And now we go again...

savingholmes

Glad you are still happy with the things you bought of the house sellers.

EssexHebridean

Morning all! End of the working week for me today - I'm not complaining! 

MSE stuff:
- banks checked and all OK
- some CC shuffling done, although I will need to remind MrEH again about the money he owes me for his share of a membership - I've paid it all out of my own account for the moment though just to get it cleared. 
- Tomorrow will see the council tax and the FD regular saver DDs go out, and then I will review everything and get the coal/log money transferred off as well.
- Operation "create freezer space" appears to be making headway - and I found a tub of black bean soup in there that will work for lunch on saturday along with some of the free home bake rolls we got at the food show.
- Although I've got a fair bit of driving tomorrow, the car should have enough diesel in it.
- As far as I know MrEH's Oyster should take him through until the new year now - he was certainly expecting that it would. If he has to do additional into London travel next week that could still change, but hopefully not. if we do a trip into London to do stuff between Christmas and New Year he may need to top up then though, we will see.
- Waiting to see if the Octopods are going to announce a savings session this evening - if they do then it seems likely it will be another 5pm onwards one - there is a limit to what we can do with those sadly as MrEH will still be working until 5.30pm.  
- Will cook tea after 6pm anyway thus shoving some use in place for any later savings sessions. Lightly dusted fish (Lil's) tonight, with the rest of the brocolli and probably some buttery lemon boiled potatoes. I'll do the fish in the air fryer I think - see how that comes out. (Which may rely on how easy it is to turn it mid way through - we will see!)
- Must remember to get the bits for tomorrow's curry night and that soup out of the freezer this evening

Spendiness:
- mercifully low this week so far! I am still heading to Lincoln tomorrow so far as I know, and there will likely be a food/drink spend somewhere along the line  as although I'll take some food with me there is a good chance I will want something warm at lunchtime. That'll come from my personal spends though obviously.
- there will be some Christmas bits to get over the weekend. I need to review what I have for Mum and see what else we need to add for her.
- ordered some coffee for MrEH yesterday as part of his present - that means aside from little odds and ends I am pretty much sorted for him now I think. 
- debating about whether to do the farmers market on saturday - I do love the christmas market, but there isn't anything we will massively need, allowing for incoming christmas food too...Hmmm. One to ponder. 
- MUST remind MrEH that he had planned to order some beer for Christmas. 

Must wrap my pal's present tonight as will be taking that with me tomorrow - not seen her in ages so it will be good to catch up, albeit probably fairly briefly as she will be between night shifts so probably won't come out to play for long. I must also make sure that my camera kit is all sorted and ready as well - it will be an early start in the morning and I won't want to be faffing about with it then! 

I will try and use some down time between flying slots tomorrow to do the shopping list for next week - the meal plan is already essentially done up to next Friday evening and after that will be a bit of a free for all anyway! 

Ahhh - Mum's just let me know that the saving session is now available to opt in to for tonight! 

Cheery_Daff

Ah, thanks for the warning - it's mot even come through on the notifications WhatsApp group but I've just opted in on the app. We should be out at that time, certainly til 5.30 - just need to remember not to come home before 6 and switch everything back on 😂😂 

jwil

Enjoy your trip to Lincoln!

milann

Enjoy your trip. 

Everything sounds organised as usual 👍

savingholmes

Enjoy your trip  and do post photos - we love seeing them.

girlatplay

Oh EH, I'm never going to catch up if I don't just start at the end of your diary.  I was trying to catch up from where I left off in September but it's growing faster than I can get on here.  I have read a couple of pages back now and I'm going to continue going backwards, but because you are bookmarked, I'll be able to find my place again.

Sorry about the beer festival.
Jealous of your wee feet (I was struggling to fit into kids shoes when I was a kid).
Looking forward to hearing your plans for the year ahead.

EssexHebridean

Morning all!
Cheery - the sudden rush of relatively short notice saving sessions last week is getting me really twitchy about doing anything like setting the WM to run in that timeslot now - I'm worried I'll set it and then we'll be out and they will spring a SS on us! 
GAP, that made me laugh, the number of times I've felt that I was "going backwards" while trying to catch up on people's stories prior to posting on their current diaries! As for the feet - they can be a PITA but it is handy when kid sizes fit! 
jwil, milann & SH - the trip was nice, but the traffic coming back was horrific and in spite of  having plenty of diesel when I started, I VERY nearly ran out on the M11. I never go onto a motorway without being confident I have enough to get me to where I nred to be, or to a definite planned stop at the least, but this time I nearly got caught just because of the combination of where I was in the tank and the way the traffic panned out. NOT fun, and forced me to fill up at services so stupid tax involved too - gah!  I will probably work through some more of the photos tomorrow evening although the light was a bit grim for much of the day sadly. 

MSE Stuff:
- In spite of the awful traffic I did stick to my plans for tea on Friday evening and we had our curry plate, and very tasty it was to. I was glad it was just a "stick it in the microwave" tea though - that was a blessing! 
- Quite a bit of the christmas food shopping is now done - I bought 3 meat joints on Saturday when we were in T's - 2 gammons which should just go together into my big slow cooker, and a large pork joint as well al at good prices. The pork is already in the freezer, and I will probably grab another of the gammon joints to join it yet too - the two I already have will be cooked, one will be sliced/chunked and frozen and the other will be used for Christmas and into New Year. 
- Both the Council tax and the FD reg saver payments left the bank on schedule on Friday
- I need to go through the shopping receipts from the weekend to allocate some of the spending from the Christmas account rather than groceries. 
- Food is roughly planned out for the week - and there is very definitely freezer space now appearing which is excellent news! 

Spendiness:
- MrEH ordered some beer on Friday so we will have to work out where that's being paid from. I think he also plans to order some more yet - from another relatively local brewery. We may go and collect that on Friday afternoon if they are open though, assuming we can work it in with the delivery of the other stuff. 
- More Christmas shopping done at the weekend - I will review probably tomorrow evening but I think I may be almost there barring small odds and ends now.
- ended up spending just under £10 from personal spends on Friday - food, plus needed a pack of batteries as the ones in my radio band scanner (which I use to listen into the chat from the team - handy for knowing when they are about to engine start/taxi out, and also what they are likely to be doing next during practices) went dead during the first flying slot in spite of having been recharged the night before! 
- £3.99 on a new small squirrel proof bird feeder to replace the previous one that the flipping squirrels chewed into. 

Plans for this week:
- work christmas meal tomorrow lunchtime. We literally just go to the pub and this year will just be me and madam which will feel a bit odd, but it'll be nice to get out and chat about non work related stuff for a while anyway, and she's chosen a nice pub to book just about a mile away. 
- MrEH has a rugby match on Friday evening which I will be photographing. It will be the first time I've used the new camera to shoot under lights like that so it's going to be an interesting experience - I will be taking the second camera as backup in case I have any issues with the R7! 
- He finishes work at lunchtime on Friday, then we are both off right through to the 2nd. 
- The weekend will be a nice mix of properly transitioning into Christmas mode, plus Mum will come over for tea one evening I think, we've not decided whether Saturday or Sunday yet although almost certainly Saturday I think as that leaves us both with our Christmas eve intact to do any bits of prep that are needed. 

PennysIntoPounds

Plans sound lovely, how nice you're both off til the 2nd. Are you planning on being productive or having a good chill break?

savingholmes

How irritating on the traffic and fuel. You made it safely back which is the main thing. 

Enjoy your week of pottering. Trying not to be jealous of everyone off already. I'm saving some holidays for moving otherwise I'd have been strongly tempted to book the whole of this week off as well as next.