From Frugal Foundations to Fortified Family Future

kayannie

GP - I've just read the MSE weekly email & noticed that English Heritage have a free family day pass. A limited number are available online, otherwise there's a voucher in the Daily Star, Mirror or Express before next Sunday.
The voucher can (obviously) only be used in England, but could be useful for you as long as that's where you are holidaying.
KA x

Greying_Pilgrim

kayannie  - thank you for thinking of us love 😁  We can get into EH places at the mo, so it wouldn't necessarily be of an advantage to us (whereas we're not currently NT members, so bought the newspapers in the summer).  However, I am going to pass the info onto a chum, as they enjoyed coming with us to one or two EH places in the summer, and they maybe could use them in the HT hols.  

Grr, so DH's credit card didn't work to book the TL room either 😡 that went to authentification with our bank, and we 'passed', then I got the 'oops internal 500 error code again'.  This is crazy.  The only thing left to try, is to call the TL central reservations, which will be a costly phonecall 😡 and a £2.50 booking charge 😡 Meanwhile the nearby PI has now hiked their nightly charge (this is a Sunday night we're talking about), back up to over £70 😡 And the PI doesn't have quite the same level of good reviews, and is further away from our intended destinations.   TL are potentially derailing the start of our holiday, and we'll have to go back to plan A at this point, and just travel down, and visit one museum.  

Happy Wednesday morning, hump day ...... 😁

First world problems.  

Greying X

rtandon27

@Greying_Pilgrim - it appears that TL may have a freephone number...

https://www.bestbookdirect.com/travelodge-free-phone-number.html

Greying_Pilgrim

rtandon27 said:

@Greying_Pilgrim - it appears that TL may have a freephone number...

https://www.bestbookdirect.com/travelodge-free-phone-number.html

Thanks sweetie!  Will give it a go later - despite being less and less inclined to give TL our business, why is it so hard?  (Don't answer that - I'm just wailing, because paying for services shouldn't be this hard 😉)

Greying X

beanielou

Hope you can get it booked. 

Greying_Pilgrim

Right, I need a plan for today, otherwise things will get forgotten or time will whizz.

DH was in a bad mood as we've had a huge (for us), credit card bill.  It's all stuff that we knew we were buying (if that makes sense), naturally, nothing 'fun' is on the list - it's just all down to needing to buy items, and then things like car insurance and car tax being on the same bill.  It is all accounted for - albeit slightly galling as we'd hoped car related costs would fade away for a bit, having got rid of the old 'money pit' car.  It can be paid, but I do sometimes think DH likes summat to werrit on - as if there aren't sufficient worries in the world!

I will get on to TL this morning.  Albeit I'm p*ssed about being messed around.  I know I'm a luddite, but I am just trying to book a room (and pay for it upfront), why should that be so difficult?  Personally speaking, I wish they would adopt the PI model and let you pay for the room on arrival.  

We're fast running out of cake 😱 So I need to get some baking done.  I can cook a batch and then freeze things. Although I will need to sort out the freezers again, ensure I have the space to store cake/buns.

I have £26 of my grocery budget - we're really low on milk, and I'd prefer not to go shopping today, but might have to.  

The Women's Rugby World Cup final is on at 4,00pm on Saturday, so it's going to mean I need to do a 'before' or 'after' tea, or rig up some sort of buffet....... I know what LG would prefer!  Mmm, that needs some thought, because i would like to watch the game. 

I'm going to make a start.  Will report back 😁😉

Greying X

in_need_of_direction

definitely a need to address the lack of cake before the world implodes.

BTW, while doing some client related work, i stumbled across this https://nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/who-we-are/publications/520-cyber-choices-hacking-it-legal-under-12s/file

i know you have concerns about LG going on line and how to manage this but i think this website is a good resource with guides for various children sorted by age group and also with guides for parents.  Hope this helps

Baileys_Babe

We found this useful with making using digital technology safer for our children https://saferinternet.org.uk/ They have guides and resourses aimed at a variety of audiances including parents, children, grandparents and cover subjects such as phones, laptops, smart spreakers, games consoles, smart TVs, tablets & social media.

Greying_Pilgrim

Thanks for the help re computers.  But I don't think I'm the person to guide LG with computers.   

According to my bank TL are set to claim several hundred pounds out of my bank account, as whilst the computer didn't let me complete the booking transaction, the bank confirmation went through.  So the bank are willing to accept TL's request for payment, but I have nothing, no booking confirmation, no email, no nothing.  An extremely sarcastic person in TL CS claimed that the money wouldn't be taken, but if I wanted to follow it up, I need to email them - ha, job in itself to find the blessed email - alternatively, I could do live chat.  Guess what, not agents available to do live chat and they give themselves 3-5 days to get back to your email.  I wish I'd never heard of TL - or at least stopped after the first try to book online.  I'm absolutely furious with myself.  

Greying X

beanielou

Sorry to hear this.