And now we go again...

Cheery_Daff

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82113661#Comment_82113661

I get an email every time there's a free hour or a saving session etc - there's a link in each one to opt in. Can't remember how i signed up for emails though! Pretty sure therr used to be a WhatsApp channel but i'm not sure i get notifications from there any more.

joedenise

I get the emails too and always opt in - there was an hour session last night from 6-7pm. We had an early dinner so that was cooked before 6pm so not cooking during that hour so hopefully we used less than usual!

They've now made it you can choose when at the weekend you can use it rather than saying it's a particular hour.

EssexHebridean

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82113661#Comment_82113661

Thanks PiP! Yes, as others have said, make sure you are signed up to Octoplus and opted in to emails - you should get an email at some stage during the afternoon ahead pf any sessions - the sessions often get posted in the thread on the energy board here too although not all sessions apply to all over the country. You just opt in from that email. I pretty much always opt in even if I don't expect we'll save anything on the "nothing to lose" basis. Until November they are also doing a thing where if you save on two saving sessions you get a free hour on a Sunday as well which is a nice bonus. The Octoplus area of the app is where everything can be found, but I don't always see the savings sessions there and others have said the same, hence the emails/here being a good option.

MSE Stuff:

• My car fed this morning at the cheap filling station near work - 173.9 for diesel will do nicely!
• MrEH is using the cheapest of today's electrickery to roast some more squash, run the dishwasher and get a load of washing through so we are properly caught up ahead of going away.
• Last night's food used up the end of a piece of roast pork from the freezer, the last of the aubergine and tomato sauce, and the scrapings from a tub of greek yogurt. Tonight's will be a raid on whatever else that is in the fridge that I can use.
• The outstanding Big River return couldn't be done this morning because there was a system issue - I need to hope it is fixed by tomorrow!
• Banks checked and all OK - joint account is squeaky but not worryingly so.
• The money for the B&B night ahead of my Lundy trip has hit the CC so I'll money shuffle for that. It's all in the budget, so all good there!
• MrEH gets brownie points for just ekeing out yesterday's travel on his Oyster card.
• I've obviously niscalculated something cred-tcardy somewhere as the rewards one currently has an £11 positive balance. Ah well, it will come off this morning's fuel fill!
• Took a quick look at clothes in T's last night and nearly bought a nice jumper - decided against though as had a feeling it might not wash nicely. £15 saved.

Spendiness:

• invoice for the steps was paid last night.
• I'm using car parks near work today so will have to buy something in Al's later - might make it a jar of their sun tried tomatoes to take with us though as they are massively cheaper than we will get up there and we use them in pasta salads etc.

kayannie

I noticed on @Foxgloves diary that you were discussing the books that you read. I am currently enjoying crime books written by Peter May & thought of you! I love his books & his style of writing, but I particularly like that the ones I have read so far are set in the Outer Hebrides. Having holidayed there for many years, I can picture the places he mentions in his books which bring back happy memories of the times spent there in our camper van.

KA x

foxgloves

I'll have to check I am still opted in to receive Free Energy Hour emails as I haven't had any for months & we always took part whenever we could.

Re your new steps, I'm sure they will be pretty much cost-neutral in terms of kerb appeal, as you say. It's something that's hard to put a price on until you are wanting to pull out all the visual stops for selling up, but you know they've improved the house so just enjoy them. We've seen rather a lot of cashola flowing in the wrong direction this year too so am hoping to come up with a cunning plan in time for our January 2027 Money Summit (although no inkling of anything either cunning….or indeed an actual 'plan' as yet, though!)

F

lucielle

Hi EH hope everything’s ok. Not heard from you for a while….

L

rtandon27

I think EH was up north somewhere?

OH just told me he'd seen some gorgeous photography from her recently!

Makingabobor2

Hope all is ok with you & Mr EH and you're just taking a break.

EssexHebridean

*slinks in, fills kettle, dumps enormous quantities of dirty washing into the machine…"

Well, THAT was a few months! Thanks all for asking, and missing me! Since I was last here we have enjoyed two and a half weeks in the Hebrides (Kayannie - Peter May's books are great, I agree, and yes to being able to picture the placed in the Lewis trilogy!) I was then back for a few days before heading off again for a week on Lundy, came back from there and had a fab night out at the Roundhouse in Camden seeing Roger Taylor from Queen, then there was the final couple of airshows of the season, followed by spending last weekend on the Isle of Wight! Oh and in between the Hebrides and Lundy there was a fabulous invitation from Red 1 to spend a day with the team on base at Waddington which was rather excellent as well! Phew - now it is very much time for a rest and to get back to all things MSE - although pleasingly the last couple of months have not broken the budget, left us with hefty credit card bills, or any of the other disasters that we all remember from back in the spendy days!

Let's reverse things a bit here:

Spendiness!:

• Hebrides was a tad hand-to-mouth but manageable - and mostly because I did transfer a chunk of money out of the Holiday Fund earlier in the year and should have transferred some of it back, but of course it is in an ISA so I didn't want to! Increased fuel costs were unhelpful - we paid 213.4 a litre at one stage over there which was painful - at the time it was still in the low 180's at home! Used the entire contents of the Holiday Fund plus a chunk of money from the food account and some personal spends each and squeaked through.
• Lundy came in well under the amount I had set aside for it - I consciously chose to make myself lunch rather than being tempted to buy in the pub each day other than the final two - when going to the pub was the conscious choice instead. That kept costs down substantially below where they would otherwise have been, and I had some very tasty lunches! It was still expensive, but worth every penny!
• Airshows had already had tickets bought - I opted to buy lunch both days and was happy with that choice. Personal spends used there.
• Isle of Wight had been budgeted from our Joint Fun account and we came in just under budget. The plan to have a good breakfast each day (got for free at the budget hotel thanks to MrEH's Shareholder card) and not need lunch worked well with the addition of some cake/ice cream that we would have had anyway.
• Suddenly realised on Friday evening while in the pub on the Isle of wight that we were showing gas use at home. A LOT of gas use. Clearly nothing we could do about it, but spent the rest of the weekend more than a little concerned about why…got home on Sunday to a very warm house - seems that when the thermostat batteries die, it sends a "tickover" message to the boiler which then defaults to running at a low level until they are changed. Sigh. Ahh well, thankfully we are still on our cheap fix, so the resulting £13-odd cost could have been a lot worse! Annoyingly I had even checked the thermostat for a low battery warning before we went, and nothing was showing!

MSE Stuff:

• The Holiday budget needs reviewing - accommodation and travel costs have both hugely increased in recent years and something needs to give now I think - OR we have to accept that we have to increase the monthly amount to the account again.
• Both Welsh building society 6 month reg savers are now matured, with no replacements for those. they replaced the money we had borrowed from elsewhere to cover MrEH's car repair etc and began repaying what the steps had cost.
• Both our N/wde reg savers matured - mine got sent to the long term pot, and MrEH's will go to fund his new W/wide reg and my Sant-And-Er for the next 6 months.
• My Welsh Christmas saver is due out in a couple of weeks - that will head straight to the Long Term pot I think. I am hoping that they will make a replacement available for that one.
• Food account helped out with holiday costs as above, and we still managed to end up with £50 in credit at the end of September.
• Mozza's offered us a month's free delivery pass so we have been making use of that to save on going to the shop and to make use of various offers, plus doing some building of stores ahead of winter.
• My travel back from Lundy was disrupted and my train got back to Paddington 29 minutes late - I did the delay repay claim based on a 30 minute delay (chancing my arm!) and it paid out at that level, so £12.50 refund.
• Chimney swept - cost £65 but well worth it to be able to use the fire during winter!

I need to keep an eye for any decent fixes that might be worth going for on the gas now - I'm inside 49 days from the end of the current one with its enjoyable 4.73p/unit rate, so a decision needs making. I'd ideally like to stay with the Octopods, and right now I can't see any compelling reason to go elsewhere, although I need to do the sums though to see if one of Fuse's tariffs with its lower SC could be worth paying a higher unit rate for. I've got my details updated on the Cheap Energy Club site and will see what gives over the next week or so with a view to making a decision, although at the moment we may just chance a roll onto the variable for a few weeks.

Generally things are ticking along OK - yes it's been a spendy few weeks, but controlled spendy not the problematic sort! The next few weeks are now relatively quiet - MrEH has some rugby stuff going on, I've got a trip into London with a pal next month to see an exhibition, oh and I have my very exciting first tattoo as well of course - but that too is budgeted and saved for!

Time to catch up on everyone elses news!

lucielle

Nice to have you back!

L