The "Grand Plan" - Phase One well underway!

Little_Mama

EssexHebridean wrote: »

today we've had some of it for lunch, I've cooked the carcass up for stock (three pots of it cooling ready to go into the freezer, and a jug with some more to go in a risotto tomorrow) and I now have a massive pot of curry on the go - also for the freezer. I still have the second chicken breast in the freezer for tomorrows risotto. I reckon that bird is going to make 7 meals plus the foundations of three more risottos. :j Whilst OH was at training I also made cheese scones for lunch and todays tea, and a batch of biscuits.

Wow that's impressive, I really need to follow your lead and become more domesticated.

Keep up the good work.

LM

EssexHebridean

Little_Mama wrote: »

Wow that's impressive, I really need to follow your lead and become more domesticated.

Keep up the good work.

LM

Thanks LM - I guess I'm lucky in that I do enjoy cooking. It's no hardship for me to spend an afternoon in the kitchen - I'm only limited by the size of the freezer! Start with something simple like the Twinks Hobnobs recipe from here (Search on Hobnobs - that should find it) - but try halving the recipe unless you have a big family!

EssexHebridean

Not much of a money-saving or MFW weekend - I've been up in Norfolk with two friends celebrating the birthday of one of them. Excellent time, and we did manage to keep it fairly budget really - stayed in a travelodge Family room which fitted the three of us fairly easily (the bathroom might have felt the strain a bit though!) and took wine with us from what we had in.....really good fun anyway, and nice to relax and unwind. Now back and have to get my head back into moneysaving mode!

Got home to find that NS&I have sent through the cheque for the contents of my now closed investment accounts. Another £126 to add to the fund. I had a bit of good news on Thursday evening at speedway also as I won the supporters club draw! £260 coming my way - I was absolutely amazed - I actually heard the start of the draw as I was going in for my tea but thought that the number drawn out was way too early to be mine as I didn't join that long back. I then went through most of the rest of the meeting before anyone remembered to tell me I'd won! :rotfl: It's odd - since I've really got a handle on our finances I seem to have been rewarded with all sorts of odd gains of unexpected cash! :j

OH was good as gold with the shopping - only bought one extra item (Malt loaf - but it was half-price so I consider that a good purchase as we both absolutely love the stuff!). He did well with the Farmers Market too - got everything we needed and came in under budget so well done him.

I finally got to enough points for a Pigsback voucher (£10 Boots one) - then when I logged in to order that, I discovered that my LoveFilm trial points, AND the 500 I got for a competition win had also appeared - so I was able to order TWO vouchers and am already over halfway to the next too! Can;t be bad!

setmefree2

A big well done to you:T

EssexHebridean

Thanks SMF2!

I logged in to Pigsback tonight to discover that I'd won 2000 piggypoints in another quiz too - so another two vouchers now ordered - one Waterstones and one Boots, both of which will join get put away towards Christmas. The confirmation came through today from British Gas of our revised figure for our Electricity DD too so I shall go into the online banking later and adjust the monthly amount going across to the savings by the same amount. Hopefully the refund from BG will also be there at that stage - it can go straight into the ISA if so. If it;s not in the account, it can't be spent, can it! :A

greenbee

If you're already with BG you should be able to swap to Click Energy 5 for both gas & elec (set yourself up for online billing so you can check you are on the right tariff - and don't do it on Sundays as systems are sometimes down for maintenance and then changes have to be made manually which can take longer). If you haven't checked your meter for years, I guess you haven't looked at your tariff either - with that and the online billing (which you can do straight away) you should save a lot. And if you do an energy savers report, don't forget to donate your 'Generation Green' leaves to your local school (if they haven't signed up, let them know).

EssexHebridean

Cheers for that Greenbee - it was the Click Energy 5 tariff that we were looking at when we realised that they'd been overestimating our readings for so long. I'm still intending to do a check at some stage as I have a feeling there is still a saving to be made, however until things have settled down (We're taking weekly readings at the moment so we can really work out what we are using) we're not really going to know what would serve us best. My hope is that our DD will eventually go down to the £59 -ish they they suggested.

What's the saving for swapping to online billing? I tried to find out from their website but couldn't see anywhere that it told you what you'd save!

Another not-very-money-saving weekend planned as we're off to the Farne Islands to photograph puffins. Something I've wanted to do for years - we're combining it with a trip to Berwick on Tweed to see one of my best friends who I don't get to spend time with often too - so should be excellent. We did book the travelodge we're staying in via Quidco, and managed to get £29 rooms for both nights, so that's not too bad I guess! Mind you, the diesel will cost us something like the same amount again I reckon!

teapot2

EssexHebridean wrote: »

Another not-very-money-saving weekend planned as we're off to the Farne Islands to photograph puffins. Something I've wanted to do for years - we're combining it with a trip to Berwick on Tweed to see one of my best friends who I don't get to spend time with often too - so should be excellent. We did book the travelodge we're staying in via Quidco, and managed to get £29 rooms for both nights, so that's not too bad I guess! Mind you, the diesel will cost us something like the same amount again I reckon!

ooh my favourite birds I love puffins - have a good weekend, am sure you already know but bring lots of warm and waterproof clothes as its freezing up here at the mo. Am about half an hour north of Berwick and summer has gone AWOL had the heating on one evening last week and today all the garden furniture blew away down the garden it was so windy.

Teapot

EssexHebridean

LOL - warm clothes definately on the agenda then!! Really looking forward to the Puffins - I've never so much as seen one before and now, if all goes to plan come Saturday, I shall be surrounded by the little blighters! (And being dive-bombed and pooped on by Terns apparently! :rotfl:

Had a little review of the finances with regard to the early loan repayment today - by all accounts going rather well. As things stand at the moment we have £1700 sitting in the ISA. That leaves a balance of £1937.33 still to save in order to make the payoff date as we planned. I'm waiting for a cheque to arrive for the draw I won last week, once that turns out I will have a total of £386 to pay into the bank, reducing the balance outstanding down to £1551.33 (Must make sure that the next sum I transfer to the ISA includes an odd 33p - that's really irritating me now!). Allowing for the fact that I save a regular amount of £190 per month anyway, and that is all coming off the loan at the moment, things are looking quite hopeful. So hopeful in fact that I reckon I can not only meet the planned payoff date of February, but I'm certain I can beat that by paying off in - at the worst - January, but hopefully even December! It'd be lovely to get it sorted before Christmas.....:D

EssexHebridean

I've just read that back.....:j :beer: :j :beer: :j :beer: :j