The Quest for "Cost Confidence"

I must admit that I struggled for a title today, and I'm not sure I got where I wanted to be. I want a phrase that sums up how it feels when you don't need to worry about paying your bills next month. Oh well, you get the feel I'm after.

So as part of that quest, I spent an entire day cleaning yesterday on a huge site - 13 hours on my feet and most of it repeatedly bending over. My everything aches, which is less than ideal considering I have three jobs to do today. At least I am not alone, I think the other nine of us will all be walking like old ladies today! I must admit that I got myself ready to pay for the bus to my two afternoon jobs. Then when I looked at the timetables, it wouldn't have saved me more than five minutes of walking anyway. Sort of amusing in a way, like the universe intervening to stop me from spending money.

On Sunday I stopped at a charity shop to look for a few bits for next week. I managed to get a nice pair of shoes and two tops for work for £11. Of course I looked at the shoes this morning and realised: there is no way I want to put any kind of shoes on today at all! :D

Anyhoo. The bills for next month will be paid. So now it's about stashing cash. Can't let the momentum slip.

What's Worth My Time?

I was thinking some more about the decadent throwing of money into the bin (or in other words, how much it costs if you buy all your workday sustenance from the shop on the day, instead of bringing your lunch and coffees from home) and it occurred to me that actually, people are not stupid. People know these behaviours are inefficient and are costing them money. What it comes down to is this: people are concluding that the cost is worth it. Or more accurately, the saving is too small to bother taking the time.

We mostly measure our worth in this world via cash. When someone asks what an item costs, the answer comes in the form of currency. We have become so focussed on the bling that we've completely lost track of a really basic concept.

We only live once. There is only one shot at this "time on earth" thing. And because most of us are sheep who automatically wander through life like brain-dead zombies, we tend to make a lot of money decisions based on them being "what everyone else does".

Oh-ho-ho. You might now be indignant, dangit, because you're an individual who thinks outside the box. Well, bally for you. Here's a warm round of applause. (Don't worry, it's free.)

So yeah as I was saying... We only live once. But our decisions are influenced by those around us and the way everyone else lives. Everyone else does it. It doesn't occur to most adults to do it any differently.

Buy takeaway for dinner. Grab a coffee. Join a gym. Switch on the air con. Buy a new outfit. College debts. Update the phone. Amusement park visit. Pay the guy who mows the lawn. Steak for dinner. Visit the cinema. New garage for the car. Take the kids somewhere special. Get a second car. Fizzy drinks. Hire a cleaner. Get a manicure. Trip to Spain. After-work drinks. Lunch on the go. Bigger house. Car wash visit. Hair appointment. Babysitter. Pay tv package for the football. Expensive Christmas gifts. Weekend away. Game console. Vending machine snacks. Redecorating the living room. Brand name shoes. Ready meals. Perfume.

The angry crowd will pipe up again here and claim they can't afford half those things (and that's fine) but almost nobody avoids all of these things. Or even most of them. These things are all normal. Working long hours and then spending all your pay on living - it's normal. And most people will have excuses for some of them and say they were "needs" and couldn't be avoided. Sometimes that's true.

What if I said to you: You only have a year to live. What if that were true? What would you change, what would suddenly matter to you most? The answer is, time. Time would suddenly be the thing most precious to you. You would want more time to do the things you love, see the people you love. You would definitely not want to spend more time working, unless you could then afford to quit after six months.

Even for people who don't have just a year to live, they will generally tell you that it's not worth their time to save the money. That's why they buy a takeaway lunch, reasoning that it's not worth ten minutes in the morning to save the cash. But they're only thinking about this week. How about if it's framed in a different way?

If you started taking your lunch, a snack, a drink and two cups of coffee from home, from the age of 20, and you did this every day until retirement, that's £117,000. That's SEVEN YEARS OF WORKING AT MINIMUM WAGE, or about 9 years when you factor investment in. So if you currently already work at minimum wage or not much above it, imagine being able to do whatever you like every day at 56 while you're young and energetic, while all your friends are stuck at work until 65. Is ten minutes worth it to gain nine years?

It's not too late to make a difference. Even if you're much older than 20, it will still mean extra time on your hands later. So now: is it worth ten minutes to make a sandwich, throw an apple into your bag, fill a water bottle and top your flask up with coffee from home?

Musings

So last week I started a second work contract in a small surgery, 1.5h each evening that I can do at whatever time suits me. My afternoon pathology lab contract on the other hand is at fixed times, so isn't compatible with a full-time job. My supervisor has been lovely about my job searching, he understands that I'll have to drop that one when the time comes.

This week he and I have been juggling keys nearly every day just to get all the "called in sick" work done around fixed-time jobs. Any jobs he can't fill, he has to do himself, and (as I'm learning) part-time workers seem to call in sick or quit due to illness A LOT. The work is solo, unsupervised, often with very expensive equipment or very sensitive information, and often with strict requirements such as infection control measures, special chemicals involved, or just fussy clients who want certain things done or left untouched. All the extra work is pocket money and it is nice to be trusted.

Even better, I have been offered a three-month full-time employment contract within a large company, starting next week as a recruitment support assistant (woohoo!). I'm pretty stoked about this, as my hope is to get some more experience in recruitment. I applied for this one even though I knew it was a temporary contract, with the hope that something permanent would come up towards the end of the three months, in the same company.

Unexpectedly, I got an invitation to interview for the role above it, which is permanent (!). Much faster than I even dreamed, and I am not sure whether I have the skills they're after just yet - but I am grateful and hopeful just the same.

On the negative side, I will have to dress for the role that I want (chuckle). My current wardrobe might not be up for that, so I will have to check out the lay of the land on my first day and decide whether I need to spend my lunch hour charity shopping for nicer clothes.

Random freebies: two windfall apples (Granny Smith), a container of blackberries, a container of what look like pale raspberries but taste different and grow on vines near the ground... cannot figure out what they are, but they're edible. And one zucchini, from a bowl which said "help yourself" at one of the jobs I did this week. A wine glass, a coffee mug, a milkshake glass and two almost-new microfibre cleaning cloths (sitting on top of a bin outside) - I collected them thinking to return the cups, but it was nowhere near any kind of cafe or bar, so they just ended up at my place. Very random I know!

Get Paid to Try Graze - Free Food is the BEST (UK only)

Believe it or not, this isn't a sponsored post. But those who know me even at all know that two of my favourite things are freebies and food, and when they come together that's a double win, and when you get paid to eat free food? That's some kind of nirvana. Hurry up and take my money pay me a bonus, thankyouverymuch.

So anyway, I figured I would also review the product, because I'm actually quite impressed by what I received. First of all here's the "how-to" of getting your hands on Graze for free and actually getting paid for it.

To get Graze for free is very simple, you simply need to go to their website and sign up, and they send you the goodies. But wait. Don't do that yet. If you want the "get paid" part, you need to make a pitstop through TopCashBack. Clear all your cookies, visit the site, log in, and then search for Graze. Their usual offer is pretty great (two boxes of snacks for 99p) but until 29th July 2018, they have a £2.00 cashback offer if you try Graze for free.

Click through, sign up for the Graze subscription, and TopCashBack will credit your account with £2.00. Here's a screenshot showing that I've received the £2.00 for signing up.

For some reason it shows that I've allegedly spent £1 at the Graze site. I didn't, it was free as promised.

So on the Graze site, you can either choose which snacks to try (tough to choose, as there are more than 100!) or you just choose the kinds of foods you love and hate, and Graze then makes a selection for you and sends you out your snacks. AND NEVER FEAR! You are not locked into the subscription. You are free to cancel it at any time. You can even cancel straight after your first free delivery, if that's what you wish to do.

Mine arrived about four days later.

Shiny, shiny box.

I wasn't sure what kind of goodies they might choose for me, I just knew that I'd said "no raisins". Honestly, I don't hate raisins, but who wants to sit there and munch on those with all the other good snack foods in this world? But yes, where was I? Let's have a look what came inside the box.

Looks Amazing.

And here's a bit more detail on the actual snacks I received.

Beetroot Crunch, Apple & Cinnamon Flapjack, Toffee Apple, Cracking Black Pepper Nuts

Interesting selection I must say. You did good, Graze. I really wasn't sure about the Beetroot Crunch to be honest, so I decided to eat that one first. You know that thing you did when you were a kid of eating your least-favourite part of your dinner first? That was my thinking here.

But oh my dog. I am converted. That one was beetroot crisps (sounds weird but they're really nice and not overly sweet!) with sunflower seeds and jalapeno chick peas. Not too spicy actually and absolutely delicious. I am now in the position of seriously considering keeping this subscription because the snacks are so yummy...

So yes there you have it. You now know how to get food for free and also get paid for it. Move your tail though as this offer finishes in two days.



* I get some sort of bonus if you join TopCashBack through my link, but as promised, this is not a sponsored post and I have no affiliation to Graze nor did they pay me for my opinion.

Can I Afford That?

I reckon these days a lot of people see that question in a different way to me.

I look at my Facebook feed and what I see is holidays... and makeup, and expensive shoes, and drinks, and new cars, and fashion selfies, and new salon hair colours, and new phones, and electronic gadgets, and and and and. This is pertinent because the vast, vast majority of my Facebook contacts are former work colleagues, meaning I know what their salaries are and I know they're not well-off.

I think most people view that question simply in terms of whether there's enough cash in their bank account to buy that item and still cover their household bills for the month.

I don't reckon most people put any value on repaying debts. I don't think people see any point getting ahead on their mortgage. Why bother buying anything second-hand and saving the extra money, if the money is there? The student debt isn't due to be repaid yet so it can wait.

At some point in history, this cost less than your current salary.

We as a society have lost the art of sacrifice. When an older person points that out to the younger generation it's met with scorn; because after all, it's THEIR fault we can't afford to get on the housing ladder, they're sitting in the four-bedroom house that only cost a years' salary back in 1972 which is now worth over the seven-figure mark, and an average punter will now be in their 40s before they even save a deposit on a damp basement flat in a dark alley, etc etc etc.

How is this angst productive? At all? Do we really think that Mrs Peabody will suddenly become apologetic and donate her mansion to the nearest struggling millennial who has already given up prosecco, avocado toast and all hope? No. It's not going to happen. Blaming any other generation, even if you think they deserve it, is like pissing into the wind. As one particular songster said, start with the man in the mirror.

We live in the here and now, and we are conditioned into dealing with the here and now and the people around us who are all doing the same. That's why we have so much credit. That's why it's normal to buy now and pay later. To finance a car. But imagine we approached every purchase not with "Do I have the money right now?" but actually by asking whether we can afford it.

You can head off such mental discussions with a few simple words. Chief of those, in my mind, is: "People with debts don't do/buy _____." If you tell yourself that every time you're tempted into buying a takeaway, you then start thinking of alternatives that you CAN buy, things that are ok. For example, it's ok to buy a supermarket pizza, chips and ice cream, for a weekend treat, instead of going out to a restaurant.

If you're normal, these temptations probably hit you for very small things, like grabbing a coffee when you're out, or visiting a vending machine for a coke. But small things add up to huge amounts. Personally, because my belt buckle needs to be exceedingly tight right now, my own personal mantra is even more strict. Broke people don't buy coffee. Broke people don't buy takeaways.

It eliminates internal arguments. I have accepted that I'm currently broke, so I don't get upset or feel deprived when I remind myself of this. Instead, I immediately switch to what I CAN have. There's a sandwich in my bag (and an apple, and some custard creams). There is my flask of coffee and there's a bottle of water. Truth be told, desperations are usually fleeting and gone in a few minutes.

Try it for a week. Start using it to say no to yourself. See how you go. Tell me how it went, in the comments. What did you resist by changing your mindset on that word "afford"?

The New Era of Entitlement

While doing my customary morning perusal of the news, I stumbled on a belter of a declaration.

Below the lovely headline proclaiming that staff are taking food out of bins due to low pay, The Guardian decided to introduce a piece with this paragraph:

"Cleaning staff at Wimbledon claim they were forced to take food from bins because they were given insufficient money... to buy lunch and dinner while working."

Now an important caveat here: Yes, an hourly pay rate of £8 is too low in an area as disgustingly expensive as London. I have no qualms about agreeing there. Every employer should pay a proper wage or hang their heads in shame.

But, buy lunch? BUY? That paragraph I quoted makes it look like buying your lunch at work is normal, nae, expected, and something a worker is entitled to. That if you cannot buy your lunch during work then you are automatically deprived.

I'm sorry... but as a card-carrying member of that very same club right now (working as a cleaner, on a zero hours contract, below the living wage foundation pay rate) there is NO SUCH THING as an entitlement to a bought lunch every day. I don't care how long your shift is - bring two sandwiches from home if you have to. A lemon curd sandwich costs 4p. A jam sandwich costs 5p. An apple costs 15p. A banana about the same. Heck, go all-out and bring a few custard creams, some carrots, a few sticks of celery, a bottle of juice squash, a flask of lovely hot coffee with milk and sugar, a slice of home made cake. Guess what, you can still bring all of that for less than a pound. Maybe you're a snob and like something warm, like pot noodles. Well throw that in your other flask, they're 21p per pack at my local supermarket (without the "pot") and we can be generous and pretend that a cup of boiled water from your kettle at home costs another 1p. If you spend another few minutes, you can add a handful of frozen veggies or an egg.

Or bring your dinner leftovers. They're even nice when they're cold. Add another pinch of spices for some kick.

Nobody is saying that a cleaner's wages aren't too low. They are - and in a place full of a lot of cleaners, like Wimbledon, you can bet they all work much harder than I do. And yes, people are resorting to food banks in numbers higher than ever before. But that's a whole separate debate.

Why are kids at school not taught such basic things as how to live on a budget? I mean, even the kids who are destined for medicine will have to live as students for a while... surely a lot of them could benefit from knowing how to eat well on a budget. It's a message being missed - I live right near a large university and my local convenience store is ALWAYS full of students shopping for their essentials at double the price they need to pay, and loading up on lunchtime "meal deals" for at least fifteen times what a lunch needs to cost.

An attitude where people expect that it's normal to do things the expensive way, that's just setting us up for financial problems.

Ho Hum

Another week, another two job interviews. At least this time I feel like one of them went well. It's only part-time, but I applied anyway as I knew I could continue my cleaning job.

Or, I thought I could. That boss told me tonight that her plans to change it to early in the morning would not happen after all. Meaning that as soon as I get any other job, someone else will have to take over the cleaning, as I just won't be able to attend in mid afternoon every day. Boo. So if this new job is offered to me, I say... what? I'd have more income, but still not enough to live on, and it's a fixed-term contract, meaning I couldn't dump it if I found full-time work. Being locked into under-employment is almost as bad as being on a zero-hours contract.

On the plus side, I have another two interviews next week and two more companies say I've "progressed" in the hiring process. I did my extra few hours this week cleaning, too.

Yellow sticker bargains from Tesco

Bargained: a few yellow stickers at the supermarket.

Rescued: one borderline overripe banana in a waste paper basket with nothing else but papers. Currently awaiting encakenation.

Observation: just how many office people spend a fortune on food not prepared at home. A typical bin (emptied daily) in this "corporate anonymous office" contains two takeaway coffee cups, an empty soft drink bottle, a sandwich wrapper, and some kind of single-serve packaged snack like chocolate or crisps. Some of the desks have packaging from hot lunches, large soft drink cups, porridge-in-a-cup, smoothie bottle, empty bags that contained sliced apples or carrot sticks... and they repeat the buy every day. I empty about 30 bins at this new temporary cleaning job, and I estimate 20 of them are spending a tenner or more, every day, on food-on-the-go. Half of me wishes I had £200 a month to waste on the luxury of living on takeaways. The other half of me thinks how I could bring food and coffee from home and pocket an extra £180. Or bring food from home and work 23 fewer hours per week...

Simple Cake For Mini Oven - the easiest cake in the world

I make this recipe most weeks, changing the version each time to a different flavour. It is so incredibly easy, just four ingredients and five minutes to prepare. This is a staple foolproof cake you can knock up at short notice. It is simply a "pound cake", so for the traditional version you would add lemon zest, but this version you can flavour in many different ways. It is not light and fluffy, although you can make it a little air-ier if you take the time to beat the mixture before adding the flour. I personally don't bother, and it's fine for my tastes.

My loaf tin fits a double batch - the picture below is a double batch in a mini loaf tin from Wilko.

Prep time: 5 minutes. If you're making this in a full-size oven, preheat to 180°C and reduce your cooking time.

Ingredients:

Chocolate Pound Cake with White Chocolate Filling

65g butter or margarine
65g caster sugar or white sugar
1 egg
75g self-raising flour
chosen flavour (optional)

Mix the butter and caster sugar together well. Stir in the eggs then any extra flavourings if you wish. Lastly add the flour and combine. If you have used a beater, fold the flour in very gently with a spoon.

Grease and flour a mini loaf tin, add the mixture and tap to level the mix.

Bake at 180°C for about 30 minutes - the cake is ready when a skewer comes out mostly clean (check in several places as some flavour additions can make it tricky to tell).

Lemon Drizzle: 20g caster sugar, 2 tsp lemon juice. Stab the hot cake in a few places with a skewer or knife then pour the drizzle over. Leave in the tin to cool.

Chocolate: 3 tsp cocoa powder - then remove the same amount of flour from the 75g. (I also like to push a small white chocolate bar into the centre of the cake tin right before cooking - it melts and becomes almost like a cream centre.)

Banana: Add a mashed overripe banana (and some walnuts, and cinnamon if you wish). This makes a very heavy and very moist cake, and is baked even if the knife or skewer comes out looking damp - but it should not have raw cake mix on it. If your banana is still firm and yellow, you might want to reduce the sugar by half.

Serves 4. Cost: 30p plus your flavouring (Sainsbury's/Tesco 2018)

Snap and Save

I think I've mentioned it before, but I'm a member of TopCashBack.* Even as someone who doesn't spend much, I have earned £45 there just by myself since joining. (Not bad, I think, considering it's all stuff I had planned to buy anyway... free money, right?)

So this week I finally got myself together and paid attention to their Snap and Save. The concept is simple, you buy the products on the list and they give you cashback for them. Of course this sounds like it's designed to make you buy certain items (that's a gimme) so I decided to only buy if it was something I'd buy anyway.

This week it had coleslaw, spaghetti, peas and rice. 10p back for each one if you buy the right brand - which this week was the store brand (ka-ching, free money, yes please). On the tin of spaghetti, that makes it half price. I think I need to pay more attention to this list each week!

Unrelated: yellow-stickered large loaf of brand name bread, 18p.

Annoying: Apples are expensive at the moment (well duh, they're out of season).

Expense: £17.20 in transport to attend an interview for a receptionist role.

Bonus: extra evening cleaning job of another 7.5 hours per week.



*Affiliate link, I get some sort of small bonus if you join using my link