And now we go again...

savingholmes

Great result on PBs. 

Your MF plan sounds great too. Sure you will smash it out the park. Just remember pension provision too.

PennysIntoPounds

Nice work on the productivity, the OP plan, and the Brucey Bonus from premium bonds (just my family that calls any unexpected money that?!) Glad you were able to get the tube what with nightmare journey before

jwil

Congrats on the PB win!

Mortgage targets sound great

EssexHebridean

RT that is indeed appalling - both the delivery and the nasty character who walked off with it. As SA says - no matter what justification these sorts might use, it's simple theft. I'm glad that you look likely to get reimbursed for both the financial outlay and your time - quite right too. 

Thankfully the parcel WAS still on our doorstep when we got in yesterday - and the canvas looks quite incredibly good if I do say so myself. I honestly didn't expect it to look so good, I couldn't stop looking at it last night and MrEH bless him got on to getting it on the wall (albeit using a different hanging method from the one they suggested) right away while I prepped tea so it's already where it belongs. 

Redo - I was both delighted and astonished about the PB's - as MrEH said that's quite an equivalent rate of interest we've got there! 

Thanks for the positive words on the Mortgage targets TMV, Beanie, SH, PiP and jwil - we'll certainly be giving it our best shot! 

Work continues to be fairly stressful with a lot going on but it's manageable - and all the more so as this is of course my last working day of the week so hurrah for that.

MSE Stuff:
- Still no movement on the Sant-And-Er ISA - in fact I've posted a thread over on the ISA board here to see if anyone else is finding the same, and if it's not changed over by tomorrow I'll be checking in with them as to what is going on as I want to get the transfer started. They had also best make sure that they pay the additional few days interest! 
- Banks checked including a quick run through of budget for the month and right now all is looking fine. With this month being the first "real life" one for the new budget I'm trying to keep a very close eye on things - and that is of course complicated by last month being very "non typical" in terms of expenditure. 
- I need to mentally adjust my expectations to seeing a far lower level of surplus in the joint account at this stage of the month of course - getting to grips with my "new normal" baseline figures for various points in the month. 
- Chimney sweeping is booked in although not until early December! They are busy chaps at this time of year for sure. Happy to wait for the company we're using though as they've swept our chimney before so will know what to expect and if there is anything non standard they need to expect. That will be £72 which we will have in the household account, so all good there. 
- "pots" checked and all looking fine. Household is looking a little healthier than normal for this soon after home insurance being paid but that's partly because I boosted it with a little of the surplus from last month and partly because its regular monthly top up has now increased as well. Realistically it's going to take us a full year to see if we have the amounts there about right. 
- I apparently have the express delivery fee I paid to the watery cumbrian shop for the multicooker being refunded to me as the rubbish courier (same one as yesterday) apparently can't deliver today after all. £3 back onto the card, and so long as it does get delivered tomorrow then all well and good - I will be pretty cross if not though as we specifically timed the delivery to ensure it would happen when someone could be there. Allowing for the "abandon it on the doorstep" approach from yesterday, I now DEFINITELY don't want them to try delivering it on a day when we are out, that's for sure! 

Lovely as the curry and rice was last night I am seriously looking forward to something without rice this evening as we've eaten it a LOT lately! So leftover sausages, cooked chopped onion and the last of the wild garlic pesto all extracted from the freezer and defrosting in the fridge - I will also be using up the last of the week's mushrooms and it will all be turning in to sausage and mushroom pesto pasta later on. what we end up with for tomorrow evening is going to depend on the progress of this multi cooker as I was planning to try that out - we'll see how that pans out. 

themadvix

PennysIntoPounds said:

Nice work on the productivity, the OP plan, and the Brucey Bonus from premium bonds (just my family that calls any unexpected money that?!) Glad you were able to get the tube what with nightmare journey before

In our house a Brucey Bonus is a litter tray that doesn’t have anything in it when it’s time to clean them - a bit different 😂

By multicooker EH, are you meaning an electric pressure cooker/instant pot or something else? If the former, I love mine for rice, but don’t get on with pasta in it (too much starchy spray when releasing pressure - makes a mess!). For rice, this is a very useful page: https://greenhealthycooking.com/instant-pot-rice/. 

EssexHebridean

Ooh it hadn't occurred to me that the new multicooker might work for rice - but why not! The one we have ordered is an Instant Pot brand - the Duo Crisp with Ultimate Lid. We did debate about a slightly cheaper model, but that had a couple of potentially useful features missing, plus was actually taller (and less attractive - not perhaps a major factor but it probably is going to be out on show so...) than the one we've chosen, so as we were getting 20% off, the all singing, all dancing one won out. Very much looking forward to having the ability to pressure cook - that will be an interesting one, and dehydrating too.

I've had a small MSE win here this afternoon anyway - got into an interesting conversation with a client about foodbanks, and community fridges - she had just been to the local one here and was saying how surprising it was the things that don't get taken as they are too unusual for a lot of people - and promptly produced a jar of kimchi and said would we use that, as she'd got two jars of it! I confessed that we had never tried it at which point she said "well now's your chance then!" and so that jar is heading home with me this evening. Very much looking forward to giving that a go! 

foxgloves

I've never tried kimchi either @EssexHebridean. I've been looking at various recipes & wondering whether to have a go at making it, but following the nasty bowlful of stink produced in the pantry back when I attempted to make my own sauerkraut, I haven't quite yet summoned the courage!
F

rtandon27

EH - think of Kimchi as sauerkraut with kick - spicy and the more it ages the stronger it gets

FG - for the love of all that is good in the world - please don't make it at home unless you have a shed or outhouse to leave it in! Think sauerkraut x100!

PennysIntoPounds

@themadvix We also use it for anything that's a nice touch from the universe, and a clean litter tray would definitely fit our criteria 😂

redofromstart

I have an instant pot, mostly used for pulses and tenderising meat. I've never used it for rice, porridge etc because I suspect that it takes as long to set up, wait and wash as putting a pan of rice on to come up to temp and then lid on, power off and leave it to cook through.