Hurdler's Race to be Mortgage-Free

Hurdler

Pearla*Merle wrote: »

Hellooooo! I had a look to see if you had a diary and here you are

How flipping exciting on the press pass! If there's one thing better than going to an event, it's getting to do all the backstage stuff too (can you guess I miss getting guest/vip/crew passes? ) ... and to tennis heaven as well! *falls down flat*. Please make sure you give us all the gossip so I can live vicariously through you.

Re: surveys, I also mostly use Valued Opinions, they rack up quite quickly and if you do get screened out it's done quickly so you don't feel you've wasted too much time. Same goes for Ipsos. I've mostly stuck to those two as far as the larger surveys go, and then do OnePoll as it's so quick (though you do need to get into the habit of checking the site frequently).

PS. Happy belated birthday!

PPS. How funny, I think we might have been wandering around the Trafford Centre at the same time. I sadly came home sans coffee machine though :rotfl:

PPS. Loved the amazing technicolour dream-house :T

As luck would have it I started with Sw4gbucks and got an invite for VO just now and registered for Ipsos... so will have another play with those and maybe just stick to those!

Yeah I was well shocked to get the pass because a previous editor I worked for was convinced she'd fallen out with enough of the International Tennis Writers' Assoc to be blackballed (the AELTC hate internet sites) so I was STUNNED to get in, especially as we effectively write for a streamed gambling site affiliate but we have a couple of clean google news sites that serve for accreditation (no streaming and no affiliation - just dry news).

Hurdler

Sigh - Sky broadband and phone line died at lunchtime, so I had to up sticks and had to drive to my mums and her broadband is hellishly slow ....

Just as well I was coming home for the weekend!

Hurdler

So yesterday was fun - our boss got uber excited about the prospect of the men's semi-finals, first berating me because he had not twigged that they were yesterday and that he thought we'd missed one. Then decided to pull all days off planned so act as though this tournament was a slam and wanted stupid repetitive articles to maximise clicks for streaming (which is how the site makes it's money).

So it was all hands to the pump and he kept sending stupid emails that I had to reply to and then berated again wanting to know why I hadn't finished previews and articles! It took every ounce of self control not to reply "if I didn't keep having to reply I could get them finished!!!"

Then after frantic work to churn out rubbish... The two top stars got to the final in walk overs as their opponents both withdrew!

Today is supposed to be my day off so I will get out of bed shortly (still at mums - was coming here for the weekend when the Sky broadband outage to Richmond and surrounding areas happened) so been here since Thursday.

But no chance of a day off or taking mum out for dinner as he has decided we work all the way through. So we'll get a takeaway instead and I will try and dip in and out over the day.

But ...
:www: had a candid discussion with mum about being Mortgage Free. When dad retired (pensioned off after doing his back in lifting a patient) they used his money to completely pay off the mortgage while mum stayed working while I was at Uni and then retired in my final year after hurtling her knee at work - also pensioned off - good old NHS!

She is vaguely impressed that I could be mortgage free in 4-5 years if everything stayed the same (which of course it won't!!!) ...

NSD yesterday as I was glued to the laptop all day.

so with Nadal and Djokovic in a final we will have to churn out repetitive articles for click throughs that real tennis fans won't be interested in so must remind self and other full-timer - we get paid for this kind of churn-a-lism and he only gets interested around this kind of time - the rest of the time he leaves us alone. But it is a shame that his right hand woman in the UK who sometimes deflects this rubbish is off as her mother is very ill...

So out of bed and get a couple of hours in so we can head into town.

Hurdler

Ok MFW letter writing experts -need some advice!
I was hoofed over to Sky Broadband when it acquired O2 and at that time I had not landed my current role so was able to work in town if I had to, but largely mooched about at home writing etc.

Then I landed my current role and generally work from home if not physically at an event.

With this outage (a cable issue at the exchange which required specialist replacement and reconnection) I had no cost free alternative but to drive to Colchester (probably about 150+ miles and 2+ hours in the car) to be able to continue researching articles and filling.
Also because it knocked out the landline I had to make a 20min call on my mobile to Sky.

The outage affected multiple areas and took about 24 hours to resolve and in that time a nice man from Sky called me and explained that the lines which they lease from VIRGIN and not BT had died and they were chopping a bit out and resplicing each strand of cable) and that there would be a credit to my account for the time the service had been unavailable.

In the mean time in Twitter the Skyhelpteam handle was being manned by some guy called Shaun and when I asked him what the outlook was - he had no idea what that meant so I had to explain it.

He then contacted me after the resolution and said in his tweet to me that the refund was going to be "pennies rather than pounds" and started explaining about the issue being BTs problem - so I queried this seeing as I was told it was Virgin. But by the time the "pennies" comment had really got my goat. I made a comment about lack of joined up support and again Shaun seemed clueless so I had to explain about the support courtesy call versus what he was telling me!
Now he keeps tweeting saying I was told the wrong thing but surely that hardly matters?

So I doubt I am going to get anything but it is surely worth a try - have the address and would like to get money back for at least half the journey to Colchester (I was coming here for the weekend anyway but maybe they don't need to know that!!!) and the phone call on the mobile when the issue first happened.

BUT - this is a residential contract and it is now obvious I need something more robust as I work at home most of the time so I need to box clever around that.

Any ideas?! :eek::rotfl:

edinburgher

Well, I work for an IT company and the 'BT's problem' comment doesn't wash. Our SLAs are with the customer, and any 3rd party contracts used to fulfil the service (for example, leasing circuits from BT or Virgin (both companies that we use) are our issue.

My opinion is that they should be refunding you as appropriate, any issue with BT/Virgin is a supplier management issue and one that they can take up as a commercial discussion if they end up out of pocket refunding you.

That said, I honestly don't think you're going to be refunded for a 150 mile drive, they'll argue (accurately?) that you could have got online much closer to home.

Also, I think you've hit the nail on the head re. a residential contract for business use. You need some resilience - how about a PAYG mobile broadband dongle? Chances are any fixed line solution will be using the same circuits/exchanges that have had issues in the past...

Hurdler

I did start using the dongle but it was racking up MBs at an alarming rate although it was right at the start of the 3GB allowance - they have agreed in this tweet-a-thon that they will refund the phone call as I had no phone line either.

If I was just doing social for the matches it would have been just as easy to use the same 3G contract on the iPad as for the dongle.

I used to work in IT in my previous life so the SLA argument is quite a good one. I left BT Residential for O2 but got shuffled to sky as a result of the acquisition so I suspect I will have to go back to BT just for slightly more robust support. They have a good rep for rapid support 24/7 which didn't matter when I had the IT writing gig as that was largely usual business hours but this role follows tournies world wide.

Sigh - if it wasn't for the fact that I was told when I bought the house that Virgin would rip up my drive to get it in, I would go to them as I used to use them in my flat and the connectivity was super fast. That being said ... I have electric gates and they are wired through my wall into the fuse box and run alongside the fence and through a little narrow channel the gate guys traced out. So maybe I ought to look at Virgin again...


I think I would be happy settling for the pennies refund for 24 hours and the mobile phone call which the support moron agreed to and I have the evidence.

I have four months left on the sky contract to run but if I can negotiate my BT Sport fees on the BT business broadband contract (they have some offer over April) and offset the leaving charge against the business I think that's going to have to be the direction I go.

Cheers pal - v good stuff.

Hurdler

FINALLLLLLLLY got the recalculation -

Below £400 a month. :beer:

Not by much but enough to make me feel like I have hit a milestone.
I know I know £394.xx is really as near as dammit £400 but woot nonetheless!

In other news - all hell breaking loose at work ahead of final because boss came online as I drove home and he doesn't know other full timer is off so desparately trying to hide the fact!
So will update sig in a bit...!

Alchemilla

Sounds lively at work.
I cannot believe there is a freezer inventory app?

Hurdler

Alchemilla wrote: »

Sounds lively at work.
I cannot believe there is a freezer inventory app?

I discovered I can edit my locations so will just have to add the two middle drawers in the freezer - awesome #geek

Hurdler

Day off so much to do!

MFW Wonderment :www: Expenses to be done so come the 6th I can sort out my salary, expenses, dividends and get it done super early. Also yesterday was an NSD and will be popping money into my treat account later today.

Grey clouds I contacted BT Business but because of the way that Sky ringfences their connections in the exchange I was either looking at 10 days of no internet (not an option in my role as I work shifts so can't do the evenings on just a PAYG dongle for 7 hours) so I will have a separate Business Broadband put in with more robust support and will cancel Sky's BB so a little saving but not much. The only good thing is that the BB will then come out of the business which brings Corp Tax down.

Silver Linings My tenants finally agreed to an increase of rent - so I just need to get the contract back now.

Today's To-Dos :eek:

• Get stuff sorted for town, gym and pool
• Make these two damn soups!
• Business Expenses
• Personal Expenses and Filing
• Laundry/Dishwasher and general tidy
• Place mum's old printer on Freegle
• Computer time (bits and bobs, surveys, diary mgt for the new month etc)
• Leave the office at 6pm and turn everything off and chill out downstairs for a full evening