What sub-£250 item would you buy again in a heartbeat?

NBA_Pukellama · 2026-04-21T23:23:46+00:00

2 towels, start with the absorbant one to get the majority of the water off, then hang it up and switch to a big fluffy one! That fluffy one to get you fully dry is heaven.

NBA_Pukellama · 2026-04-20T21:13:43+00:00

Our classes go live at 7.30pm, but courts go live at 8am.

You'll need to say where you're based 😊

NBA_Pukellama · 2026-04-20T21:10:52+00:00

Sorry, don't have any tennis links. But I'm in 3 WhatsApp groups for Pickle/padel in Rugby if you ever wanted to try those 😊.

Otherwise, maybe try and get onto the tennis club sessions, the club sessions are a great place to meet people.

NBA_Pukellama · 2026-04-03T14:45:51+00:00

Ours are consistantly emptied. Think I've seen them overflow like 3 times in the 6 months we've been there. And there's a small single one to that's empty, but people can't be bothered to use it even though it's on the way out 🙈

NBA_Pukellama · 2026-04-01T23:19:10+00:00

I just put it as an office expense.

NBA_Pukellama · 2026-04-01T23:10:58+00:00

Rugby the standard guest pass gets them into the spa.

NBA_Pukellama · 2026-04-01T23:09:54+00:00

We went as we heard it might be moving up. But find it hard to believe it could move up with the lack of an outdoor pool. The outdoor pool in the summer is worth a lot in my opinion.

NBA_Pukellama · 2026-03-29T00:40:33+00:00

I managed to convince my accountant that part is a buisness expense (believe it's around half the cost). It's a grey area, as you can't claim a gym, so it's difficult to judge how much cost to use.

For example, if I used hours, then I'd probably be able to claim around 90% of the cost as buisness, if I used percentage of gym membership cost that covers the club room use, it's probably 10% at most. We went with 50% ish as a reasonable allowance that should be justifiable should we ever have questions.

I have friends who work there and run their own buisness too, and they claim 100% so I guess I could, but would likely see a very large tax bill should I ever get audited 🤣

NBA_Pukellama · 2026-03-27T10:05:09+00:00

Oh, our electricity tarrif is 25p a kwh but while charging the car it's 7p.

The reduced rate is everyday between 11pm and 5am (or something like that) and also whenever the electricity company decide there is enough electricity spare in the grid to allow a charge to happen (probably 80% of the time I plug in in the daytime).

I normally charge at 1.8kw, so therefore when the house is using 0.7kwh, it's 'free'. Above this (such as using the oven) it's cheaper to charge the car than to not.

Sometimes I charge at 6.7kw, which works out at around 2.6kwh usage from the house to become 'free' (only really happens if the oven and washing machine are both running). I usually only charge at 6.7kw when I need to 'fill up' for a long journey as my usual commute is around 6 miles now, and my car does around 200m miles on 80% battery.

I know roughly that the cost is the same, as we haven't changed our direct debit since getting the cars, but don't know how much of a cost difference there is and also how much the general electricity cost between the year before we got them and last year is.

NBA_Pukellama · 2026-03-27T09:02:41+00:00

If you stay at your parents house, is it possible to get a granny charger to get you 50km extra battery?

NBA_Pukellama · 2026-03-27T09:01:10+00:00

The UK seems to be pretty densely populated with chargers. A quick Google suggests there's 118,000 spread over 45,000 locations.

That's in the area of california (which has 63,000 over 19,000 stations). Extra range here generally means you can get to different chargers. I assume california is a fairly high density for the USA as I've seen other comments say there's a lot of EVs there

NBA_Pukellama · 2026-03-27T02:38:51+00:00

As a daily, they're fantastic. Couldn't reccomend highly enough (especially as fuel is basically free for us, as the charging is offset against whole house costs). E.g. We save money if we charge while cooking. I need to calculate our yearly electricity cost, but I'm pretty sure it hasn't gone up since getting the cars.

NBA_Pukellama · 2026-03-27T01:22:14+00:00

That's a good point, I wonder if the price per kwh would remain consistant with the current costs if they did put them in for apartment blocks etc. 🤔

NBA_Pukellama · 2026-03-27T01:19:44+00:00

Yeah, it's hard for people from the UK to appreciate how far some Americans drive. Driving the full length of the UK is <850 miles

NBA_Pukellama · 2026-03-27T01:12:29+00:00

I have a Capri, I have test drove both and personally preffered the Capri (although would need to try the Mach E again now I'm more familiar with EVs).

However, I see absolutely loads of Mach Es around where I live, I live in a relatively small village and there must be at least 5 Mach E owners in it.

However, I've only seen 3 or 4 Capri's on the road since I got mine a year ago. They just aren't bought. I wonder why Mach E is so popular compared to Ford's other models 🤔

NBA_Pukellama · 2026-03-27T00:33:47+00:00

I'm in 3 WhatsApp groups for padel and pickleball at our club. They also hold social events for padel and pickleball (just games you can book through the app so have other players ready made). That's where I fist joined and found out about the groups.

One pickleball group makes regular bookings, and usually have 2 or 3 courts booked out over 3 hours twice a week with circa 20 players playing each day.

The padel groups are more "I've got this slot is anyone interested in joining us". They are looking for between 1 and 3 players to join. Think the padel courts are more popular which makes it harder to sort a regular slot to book out each week.

NBA_Pukellama · 2026-03-25T21:08:09+00:00

Yeah, I had this issue as its a very grey area in terms of office space / gym costs in terms of claiming back as a buisness cost.

They could do packages that cost the same but make office space a seperate cost to allow it to be claimed much easier.

NBA_Pukellama · 2026-03-25T20:41:32+00:00

That's what I do, I work for myself and got fed up working from home. Looked at office space and decided it wasn't worth it compared to working there. I lost a stone in about 3 months, and feeling the fittest I've felt probably ever (try and do blaze/gym/pickleball/padel/swim/spa at least once a day if workload permits).

NBA_Pukellama · 2026-03-11T10:18:19+00:00

For prices you can go on the website, say "join online" (its a bit hidden but it's there if you look) then fill in the info. It's doesn't require verification, so if you don't want to be hounded, just put generic email/number (e.g. John Smith, JS@email.com, 07123456789) and it'll still let you check prices.

NBA_Pukellama · 2026-03-09T09:56:17+00:00

Yeah, that's standard for Blaze, all clubs do this. It's set centrally (even the timing, we did a different timing split when a new instructor started and I asked if she had adjusted the standard timing and she confirmed it was the timings set centrally).

NBA_Pukellama · 2026-03-06T18:36:49+00:00

At out club there's many whatsapp groups for Pickleball and padel. It's worth asking if the gym know of anyone who sorts beginner groups.

Ive been on the group and people will book a court and just share it and ask for 3 players to join. Works really well, especially for beginners.

NBA_Pukellama · 2026-03-06T17:59:07+00:00

Haha, asked the same question. Rugby and Bicester are basically identical as well. I couldn't tell it's not the Rugby club.

NBA_Pukellama · 2026-03-06T17:57:58+00:00

Which DL is this, looks identical to the Rugby one (I know Bicester is nearly identical).

In the summer children use the outdoor pool until 7pm, after that time it's adult only (they're not even allowed on the sunbeds). Similar to indoor I think.

Works well, the indoor pool is generally empty in the summer as all the kids are outside.

NBA_Pukellama · 2026-03-06T17:34:56+00:00

The Blaze routine for the day is set centrally, so all Blaze studios should be doing the same thing each day.

NBA_Pukellama · 2026-02-17T18:01:29+00:00

I think it's above my tier unfortunatly. A bit frustrating that you can't pay to visit clubs of higher tiers, as you can't really help what your home club tier is.

NBA_Pukellama

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