Mortgage Free - so good they'll do it twice! Wynnvegas aiming for the big house

bookworm8657

gallygirl wrote: »

ooohhhh Bookworm, just registered - are you mummy in hospital? How are you? Hope you're ok

Hi Gallygirl

yes I am that mum , although thankfully I have been home for just over 2 weeks now. I am much better thanks, I certainly didn't expect to be stuck in hosp for over 6 weeks this time around, in fact, the treatment was done and dusted in 5 days, the rest of the time was just an appalling example of bureaucracy, red tape and the waste of funding which goes on. I needed one piece of equipment to make things easier at home.....for what it cost the NHS to keep me in for so long, they could have bought six ruddy pieces of the same equipment!!!! Having spent 5 months in hospital altogether since last summer, I just hope that I can manage to stay out of it for a very long time now! :rotfl:

FWIW I think I now have a "virtual" Katsu sitting on my shoulder most of the time these days (well, we are over 200 miles apart) and every time I think about spending money I can hear a certain voice in my ear'ole giving me the third degree on whether I really need said item or not! :rotfl: It's a terrible state of affairs when I find myself getting emails from Evans etc with 50% off and I have a browse and leave without buying!!!!! Katsu packed a load of my clothes when we were moving home and I was still in hosp, so she knows darned well I can't possibly say I have nothing to wear!!!

Seriously, this MSE way of doing things does actually begin to grab you I think.....I am having a modicum of success with my DH, he is beginning to look twice at prices and think about things more. Like, he knows where to get a cheaper pint now when he goes out :beer:, and we try to use the cheaper supermarkets A and L more often. I have also succeeded in clearing a couple of catalogue accounts and now only buy things which are paid for in full at the time. We've learned about debt the hard way and will be clearing it for some time to come......

wynnvegas

Hi SStS,

Some news but not all of it good unfortunately. DHL haven't a clue what's happened to it, HDN are none the wiser and the sub-sub-contractor can't be reached so the nefarious W Watson, damn his eyes, looks to have successfully shot off with my iPad. I've just had PC World customer services on the phone explaining that someone will phone me at some point today to organise sending another one out. I'll have a go at that point at arranging to pick the bloody thing up from the local store in Edinburgh as that seems the safest bet! I may yet have it this week!

Cheers,

BIlly

Froggy-G

wynnvegas wrote: »

Hi SStS,

Some news but not all of it good unfortunately. DHL haven't a clue what's happened to it, HDN are none the wiser and the sub-sub-contractor can't be reached so the nefarious W Watson, damn his eyes, looks to have successfully shot off with my iPad. I've just had PC World customer services on the phone explaining that someone will phone me at some point today to organise sending another one out. I'll have a go at that point at arranging to pick the bloody thing up from the local store in Edinburgh as that seems the safest bet! I may yet have it this week!

Cheers,

BIlly

你好


Finally, its moving in the right direction.. may I suggest you ask for compensation for the inconvenience caused..am sure they can find it in their good hearts...

Froggy

wynnvegas

Hi Bookworm,

Glad you're feeling better. I worked in the NHS for the first four years of my career and I honestly believe that if the general public saw a fraction of the waste that goes on, they wouldn't be quite as quick to advocate the ring-fencing of the NHS budget. Take Consultant Merit Awards as an example. If Consultant A recommends Consultant B for a Merit Award, then Consultant B gets it no questions asked. A Merit Award is a full year's salary as a bonus (anywhere up to £130,000) and can be awarded three times. Naturally, a lot of Consultants have recommended a lot of other Consultants and those recommendations have been reciprocated in their droves. Now that I work for an I.T. Company, we've confidently proposed to the NHS in Scotland that we can slash their cost by 66% and increase their productivity tenfold - and that's without us breaking too much sweat. One day I might go back and have a damn good go at fixing it!

I keep telling people that being an MSE convert is about being wise with money rather than frugal. A few people take it to mad lengths but I'm all for people doing whatever they want with their money so long as they don't waste it. It breaks my heart to see people buying £14.99 CDs and £44.99 computer games when, for the sake of a couple of days wait for delivery, it's normally very straightforward to pay around £5.99 and £27.99 for the same things. I've become a fan of the Aldi and Lidl offers as well. Moyra is very particular about her fruit and bread but even she's gotten into the routine of making sure she's getting the best deals available. I'm still terrible for stockpiling like there's a massive disaster on the way but I'm trying to reign myself in!

Cheers,

Billy

wynnvegas

Come fate l'ispettore generale G,

I hadn't even thought of that. Do you think I could get away with iPad withdrawal syndrome as a recognised ailment? I might chance my arm and ask for a 3 minute supermarket sweep when I'm in picking the iPad up. I'm actually a wee bit miffed as the iPad2 is only an extra £100 so I should probably have just plumped for that. No matter!

Popped into the Kilt Design Studio today to order my belt, belt buckle, kilt pin, flashes and shirt. I'm going to have a wee think about which jacket / waistcoat combo to go for (there are about 6 different options for each) so I'll stick with the casual jacobite look for the present. Need to get on the chest expander to fill out the shirt though!

Cheers,

Billy

Froggy-G

wynnvegas wrote: »

Come fate l'ispettore generale G,

I hadn't even thought of that. Do you think I could get away with iPad withdrawal syndrome as a recognised ailment? I might chance my arm and ask for a 3 minute supermarket sweep when I'm in picking the iPad up. I'm actually a wee bit miffed as the iPad2 is only an extra £100 so I should probably have just plumped for that. No matter!

Cheers,

Billy

Bonjour Gendarme Billy

Would have thought goodwill gesture of £30 to £50 is in order.. However that will have to come from customer services on the phone, as you won't get anything from the shop floor.. This will be vouchers (no cash) or Itunes vouchers..give them the soapy story of "it was a gift, you've ruined it all, had to spend hours on the phone..."and just wait for it..

Inspecteur Froggy

wynnvegas

Ευθυμίες τόσο μεγάλο υψηλό κύριο Froggy,

I'll find something appropriate to pinch myself with to create the tearful notion that life as I should have known for the last week it has been ripped away from me leading to sleepless nights, panic attacks, fits of manic depression and all kinds of violent outbursts.

Cheers,

(A catastrophically, never-endingly distraught 9 ways from Sunday) Billy

Froggy-G

Sveiki Billy :j

Any news from PC World? How was your tearful conversation with them?

Froggy

wynnvegas

Schöner Tag Froggy,

It's not going at all well to be honest. My Monday conversation where a replacement was on it's way had placated me but now they have changed their tune and are instead sending me a form to fill in. Can this be done online or over email with a scanned signature? Not a chance. Everything has to be done using proper post. Needless to say, there's been as much sign of the eponymous form as the iPad itself to date! They're definitely for a letter of complaint now!

Cheers,

Billy

wynnvegas

Morning All,

A productive couple of days has seen me spend far too much time with the company lawyers, sort out a couple of CVs, raise a formal grievance and appeal on behalf of my Auntie, raise a tribunal claim on behalf of a friend, clear pretty much all the outstanding work on my desk and arrange for a couple of trips down to that England in mid-April.

On the more personal side, I've managed to lose all of the weight (5lbs!!) I had put on due to having Moyra's wee sister as a lodger for 5 weeks (lost my gym space and a lot of fitness time due to the schedule I had to keep with working longer hours to fit in with her shift patterns), bought the bow tie, flashes and ghillie shirt for my first attempt at a highland getup. Ordered the brogues, kilt pin, belt and buckle to finish the whole thing off, ordered mothers day presents for the mother and Moyra's Auntie Anne, ordered a few birthday presents for April, picked up the last of the tiles for the bathroom (more of which later) and cleared my podcast backlog.

To complete the "to do" list, I've still not managed to get around to ordering my kilt hire for my brother's wedding in May (really must do that soon), finish the first of the two Bellagio jigsaws, give the cars a proper spring clean, get properly back into the planned exercise routine (normally 2 of the 4 things per day (wii fit / EA active, lunchtime walk, after work swim, gym) are done but never yet 4 out of 4). Now that a lot of the niggly things are done, I'll hopefully have time to conentrate on getting back to that.

Had a chat with out Joiner / Project Manager yesterday to confirm that everything is in the bathroom place ready to be picked up. The boiler that we're getting isn't a 17ltr one after all but is 15.4ltr which the plumber assures me is plenty for our house. Our existing boiler was ticking away like a bomb this morning but I, being the amateur heating engineer that I now am, managed to fix it by giving the ignition box a god dunt with the back end of a screwdriver so I won't be sad to see it go. I'll need to put up a few ideas of how the tile patters could look in our bathroom so that we can get a gauge as to which looks best. I had naturally gone for the most ridiculous notion of cutting a diamond out of the middle of a good few of the white tiles and inserting the black oily tiles to fit but I think that might be a bit difficult to accomplish. We've got the option of a border (or two or three (and how thick a border we've no idea yet)) to go round the bathroom (and potentially frame the new mirror?) but we'll canvass opinions in the next few days.

As for my good friends at PC World, they have today promised to send me the appropriate form via email so that we can finally get me iPadded up. It's been a proper frustration and not at all worth the £40 or so that I saved going through them. We'll see how this saga drags on!

As for money, we're still officially in debt which is a continuing annoyance (and will be for a month or three yet). With having to keep £4,600 for the bathroom and boiler being fitted (and an impending dentist bill of around £600 - last visit on Wednesday!!), things are tighter than I had planned them to be but we continually look forward to chasing debt freedom. I was saying to Moyra last night that becoming debt free (particularly as it isn't ours) won't be half as much a celebratory event as becoming mortgage free. I still think it's the best achievement of my life and, as always, look forward to those that are on the journey joining us as quickly as possible.

Cheers,

Billy