And now we go again...

Blackcats

sounds like a reasonable plan for the car replacement. Blooming cars never stick to their owner's plans for them and they have no regard for budgets or timings.

Cheery_Daff

Does indeed sound like a sensible car plan. Well done!

rtandon27

Hooray for sensible plans!

EssexHebridean

Thanks all - it's a plan, how sensible it will prove remains to be seen, and of course it's all complicated by us having a fair few busy weekends coming up over the next few months too - fun stuff, but also ugh to the timing. it has got me thinking though about how relieved I am that thanks to years of MSE behaviour we are fortunate to have the emergency funds as needed for this sort of situation.

Anyway - we've been doing some planning for fun stuff:

Isle of Wight weekend - accommodation is all booked, and we've managed to snag train tickets down for just over £20 as well - assuming we can get the way back for similar or ideally a bit less that will be easily as cheap as driving, allowing that if we drove, MrEH would have to get from Central London to somewhere I could sensibly collect which would also have a cost.

Main Hebrides Holiday: everything that needs to be booked is booked, I believe, and the balance for cottage is sitting in the holiday account ready to pay. we ARE a touch short on funds for that at the moment - a combination of having moved some surplus funds elsewhere earlier in the year and a few things being a little more spendy than previously, but we have sufficient more going into the holiday account prior to the trip, plus some excess to be diverted from the food account, that this should all be fine.

My Lundy Trip: Trains are booked and I should be OK to get all the way back to London on the day we head home. Overnight accommodation for the night before we head across is booked. I'm waiting for my pal to confirm the amount to pay for the accommodation, and I need to book the boat - in fact I should call and deal with that this week. There is sufficient money in the savings account I am using for this for those though to cover them and I think my spending money as well - plus I have scope to top it up a little before we go. The travel down by train has actually worked out cheaper than it would have cost to drive it plus parking the car down there, I think!

We're planning for a different sort of holiday for next year - a tour of Scotland incorporating some of the North Coast 500 and North East 250 routes which should be fun. We're currently working on putting together an itinerary, but are conscious that a lot of the accommodation for this will need booking well ahead so we need to star working on that properly. Ironically enough for a plan which arose out of being fed up being reliant on Calmac ferries appalling service, we seem to be incorporating a lot of ferries! the money for the next phase of bookings is already sitting in the surplus I yanked out of the holiday account previously, and we will be able to book some stuff which won't need payment made yet too.

It does feel a little counter-intuitive having all that stuff going on when we also have the car situation to sort out, but sometimes stuff just arrives like that doesn't it - and we do have plans in place to cover everything and hopefully to refill the coffers a bit too!

lucielle

Sent you a pm

L