Possible Impending Uncrossing Of Fingers

I hardly ever qualify for anything extra in support, so you can imagine my surprise to be told I'll get the cost of living payment of £299. Wahoo. I'll not believe it until it actually lands, of course!

Itching to withdraw my Help To Save, which I think was finished on the 31st, but I don't dare in case it really finishes next week when my bonus drops.

Little X has been out of sorts today. I'm beginning to realise I can't do three errands in one day. The last two days have been like that and today she's been so unsettled. Tomorrow there's a free clothing event I really want to see, so here's hoping for a better day!

I did manage to get to Food Club yesterday, where of course she cried while I just tried to hurry. They kindly helped me carry her to the car though. ♥ Scored myself free carrots, custard and the obligatory bread and pastries. 🥐 

Konniption Fit

So today I got notification of what my Universal Credit will be. I lose half of it thanks to my maternity pay and UC debt repayments. 😒 I've sent a grovelling note asking if the repayment part (£92) can be reduced... Watch this space.

Anyhoo, my new budgetary quackalations began, and I almost had a heart attack - thankfully I realised an enormous calculation error and was then able to breathe. By February, on an ordinary month I'll be only £100 shy of covering necessary bills. Very survivable via surveys. And if my fuel/food/extras stay under 170 per month from there, the bill costs will begin to reduce. Challenge accepted. 

MOT booked and the dealer is going to kindly collect and return the car for me 👍

Not a Visionary

Having spent two weeks focussing on a phone screen in semi-darkness, my sight really is pretty bad. Long story short I've shelled out £30 for a test and ordered varifocals plus a standard reading pair - just under £60 for the two including postage, which is an absolute bargain. Once again I used Zenni Optical (I'm not paid to recommend them, either, I just think they're great). You need a bit of patience, and you need to check very carefully that you enter your prescription correctly, but even if I've gotten it wrong and need to reorder, I'm still miles in front of the usual store prices. So now, the nervous wait, since I've never ordered nor worn varifocals before...

Money Out (in a big way): Crowded House ticket for June at The Eden Project (£65). No, I can't afford this. No, I couldn't resist. It's probably the one band I would choose to see if given all the choices in the world.

Out: £11 for Little X's birth certificate. (Just one of the many things I need to run around setting up, ie, I had to take her birth records to the council registrar's office to prove she exists. This is where I really miss Finland, where everything is automatically connected in the system... I really wanted to ask the UC website, then the registry office, and then the Job Centre, and then the Child Benefit website, why they can't just ask the hospital to confirm that she exists.) Related: about £10 in bus fares running about doing these things. I still have several weeks of not being allowed to drive after my surgery.

In: Council payment of £250 and Universal Credit advance of £360. There will shortly be a further UC advance, for kidlet, of £260.

Also in: payments for four survey programmes, plus two game programmes (about £30 altogether).

Visionary's Observation: I have spent basically zero time on my pc in the two weeks since Little X was born, essentially living my life in my new tiny sofa, and accordingly, using my phone. It's freaky how fast we adapt, since I've been able to do 95% of everything I needed on there, including dealing with my bank accounts etc. I still much prefer a desktop when it comes to most things, but it's surprising how phones can manage so much these days.

Best Things

Trigger warning: emojis.

A pregnant woman's
perfect accessory.

What's the best thing to do while you wait for a baby to arrive? Sanding, scrubbing and painting. Just kidding, I don't recommend it, but the wall is now primed and this is an enormous improvement from its awful patchwork mess. It's creamy white with pink streaks showing through now.

I also took advantage of work's special staff discount day, and didn't really buy much at all, about £30 worth. It doesn't make sense to stock up on things that will take more than 3-4 months to use, when that money would be more effective tackling the interest on my debts. But I did get to spend a bit of time with Good Boss and even Mogwai, who is a whole different kiddo, well-respected and actually Getting Shit Done™. It's heartening to see.

Mine looks like this one, but
patterned, and think smaller.
Also: think uglier.

I wasn't able to find a decent single armchair for sitting with kidlet, but I did find a tiny two-seater sofa which isn't much bigger. Obviously I paid over the odds for it 😒 but delivery was a flat fee for three items, so I also bought a storage wardrobe, for storing lots of crap. They are happily in place and I'm very pleased (although I have sacrificed space in general, to hide more clutter).

Still waiting for direct debit payments to come out, so that I know they are working in my burner account before I switch. Speaking of payments, yesterday my Universal Credit advance arrived, £360 😲 much to my shock. I have put it to work, some on bills, and the rest plonked onto my poison-ivy credit card. I felt really accomplished. 😊 

Then UC made a new appointment at a different town, one full of hills and empty of all parking, for right when baby arrives, at the time that I'm busy with, you know, being a post-natal mess and not sleeping. I told the work coach that walking miles with a (probably) two-day-old newborn is a problem. He's now made it three days later. I'm clearly dealing with an idiot. Oh how I have missed the joy of dealing with the benefits shit-show. 😂

Long, Long Ago

...I used to buy supermarket gift cards online at a discount. That website is long gone now, but this week, MoneySavingExpert told me to check my employer's rewards programme in case I can buy certain gift vouchers online. So I did. And I can, at a 7% discount, which is not shabby at all!

Unfortunately it has limited options but I can buy a physical card for one "discounter" supermarket that's local. It breaks even on just over £20 worth for the first purchase (£1.50 yearly fee), but if I wait until my C-word bonus goes in this week and spend the lot, I'll be getting a saving and spending "free money" to do it. Plan sorted. 👍

The new direct debits are still not showing in my new account. Ho hum. I know it takes a few days but I need them to appear so I can do my £175 switch. Patience.

Baby has been a bit of a monkey this week but I've been checked over and she seems fine. Just a waiting game now. £25 forked out for a weekly parking permit at the hospital, since I have to be there at least three times this week for more scans and monitoring. Stupid Universal Credit invited me to an in-person interview which lands right on top of an appointment, too. I've told them, but we will see whether they try to argue!

Time Really Flies

...when you're, er, not doing much of anything at all?

I didn't get the role I applied for in the next store, but that's ok, the timing wasn't great anyway.

I went to Food Club again today, with the mindset that I might not get a chance to go next week. I only did a small shop. I also got a couple of bits and pieces from Fave Supermarket across the road. When I got home to unpack it, I realised I really have too much food in my house (so much of it is still in my shopping bags...). No danger of starving to death this side of C-word.

Speaking of which, I bought myself some soft cheese which I'm not allowed to eat yet. I also bought some yummy foods that I like, but which I will save until C-word. Then there's the tree... which I have wickedly already put up. In my defence, I might not have time to do it if I wait. Must figure out what to get baby for C-word. I have one small very minor item, but the thing is, she won't know what's happening that day and there's nothing I expect her to really need. 💁 Maybe I'll wrap something for myself instead and "ask" her to give it to me 😁

Need to get myself together to do the other bank switch before I run out of time. Lots of weird feelings going on so I do not know if something is happening or whether it's just me being old and close to term 😁

I applied for Universal Credit as yesterday was my last maternity payment. The questions are useless... I had to send a long written journal entry on my real situation. Then I applied for a £300 advance. It was apparently approved, to be paid mid-December. I closed it in annoyance and did a "benefits calculator" on another site and the end result was: no entitlement, too much income. Well that was a nice waste of time, I will "enjoy" my high income of stuff-all, until baby arrives? Or... something. More pushing money around in a circle as usual 😁

Toastie!

So for the past few weeks I've been asking a workmate if they want to come to Food Club (because, you know, if I've committed to picking her up that day then I can't get lazy and put it off). The problem is that the workmate kept putting it off due to not (yet) being skint for the month. But this week, the stars aligned and we'd both got to the point of Few Food Options in our flats, so we took a trip up today. We had even decided to stay and have lunch there because we're often invited and it always smells so lovely. She was hoping for pasta bake and I was hoping for a lasagne.

Well, we were both wrong, and sat down for a natter over less-glamorous ham and cheese toasties. Still, we got to have a good catch up and we got a toastie. Win. And not to mention a heaving amount of groceries for a fiver. Me more than her, since I grab all the free bread and veg options while she's more "selective". I got me a bag of carrots, a large courgette, and some apples.

I also went to Big Supermarket and spent my £10 voucher plus another £6. The whole lot should be most of what I need for a month (fresh things aside). My treat spends were a small loaf of fruit bread and a bottle of cheap cola. 😋 It is nice to see my "protein tins" shelf replenished and my freezer full.

Good Boss approved my leave for the last four weeks before maternity leave starts and says if I need to change that mat leave date, it's ok. His partner is absolutely knackered (due the same week as me) so he understands. I feel a little less breathless than last week but I'm feeling pretty "squished". Originally I planned to "save" my remaining 6 weeks of leave to have extra pay in a years' time, but it seems like it will be financially better to do it now, as in a years' time, the leave payments would cancel my Universal Credit... ho hum.

I got the payment date wrong for one of my credit cards by three days (I mixed up the Direct Debit date with the Due Date) and the money ain't there to pay it this afternoon. On the plus side I get paid tomorrow and they've said they re-attempt it three days later, so it should be ok, I'll make an extra payment tomorrow to make sure I beat that Due Date. I also got my payslip for Second Job and there will be a good pay plus a small tax refund which is very welcome. Fingers crossed, all bills will be covered for the next two weeks now. I'm still keeping the surveys windows open regardless! 😁

Work Shenanigans

I accidentally turned up early for my shift, by an hour. Because nobody realised, I don't get paid for that hour 😭 It didn't cost me anything though so life could be worse!

Another time I had two short shifts, and the supervisor asked would I rather just get paid for my break? Yes please. But that meant a 5h 15m shift, and I went home afterwards and fell asleep. Lesson learned, five hours is still a bit much to ask of myself. Slowly slowly catchy monkey, etc.

They've also had an IT meltdown at head office and I didn't get my first weeks' pay (I only got my second week's pay (!) of exactly four hours 😁 plus all that tax refund). Boss Man was incredibly apologetic and has promised it will be fixed, but since I didn't expect to get paid at all until the end of March anyway, it's not a big deal. All up, I still love this place, it is relaxed and not stressful and nobody expects more from me than I can give. 😍

AND! Universal Credit tell me I no longer have to attend job coach appointments, providing I stay over 12 hours of work per week. I am not quite there yet but she has given me a temporary exemption and I will take all the overtime shifts I can manage, just to avoid that place. Victory!

Bumper Pay Day

Or not. I checked my bank and have way more than expected, which should be cause for celebration (and it is) except that most of it is a tax refund (YAY!) which will also mean I get no Universal Credit. Again. Because of tax I have already paid and which belongs to me and which already caused me to get no Universal Credit at the time I earned the money and paid that tax. I mean... is it any wonder that people find this idiotic system excruciating and depressing?

I have picked up a work shift which clashes with the park open day so looks like I am not going. That suits me fine. They have my CV so if they actually are keen, they know where I am.

The week after next is a Pain.In.The.Arse for work, as I am scheduled for a four-hour "shelf filling" shift, and there are no till shifts available. So I took a one-hour shift immediately before my Olio collection, reasoning that hey, I was already out and might as well save the fuel. But after seeing tonight... which yet again hasn't really got anything besides bread and salad... I will give up some of my Olio slots for sure.

Good girl:I've eaten salad nearly every day for a week. I am sick of salad now.

Unimpressed, now in plain font

I looked up the bargain shop in question once I got home, just to ignore the Shank's Pony suggestion from the other day, aiming to apply directly through the website. There on the front page was a declaration that employment applications are only accepted online. This is standard in 2022 so why that lady wanted me to print my CV and apply in person, I'll never know. I searched for the store in question and there were only two roles available. One is a senior management role (not the one she implored me to apply for) and the other is a fixed-term cashier role with a firm contract end date of Christmas Eve, last year. And they don't mean this year, because they even included that it's a Friday, which was 2021. I am trying to decide whether to apply. It allegedly closes in three weeks' time, so there is time to think.

Honestly I'm irritated as all hell but have no emotional energy to argue anymore. Mostly I'm pissed at all these things costing me petrol money and time away from doing actual paid work, like the £10/hour research work I did on Prolific Academic just before writing this post.

Now I've got myself into a Mood™.

Update: The super-duper job coach, isn't. Quelle surprise. She was very nice, but essentially just paid to read me their privacy statement and tell me about all the programmes in their portal thing. I'm to be contacted by yet another job coach type person, who will discuss some kind of programme to... honestly I can't remember what magical things this person will apparently do because I've received nothing but a wall of information about programmes lately, and my head is spinning. I don't have high hopes, particularly when it was noted that I probably wasn't in need of any assistance...

She did have a cool tool to tell me about which calculates how much better off I'll be in work. I plugged in my info and it has predicted that my Universal Credit payment will be £0.26 per week. (Where's my 26p? I want my missing cash.) It also told me that if I were successful at the role the 18yo had told me about, and taking my transport costs into account, I'd be effectively earning £2 an hour.

Unimpressed.

So I went along to a second appointment for Universal Credit, and to my utter annoyance she has booked me for a third next week. These are a pointless waste of time. She has also given me "feedback" on my CV which as far as I can ascertain involved changing the font from my standard Calibri to

some kind of shitty serif font thing
and destroying all the tidy formatting

She did absolutely nothing else. Is this some kind of moronic pretence that she's doing something constructive? Should I mention here that last week we had shared a laugh over people who hand in CVs written in the childish scrawl of Comic Sans, and wrecking my font is possibly the last thing I expected this human to do to mine?

There are so many Comic Sans memes,
I didn't even have to make one.
And I needed to caption this in the actual Comic Sans font
- but Blogger has more taste than to offer it -
forcing me to hand code it in for you,
so that you can enjoy it.
You're welcome.

I noted that my online account says my only obligations at present are to check my account regularly and update it if my work situation changes. She said she was going to change it, and reinstated my old obligations despite me noting that I would prefer not to have those obligations since they are not necessary. That got me nowhere.

She then announced that a local Bargain Shop representative was in "the other office on the next street" and that perhaps I'd like to go and chat with them. I walked up the hill in the pouring rain only to be told, no, the Bargain Shop rep is in the office I just came from, so back I went. I was so out of breath I could barely speak, wet, in jeans and a jumper, and expected to sit with the supermarket rep in a sort of interview. The shop did not have an email system by which to receive my CV, nor any means to receive it electronically in any way, and the lady told me I should print it and deliver it to the shop in person. I told her that I had been previously invited to her store to interview for a management position, but I am not really sure that info will help me anyway.

Before leaving, one of the office-worker randoms standing around the room stopped me and asked me if I'd like to speak with one of the specialised trainers who was also in the office. I asked what it was for and got a shit-ton of enthusiastic gobbledigook about the fabulous hints and tips they have for how to write your CV and look for jobs. She must have seen the look on my face as I told her that I also have a phone appointment this afternoon with a specialised job coach who, I think, is going to discuss my CV with me and tell me how to look for work. At that point she said it wasn't compulsory so I thanked her and left. I got the side eye from all the other office-worker randoms - I counted seven of them in the room plus six security guards. Considering there were only about 3 clients, I can't decide if there are frequent violent outbursts in here or if it's just another way for the Job Centre to waste money alongside with making me attend weekly pointless meetings. Maybe the violent outbursts have been caused by previous clients' CVs being converted to plain text.

Anyway, all these things I'm required to do, and in return for this my payment this month was £0.00.

HAUL!

And by haul, these days, if I get a fiver's worth of useful free food in my Olio pickup, it's a haul. There were two huge bin bags' worth of stuff to collect. There are still three crates sat in my patio for anyone to help themselves to.

Honestly I was just so excited to get some fruit, salmon and vegies. I will think about that salmon while I am drinking my last can of energy drink tomorrow morning - yes I've run out of coconut milk and forgot to buy any kind of coffee-whitening product while I was at the shop.

Unsuccessful for the local supermarket job. No reason, no communication, I just logged in to the website and saw I didn't get it. I've sent an email to the store manager asking for feedback. I really hope it was either a mistake or the role didn't go ahead. I don't really want to imagine that they said no to me on purpose.

I also enjoyed a lovely visit with the job coaches at Universal Credit. To my surprise she was quite nice and didn't tell me off for resigning. She has booked a longer session for a few weeks' time, but I'm hoping not to need it.

Forgot to mention: a new cashier has started this week at Old Job. Annoying Face was beaming all over her skull at how she was training the newbie up to be a manager after one week in the job. 😂 And not only that, she is training Clown. Clown is essentially a nice kid, but exactly as his name indicates, he mucks about and does as little work as possible. No matter what you give him to do, you turn around and there's Clown, just standing doing nothing, or playing about on his phone instead of working.

At first I wondered if AF is just exhausted, and trying to train every person around her how to do all her tasks so that she can stop exhausting herself. But then I remembered this is AF, and there is no point applying logic. Boss Lady will never promote Clown and probably won't consider the newbie either, so you'd think no harm done, but unfortunately both of those kids now think they are going places 😒

I suppose it's a good life lesson for them?

Help To Save

Victory is mine! I qualified this month by earning enough but also not earning enough. I had a bit of overtime but my UC wasn't completely cancelled, so I am now the proud owner of a Help to Save account.

For those who missed the memo, it's a government-arranged dealio, you stash up to £50 per month into the account and at the end of the term the government will give you 50p for every pound you put away. Tax-free. INSANE. That's free money so you can see why I was keen.

To qualify, you must be working but be on a low income and also receiving Universal Credit. More info at this link.

I ran out of butter this morning while making my lunch for work and I vaguely wished that I'd gotten some free during the week. And the universe responded today, with not one but two tubs of butter. I feel like she was giving me a smug look and saying, "Don't say I never give you nothin'."

The weather is abysmal. Storm Dennis has been drenching us and I finished my work day soaked, tired and sore. Plus, I am once again slightly annoyed at the fact that I will get no weekend, again, due to agreeing to extra hours of overtime. I was SO DETERMINED that it would not happen again this week and then I was completely unable to say no when both bosses were in need. Sigh. Am physically exhausted right now and walking like an old woman. I was comparing notes with a couple of workmates who've been there longer than I have, and unfortunately, both of them related to the "getting frozen into that shape" phenomenon whereby sitting still for thirty minutes after a work day leaves you unable to stand up. Even after years in the job. And here was I hoping that I'd get used to it...

Free stuff: Orange juice, bread rolls, herb and garlic flatbread thing, butter (£3.10).

More Sandwiches

I suppose they're versatile, but there are only so many free sandwiches one can eat! I shared them with my son, who also didn't have much interest in yet another sandwich, but still ate it.

Had some extra shifts at work so goodbye to having an actual weekend (third time running... so I'm a little bit tired). On the plus side it's more money into the February £4 Challenge. On the minus side, between the fuel cost, the UC deduction of 67% and my current tax code, I will go home with nothing for working the extra hours. Something that I forgot all about when I said yes to another overtime shift for tomorrow.

Good thing: Spending time with my son. Today we did the tourist thing and went to Kent's Caverns. Interesting tour but I was perhaps a little bit underwhelmed! It was about £20 for the two us so not the most frugal thing in the world. Still, I give it an overall thumbs up.

Free food: Sandwiches, mushrooms, spinach and cake (£6.15)

Lunacy In Action

Cool thing: I got the second job :) Yay income!

Cool thing #2: My son is in town :) Yay son! I spent all day in the car fetching him, then he had to move into his temporary digs, so he's absolutely shattered and a bit shell-shocked by the change. Tomorrow we'll do a walk around town and an essential first shop - plus dinner at the pub.

In my travels this week I discovered a thing called Help To Save. Essentially it's a government savings account for low-income earners and it rewards you with a tidy bonus after two years. A 50% bonus, in fact. Colour me intrigued. So I go investigating... and the dealio is, you've got to be receiving Universal Credit and also earning more than £566 per month.

I'm not eligible (at least right now) because I always have either too much income to get UC or not enough income to get HtS. It never rains, it pours.

(Can I just take a moment to note what a silly system that is? They want to help low-income earners, but not the really-low-income earners. What the.)

Deflated much? Yes I am. Maybe if lightning strikes next month and I earn more than £566 AND I don't earn enough to quite cancel Universal Credit in February, maybe I can join. Once you're in, you're in. Fingers crossed.

Spent: £23.04 on stamps, £5.34 at the supermarket including two yellow sticker items. I also spent a pound on a cheap microwave soup cup after discovering the rather expensive one I've had for years developed a crack across the bottom. Ironically, I rarely heat soup in these things, but they are perfect for nuking enough frozen veg for one person's dinner :)

I'm well on track to meet my January £3 a day challenge, but it seems as if the bigger challenge will be whether I can make £2020 in 2020. It's certainly doable but I'm struggling to enthuse myself for 10-20 minute surveys. I did, however, just do five quick surveys on my phone after snapping my receipts for rewards. So that counts, right? (Incidentally, those apps look even better than I expected, so, yay.)

In: £3.00 from Opinion Outpost
£5.52  from Prolific
10p from TopCashBack

Holiday Time

I've been in two minds about what to do with myself on "the day" and I've struggled to decide. Part of me thought I should go to the community centre to have lunch with everyone else who was alone. Part thought I should watch Christmas movies at home with a decadent lunch, and part of me wanted to pretend the day doesn't even exist. It's the third Christmas I've spent alone, but I think this year it got to me because I've been a bit down over the past few months and spent far too long thinking about my lack of friends.

My last blog entry went live early in the morning before I went to work on the 22nd... so I'd thought I had a nice enough birthday. People were kind, I got cards, they simply thought of me, it did wonders for my mood. But my dog, I really do work with the loveliest people. We had another group lunch the following day and they even brought out a sensational Baileys chocolate cake complete with a firework sparkler ♥

And I had some really nice conversations with thoroughly good people. Good people really are great, you know? One thing that stood out was that people are all doing different things... some are working, some will be with family, some with friends, some at tables for 20 and some by themselves. And it's ok. There's not a rule that you have to do Christmas at all, or even in a certain way.

So I've decided for Christmas that I won't be doing the cooked hot dinner shenanigans like last year. Instead, I'm thinking cold barbecue chicken and coleslaw. It's thoroughly Australian, so why not? Besides, I brought home a plate of mixed cheese, some crackers, mini mince pies, and other bits and bobs from our lunch... and I managed to resist the cheese for more than 24 hours! I also need to be watching the live raffle draw at 5pm to see if I win the motorbike (I got a free ticket from Rev Comps).

Entering a supermarket on Christmas Eve is shopping hell, but I'm now contemplating just such madness for my barbecue chicken and my coleslaw.

Sun Rotation Complete

I survived another one... a few extra grey hairs and wrinkles! And a few lovely gifts from people. :)

I also had the "joy" of my benefits application being completely cancelled due to "not providing evidence". Nobody in either the phone centre or the job centre is actually sure which evidence I didn't provide. They eventually collected evidence that I still study, still have a home, still exist and still have a bank account. Last month I earned £2 too much to get anything and what's the bet this happens again and all the paperwork gets cancelled in mid-January again without warning...

YES it's a great system. YES it's a good use of taxpayer money to have me sit there for half an hour while they click things, apologise to me and curse at the screen in confusion. Yes. Cough.

I have been turning on the blow heater when the wind outside is howling, and I sure felt the sting of the power costs this week. My meter is coin-operated (don't get me started) and before, I was mostly just annoyed at having to find coins for it. Now I'm annoyed that my radiator turns off during the day. Oh well. I will have to rug up and be less of a sooky baby.

Six of these bad boys!

I'm trying to be more active with earning money online, but it's a trap hahaha - some sites can easily keep you busy all day and only hand over a pittance as the reward. Time to get more selective methinks and stick to the best ones!

Recieved: £4.55 from Crowdology.
Also, my recycled coffee cups arrived from rCup :)
And 8 free organic flavoured teas from Pukka.

Ooh, and I found a free way to enter a regular raffle - well free as in "send a postcard" entry. So not quite free, but definitely cheaper than buying the ticket. I have ordered a 30-pack of cheap postcards off eBay and will knuckle down and start entering this way, and try to keep my hand off the expensive tickets!

Rules Are Rules

So Universal Credit has told me (1) I have earned too much, so will get no benefits; (2) I need to prove my new address before the next payment date, and (3) as I am working, they will leave me to meet my commitments on my own. These caused both me and the work coach to laugh ironically. I mean, imagine I ignored the UC rules and they punished me by taking away some of my £0?

There's a local sporting club with a regular "documentary night" each week, and I'm trying to gather the courage to go. It's BYO fish and chips. We'll see. I'd probably make fish fingers at home and take them along in foil.

Tonight's food: hash browns done in the mini oven (for testing purposes in case I go to the club, obviously) and vegetarian sausages, because they were 6 for £1 and obviously need to be tested as well.

Removalist Contacted

And I have a week to pack and generally organise myself. Which is realistically two days, because most of that time I won't actually be in Old Town. Unfortunately, the quote was hideous, so I've contacted some others.

Work is... well it's made me a bit frustrated. I don't think I can blame anyone for it, but the role isn't what I expected. The people are absolutely mint and I would genuinely miss one of them massively if I left, though. When I meet someone new and we just click, and they get me, it's a big deal to me. There are currently attempts to stop me from leaving.

Pictorial representation of me and my workmate.
The microphone to the ear shows that one of us doesn't know what they're doing.

I have attended the Job Centre for my benefits application. It turned out to be a longer appointment than expected, with more strict expectations of me and weekly appointments. That's ok, it was just a surprise (and the meetings will probably be quite a waste of government money to be honest) but hey ho. My first payment - which I expect to be £10 if I'm lucky - will be five weeks away. They also approved another loan, to my surprise, but I'm not about to turn it down. It can pay for the removalist.

Job Done

Sad face :(

That'll do, Pig.

Behold, the before and after. I really cba to paint the cover. It's just plastic (and not primed) so, too bad if anyone else on the road gets offended by one grey eye.

I've applied for benefits, mostly because if I don't do it now it will just take even longer to sort (gotta love the Universal Credit five week wait). I'm technically on a zero-hours contract even though I'll probably earn too much, but even so, the application will be in, just in case.

It's not easy to find a second job that fits around a current job. I saw one which I'd more than likely get (I've worked for the same company before), but I feel like it would kill me :( The reality of the work out there: the job involves heavy lifting and working after midnight. I don't really understand how people think it's ok to pay minimum wage for that.

In the meantime I just keep doing Prolific surveys*, on a good day it's £10 in my pocket when I'd only be typing in here or watching tv anyway.

Mood: ok. I'm ok. It's better than not being ok, you know?



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