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Horace

Afternoon all

TCM how awful that you had a nasty weasel in your shop - good on you for showing him the door and closing your account with the company:j I saw the weather forecast this morning and it said that you are due to be rained on all day - I hate to say it but its dry here at the moment.

I have returned from the doctors but need to go back to the adjacent chemist tomorrow afternoon because they haven't got half the stuff I want:mad: I am still waiting for new specs:rolleyes: Nipped into the new Aldi that has opened (it opened today) and spent £3.17.

Was up at 6am but fatso didnt shift himself until 7am - he got on my nerves this morning so picked up his suitcase and put it outside my front door and when he went to retrieve it, I locked the door behind him:rotfl: It turns out that we won't be going camping after all as he has made arrangements to go sailing again (I hope he falls in:rotfl:). I guess I am a bit miffed because I dont see anybody and cannot get out and about as much as I used to - even the nurse at the doctors said that I had put on some weight (now 12st 3lbs - but I have lost some because I was 13 stone last month:eek:). Now I am only allowed to eat 4 slices of bread a day - so what did I do - go and buy a cake:rolleyes:

Not much to report here really.

Have a good day all:D

TCM_3

Cake is good Horace!!!

I have a great Weight Watchers recipe book with low fat cakes but sometimes you just need it to hit that spot! I have decided to give up on the weight thing. I lost 5 stone about 7 years ago and have put 2 back on - my diet now consists of anything that can be made in a hurry as I never have time to cook properly. I did used to buy Good Food magazine every month but decided it was a luxury I did not need as I can print the recipes off the website.

I was not hungry till cake was mentioned! Drats.

SunshineDaisy

Hi everybody,

Thought I'd pop back and update you how things have been going, after my post a little while back. I have been reading your daily threads but in line with my procrastination tendencies - not got round to posting myself.

My 1st aim was to stop living off my hard earned savings by topping up my non-existent business income via other means. Phase 2 would entail starting to pay back my savings pot. At the beginning of the month, this seemed an impossible mission but I've since realised that my anger/denial about my current situation was stopping me from moving forward.

However, I've made quite a good start. I've had a good look round at MSE (but I'm sure I've just scratched the surface) and got loads of ideas. I've made £1500 on ebay selling stock from my previous business and stuff around the house, did 2 mystery shops, joined a dozen survey/review sites and been doing the daily scratchcards. I haven't received any income other than ebay but realise that the other schemes are longer-term strategies. My main achievement is that I've kept my spending below my income which means that I haven't had to dip into my savings (the first month for quite some time). This was made very difficult when I was hit with an eye-watering garage bill, and realised that my car insurance was due this month, resulting in £900 car expenses. It has been tight and but I've realised it's achievable if I keep a very close eye on ins/outs. Ok - and I've been very lucky that my partner have filled my car up with petrol twice this month and tends to buy top-up shopping when he is out and about during the week. I tend to do the 'big' shop but have only done this once this month, so he probably has done more 'topping-up' than usual. Obviously, to be fair, I can't let him do that on a regular basis as he is in a similar situation to myself. However, I really appreciated it this month as it gave me the kick-start I needed.

Our main current business has been very slow (August has always been the dead month) but I did submit an expense claim to get back some of my money that I used to buy company items. I have put this straight back into my savings account, which has giving me such a boost in motivation.

Onto the issue of my procrastination.

Well, I've moved forward a tad. I've been trying the 'do a job for 15 minutes' strategy and it has been working. Whilst before, I would tell myself at 9am 'I'll just pop on MSE for a 5 min read of the forums' and suddenly it's an hour later (or worse!!) and I've got nothing done. Now, I have a little timer which goes off every 15 minutes. I allow myself a 15 minute 'play' task but after 15 minutes, I have to switch to a work, house-cleaning or money-making task.

Another useful idea is that I've also made a few project folders and put everything to do with a particular task in a separate folder. Then when I decide to work on that project for 15 minutes, I just need to get out the folder and everything is there - included a task list. I'm finding this is particular useful when the phone rings or I get interrupted. In the past, I would just put the paperwork to one side and quite often don't return to the job for some time. This means that I have loads of inch+ piles of paperwork on my desk with work from different projects scattered amongst them. I only look through them in a tidying fit and quite often thrown most away as the info is then out of date - I've reprinted because I couldn't find it. Now, I just close the folder and put to one side whilst I deal with the customer or interruption . I also keep only 1 folder on my desk at a time, and have been returning to it for several 15 mins slots throughout the day. This way, I've been able to eat quite a bit into those 'elephant 'tasks, 1 x 15 minute bite at a time.

Anyway, I think that's enough for now but I wanted to come back and provide an update - didn't want you to think I was a 'post and never to be heard of again' sort of person. The only down-side to this is I have become a MSE bore - and have been trying to convert my partner, friends and family to MSE ways. Unfortunately, I've realised that until they have their own 'light-bulb moment', it all seems too much bother.

Bye for now. We've got house-guests this weekend so I've got loads of 15min blocks of cleaning/tidying to get round to. Have a great bank holiday everybody.

SunnyD

Horace

Well done SunnyD on the one file on the desk and your moneymaking things.

I havent had a very productive day today - I was looking for some contents insurance and tried greenbee who are part of john lewis and was quoted an eye watering £350.16:eek: My renewal for More Than is only £156 (not that I want to stick with MoreThan because they are morons and I am still waiting for a copy of my policy to be sent to me:mad:).

I had to go to the eye hospital to pick up my new glasses and had a dizzy spell resulting in me having to cling to a wall for support for 5 mins or so until the spell passed:eek: I somehow managed to get myself to the eye hospital which is on the same site as city hospital but it was a good quarter mile walk:eek: I now have my new specs which are fab but they sent me cross-eyed so I shall have to put them on first thing when I get up. I also need to find a friendly neighbour to jump start my car - that will be an adventure, I havent driven for 2 months:eek: I also went to the chemist and hung around in there whilst they messed around, they gave me part of one prescription but not the missing part of the other..so after much huffing and puffing and a phone call from me to the eye hospital to confirm that a particular eye drop had been prescribed - it was then given to me:rolleyes: I won't be going to that chemist again in a hurry:rolleyes:. Came home via Sainsbury's where I stocked up on fruit and wholemeal rolls - got in just in time as the heavens opened.

Hopefully I will get some work done tomorrow - have a great weekend one and all:D

TCM_3

Well done Sunshine!

Horace, I had a run in with a chemist last week who have lost a prescription twice that the dr has sent down to them. I rang the surgery thinking they had not sent it, but they had, they done it again while I was on the phone and got the fax confirmation yet it turned out some idiot in the chemist thought the fax machine wasn't working so had switched it off. Hmm. Like yourself, I will not be using them again.

I have been very busy the past few days but the OH was in yesterday under my feet and did my head in. I had him all day. The place was really busy, we never stopped, and if he had looked at the takings he would have seen that was the way it has been, but none the less, he decided last night to fault find about all the things that were not done. I suggested that we swap jobs for a few weeks if he does not like the way I run the shop and he replied by throwing a photo of me that was in the paper presenting prizes, into the fire. Charming. I have discovered that I sometimes live with Mr Jekell and other times with Mr Hyde!

Horace

TCM - ask the newspaper for another copy of the photo, as for OH he sounds like a complete child, maybe you should go on strike in the house as I bet you do all the housework as well as run the shop. Go and see him at work and pick fault - see how he likes it:rolleyes: Men are such eejits at times:rolleyes:

I shall be spending the weekend on my own - him that comes to stay has arranged a sailing trip this weekend because he said it was too far to drive to Birmingham to pick me up to go camping in Dorset:rolleyes: wake up and smell the coffee you silly little man - you were visiting on Wednesday and drove back to London on Thursday therefore we could have gone camping:mad: Still I have done some washing and read through my post - my visitor card for Events UK arrived today - I can't wait for that show next month, I shall go over 2 days and feel very enthused about it:D

I am trying to get on with my new specs - its odd being able to see:eek: I cant call the RAC out to jump start my car as I am not booked for home visits and trying to get one of my neighbours to help is useless...sigh...one day I shall be back on the road.

moneymabel

Tcm and Horace I think both your 'men' need a good slap !! ;-) Anyhoooo Horace I thought it was all over with 'the one who comes to stay' or have I missed something?
Discovered this morning that Fonzie the Figaro (yes ...I know...!! someone at work said it looked like a Happy Days car and the name stuck!)has a rusty panel which costs £700 new to replace...ouch!!!! needless to say i will be trying to source a second hand one.
Wedding Fair is in a couple of weeks time, hope i sell some jewellery :-/
No more sales from the site as of yet.

Horace

Hi Mabel

It is kind of all over with him that comes to visit - he still comes to visit and stays at mine when he visits the area on business (its cheaper for the tax payer), I usually make use of him whilst he is here by getting him to change light bulbs and build things or even charge the battery on my car, as for anything else well its wishful thinking on his part because I dress up in my lovely primark pyjamas which is enough to put any man off:rotfl: Anyway he is useful when I need a place to stay in London (I have in my sticky paws a book of visitor parking permits for Lambeth which cost £17.50 for 5 of the things). I also use him to take me camping which he hasnt done this year - I usually make him do all the driving:rotfl:

It has been a wierd evening - I had mentioned to someone that I was interesting in testing a new product and then he sent me some information which was vague and an audio clip which was a bit clearer so I did some research and didnt like what I found. It is a drink made from acai berries called Monavie which costs the earth to buy and it is a network selling scheme (I think it is a posh way of saying pyramid selling because why would this person want 20 names and email addresses?). Well I told this person what I thought and he swears its not pyramid selling and then proceeds to point out that Brad Sugars of Action Coach fame (also a facebook friend of mine) sells the stuff as if that is going to make me cave in. My gut instinct tells me to stay away because I am convinced it is a scam. Has anyone heard about it?

I still can't get used to seeing through these new specs - I did venture out this evening (kebab meat from chippy with cone portion of chips - so tomorrow's lunch will be doner kebab as I already have the pitta bread and salad).

Remember to take a white table cloth with you to the wedding fair Mabel just in case they don't provide one.

moneymabel

Hmmmm that def sounds a bit dodgy Horace,even if its not a scam would you be happy selling overpriced stuff? might reflect badly on your good business name.
I'm all prepared for the wedding fair, have even had a mock set up on my table and everything is packed away on its stands. have a white tablecloth and a black runner with white jewellery stands. Have a banner for the front of table that I got from vistaprint and even prize draw leaflets and a box for entry forms. I bet I've forgotten something though !!

tyllwyd

I'd stay away from it - even if it is completely legit, it only took a few minutes on the internet for you to have doubts about it, so other people will do the same thing and you don't want to spend ages building up a good name to have it associated with something that people will be suspicious of.