And now we go again...

Sun_Addict

That's a brilliant amount of mortgage to have cleared in a year no wonder you're pleased. Our freezers are jammed too, also trying hard to resist offers unless they're too good to be true. 

beanielou

Great mortgage reduction. 

beanielou

Oh meant to say Val McDermid for 50p is great. 

EssexHebridean

Thanks both - yes Beanie, I was chuffed to find those, I really enjoy her books! 
SA - something I've found helps with resisting offers is to look at them with a view to "is that an offer that often gets repeated in which case I can wait for it to come round again" - so a really good deal on something YS'd then takes higher priority over a "standard" price reduction offer.  It helps with perspective!

Electrician is coming today so hopefully we'll either have fixed downstairs lights, or at least an idea of what needs doing to fix them. MrEH is also going to ask him to quote on assorted other jobs too - mostly niggly stuff like dimmer type light switches that are failing, and the kitchen under cabinet lights which are so dim as to be almost useless. 
Tea last night did indeed finish up the last of the ham, and the first stashed christmas pud got finished for afters along with the last dribble of the cream (him) and a splodge of creme fraiche (me) - some of that also made it to the pasta sauce with the ham, home grown toms from the freezer, and previously cooked mushrooms. Twas very tasty! 
There will need to be a small spend today as I'm currently parked in the Al's car park near work - and it's one of those where they do insist you are a customer so I'm always conscious of making sure I've bought something, regardless how small. I'll potter in and see what they have, and whatever I end up going for I'll make sure it's something we'll get good value from. 

Moorviews

Happy New Year and Congratulations on more ingress on the mortgage 🥳 I don’t have one anymore but I do love to see other people’s mortgages coming down!

joedenise

Our Lidl's is like that so if I don't actually need anything I usually just pick up a tin of chopped tomatoes - quite often I'll use their car park just to go to the High Street as it's almost impossible to park in it.

EssexHebridean

HNY Moorviews! Yes, I was the same when we were "between mortgages" - always lovely to see the progress others were making! 

joedenise I ended up with a pack of noodles today - 85p, and although technically not needed right now,, they will certainly get used! The tin of tomatoes is a genius idea though - I'll be stealing that approach! 

EssexHebridean

So we do not have fixed downstairs lights OR an idea of what needs doing to fix them, and lovely Luke the electrician will be returning to investigate further on Monday. He DID discover a faulty PIR sensor as we rather suspected that he would, so that has been disconnected and although the lights came on again briefly, they failed again less than an hour later. The suspicion now is that it will be a faulty LED unit or bulb...and trying to track that down is likely to be a process!

He has quoted for the other jobs we wanted doing, along with a couple of odds and ends he found that also needed dealing with as they had been left in a rather sub-optimal  manner by our sellers, and we've said yes to those being done, so I've just ordered the new outside light for the front (which I hope is on a different circuit to the other downstairs lights, OR that the downstairs issue will be sorted by the time it gets fitted!) and there will be a new transformer for the under cabinet lights (ditto) which should sort those out, and a couple of other odds and ends too - just small things, but big in terms of just improving life in tiny increments, you know? 

Tonights tea will use up the last of the christmas sausage rolls which I shoved in the freezer before we headed off to Norfolk. I'm going to do mash with them I think - possibly three root mash as I've got a swede kicking about, and parsnips of course as well as the potato mountain!  I'll do a double batch anyway and will then use the balance to top a cottage pie at the weekend I think. I've adopted an approach of just seeing what jumps out first when I open the freezer at the moment - once there is a little bit less in there I'll revert back to the proper meal planning, but at the moment having to root through to work out what we have in terms of meal building blocks just feels too daunting - and too COLD! I know, that's a real first world problem isn't it - too much food - the privilege truly doesn't pass me by! Tomorrow night might just end up being soup, as it really feels like soup weather at the moment, and we have the last of a pack of oven bottom muffins in the freezer somewhere that would just be ideal alongside, lightly toasted. 

greenbee

I got to the point with my hall lights that I told the electrician I thought they were haunted. Every time we thought we'd fixed them, something different went wrong! They did fix them in the end, but it took weeks. And a lot of patience. 

EssexHebridean

We always joke that we have a ghost as the slightest little thing triggers the PIR for the hall lights to activate and switch them on. Since the downstairs circuit has been out, the upstairs PIR has taken over that game! 

Ahh well, hopefully Luke will come up with the cause on Monday and we'll get things sorted. 

Today is a good Wordle day - MrEH got it in 4, I managed 3. 

MSE Stuff:
- the USwitch free electricity on Christmas day thing has paid out and I've just withdrawn £2.50 to the bank which I will need to look for. That compares with £3.09 including standing charge cost for the whole day, so I'm pleased with that as an offset! 
- We have elected to not do a Thursday evening pub visit today but will probably head to our local(ish) (which is now a Good Beer Guide pub - just imagine how pleased we are with that PiP!) tomorrow instead. 
- Food spending for the week ended up at £8.61 cash plus the remaining balance of £6.75 on that gift card - I'll take that! 
- We still have plenty of food options to choose from including fresh veg, so I'm mostly expecting this week to be fruit and milk I think. We have Y/S'd bread for breakfasts in the freezer too. 
- I'll walk round to Al's tomorrow rather than using the car to go elsewhere - that way not only can I not be tempted to buy more than needed I'm saving diesel too!

Spendiness:
- Ordered the new outside light - £48.99 using a £15 voucher offer from the Big River site, and has a replaceable bulb which I much prefer to a sealed unit option. The one we have ordered also comes with the bulb so that's another small win.