And now we go again...

EssexHebridean

Isle of Wight train travel down and back now booked ✔️ - got the return for under £15 for both of us from Portsmouth back to London so fairly delighted with that one! (The way down was £21.10). Cheaper than we could drive it and far less hassle anyway.

The CC is doing some hard work this month - BUT it's the new rewards one so there will at least be a small amount of cashback. I've just cleared off the week's food spends - £33.48 which I'm OK with. MrEH's car bill is sitting there looking ugly - I need to do some money shuffling to take account of that, but that needs a bit of time and a notebook so I can work out where I can shuffle from without hitting the EF harder than I need to at this stage.

Once the food payment to the CC is through I will go over things there and see if there is anything else that needs paying to just leave the car repair there, then it will be easier to see where we stand.

The Welsh building society have just notified me of the first of my 2 6 month reg savers maturing next month so that will help with the 'spensiveness. The other one of those accounts should only be a handful of days behind it too. I need to sort out the maturity instructions but will probably wait until they've told me about both so I can do them together.

Blackcats

we did a day trip to the IoW a few years ago and travelled there by hovercraft which fulfilled an ambition for me and was great fun. We then travelled by train and bus to Ventnor for lobster and chips by the sea and then reversed our trip together back to Southsea. We still reminisce happily about that day.

southern_chick

check which train station you need for which boat you are using. I don’t use the trains that often (and the boats to IOW even less) but there are two “main” train stations Portsmouth and southsea (the town station) and Portsmouth harbour and one is for the hovercraft and one is for the fastcat. I think the town station has got a (possibly free) connecting shuttle bus and the harbour station is right by the fastcat. If you go to the wrong station it’s quite a journey to get to the right boat. You obviously might know this already!! Have a lovely holiday xx

EssexHebridean

Thanks both - Southern_chick that is a very sensible point about the stations. We've opted to do the travel the way round we have because it means the journey back will deliver us pretty much directly to Portsmouth Harbour station rather than having to walk a bit if we were to go back on the Hovercraft. Handily the tickets seem to work to either station though which is useful and will help should plans have to change. The night before we go across we're staying in Portsmouth so will hop off at the main town station then. "Holiday" might be hyping it up a bit much though - it's literally a weekend - but then again one can never have too many holidays so no, I'll take it! BC as soon as we thought about the Hovercraft it was an immediate "yes - we want to do that!"

Right then - where are we at:

MSE Stuff:

• I need to think about shifting my personal ISA as it's on a rubbish rate at the moment.
• First stage of amassing dosh for the car repair is happening - I've started a list.
• Agreement is reached that I will start stripping money out of PBs once the August draw has happened - that will cover the repair money combined with the other oddments.
• I also now have a list of regular savers maturing - but have also remembered that the new Spanish Bank one was meant to be being funded by the funds of one of those. Hmmm. There may have to be some short term curtailment of those as there seems little sense in letting an 8% one drop.
• Food - mostly to plan - the garden is starting to produce solidly which is very handy indeed. Plenty of tomatoes, the tromboncino squashes and the courgettes are also now kicking in - just a smattering of beans a yet though, the hot weather seems to have put them off. Peppers are flowering, although only the one main plant this year. One aubergine is swelling and others have started forming which is very exciting. There should be more lettuce leaves as of next week I reckon as well.
• I need to start properly attacking the freezer contents ahead of going away - an audit at the weekend might be useful.
• Spendiness at the weekend was all personal spends funded - the beer festival on Friday was great and we enjoyed riding up and down on the trains as well as the beer itself. MrEH treated me to a curry tea from the food truck that was there and very tasty it was! My spends at the airshow were simply my lunch which was sadly expensive for what it was and really not that great. I'd avoid that stall in the future. I was plied with cake by pals though because = birthday so that was lovely!
• Reminder sent to MrEH that he owes me his ticket money back for that - I need to transfer that back to my personal fun account when he sends it.
• Holiday spending money is squeaky but will work - although we need to remember that there will be a LOT more spent on diesel this year as fuel prices are around 30p a litre higher than they were then. Ouch! That's going to make in the region of £50 difference.
• MrEH's car has gone to the garage for its MoT Test in the next couple of days - we're hoping that isn't going to cost too much as we're not planning on keeping it much longer!
• MrEH's breakdown cover will be left to autorenew as the price increase was tiny. Mine needs some work, but ultimately I may just do the same in spite of a bigger increase. My insurance will be autorenewing as we are happy with that price.

Plans for this weekend are to have a low-spend but getting-things done couple of days.

• Holiday prep needs to step up.
• I will check out the various offers and then decide where to shop, although Lils is looking likely as I have a sweet treat to claim from there plus one from Gr366s as well which is right next door.
• I may need to rein-in MrEH where food shopping is concerned - we don't need to stock up on anything much right at the moment and the extra weekend shopping trips have started to be a bit habitual and spendy!
• I'm going to set aside a couple of hours for us to go through the tomato plants again - we may just strip the fruit off the san marzano ones and ripen those on the windowsill as leaving them on the plants means we're losing them all to blossom end rot which is really annoying.

We may need to invest in some more watering spikes and plastic bottles to suit before going away, particularly if the hot weather continues through to then. MrEH favours an irrigation system but they all seem to need either a high level bulk tank or an open tap to run from and I refuse point blank to leave a tap on while we're away so we have an impasse there! If the steps are done before that stage then Mum will be able to head round and water but otherwise that's not an option. I have just chased up the company doing the work for a date.

greenbee

Have a look at Irrigatia for solar drip irrigation that will run out of your water butt. I've used one for years and it works pretty well.

EssexHebridean

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82084639#Comment_82084639

Ooh good tip - thank you!

PennysIntoPounds

Happy belated birthday 🍻

Humdinger1

Belated happy birthday @EssexHebridean! It's all coming together wonderfully well. As you say, thank goodness for emergency fund and other pots. Imagine if it was all on credit...love Humdinger xx

EssexHebridean

Thank you PiP & Humdinger!

And of course you are right - this is exactly why we DO have savings isn't it - although I know we're all alike in hating to dip into them! Once I know what is happening with the car, and how much we'll need to raid the longer term pot for, I'll be able to make a replenishment plan - until then it's all feeling a bit frustrating though!

MSE Stuff:

• Lil's offers checked and yes, I will do the shopping there tomorrow
• Chat with MrEH about doing a freezer audit tomorrow and needing to eat from there - we're on the same page for sure and might even get the audit done tonight and join forces on a meal plan.
• More tomatoes harvested last night and this morning
• Some more plans hatched for irrigation/watering arrangements thanks to Greenbee's recommendation - MrEH thinks he may buy the irrigation set using birthday money he hasn't yet allocated elsewhere. Meanwhile I've seen a set of terracotta watering spikes which I've been eyeing up for a while again and think I may spend some of MY birthday money on those - we'll need to get some additional bottles to fit, but I think MrEH's squash bottles may work and we already have a few of those kicking about.
• In theory MrEH's oyster needs feeding but there is just enough left on there for him to have used that for his way in this morning, and he'll use the CC for the cheaper return journey tonight. that then shifts the next top up onto August's money, and hopefully leaves us with £200 surplus in the joint account to allocate to the car repair funds.
• Last night's tea was a tasty tossed salad using some cooked broken down lamb sausages - delicious ones from our lamb chap at the farmers market, and there are sufficient of them left that the remains will go into a pasta dish for this evening with plenty of veg and the last of a jar of bought pesto - I'm into making home made now and popping that in the freezer.
• Rewards CC is now cleared back to only include the car repair (and MrEH's travel from later when that hits) so I will probably money shuffle tomorrow to clear that balance.
• Prolific is sitting at £23 payable and I will cash that out tomorrow with the money going straight my depleted tech replacement pot - I raised it as a contribution to the new camera.
• We should both be paid tomorrow!

More plans being hatched for a group holiday next year with pals - back to Lundy again - which will be good fun. I think we have an accommodation share worked out which will come in at around £350 per person too which is surprisingly decent for Lundy! We'll have plenty of time to plan for that though so I'll put a plan together once the initial car wrangling is complete.

EssexHebridean

Decided to cash out Prolific today as it was a pleasingly exact £25!

(And of COURSE it was no longer that pleasing amount by the time it hit my paypal and the US$ to sterling conversion for a chunk of it was done! Ah well!)

That leaves £1.98 pending to claim next month anyway.