NOT BUYING IT! 2015 - A consumer holiday

natnat13

Morning all,
Put fuel in the car yesterday, a necessary evil. I worked last night (sleeping nights, I like getting paid to sleep) and was going to go shopping this morning but really couldn't be bothered. I'm not missing the supermarket at all. I need milk (will get tomorrow) bin bags (carrier bag will do for now), tom ket (can do without) cotton buds and cotton wool (a flannel will do the job). I will need fresh food for the weekend so I'm going to do a meal plan and only buy what I need.
Also need coal, popped into a big coal merchant on my way home and they were just as expensive as the local garage. Obviously if I bought in bulk it would be a bit cheaper but not much and I don't want to do that atm.

natnat13

On the work front, I think that health is so much more important. I think we are almost conditioned to work ourselves to the bone and put up with the carp that is thrown at us but why should we? As long as we can pay our bills and manage our lives the goal should be "work to live not live to work"

[Deleted User]

Morning Everyone

So glad my Amazon post has helped some of you

Same goes for DVD's, Games, gadgets & CD's etc.

CEX (and no thats not a rude site I promise it means computer exchange)

I have 2 or 3 local to me but they also do online trade in for cash or for credit. Again with free postage if you trade in over (I believe) £10.

They don't give very much but they tend to pay more than music magpie etc.

I find the great thing here is that I either.

A. Never get the time to list things on eBay
B. Can't be bothered to post things on eBay

So they sit in a pile until they go into the bin. The thing here is that I tend to dig stuff out and think more harshly (In a good sense) when deciding what to keep and what to sell.

Of course if your offered £0.10 for something you may consider giving it to the charity shop instead

Last night I began reading 1500days a website one recommended by everyone here and I have to say it's fantastic! Totally up my street as I relate to a lot of things Mr 1500 does i.e. Trades on the stock market and micro-lending both of which I already do. The issue here is blogs tend to lead to 'blogs I recommended' so I've currently 10 tabs of blogs to read sat on my desktop, never actually stopping to finish the first one I started

Have a great frugal day everyone!

moments_of_sanity

I had a very stressful few years due to my dear Mum being diagnosed with cancer in 2002 (for the 4th time) and passing away in 2004, divorced in 2005, remarried in 2010 to a wonderful DH but the wedding had to be moved due to his Mum being diagnosed with terminal cancer, we married in June, DMIL moved in with us and passed away in November and of the exact same cancer my Mum died of so it was doubly hard to have to relive it all. All this time I was bringing up 2 wonderful DD's and work full time in an incredibly stressful situation, (ended up on AD's for 8 years)

I would have trouble getting to sleep but I would wake up several times in the night, panicking that I hadn't done something, did I book the right flights/train tickets/accommodation etc for my Boss (PA job), it got to the point I had to have a note book by my bed to jot my panicked thoughts on as otherwise I wouldn't get back to sleep.

In late 2011/2012 I started to feel really unwell and after 4 chest infections that were literally weeks apart from each other I ended up being off sick most of the time due to constant pain and extreme fatigue. I managed a couple of weeks back at work but eventually went off sick for 6 months at the beginning of 2012 and was finally diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Fibromyalgia. I was made redundant in June 2012 and haven't been able to work since as although I have times when I feel better, I am soon back to feeling terrible again.

Whilst I couldn't do anything about my stresses away from work, I certainly could have removed the stress from work by finding another job or leaving altogether but guilt kept me trudging on, how could I leave it all to my DH to bring in the money, I was making more work for my colleagues who had to cover me when i wasn't there...etc etc.

This year is going to be a year of less worry I hope, DH now has a permanent job after being made redundant in 2011 and only being able to temp since (where were all these jobs the Gov. talk about, he applied for hundreds and would have done anything), my budget has been set and sorted and it does feel like my life is feeling easier, I don't have so many wants/needs and am finally beginning to feel happier about my life.

Your health should never be taken for granted as we don't realise how stress affects us. I really hope to go back to work in the future and in a much less stressful situation but for now, even without CFS/fatigue, I wouldn't want to go back to the life/income I had before.

purpleshoes_2

Sorry, am typing on a tablet or was and it plays up hence the dodgy typos. I could write a book about work related stress but Ive known people who have been through worse than me. Before life got bad for me in the workplace I saw other people go through it and I used to look at them and think, how can your work make you stressed? I soon found out.

It was bullying I went through, I changed jobs 5 times and just about everywhere I went I got targeted. In some jobs not just me, one boss used to pick out people, you never knew if he would come in in a bad mood, a good mood, people just went to pieces one by one because he wasn't someone you messed with, he was proud of his reputation. Ive had workloads increased, Ive had work taken off me so I was effectively deskilled, Ive had other staff buttered up to be wonderful, with me looking awful (not that I was) in comparison. People can be bullied in many different ways, it doesn't have to be shouting and screaming. Ive also worked in managerial positions where unpaid overtime was expected of you, where you had to be on call and could be called out of your bed at 6am to deal with incidents, just loads of ways that the pressure can be piled on. Its always sadly been my experience that when you complain, people go into attack. Ive seen other people go through the same and worse, but some employers do have policies such as dignity at work and if they put in a grievance it gets heard fairly. So many people think its just a case of if you have rubbish working conditions, you raise your concerns, they get sorted, then if the worst comes to the worst you go to tribunal and you win. The reality can be massively different.

My sleep pattern was destroyed for years, its only really in the last 18 months its starting to get better. Ive had counselling a few times, put myself into counselling on more than one occasion. Self referred to occupational health projects. Been on anti depressants for a short time a couple of times. All to do with work, nothing else.

It is very very hard to exit a job you love and you are good at because the stubborn part of you wants to change things and believe me I tried often enough, you also think why should I have to leave. I went through a grieving process when I was forced out of one job, I loved that job and I worked my bottom off in it, but I went through so much I had to walk. There are a lot of conflicting emotions there.

All I know is, I could not have gone through a decade in my 40s, suffering what I went through in my late 20s and my 30s. I don't have a lot of money, I get by and I put what I can away for the future and hopefully in the next couple of years I'll earn more. But the quality of life I have now compared to then, I was saying to my mum a while back, I get up every single day and I know I'm not going to be bullied, you can't put a price on that, it really is worth the drop in income.

Plus I love what I do now. I went to get my eyes tested last week and the optician said to me, are you still a youth worker and I said, no I'm a PT.

If someone had said to me 10 years ago Id be a personal trainer Id have laughed at them and I didn't start teaching fitness classes till I was 41.

Take all the support you can and if it gets to the point where you have to get out, do not beat yourself up about it, I only wish in a couple of jobs Ive had previously Id have told them to shove it long before I did.

I walked out of one job knowing Id never go back because of my manager, things came to a head one day and I called family and thought I need to get out of here, when I was walking along the road I thought as long as I eat and as long as my cats eat that is all that matters.

There's always something else ahead of you, it just takes time to see it when you are in a situation where you feel you are stuck.

mirry

Can you please give me a brief description how the amazon book deal works. I do not trust myself reading the info correctly (brain fog). Am I right in thinking it's swapping books for a £5 voucher?

Primrose

Well today had to be a Spend day, having discovered some horrible moth holes in a quality woollen sweater. So as I have some good quality woollen garments including coats, some fresh moth killer items for wardrobes is a necessity. I usually try and replace them every six months as recommended but must have got slack as you easily forget these things when busy. Now have a six monthly automatic reminder programmed into my Outlook diary to remind me to replace them, (as well as checking smoke alarm batteries). Sometimes spending can save money in the long term!

purpleshoes_2

mirry wrote: »

Can you please give me a brief description how the amazon book deal works. I do not trust myself reading the info correctly (brain fog). Am I right in thinking it's swapping books for a £5 voucher?

You have to trade in your books, if they accept them they'll give you a price for them, you have to make a certain amount before they give you an extra five pounds, think its just this month the extra is going on.

I put some of the books I have into it to see what Id get, most would get a pound if they are accepted, there was one book that was worth five quid, was a bit surprised at that, but am still not sure whether Im going to do it, a few books I have are fairly new and cost 9 or 10 quid new and they are offering two quid back. Whereas some of the others that they are offering me a quid back only cost me a quid or less in the first place.

Im not bothered about not making money on them, just think that if I was going to trade in, Id trade in a lot of books that didnt cost me much to start with where Id get a pound back rather than trade in new books that cost a few quid and get two or three pounds offered.

[Deleted User]

mirry wrote: »

Can you please give me a brief description how the amazon book deal works. I do not trust myself reading the info correctly (brain fog). Am I right in thinking it's swapping books for a £5 voucher?

Hi Mirry,

Use the link I posted a little further back, enter the ISBN of each book, if it doesn't show its likely to be that they don't buy that book.

In January there giving you an extra £5 if you trade in £15 worth of books.

Postage is free if you trade in more than £10 of books.

So £20 Amazon credit (Perfect when your desperate for a splurge ) for a few old books

[Deleted User]

purpleshoes wrote: »

You have to trade in your books, if they accept them they'll give you a price for them, you have to make a certain amount before they give you an extra five pounds, think its just this month the extra is going on.

I put some of the books I have into it to see what Id get, most would get a pound if they are accepted, there was one book that was worth five quid, was a bit surprised at that, but am still not sure whether Im going to do it, a few books I have are fairly new and cost 9 or 10 quid new and they are offering two quid back. Whereas some of the others that they are offering me a quid back only cost me a quid or less in the first place.

Im not bothered about not making money on them, just think that if I was going to trade in, Id trade in a lot of books that didnt cost me much to start with where Id get a pound back rather than trade in new books that cost a few quid and get two or three pounds offered.

Yeah I agree, but eB*y would get you even less, otherwise where else do you sell books. It's quite hard to find a good marketplace these days especially when many people are moving to digital