Hurdler's Race to be Mortgage-Free

Hurdler

So annoyed - I bought a charger for Rechargable Batteries and have used it TWICE.
And now it doesn't work.

Impossible to say if it's the charge unit or the adapter - but either way - there's no light on.

I have tried in multiple sockets... the batteries are charging now in a smaller charger which only can charge 2 batteries at a time, and not 4...

I've sent a note to play.com who I bought it from but I am so narked about that, as I bought it in August and I doubt they will do anything about it.

I may complain to Duracell as well.

Hurdler

Well colour me marginally impressed.
I sent a note to Duracell/Proctor & Gamble and got an almost immediate response inviting me to call them and asking me the usual questions (did you dunk it in water, have you been playing volleyball with it)... and I sent an email to Play.com as I didn't fancy another round with their incompetent first level staff (I got an email calling me ROD, (name is Ros!)) and they have sent me returns details to send it back! Which I am genuinely surprised about!

In other news - I am desperately trying to speed up on my shorthand - having ignored it in the run up to my exam - I am getting a right clobbering from the teacher...
So over the last week or so I got through all the 40wpm passages they made available to us with minimal errors.
I got through all the 50wpms (not many) over this week and have started on the 60wpms... a few hiccups but hopefully improving. I think once I've gone through them, I will create a playlist on the poddy of just 60s and 70s and have them at random as a lot of them a passages heard before, just getting faster and faster.

They want to put us in for the exam around May - so I really need to go for this. Oh but there is law to do to.. exam on my birthday.

Ohhh BTW - I want to try and make a feature out of my first Huffington Post piece but I might need some quotes - I guess I ought to ask Mods first if I am allowed to canvass responses from the great and the good of the mortgage-free-wannabee community?
And it would be to help a fellow MFW out...

Always assuming people would be happy to chat...

Sepa74

Lol.. you can count me in, Hurdler, what will it involve?

Hurdler

Hi Sepa - I want to propose it as a feature to the local paper I will be doing my placement at - It would probably be a telephone interview - and I want to back it up with quotes from MSE Martin's article that Lois posted (will grovel to the news team to see if I can get a direct quote ... which would be superb) and probably will try and chat to local estate agents and maybe see if my IFA would offer a comment ... the tutors reckon it is v good to go into placement with decent ideas with local interest (so if any other Surrey/SW Londoney based MFWs would like to contribute, I'd be really grateful). Alas all I can offer in return is maybe a cup of coffee and of course my encouragement in your MFW aspirations :-))

I have another idea for a feature for my placement - I am at my mum's in Colchester and she's confused (bless her) with the changes in Yahoo's mail and I've had to re-set up her browser and options in webmail to go automatically in. so I am also trying to get some quotes from Age UK and Yahoo if I can next week.

For my Public Affairs feature (which is compulsory) I am looking at the potential effect of the NHS immigration cap - my parents and all our local friends came to study nursing from Mauritius... so looking at how long term effects may change the face of key areas of nursing and medical staff.

But the REALLLLLLY good news is ... I got an "A" in my Public Affairs exam - 74%. I am so unbelievably relieved that I don't need to resit it and the central government high scoring questions were a total disaster for me, I felt. The only good thing was I had done so badly in the mock on local goverment finance - I had really gone to town on learning that stuff because he'd told us that there would be a question on Local Govt Finance.

Now I am going to really throw myself into Essential Media Law (exam on my birthday, boo hoo, on 21st March) and Shorthand. Especially Shorthand. It is an unmitigated disaster at the moment and I feel like a defective typewriter, only getting consonants, and even then only sometimes.

IF I get home from the frozen wasteland of East Anglia... I can make a payment to my mortgage now I have done my monthly finances, and get within swiping distance of dipping under £100K. I need a new PC (well ok ... maybe not NEED, but I would like to get one while I am still gainfully employed) so I have set myself a target that if/when I go under £100K, I am going to buy a Windows 7 Home PC that will last me a good 5 years before I need to consider a replacement.

And if I look at it as a treat, then strangely I feel more motivated to throw the £7K+ at my mortgage over the next couple of months as I then don't feel bad about coughing up £1K to buy it. Then again - I am hoping that the tax code adjustment is a constant and not a once off - I won't know until next month obviously! If it IS a constant then I should still be able to make maybe a couple of months of over-payments as well - so again don't feel so bad.

As a complete aside - I took the precaution of taking the work blackberry home with me this weekend, because of the conditions, and texted a colleague and the client as we're all supposed to be in the south of the country on Monday. Client told me to take care with the journey and not risk it just for a meeting. Colleague just said "REALLY need you with me in the meeting"... nice.

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Hi Hurdler, brilliant news on your exam result and imminent OP. hope all goes well with your journey south. Best wishes Tilly

Hurdler

Bit of a slip slidey journey back ... but... I have just paid off a new chunk of dosh - and because I am on Money Bricks for the time being... that irritating £15 had to go...

So:


Poor Ol' Vernon is a bit depleted but instead of raiding him first to cover my CC payments, I am using the rent from the flat (which is the whole point of it... duh!)

It will force me to be a bit sensible this month instead of getting all carried away with sorting out my tax adjustment... I think that's a good thing for me.



Right - I need to get some washing in as I am working in the office every day until Friday (I normally work at home on a Monday so I can get to class but apparantly (no one actually TOLD me) I need to be in slippy slidey icy Hampshire on Monday. Grr!
And it looks like I will have a classmate crashing at mine during placement fortnight - so it's my last chance to get it all done!

And then shorthand... of course (is it bad that I can see in my mind how to squiggle that?)

Sepa74

Well done on the exam! The ideas for the features sound really good, particularly the one about the immigration cap on the NHS.

re the one about Yahoo, I like it, but it might be a bit too focused - maybe a general one about the challenges facing the aged on line? Accessibility of websites in general is an interesting area as well.

Happy to do an interview whenever you want, especially if a cup of coffee goes with it

Sepa74

Oh forgot to say, your colleagues really are something, aren't they! You're going to miss them when you've gone, not!!!!

Hurdler

well last 2 days of week before... umm... two weeks of work experience!

Because I bought my company wagon from my previous company, and it's three years old in March (Happy Birthday to Audi...tra laa)... I have been pitched into the world of... MOT and Tax!
This is all a frightfully big adventure and I had the guy from the Audi garage in fits as I am totally totally clueless!

Anyhoo - MOT and fixage of a non-defrosting heated wingmirror that got pinged out and damaged when someone clouted my wing mirror (grrr)

I realise how spoilt we were being able to drive to the office and have someone come pick it up and fix...

Then I have to figure out how to get my road tax sorted! Gone are the days of it arriving from Fleet management!
Even my MOTHER knows how to do hers and she finds my total lack of comprehension about the process hilarious!
Apparently it's all doable on the interwebz so... now I just need to remember where I put that stringy straggly bit of paper with important stuff on it!

I was supposed to be going out tonight but opted to work from home to get some work done in peace and quiet. But my mate has had to cancel. I am putting up a classmate from Journo school for the two weeks of placement as he got his at The Independent so I need to get the house into some kind of shape! Also I can do some law notes and shorthand tonight - which I sorely need to do!

In other financial news - I cashed in another lot of shares and paid in the money into my current account, and have opted to go for the Nationwide higher interest savings account as per the MSE top list simply because I have been put off Santandurrrrrr by other threads here, and a lot of other places are covered by various banks limits, where I have other accounts.
Once that clears I need to do some online bobbins to sort that out.

BT have adjusted my final bill DOWN I think from the exorbitant £60 down to a still hefty £40 with a broadband refund and a cheery message on the final bill of "sorry you're leaving - hope to welcome you back soon"... pfft!

I have to try and load up my refunded O2 3G dongle for my netbook ready for next week... so that will be money leaving the account...
And I'm going to make the most of working at home to do my finances and move stuff to various savings accounts.

I was a bit cheeky and yesterday made the most of photocopy facilities and condensed a lot of notes from school into double sided print to cut down the tree I have to carry around with me!
I might actually try and PDF a lot of stuff and put it on the iPad instead... even less to carry! (And yes - very gadgety I know but what do y'all expect from your favourite gadget-geeky MFW?

Hope everyone is all well and MFWing like good'uns...

:beer:

Hurdler

Morning all - weigh in wasn't as bad as I thought it would be despite sweetie binges (BAD cheap diesel at Watford with the sweeties on display at the till!)

Duracell/Proctor & Gamble refunded me £30 for the defective Duracell Charger - funnily enough - Play.com (who I bought it from) had offered to replace it even though it was bought in August last year... and I got a note from them today saying that they no longer stock it and so THEY refunded me too!
So going onto Duracell Direct to look for a new one later.

Other current outgoings will be the gardeners who came yesterday, and the cleaners at the end of the month - so all I need to do now is have that cheque from the sold shares clear, so that I can open my Nationwide saver account.

Meanwhile - my last day at work is driving me insane as my password keeps getting locked for no reason.
Could be a quiet day!
ETA: I just went back and read the play.com not and they were refunding my credit card, so im a panic I had to check WHICH card it was because I stopped using my useless Barlcaycard around then... thankfully it was one of the early purchases I had made from the MBNA Play Visa... phewwww!