That Moment, omg

I was SO LOOKING FORWARD to a Two.Day.Weekend. SO excited. Saturday morning my alarm goes off at 8am and my first thought is: YAY NO SCHOOL. (So I'd been dreaming, ok, just forgive me this once.) Then I look at my planner and no work Monday! Three-day-weekend. Best thing ever.

Today I discovered an unopened box of cereal in a box of unsorted "stuff", opened it, and it tastes exactly like it should have, even before it passed its best before date two years ago. I might be a little bit disorganised. Just a little.

Watched School of Rock again today and bawled right through it 😂

Weirdness: I got another 0% money transfer offer on same credit card where my 0% offer is ending... so it seems as if I just redraw my loan, pay off the credit card in full, and then the next day take another 0% money transfer with the same card and put the cash back on my loan? I mean, yeah, I will, it just struck me as odd. So that's the adulting admin plan for this week.

Un-Sustainable

I found the matching bag.

I have just laughed my way through a Guardian article that told me all about how I can get my sandals for this summer. They had three options: Buy, Rent and Thrift. The "Buy" section suggested I spend £194 on a pair of ugly "sustainable" black sliders. (What?) I could, alternatively, rent a pair of Gucci gold sandals for £66, or for £49 I can borrow a pair of Dolce & Gabbana sandals that look like someone's six-year-old attacked them with a Bedazzler.

The last option, to Thrift shoes, is more my thing. I got a nice pair of sort-of-fancy sandals last year for £7 from a charity shop, so I was excited to read on and see what they suggested. Sadly, I was invited to consider a £110 pair of mule heels. They might as well suggest that people save money on shoes by throwing £100 into the nearest bin.

I am really not sure on what planet £110 is considered thrifty. And it's tastelessly out of touch considering the current economic climate.

Related: a customer told me today that it was her first visit to Bargain Store and how exciting it all was to see all the cheap items. She had chosen a lemon fudge cake which she planned to serve for dessert in the afternoon, as she hadn't been able to afford to go out for lunch (it's not even a particularly cheap item even for us, this is a fancy cake). She was telling me how difficult money had been for her lately. This is a very common refrain, I hear from people all day, every day, that money is tight and they are having to rein in their spending. I commiserate, and nod, and tell her I really do understand what it's like.

Keep in mind she has just walked up and down a huuuuuge bargain shop, which features five aisles of traditional grocery/food/drinks and two large fridge & freezer aisles. The only way to the tills is to walk past all of that.

But then she told me she's off to Marks & Spencers to do her weekly shop.

Facepalm...

Play Toy

For about eight or nine months now I have been buying Bitcoin each month (as a curiosity). I just set up an auto buy of £4 each month as I figured it had gone up over time and might be interesting to watch. The cash for this comes from my Testable Minds earnings, which pays into my Revolut account, so it's easy to do and money I don't miss in the first place (plus, it's actually made me pay attention to my TM page now and then to do a few studies for a few more pounds).

Needless to say I started at the peak and it has dropped like a stone over those months. It's worth a grand total of £25, and I think I actually spent about £40. This is the thing with speculating on share markets or crypto. You have to assume that the market will sometimes fall, and you can never put in money that you're unable to afford to lose - completely.

Eh, it is an experiment in the first place. I'm watching the price a little bit more often from now and I'm going to start actually trading it. Right now I could sell to recoup 25p in lost profit... I'm going to keep an eye today and hope for 50p 😂

In between doing a few more surveys on Prolific, which I should have been doing anyway...

Things that are odd: I was just doing a study and part of it involved doing a search for a flight. I unexpectedly saw flights to Spain for £17 each way. Somehow, it seems bizarre that I was pondering local amateur theatre tickets last week for £13 and not being sure that I wanted to go at that price...

Ho Hum Same Old

Sometimes I log into my internet banking, hoping that there's some admin to do, but really, there's not. That's kind of the standard reality when things are ticking over, nothing much to do but sit and wait out the months while the balance goes down bit by bit, as it should.

I did another hours' worth of mud-slinging today and actually took pictures for selling my hanging baskets. For some reason I had an uncharacteristic loss of confidence, what if nobody likes them? Are they good enough to sell? Eh... I suppose at the right price they will be, even if that means I don't make any money. Note to self, next year do them earlier and shove more seedlings in to make them look more full, sooner.

Stop Press: Dilemma finally received the "alleged" 2021 accounts from the outside accountant... it had been delayed by him "attending his graduation", leading me to suspect they've been dumped on a trainee. I have not seen them, however, his English is rather poor, so I don't have huge hopes for the accounts themselves. Neighbour #2a has looked them over, and says they are nonsensical and he doesn't understand them (and he is probably the most knowledgeable of all the directors when it comes to the accounts). He has asked Dilemma if she thinks they make sense. Stand by for some more Dilemma Blathering.

Dinner treat: home-made hotdog and a premixed can of mojito. 

Unwanted Surprises

I am still getting (unwanted) surprises when it comes to Long Covid. I can smell more things nowadays, but there are still a bunch of things I simply don't detect, and I miss subtle scents completely. As an example, I bought some "Jasmine & Coconut" scented tea lights from Rival Bargain Shop a few weeks back, and I finally decided to burn them this morning. I know that in the shop I'd thought it smelled ok (without looking at the name of the scent) and today I couldn't detect either coconut or anything floral. What happened instead is that I began sneezing. I love hayfever.

Anyway, today I was not in the mood for yet another piece of fish or chicken, so I decided on a baked potato with beans and cheese. I was remembering how much I'd enjoyed it during my £10 Grocery Challenge. But my dinner was completely tasteless. And I'd been telling myself it was a treat! 😂 Since I still have three baking potatoes (and 5½ tins of tasteless fancy beans) I might try a dash of ketchup and a bit of salt next time. Or tuna & mayo instead of beans.

Trip Hazard: If you remember, I had decided to eat fewer protein bars and reintroduce ordinary snacks of 100-150 calories. This week I was restrained while shopping, I went home with sugar-free fruity water, low-cal marshmallow bars (7/10, would buy again) and some discounted fruit. I also grabbed a pack of small muffins. Big mistake, the energy info was unreadable so I thought "meh" and figured I'd look it up online later. Each muffin was a whopping 400 calories. A third of my target daily allowance. Well, I won't be losing weight this week.

Especially since I skipped the gym four times, before finally forcing myself back today! 😮

The Busywork Dilemma

Dilemma has done it again. She had a new assessor attend to do the fire risk assessment, and he has also done a general risk assessment. Ladies and gentlemen Dilemma has now run off to get quotes on 1,001 ridiculous small things that are honestly, well, ridiculous. Included are a safety handrail (for two steps!), a barrier rail beside our driveway in case someone falls 30cm to their death, a fence around the roof (it's not a place people should be in the first place), remedial work needed for a 10cm wide drain which is not completely level with the cement, it goes on and on.

I get that certain things are important but the number is sheer lunacy.

Also, I'm in a mood, as I dropped my phone this afternoon and despite its builder's case, it has hairline cracks radiating up from the bottom corner. Grrr. No loss to functionality that I can tell, but still, grrr. It's ten months old, so I am grrr. Screen replacement would be the same price as replacing the phone, so... I've ordered a new glass protector sheet for it and hopefully the phone lasts another year (and an extra glass sheet is coming with it, just in case, since it was only a pound more for two).

One Chunk

One of my cards has given me a limit increase and allowed me to do a balance transfer onto the one about to end. This is good, meaning I only need to redraw £2,000 off my loan - which is currently down to £11,000! I am very pleased about that mental boost, and I gave the computer screen a hearty middle finger when they quoted me 29.9% to extend the loan. I personally think the current 11.5% is extortionate enough, thank you.

My car insurance is up for renewal, and like a good frugalist I have done a comparison search. Fortunately, my existing insurer is the cheapest. Unfortunately, it means planning for having £360 in the bank to pay for it. I could pay by the month except I object to paying an extra £56 for the privilege, which is definitely higher interest than my loan costs, so it isn't worth it. Right now I'm going to remember that I am on my fourth year of insurance, and that in 2018 it was more than £800 due to being a "new driver" (in the UK at least). Yeah, this year's quote isn't so bad after all 😁 and since I'm putting it on an ordinary credit card, that statement won't fall due until September 👍 and I will clear the balance in full so I get no interest charges. 👍👍

New work contract: done. 👌

Precarity

That's it; that's the word I have been looking for, the one that describes what it's like to live on constant watch, always careful, always on alert. I saw it this week in an article that (to summarise) points out how much more often it is women who end up with little pension and living hand-to-mouth.

Most images of "teetering" seem to be of men. Ok.

Generally, my risk-taking is actually well-thought-out and meticulously planned. What I didn't count on was the joy of Long Covid (and to be honest, I didn't expect my previous job to be a complete dumpster fire that I needed to escape).

I was telling a friend yesterday that my game plan was to be debt free on this flat in seven years. But as I did the mental sums, I realised that if nothing changes, I will get there in around four. This assumes no large spends. Then I remembered that I actually have three possible game plans in the making - the "renovate and upsize" plan; the "buy a camper and AirBnB my place" plan, and the "buy a second property" plan. The nice thing about precarity is that since I can't afford to move on any of them, I don't have to choose which one I go forward with. The annoying part is feeling like you are well-and-truly stuck in one spot, and barely moving on the debt treadmill.

And so you default to the only real plan you can move on. The one where you pay bills, buy unbranded food, hope that nothing unexpected happens, and repeat again next month. Fortunately, if something unexpected does happen for me, well, meh, I'll just sigh a bit and add another year to the debt repayments. Not everyone has that flexibility.

Another friend once said that their parents had lived so close to the bone all their lives, they retired not knowing how to spend money.

I think that will be me. First world problems, eh?

Good thing: my flowers are starting to look lovely 😀 Cheap thrills!

Almost Enough

In what is hopefully good news, Big Boss asked me today if I would like a bigger contract, and says he will sort out the paperwork. 👍

That will be a nice relief, assuming it all goes forward. I have mostly been getting close to the income I need, but having a contract which will cover bills is going to make things less stressful. It should kick in by the end of August.

I have come to accept that simply eating expensive protein bars will not reduce my weight by magic. So I have decided to cut them down. In their place I will arrange other snacks with slightly fewer calories. Wish me luck and wish me discipline.

Unease: There's another interest-free period ending in a months' time, and I don't have a new interest-free arrangement lined up to switch it to. I am not thrilled about redrawing from my loan, but that looks like the plan. Mainly I just liked the psychological boost of seeing it down to only 13k owing. I must remember that it will be down there again eventually.

Adulting: currently eating ancient frozen vegetables to use them up. I am also armed with small containers of Nesquik for work, as I realllly need to stop buying flavoured milk for my workday lunches, even if it is yummy.

Supermarket Lasagne Hack

If (like me) you purchased two frozen lasagne dinners from Big Supermarket and were dismayed to discover that they taste like cardboard, never fear! I have the perfect hack for you. Simply take a little bit of ketchup, and spread it neatly across the top of your cardboard lasagne. Just like that, it's edible!

Hack #2: Brown sauce on your chicken makes it taste like you're not eating the same dinner twice in a row.

It turned out that I did get a few extra hours this week. Enough to cover essentials. But I'm tired of working over five separate days, and never getting two days off together. It's been like this for six weeks running when I could be doing the work over three and having proper time to myself.

Waaah, I sound like a complainypants! Must remember that I'm lucky to have the hours that I've got.

I have received my shiny new card and made transfers about the place, which have not actually landed yet because it's the weekend. Lunch today was a cheese omelette with vegies, and was really tasty. Adulting: rinsed off my car and put air in the tyres for once.

Because I Am A Child

I have bought myself a battery-operated mini fan which comes with a water squirty spray. It is awesome and was worth every penny of its £2 price tag.

Because I am not a child I have also bought two frozen margaritas, in peach and in passionfruit flavour, as there is an important piece of scientific research to be done, namely, which one is nicer when imbibed in the back garden from a 50p reduced mason drinking jar which was missing its plastic straw (don't worry, I've got a stainless straw I can use).

Today I've been a little bit lethargic in my thinking. I feel a little bit like life is passing me by while I quibble over saving two pence on something, or that I'm never going to escape this era of perpetual financial fear. I maybe brought it on myself, when Poppet (broke as always) had no interest in using her staff discount card, or working a few more minutes "because that's only a pound". I heard myself saying that every pound matters but I felt like Ebenezer Scrooge.

Here's hoping that I can snap myself out of it tomorrow on my day off.

Adulting admin done: Cancelled my Britbox before the free period ends. Unpacked and set up new micro. Actually fixed vacuum to make it suck, and vacuumed the carpet, which now looks grubby rather than filthy (it's awful carpet, with stains and just generally shabby; however, it stops the floor feeling cold, and its replacement is very low on the spending priority list). Flung some dirt about, ie, repotted some plants.

New Microwave

So my previous lovely red number has bitten the dust. I know I am to blame, it rusted under the turntable because I just didn't wipe it out when I'd cooked really steamy food. I knew this was coming for a while, but yesterday it decided to start with the sparks, so that's it, unplugged and decommissioned. The lovely recycling men happily took it off my hands as they did their round through my street today 😀

I went out to buy one from Facebook Marketplace but it had the same tell-tale rust! So I'm not throwing cash at something which will do the same thing in a few months. In the end I've ordered one from Argos and used a free £10 voucher from SnapMyEats to lessen the blow a bit. Hey, not bad to get a few quid off for free right? I'm also going to get 50p or so from TopCashBack for the purchase. Win-win.

Drinks in the newly-cleared back garden with neighbours from #8. Including a butterfly which sat on my shoulder more than once! Lovely way to pass a few hours on a warm summer's night 😀

Almost Annoying

One of my interest-free credit card periods comes to an end next week. And me being me, I just procrastinated on it and paid every spare cent into it, vainly hoping it'd somehow magically be knocked down to zero in time on my pauper's wage 😄

Spoiler alert: it has not.

Anyhoo, last night I got a notification that I was 100% qualified for a new 16-month balance transfer card. So I started the application, waiting for my denial, but no! I have a brand new shiny card arriving in the mail and I shall use it to transfer my balance again and concentrate on chipping away at the loan.

Bonus info: right now I am about £8k ahead in repayments on the loan, and having parts of it on interest-free cards instead is projected to save me a whopping £17,000 worth of interest over the life of the loan. Because this loan has fixed repayments, the other way to look at it is that it would be paid out four-and-a-half years early. Get in 👌

Spending Accuracy

So I went back the Big Shop in my third attempt to burn through my voucher money, and I had success! My very balanced shop contained twelve deodorants, a full freezer, four jars of coffee and a pack of flower seedlings which I definitely did not need. But I spent my voucher balance exactly. Booyeah.

I then took a 3 mile detour for some insanely cheap fuel only to learn that it was closed. Notsoyeah.

My work is next to a large pharmacy-gift-shop-thing and twice this week the whole shop was closed, with the pharmacist just using the drop window to fill prescriptions. Lack of shop assistant staff, apparently. This is bad news (the pharmacy attracts customers to come into our shop) but also good news (scarcity of workers pushes wages up overall). It's all a little bit odd in the world right now, there are definitely worse jobs than in showing customers through the perfumes and bandages, but hey all the rules went out the window when Covid landed.

New rota has (yet again) five days of 4-hour shifts. Not my favourite thing, so I'll just try being grateful to have a job, and maybe attempt an extra gym session.

Freebie: I came out of work and discovered an unopened apple & mint drink in the carpark. Yes thanks. I downed it on the way home from the gym, and it tasted like summer 😀

This And That

I got off my behind and tidied up my plants. Not all of them, but some.

I also did a few surveys for a few pennies into my PayPal.

This weeks' pay was a good one and affords a little bit of breathing space (not much, but, it was 10 hours of overtime and I need four each week to break even). Next week will be decent too. The following week is five days of 4h shifts, none of which end at closing time 😭 This is bad. 4h shifts have no break, so I can't shave time off my breaks to get extra pay, and the closing-time shifts always run into overtime. Sigh. I will have to hope I get called in to cover a sick call.

I unexpectedly met DilEmma in person, as she showed up unannounced to get a new fire risk assessment done. This sounds like DilEmma is considering doing her job, but realistically, we'll see whether anything actually gets fixed.

I sorted out my DIY tumble dryer sheets today. My flat smells absolutely lovely! Eight cheap facewashers were procured from my work for the tidy sum of £2.09, which happens to be only ten pence dearer than ONE box of tumble dryer sheets. And considering I've had three huge bottles of softener from Old Work for ages, I'm not even going to count the cost of the liquid for at least a year.

DIY Tumble Dryer Sheets

Handy drying chair.

So we all know that line-drying is best (and mostly that's what I do) but there are times I just can't, especially when it comes to my bedsheets. I've often been annoyed that the washer spins most of the fabric softener straight down the drain - some washers even rinse it out! - so I was thinking that dryer sheets might be better value than liquid fabric softener, until I saw the cost! 😭

So in my travels I have read about a dozen sets of instructions for making your own tumble dryer sheets. I've tried several of them myself and most are terrible or would actually be flammable. Never fear, I've culled the bad ideas and collected the smart ones, and here's a DIY for tumble dryer sheets you can make at home, that actually work and smell divine.

You will need:

• cotton facewashers (an unusual colour helps keep them separate, or use old ones)
• fabric softener
• a small container or bowl
• a few minutes of your time.

Method: Using the normal cap measure for your fabric softener, pour half a standard dose. Use the same amount of water. Then put one facewasher in to soak up all of the liquid. Squeeze it gently to spread it through the fabric then hang it up to dry indoors. Repeat with the rest of the facewashers. Once they are dry, you can keep them in a basket near your dryer. Between uses, you should put them into a normal wash (without softener).

Tips and hints:

Never use sponges! They're flammable and could cause a fire.

Old torn towels will fray, but if you've got an old towel or pure cotton shirts, you could hem the pieces. 

Don't use microfibre, or anything cotton-blend, they don't actually absorb well - synthetics repel liquid and are not technically "wet". 100% cotton will pick up the steam from your wet clothes and release the softener evenly.

When Statistics Suck

80% of Lloyds bank customers (or, almost 21 million people) have less than £500 in their accounts.

Two million Britons have been late paying at least one bill every month this year.

One million people have cancelled their gym membership this year.

The Trussell Trust has given out 2 million food parcels in the past twelve months.

Just for something nice: Boris Johnson has resigned.

There is hope.

Cakes

My work celebrated its birthday during the week and I didn't get to see the party... not to worry, I made up for it by eating two cupcakes left over. Also, in trying to use up things lying around in my kitchen, I made a cake from an old packet mix I've had forever. I added in some protein shake mix. Also some powdered skim milk, which I realised later on doesn't really have much protein, but here we are.

The end result? Not a taste sensation. Drowning a slice in icing didn't help. Today I'm trying it with butter and it's only slightly less awful. Won't be making this mistake again!

I realised I had a few pounds sitting in my Revolut account this evening, and actually fell prey to a reminder to buy a ticket in the next car draw... considering it's a car I was thinking of trying to buy, hey, you never know. I also need to enter more postal competitions since I only have a little while to use up the stamps.

I Took A Trip

...out to Big Supermarket to try to use the rest of my voucher. I mostly failed. I had figured I could buy protein bars, but owee, they were £2 each. That's just disgusting, to be frank, and even though using a voucher makes them "free", I'd rather not spend it on that out of principal. (My own work sells them for 89p - £1.15, which is still a lot of money for a single snack, and surely you would think that a Big Supermarket could offer decent prices...)

I forgot to get coffee and I came home with still £40 left on the voucher, so it really wasn't worth the drive.

Also, I bought a frozen pizza, which is definitely not low-carb. Demolished it last night then fell into a food coma.

At least today I got a good walk in, with the incline turned on and for an extra half hour 👍

Reeee-calculating

Now that I have a better idea of how much my housing (freehold) expenses are, it's more apparent that my work contract doesn't cover my bills. Sigh. Today I am pondering the world where people on social media fire abuse at the "entitled" people who own their own home, as if we didn't sacrifice and work hard for the roof above our heads (and also, for the roof above theirs).

At this point I turned off Facebook for the day 😂 and spent an hour signing up for market research projects. Well, half an hour. Presently procrastinating about doing some more garden work (it's overcast, so I shouldn't risk getting wet in my front garden, right?) and generally avoiding doing a few £2 surveys.

Today's frugal thing: I didn't drink the iced coffee-milk that I made at work yesterday, so I brought it home and have been using it to make my hot coffees. That's at least five pence saved 😂 it's also a little bit cold today, but I've thrown a blanket on and have so far ignored the heating.