Loose Ends, Tidied

1. Being door bitch lasted all of four days before head office reversed its decision on having a door bitch.

2. Boss lady has given me more supervisor shifts, which I suspected would happen.

3. Running the shop now and then changes the "free food" game for the better. Last night the charities didn't want our donation, so I went home with scotch eggs, falafel and brie. I even looked at a tray of chicken and two trays of pork and realised I didn't have freezer room for them, so left them for my colleagues. #firstworldproblems

4. Annoying Face decided to teach me how to put stock on the shelf and then how to push a trolley. She thinks I'm that incompetent. She tried making conversation, in between blabbering about all her amazing work, but not really the ideal buddy-making chatter, especially once she had gone home and I saw the complete shit-show she had actually left me.

5. I work with some really great checkout staff. I'm thankful all over again (and again) for how they all help me, know what they're doing and just get on with their jobs. We're a good team.

I Have A Date!

Not that kind of date. I have a date for exchange and completion on my flat 😊😊😊 So in one week's time, all going well, I shall be a homeowner again! Finally. Thank dog. In my paranoia I've done a money transfer from my credit card - not excruciatingly expensive, thankfully - but I just want a buffer to ensure I have a bit extra so that I don't hold up the sale if I've forgotten any fees needing paid. Solicitor is supposed to email me a cost breakdown in the next couple of days. Once I get the keys I will start hunting for a painter and a carpet fitter. I know that if I don't do them now, I'll never get around to it (and let's be real, with 3m ceilings the painting would take me months and probably never get finished).

Work has had more interesting turns. Boss lady says that the two positions "belong" to me and Annoying Face (!!) unless there are transfer applications. I really do think that AF is going to beat me on experience. In the end I have applied for both. It won't be my own boss who interviews and decides. At the very least there's always overtime, so financially, I will be ok.

Mood: good. Life is good.

I Have Survived

My two rostered shifts of being the supervisor in charge of the store, that is. I have had a LOT of help from my colleagues, and apparently I have done well. I hesitated, but ended up applying for the role I'm not trained for. Even if I don't get it, I'm still showing I am keen. (It will probably go to Annoying Face.) So because this is my life and nothing ever turns out the way I expect, Supervisor #3 handed in her notice this week, while on holidays. I am trying not to get my hopes up because it is completely possible that boss lady might give the second slot to Random Transfer Person.

In the meantime, because nothing in this company ever happens quickly, I quite expect to be called in to cover the breach. So I hurry up and wait.

Perk of being the supervisor in charge: I got to take home a ton of unsold bakery stuff that normally just gets binned (we give a lot to charity, but they have limits on how much bread they need). Checkout operator kid and I shared it. She ended up with donuts and cakes, I ended up with a dozen small paper bags on my parlour table, of croissants, bread rolls and pretzels which were all snapped up by my housemates. 😊

Friday Frugal Five

So it's Friday, and after I finished work, I pondered what to put in a blog update. And I got to thinking about how (yet again) this blog is supposed to be about frugality and it could do with an occasional dose of frugality news!

So here are five frugal things I've done lately.

1. I ate from my freezer. This isn't always frugal just by itself - but the reason I have food in there definitely is. Everything in my freezer is yellow stickered, or bought in bulk, or is leftovers. While I am very fortunate to get a lot of food for free, it doesn't matter why your freezer is full, it matters that you did it to save money. So that might be from cooking a double-batch of spaghetti sauce, from freezing your broccoli stems, from stashing those 10p bags of diced carrots, or from simply not buying a takeaway tonight.

2. I delayed my laundry. I have a lot of clothes - more than I need actually - and I also have a lot of work uniforms. Plus a good supply of socks and undergarments. Waiting until my washing machine will actually be full, saves me money. I have even been known to hand wash a couple of pairs of socks so that I can wait an extra two days, but some people would call that extreme! - you do you.

3. I played what I have. No new games for me. I already have so many, and when I get tired of the one I'm playing now, I'll just look through the rest of my stash.

4. I watched online shows. I don't have a tv license and I don't have a pay tv package, and hand on heart, it's very rare that I miss either of these things. I have a kind friend who lets me use their Netflix account and I've recently watched Bridgerton, Tiny Pretty Things and a bunch of documentaries and comedy shows. Even if I didn't have access to Netflix, the cool part of our tv license laws is that you are perfectly allowed to watch catchup on a laptop, phone or tablet, for anything except the BBC. If I ever did really and truly decide I needed live tv or the BBC, I would weigh up whether it would be worth the £13.13 cost per month (and I'd probably skip it).

5. I appreciated what I have. I bought myself an orchid two years ago and since then I have scored two more orchids from work which had dropped all their flowers. I often lust over the lovely plants outside my local major supermarket, but patience paid off and I have more than I need (and there's no space for any more!). Here's a photo of my "bought" orchid which is presently in glorious full bloom (maroon and pale pink flowers), and you can also see one of the freebies behind it to the left, recovered from near death and brave enough to put out a tiny second flush of two blooms (dusky pink).

While I don't really advocate spending money on "pretty things", if you like flowers then orchids are the cheapest, no-brainer option. This massive triple stem has been in flower for months and will probably last another few months yet, and once they're all gone, then it will flower all over again four months later. The plant cost me £8 and in two years this is its third round. It's definitely frugal when it comes to looking lovely and cheering up my window 😊 even if it does partly cover my view of the sea!

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Hrm, all the things that fit the title of this post can be seen in several different ways. So I guess I can just do a general update of all the things that are good, bad and ugly.

A supervisor position has opened up at work which I'm not trained for. So I decided to have a "showdown" with the boss about the fact that we decided I should be trained up, six months ago. She claims she just let me down, I argued that if I had looked like a supervisor she'd have remembered to move me forwards. So that was an impasse but ended with us sort of on good terms. I am mostly just annoyed that this position will probably go to a colleague named Annoying Face, who in my unbiased opinion isn't the right fit for the job.

On the plus side, those colleagues went to bat for me massively and talked the boss into giving me some experience. She rostered me on to actually do the role for two shifts, but so many procedures are in people's heads and not written ANYWHERE (multiple routine things, like the code for deactivating the burglar alarm, how to record absences in the log book, where they even keep the log book, and how the hell you lock that sticky office door, etc etc etc). Two of those colleagues are coming in ON THEIR DAYS OFF during those shifts just to make sure I don't sink spectacularly. I cannot get over how incredibly kind they are and I don't quite know how to thank them.

G, B & U 2: Solicitor is still slower than a wet week, full of excuses and broadly lacking in competence. Has now gone on annual leave three times in as many months and the senior partner snapped at me that properties are averaging 20 weeks due to "Covid" when I asked what's going on. We are now at week 12 and they've only just noticed that the building owner hasn't granted written permission to sell. On the plus side, most questions and papers have been sorted and I have paid the deposit with a view to bloody well getting to exchange.

G, B & U 3: Back to being door bitch again essentially fulltime - they've put me in place and will scramble to cover my own regular checkout shifts somehow. This time it's to enforce masks or ask them to display an exemption. I do mostly quite enjoy this role, believe it or not. People are mostly kind and appreciative and know it's not an easy job to do. But hey, some people arrive spoiling for a fight don't they...

G, B & U 4: I have more energy. I'm feeling better in general, less shaky less often, and not exhausted after three hours of standing still. I'm better able to adult - mostly. But the pain is still pretty bad when it does hit, and I don't seem to be healing very well. Having been thrown back into fulltime work as of today, it's just struck me tonight that I am not sure I'll be able to organise myself to be able to deal with that every day. I am still a slave to the loo without warning, and I'm anxious about possibly needing to run off at work for half an hour :( 

G, B & U 5: Procedure has changed and all surplus food now gets offered to charity every evening. It's only if nobody collects it that staff can have it, or if we find something accidentally missed from the previous day. This really and truly sucks for us since it's going to cost me about £50 more a month to shop now. Sigh. They missed an expired pack of fishcakes yesterday. I would normally not bother with fish, but I decided beggars can't be choosers. It was absolutely lovely and I have frozen the other one for another day. There's also a chocolate bun in my fridge and some samosas, so that's something.

G, B & U 6: I managed to score a free printer from a lady kindly giving one away, so that I can deal with all the silly flat paperwork. I bought her some chocolates (£2.70) and have ordered a cable for it (£2.00).

Today's EPC Adventure

Soooo, the existing official EPC rating for this flat I'm buying is (G) which can't really get much worse and is roughly equivalent to a cardboard box sitting in the rain. 4 essentially indicates that it preserves no energy whatsoever. The other three ground-floor flats in the building are in the D & E ranges. I have always viewed this G rating with more than a little scepticism because I don't actually think it's possible for a stone-built flat with party walls, and it seems like I am correct.

After a lot of faffing about and possibly pretending to be an engineer-type person, I managed to get myself a free trial of some EPC software. Just for the record, the software is ridiculously un-user-friendly, but hey. I managed to get through it in half an hour or so, putting in the info which I knew for the flat I'm in the process of buying. Every time I didn't know the answer - for example, what the floor is made of - I put the worst assumed answer or selected "unknown", which one would think will apply the worst option.  I battled it out and produced a dummy EPC so that I could check what it should be.

Decidedly not a 4.

Even with the worst-case options selected, this flat scores a 34 (F) and has a potential for C!!!!! And by simply insulating the water heater it should reach 56 (D). That'll do me just fine. Even if it isn't too accurate and I only achieve an E, that's legal-letting-territory.

Relieved is not the word. I'm quietly annoyed that the previous assessor seems to be absolute garbage, but on the plus side perhaps that G rating is the reason for the low price and helped successfully scare potential rival bids away. Having E range will make it lettable, and thus, suitable for an investor to buy in the future. D would make it still suitable after 2025. So for the princely sum of about £150 on a heater jacket and a new EPC assessment, it might gain the flat some £10,000 in value.

That'll do, pig.

Don't tell the seller, ok?

Oh Pugsley

So today at 11am, at a balmy 4 degrees, Pugsley's battery decided it didn't want to play. I kind of deserved this. The car hasn't done many miles of late, and when it was going out, it was for 15-minute journeys with the lights on. I noticed that it was sluggish to turn over for the last three times I've driven it, but did I do anything about that? No, dear reader I did not. Fast forward to today and there just wasn't enough juice to start up.

So predictably I cursed, wondered how late I would be, and yet in a minor miracle, I managed to get the car turned around at the top of my very congested driveway without any engine power. It's a lovely little reminder of just how important power steering and especially, power brakes are, because you need to virtually stand on them just to stop a gentle roll, let alone stop a car actually travelling... but I digress. Got the car turned around, managed to clutch start it by rolling down the driveaway, and crept to work with my lights out and with many a murmured prayer to the dog of car batteries. To my surprise it started just fine when I left work. I am of a new resolution to stop driving the car cold and to always park it nose-down on a hill from here... and if it misbehaves again to replace the dang battery!

Freebies: Hoisin duck wrap for my dinner. Yellow stickers: Cranberry & Wensleydale cheese 56p (three of these!) and two mini trifles for 45p.

I Survived

My first day back, that is. Before all this shenanigans I used to do regular 10-hour days. So how did it go? I was absolutely shattered with exhaustion after three hours of standing still behind a till.

If there is one thing I will never take for granted again it's my physical fitness. I had let it get rather poor indeed and three weeks of inactivity have turned me into a barely-walking potato. My weight is down (slightly) but I'm weak as a kitten. I also feel the cold a lot lately, the little blow heater is getting a workout (with the associated electric meter ticking over at haste).

It seems apt that my New Years' Resolutions were already about getting more active and getting outdoors more.

I had a delicious houmous wrap for dinner and I have definite designs on the ice cream in my freezer :)

Spendy McSpenderson: I ordered a pair of £6 wetsuit boots so that once it warms up from "icy" to just "cold", I might dare to get my feet wet at the beach, even if I don't dare swim.

Yellow stickers: houmous 29p, jaffa cakes 40p, madeira cake 49p. Freebies: popcorn, eggs, fruit pot.

Happy New Year! and December Extras

What a year it's been. I think the less said about it, the better. Roll on 2021.

And now for the extras I made in December. First, from surveys:

Testable Minds £0.75

PA £11.95

From my bank, £5.00 bonus for making 30 transactions for the month (ridiculous! but hey)

Receipts Programmes:

Storewards £2.00

Swagbucks £3.00 (Amazon)

Shopprize £5.00 (Amazon)

SnapMyEats £10.00 (Amazon)

So, almost forty pounds for the month. Of course, I'm the first to admit I made a much lower effort that I could have. Somebody a bit more dedicated could have earned triple this, even around working a fulltime job.

Back to work tomorrow for me. I'm a little bit nervous.