And now we go again...

themadvix

Sauté function is very useful before you put lid on to pressure cook a stew etc. Don’t know if you do FB (have a feeling not) but there’s a good IP group on there. Also Jenny Tschiesche has written a couple of good recipe books for it. 

savingholmes

Hope your bench delivery goes smoothly tomorrow.

Blackcats

A new bench and some yarn both on their way to you - sounds like a match made in heaven

milann

I’m envious of your bench. We were very tempted by a Great Western Railway bench a year or so ago from one of the train shows we go to but the price was prohibitive which was probably just as well as we’d have had to readjust the little seating area we have. It was a beautiful piece of furniture though. Enjoy 👍

EssexHebridean

Morning all - goodness, hasn't autumn arrived over the past few days, in fact, on getting up yesterday morning to find a thick frost, I thought we'd bypassed it and gone straight to winter! A little warmer here today but definitely still autumnal which is lovely - we're finally starting to see some colour in the trees!

Great tips on the IP stuff TMV - thank you for that! 

The bench arrived and looks amazing - we're so pleased with it and it's a real pleasure to sit on it to put shoes on! The delivery was absolutely seamless - they arrived when they said, brought it in, and were gone inside about 5 minutes, so I wasn't delayed much at all in getting in to work which was handy. Since then we have also had the TV unit arrive as well, so it feels as though we're finally pretty much there with the furniture type stuff - I think now it comes down to living in the place for a bit to decide what if anything else we might want to get. Still needed for definite though are curtains and blinds for a few places - the front door curtain will get sorted this weekend, we've committed to that as it's now getting colder. I'd like to get the bathroom blind sorted for the same reason, and MrEH also wants a blind for the large landing window in the hallway (it's currently got a quite fancy voile panel up which is lovely but not really our taste, and doesn't actually obscure the window. Now when you have a husband who is inclined to do up his dressing gown as he walks towards the stairs in the morning, combined with automated hallway lighting AND a large window at just the wrong height, all combined with trees now losing their leaves and giving a clear view to/from the houses at the back, suddenly this becomes an issue... ) Once there is a blind on it we will probably hang curtains there as well for a bit of extra warmth, we will want the same ones there as on the front door too as they are effectively in the same space. 

I've made contact with the heating engineer my Mum recommended, albeit not quite as soon as I'd hoped as the heating has kicked in a few times since the weekend. In fact it decided to kick in for its first time since we've been there while we were away in Nottingham on Saturday night which I would prefer to have avoided, but at least we returned to a warm house! Slightly less welcome was it deciding to kick in at 2am on Monday morning - which of course I discovered when the bedroom suddenly got rather warm. There must have been a rogue setting in there somewhere - I cleared everything last night and bit the bullet and re-set each day from scratch - time consuming but hopefully will rule out any further issues like that. I'm quite impressed with how fast it seems to warm the house up too - it was a bit heftier on gas use yesterday partly thanks to that 2am incident, but yesterday evening and this morning it used  very respectable amount to bring the place to the point where the thermostat kicked it off again. I'm definitely starting to get to grips with it now, anyway. 

MSE Stuff:
- Banks checked and all good 
- Anything from the weekend that should have landed on the card has, and I've already cleared much of it off - just awaiting a couple of transfers from MrEH
- I need to hold my nerve on the plan for increasing the energy payments gently - I did knee-jerk a bit when the heating first started kicking in but that's levelling out now. Last year we switched the heating on really late as it was warmer until late November, so we will be factoring that in.
- Food roughly planned out for the week. Stir fry last night, and the usual Tuesday couscous night tonight - that air fryer will be getting pressed into service again! Tomorrow is likely to be pasta as I want something quick and easy for midweek - so I'll probably use the jar of sauce I got at a bargain price a while back. I'm currently thinking chicken curry for thursday.
- we will be doing some careful checking on the running costs for the heating over the next few weeks I think so try to see how it will best work for us. Currently it's set to 18 degrees first thing, dropping to 14 once we're either out or just generally busier. Back to 18 again for the evening, then turning itself back to 14 again overnight. the thermostat is in the living room which is the space with two rads neither of which had thermostatic valves on them, so I think that's the correct positioning. We may need to tweak some of the settings once we establish how much it costs additionally to bring the system back up from cold over a more steady ticking over. This is all new to me so there is a learning curve there! 

Spendiness:
Weekend away was a little spendy, but planned. The entry to the beer festival was free for us as we were there for a meeting - although surprisingly they decided to give us the standard entry package which also included a small amount of beer - most of our party did buy further tokens to get more, so we did put something into the festival as well! We didn't stay all that long after the meeting as it was heavingly busy by that stage and quite tricky to find anywhere to stand that we didn't constantly have people pushing past us, so we headed off to visit some local pubs instead. Food at the festival came from our personal spends, and we may perhaps have forgotten to eat anything in the evening, so that was cheap! Breakfast on Sunday morning was at the pub chain involving the eating implement that isn't a fork... then we had tea & cake at the cafe of the NT property we visited in the afternoon - a rather delicious cream tea in my case. Again, personal spends employed there. 
- Shopping done at Lil's on Friday and came in at just under £31 - that also pushed up past our first threshold spend on their loyalty card for this month so next week's list will feature a nice free sourdough loaf! 
- Need to plan for the farmer's market this weekend as well - definitely things we need so this will be a higher spend week.
- MrEH will have to feed his Oyster again probably tomorrow as he's heading into the office a lot this week annoyingly. we have agreed to carshare each day aside from Thursday when I just want the option of heading home in daylight - that will be something that won't happen on working days after next week so I want to make the most of it.
- MrEH's car may also need fuel this week although we might yet get away without that until the weekend - we'll see. 

savingholmes

Hope you find some blinds and curtains you are happy with 

beanielou

In my bathroom I have a blind that sits inside the window & then a lovely butterfly voile. 

jwil

Glad the bench arrived ok!

EssexHebridean

Afternoon all - nearly typed morning there then realised my error!

All quiet here really still - it's that point in the month isn't it, I know a lot of you find the same around this stage! 

MSE Stuff:
- Conversation took place last night around energy tariffs, and what we would be best served by doing. We had been considering going over to Tracker, or even possibly Agile for electricity, but  we both feel we want a better idea of how our energy use in the house will work out before we make a change that major. I love the idea of dynamic tariffs, but think that it probably needs a bit more research for us yet. The main thing we discussed yesterday was the possibility of a fix - with the Octopods offering a 12 month fix at the same price as the current variable rates currently. Much deliberation, but on the whole we both agreed that we do expect to see an increase in rates as at the January cap - and that is without the current uncertainty on the world stage having any additional effects - as well as probably a SC increase next year on electric at least. taking a fix now means that we know exactly what we are paying as a unit price through the expensive months of the year, and while we are still finding our feet with the new household budget, having that level of certainty was quite helpful. So the fix was applied for immediately, and has now been applied. there is an exit fee, but we feel it's worth taking the risk.
- The living room was slightly chilly last night. The thermostat resolutely clung on at 18 degrees all evening, but the separate thermometer told me that the other side of the room (it's quite a large open space) was actually down to just above 17. Problem easily solved last night by shifting  myself to the front room which is warmer on any day where there has been any sunshine at all, potentially by well over a degree. I was perfectly cosy in there! On another day it may be that I opt to shift the thermostat instead, but at least we're beginning to see how things work. 
- In the event the heating only came on yesterday morning for a very short time, and not at all for the rest of the day, which was useful.
- Banks checked and all fine there. MrEH needs a nudge to do some money shuffling for a few bits and pieces. 
- Prolific has picked up a bit for me of late which is handy. This month still isn't going to be spectacular but it will definitely be better than last month was! 

Spendiness:
- MrEH has indeed fed his Oyster this morning as that transaction is showing pending on the account.
- I may well make a small Scr3wf1x purchase a little later as we want to change the  plugs on a couple of lamps to make them more user-friendly in the front rom. If we fit them both with the plugs with the round pins, we can the use them via the switches on the wall, is the theory. On the other hand, I may decide that I'll save our pennies for a little longer, we'll see!
- Tomorrow will see a higher travel spend as not only does MrEH have to go into the office (for the fourth day this week) but we also have to travel separately as he needs to be in early. I'm not complaining as this means I can justify using my own car, but of course that does indeed come with a higher spend. 

I need to keep an eye for any emails from the Octopods as it may be that the change of tariff will prompt a revision to the DD (which is indeed currently lower than it "should" be per month, but I'm taking account of both the chunky credit we still have at this stage (still over £55 - and we added to it with the last DD payment too) and the fact that I am increasing the DD by £10 a month currently, so it will go to £95 next month, then £105 the month after and by then I'll have a better idea of actual use and can decide where it needs to go from there. So if they email me to say they are putting it up, I will be adjusting it back down again! 

So there you go. All ticking over! 

Blackcats

A blind for the hall window sounds like a priority if you don't want MrEH to be the talk of the new neighbourhood 🙀
I agree about the quiet of mid month banking and saving activity.  I've shifted my Prolific cash out to 15th of the month to give me a boost of moving some money to savings.