And now we go again...

Sallyforth

Echoing others to say I so enjoy catching up with your diary.  It’s inspirational and comforting somehow.

I hope you don’t mind me chipping in and wondering why you haven’t considered “stoozing” assuming you know the term?  You seem to put quite a bit of expenditure on the CC yet keep clearing it off. Why not put it on a long term interest free card and every time you spend simply transfer to the highest interest rate easy access savings account. I have a separate current account set up to pay the minimum amount each month (which also pays interest!). Honestly if you’re disciplined and not in debt it works and you can throw the interest at your mortgage.  

Sorry for butting in!
SFx

EssexHebridean

Hello SF - thank you for your lovely comments, very much appreciated! Well, stoozing. Yes - it's one of those things - a bit like matched betting, that I've always slightly felt that to be a proper long term hard core MSE'er one should be doing - however, quite honestly, in the case of both of those things I don't do them because I simply don't trust myself. I know I frequently say it, but genuinely I'm NOT as organised as I may seem on here - or rather as Cheery said, I mostly am, but it's as a result of a lot of writing things down, making reminders on my phone etc, and I just don't trust myself not to get distracted/confused/in a right old mucking fud...yes, you get the drift. I've debated both many times, but right now, it's not for me - although I do envy those with the right combination of organisational skills and attention span to make either thing work for them! (My attention span is mostly that of a dead goldfish!) I think also with the stoozing aspect in  spite of not having been a DFW for a good number of year, there is a little bit of me that is still worried that I might be tempted to dip into that money... Funny how deep that thinking goes, isn't it! 

RT - you're wrong, I'm definitely NOT hardy - MrEH is more so, and he will happily sit with his office at 16-ish, I'm FREEZING at that temperature though! So the thermostat is set to fire the heating before we get up in the morning at 18.4 - it then turns it off again by setting it back to 14 while we're out all day, kicking back in again at 18.4 a little while before we get home. Except that last night it fell right back to just above 14 during the day meaning it was still distinctly chilly when we got home and for a decent part of the evening too! Today's experiment is to see how it goes with the level set slightly higher during the day - my hope is that it will already be on its way to being warmer by the time I get home as it will have had a higher base to work from - certainly I can see it's kicked in twice during the day...we'll see! 

L I suspect you have it more brrrr than we do - although it certainly hadn't got above zero by the time I got to the office this morning, it's feeling a fair bit warmer now I think, and allegedly we're not even due a frost tonight, although I have my doubts! I did spot that Uist has snow which I'm guessing means that you might have as well! 

lucielle

Just a little bit. Glad I work from home at the moment, only been outside to replenish the logs. 

L

milann

What a great price for the train tickets 👍

redofromstart

My fingers go blue at 16, and it might clash with my gloves! Currently we are mostly using the wood burner which means that the snug is warm, so the cats and dogs steal all of the prime warm spots. I suspect it would be cheaper to run the CH but much less visually satisfying (the fire itself, plus the upside down cats)

savingholmes

Fantastic deal on the train tickets. 

I was able to cope with low temperatures last year but this year not so much - but when you can it makes a big difference.

enthusiasticsaver

I keep forgetting to check your diary EH now you are on MFW rather than DFW so will catch up later. 

DH and I have an ongoing battle with the thermostat.  I like it at 19 and will put my oodie on if cold.  DH likes it at 22 and no amount of showing him the Octopus usage seems to have an affect.  Both my DDs bought him oodies and fleeces for Christmas though and he put those on yesterday rather than turning up the thermostat. I think his view is if we can afford it we should put it up which is not at all MSE or environmentally friendly but I am working on him. He is thin though and has had heart issues so that might be part of it. 

I do have to say I am now more into stoozing as savings rates are higher and the money stays in saving as long as possible before I pay it off the CC. I only juggle 2 cards though as any more would overload my brain. 

EssexHebridean

I definitely don't cope as well with low temperatures now as I used to SH - I developed Reynauds a few years back and that's made things worse, and I've also reluctantly realised that there is a decent chance that the office having been pretty cold a lot of the time recently is probably responsible for the massive pain flare I've had in the past few weeks too - it's probably reaching a point where I'm going to have to mention that but I'm resisting at the moment because it makes me feel rubbish to have to be "that person" and I'm in denial about it causing me problems still!   Our thermostat at home is usually set at 18.4 for it's "on" default temperature, but I do usually tweak it to about 18.8 if we're in and mostly sitting in the living room as that's just more comfortable for me - the heating then cuts out at about 19, and the room temperature will increase to a little over that level.

Redo you are so right about the visual satisfaction of a real fire of some description - it isn't always that much warmer when the fire is lit in real terms, but it always feels warmer somehow! Sadly I think you're right about the GCH being cheaper though!  L - I saw your gorgeous snowy photo - stunning! 

And yes Milann - I was delighted about the train tickets - I had a rough estimate of about £100 each way so nice to come in well below that for the way up! 

Still cold today here although nowhere near as much as parts of the country - did I hear that some bits of Scotland were well in minus-double-figures last night? BRRRRRRR! we're grey and cloudy today, although still dry thank goodness - forecast says back to our lovely bright winter sunshine tomorrow so hopefully that will be right! 

MSE Stuff:
- Banks checked and all fine - we're into no-mans-land on the financial stuff now - DDs and SOs are done for the month so we now have 2 weeks worth of "how much can we NOT spend" to play with. Having said that, MrEH's car will need diesel at the weekend, and as long as I get mind back on Friday that will as well, thinking about it, as it went away with "not much at all!" 
- MrEH tells me that his Oyster should be OK for work travel this week - he may have to go in to the office tomorrow but that depends if a client holds firm about wanting a meeting or not. 
- Mortgage balance currently stands at £111,358.04 - so I'd like to OP £158.04 at the end of the month. Any spare surplus after that will go to savings pots or long term savings - I have a garden pot opened now that needs some feeding but right now it's not getting a regular monthly amount, I'm going to do it from surplus I think.
- Train ticket money has been transferred from the joint fun pot over to the card to balance that off. 
- Just double checked to make sure there aren't cheap tickets available for the way back yet but there aren't - will check again probably on Friday.
- The WM is definitely on the way out I think - last night it managed to complete it's usual 2hr39minute 40 degree cycle with that bedding in a little over an hour and a half which is something of a record given that it usually adds an extra 30 - 45 minutes to every cycle just for a giggle - but it also cancelled the programming I'd set for it to run earlier so that suggests that something is definitely not right. I've loaded it this morning for a standard cycle with clothes so we'll see how it copes with that later - it's programmed for a start time but I wonder whether it will just cancel itself again. 
- It was -1C in the home office when MrEH went out there first thing yesterday to switch the heating on - so unsurprisingly our electricity use for the day was eye-watering. Ultimately though, still substantially cheaper than him having to get the tube into London so we're still winning! Our Predecessors in the house used 293kWh of electric and 1275kWh of gas in January last year so it will be interesting to see how we compare with that - for this month currently Bright is showing us at 122kWh electric and 814 gas - so I'm hazarding a guess we'll be under their use on electric but up a bit on the gas. January last year was substantially warmer for the first half of the month though.
- The planned pork and veggies with couscous last night was delicious. there will be a similar combination of pork and much the same veggies this evening but with the addition of some ready-to-wok noodles (the bargainous Al's ones) and some homemade gooseberry ketchup and a bit of dark soy to provide a sauce. 

Spendiness:
- None yesterday - I would have had to buy a stamp for the card I had to post but MrEH provided one so that was free (to me!) 
- Not planning any today either, or some to think of it, tomorrow, although if those train tickets show their face that will change. 
- we're off into London on Saturday to meet up with pals who are down from Scotland so there will be some travel, some food and some beers. 
- Saturday is also Farmers market day, and allowing that we already know we won't be able to get to the market next month, we're of a mind to go in spite of "How Low Can we go January" - I'd like to get a mutton or Lamb shoulder, and some minced beef I think, and possibly some stewing beef as well. The trick will be to curtail MrEH's enthusiasm though...as I want to strike a balance between not spending fortunes, and also having enough meat that we can cover most of our needs between now and the March market date. 

I need to get my head around next week's meal-plan at some stage, and build a shopping list from that. I need to have a think about what we have in, although there is a fair bit of various meat options, and I know there is still a tub of spicy ragu in the freezer as well which I might combine with a tuib of cooked black beans that I know are lurking in there too. One of the tubs of turkey might come out to be used in something or another - possibly a pilaf type thing?  Need to get my thinking cap on. I must get some soup out for tomorrow evening as well - I'm looking forward to that as it feels like soup weather! 

EssexHebridean

ES - Hello - we cross posted there! Yes - I get you on the potential for brain overload - I struggle enough with keeping track of the various regular savers - there are currently 5 on the go I think, 4 joint and 1 dinky one which is just mine - and I have them all written down as to when they were started and how much goes in otherwise I'll get confused! MrEH is also looking after the money transfers to his one now too which helps. I'm definitely not ruling out stoozing for ever, but maybe just not right now! 

It must be said that MrEH would probably have the thermostat lower than I do - my 18.X level is allowing for a long sleeved top with a thick hoodie over it, either leggings or pj trousers and fluffy socks, while he's often sitting about in short sleeves at that temperature. It's absolutely the rule in our house that you put a jumper on first if cold though! One thing I have noticed this year is that so far I'm suffering less from chilblains - I do wonder whether that is something to do with the house temperature tending to be more stable than the flat was. 

Staffordia

Our thermostat is currently at an unbearable 22 degrees. My elderly mother in law lives with us and complains bitterly if she feels it is too cold.  My OH has convinced her to wear a jumper in the house, otherwise it would be even higher. She doesn't even believe in wearing socks to keep her feet warm.

It's far too hot for me, so I can often be found in shorts and a t shirt!