probably grab another couple. The YS'd posh fishcakes from A's last night were perfectly nice - would I buy them at full price? No, but if I see them YS'd again then fair enough. Need to have a think about weekend food now - although it's farmer's market on Saturday so a nice sourdough loaf will be involved. There are masses of peas to pick as well so I'll want a plan for those - need to keep picking or the plants will stop producing! Actually I'm wondering about something like a pea pesto, or even some form of pasta salad with the peas thrown in raw... hmmm. Might have to delve into the  BBCGF website and see what they suggest. 

LadyWithAPlan

Well done øn the fridge and freezer audit. I am trying to eat my freezer down and there is a lot of HM 'fakeaway' extra bits hiding in there.
I am really trying to not buy much more food til I can see  actual sides of the freezer

EssexHebridean

LaPlan you've reminded me that there is still one double portion of the HM curry I made a while ago that was so nice, and another of daal...those won't get eaten this week as we'll be having MrEH's birthday takeaway on Friday night I suspect, but I may factor them in for the week after! 

MSE type stuff:
- Noticed on Friday that the "free" unknown plant that we dug up from the veg bed and potted up was flowering - looks like it is some sort of Nicotiana and it's gorgeous, so it's now been relocated to the front garden. No idea where it came from, but pretty sure it would have cost us at least a fiver had we bought it from the garden centre! 
- 1 small kale plant we didn't think had survived found hiding under the rhubarb - I've tried rearranging the triffid leaves to give it some more light and we'll see if it makes it. 
- Spotted that a random bean that we thought hadn't germinated now has, so that's a win! 
- Lots of low/negative priced electric yesterday meant several loads of washing got done, including a small load of cloths which had been pre-soaked in a strong washing soda mix. 
- All washing got line dried, and the bedding was washed and then popped straight back onto the bed as soon as it was dry
- Dishwasher also run on negative pricing yesterday
- Oven also used while we were being paid to do so - it wasn't ideal considering the temperatures but we needed rolls for the week, and I decided I might as well throw some other bits in at the same time.
- Broccoli & orzo bake made - half eaten yesterday and the other half will now be factored in for probably tomorrow - that used some home grown peas as well
- Rhubarb crumble made - HG rhubarb obviously!
- Managed to find a 3 pack of bras in eMm&eSs which actually fitted, flattered and supported moderately well. £32 - which is actually a bargain for three of the wretched things hence putting them here. MrEH used a voucher he has with money on it, and I will transfer the value of that to him.
- Grocery spending needs pinning down - the hot weather is partly to blame as we keep shopping for things like ice creams but it never ends up as just ice creams, does it! 
- made use of Lil's offer for halloumi again - we are now well stocked up.
- a bit over £24 on Prolific now

I think the approach for the grocery stuff is for me to make sure that I just bite the bullet and add ice creams to the weekly list, and also to get back to properly meal planning again of course. We've got an odd week coming up as MrEH has to travel for a work meeting on Wednesday and has no idea what time he will be home, so I think I will plan for something just for myself then, which might just be a case of seeing what needs using up to be honest.  (And also might just be a big bowl of salad with various oddments added in!) I'm going to do couscous for tonight I think as that's relatively quick and easy, doesn't take a vast amount of cooking.