Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

vivatifosi

Good point re special offers. I tend to get all my toiletries, cleaning materials and non perishable foods such as tins on special offer. I have in my mind where things are cheapest. For example, I only drink UHT milk because I prefer the taste. That's always cheapest at Aldi.

Additionally I have two rechargeable cards, one each for Tesco and Sainsburys. By pre-loading these at the beginning of the month, I get 4-5% off my total spend. This is something I get through where I work. So that saves me about a tenner per month. I have one for Boots too, but with less loaded on.

On the subject of milk, in America, most of the milk is UHT rather than pasteurized, but Americans like to buy their milk like pasteurized, from the chilled in the plastic bottles. Adding a big and totally unnecessary transportation and storage cost. Mad.

GDB2222

PasturesNew wrote: »

Don't quote, will delete



An awkward question to answer... without eating into savings, yes. That's being generous really, I could cut it down lower than those figures if I "had to", but I don't "have to".

My income is about "single person JSA level". It was less, but I've got it up to that level now, so things have got a bit easier. It was about half that a year ago.

You are getting your online empire back on track, then? Is there still scope for improvement?

Mantoseda

Hello everyone. I am newbie here. Did not found any introduction section on forum. Just want to say welcome to everyone.
P.S. nice pictures, real summer

GDB2222

PasturesNew wrote: »

Not really. Kind of "stuck". It exists, so I've fiddled with it a bit - but I'm now lacking the motivation to give it a makeover and "do it properly" with gusto and enthusiasm.

The world's changed and what made money back then doesn't now - I don't have a product to sell.

What used to happen was: I'd pick a random subject, let's say "choosing fences" - and write about it. That'd be it. That'd get high in Google, traffic would come and I'd make money from the views/clicks and never have to look at that article ever again.

Roll on 5 years and every fence company now has a website; every fence company now has a facebook page and a twitter account - and, daily, they can facebook/tweet their "before/after" photos and show people stuff ... and it's therefore always changing (which Google likes) + their customers are sharing what they've bought with their friends.

Nobody wants to read "a random article about...." these days as there's more/relevant information from the companies/customers of anything and everything.

Repeat that across every subject you could ever dream up to write about .... and unless I have an actual product on a website, that I own, that I can sell .... I've "nothing" of "value" to provide.

And, then there are all the apps out there .... people used to sit at their PC to find something I wrote .... now they're at the bus stop, getting "real time" information on what they're interested in.

Behaviour/the market's changed across every sector. I have no specialism, I have no product, I have no business.

I'm treading water..... but the ship sailed and I wasn't on it.

You do have many strengths you could build on to make a home business.

One is your extraordinary ability to find out about people/things online. So, you could set up a small business as a genealogist without having to invest anything at all. It's easy enough to set up a website and a Facebook page and see if any business comes your way. The very worst that can happen is:
a) People ignore you and you get no business, or
b) Someone hires you and then doesn't pay you. As you like doing the research anyway, you won't have lost that much.


Alternatively, how about this?
"Need help finding unique products trending to sell in my store
Hourly - Intermediate ($$) - Est. Time: 3 to 6 months, 10-30 hrs/week - Posted 3 hours ago
I need someone who is competent in researching profitable products to sell in my store. This will involve searching through websites and finding products which fit certain criteria and then entering this data into a spreadsheet. Summary: 1. Find products through trending sites e.g. wish.com, odditymall.com, dudeiwantthat.com (i will provide the sites to search through) 2. Paste link to product in spreadsheet (template will be provided) 3. Find the product for sale on AliExpress paste link in spreadsheet 4. Find videos of the product in action on YouTube or other. Video based training will be provided and a Test Project will need to be completed before acceptance! Please start your response with TIGER to confirm you have read the post. "

https://www.upwork.com/o/jobs/browse/skill/internet-research/

I'm sorry. I wasn't going to make any suggestions. I just can't seem to stop myself.

PasturesNew

GDB2222 wrote: »

I'm sorry. I wasn't going to make any suggestions. I just can't seem to stop myself.

I'd need a new PC before I even thought of that .... that "work" will probably go to somebody in the US, India, Thailand, where they're happy to take 50p an hour.

If I had a new PC I'd probably rather set myself up as a real world temp/virtual assistant .... and, there's that other bit... "set up a business". I "don't do people". Happy to work, can't do the selling/negotiation/chasing up any bad debts etc.

LydiaJ

Haven't been keeping records recently so can't tell you what we spend on food etc apart from that it varies a lot from week to week. Takeaway for the three of us is usually about £13 from the excellent local chippy, or £18 from the Chinese - but that feeds all of us once and me for a couple of extra lunches from the leftovers.

GDB2222 wrote: »

Our youngest son is coming home from uni on 22 Dec, so we'll have a few days at home together, then go to Sheringham. Saturday night (the 24th) is the first night of Chanukah, so we'll celebrate that at home with the family.

Hope you have a wonderful time. I remember driving from Oxford to Midlothian on the afternoon of Christmas day many years ago - beautiful scenery around the M6 and not another vehicle in sight. (PN, that's because LNE was working for a church up to and including Christmas morning, so my brother invited us to his place for the evening of the 25th, and offered to postpone the usual Christmas food, presents etc until 26th so we could be there. It was before he or I had kids.)

Random question for Jewish NP (and NP of other faiths if there are any reading) just because I'm curious...

Christmas is always on 25th December - so at the same point on Earth's orbit round the Sun, regardless of the day of the week or phase of the moon.

Easter is always on a Sunday, and always in the first week after a new moon - a combination of weekday and lunar criteria that makes its date vary a lot.

Islamic Eid al-Fitr is always on the day of a new moon, and the first day of the month after Ramadan. Because the Islamic calendar is lunar, this means it can be at any time of the secular year, and any day of the week.

How do Jewish holidays work?

Mantoseda wrote: »

Hello everyone. I am newbie here. Did not found any introduction section on forum. Just want to say welcome to everyone.
P.S. nice pictures, real summer

Hello Mantoseda

We have found in the past that messages like yours are often not from real people but from bots trying to post the requisite number of board posts to be able to post links. If you are in fact a real person, you are very welcome here, and can prove you're not a robot by telling us whether you like mushrooms. It's kind of the NPT equivalent of those reCaptcha things you get on many websites these days.

ukmaggie45

Today was Brown Envelope Day. It wasn't good news other than they keep me on standard level for both Daily Living and Moving Around.

It was dated 30 November, so my request for Tribunal will have to be with the Tribunal Service by 28 December. :eek: So effectively I only have about a week and a half before sending it off - will send Next Day Guaranteed, but not sure if it's really "Guaranteed" over Xmas time, so will make sure there's plenty of time for it to get there Just In Case!

Today I hit the Gin! :beer: Tomorrow I start putting my papers in order. Fortunately I don't have to send all my evidence yet as that happens after I get the Bundle from DWP setting out their case. We've already got 2 copies of the form needed printed off - one for practice and one in case I FU the first.

GDB2222

PasturesNew wrote: »

I'd need a new PC before I even thought of that .... that "work" will probably go to somebody in the US, India, Thailand, where they're happy to take 50p an hour.

If I had a new PC I'd probably rather set myself up as a real world temp/virtual assistant .... and, there's that other bit... "set up a business". I "don't do people". Happy to work, can't do the selling/negotiation/chasing up any bad debts etc.

I did wonder about the work going offshore. Also, there seems to be a requirement to complete a test project free before you find out whether you have the job. It did strike me that the purpose of posting it might be to get lots of test projects completed for nothing.

Good luck finding a new PC.

silvercar

Random question for Jewish NP (and NP of other faiths if there are any reading) just because I'm curious...

Christmas is always on 25th December - so at the same point on Earth's orbit round the Sun, regardless of the day of the week or phase of the moon.

Easter is always on a Sunday, and always in the first week after a new moon - a combination of weekday and lunar criteria that makes its date vary a lot.

Islamic Eid al-Fitr is always on the day of a new moon, and the first day of the month after Ramadan. Because the Islamic calendar is lunar, this means it can be at any time of the secular year, and any day of the week.

How do Jewish holidays work?

We have a lunar year of 354 days. Each festival has a fixed date according to the hebrew lunar calendar, whatever day of the week that happens to be. In order to keep the seasons lined up with the calendar we have a leap month rather than a leap day. So when you compare say Passover with Easter they will move apart by a few days more each year, then one year we get a leap year and Passover jumps to a month later and brings everything back into line.
So this year Chanukah (festival of light) starts Xmas eve, but it generally occurs late November to late December, so is really late this year.

LydiaJ

silvercar wrote: »

We have a lunar year of 354 days. Each festival has a fixed date according to the hebrew lunar calendar, whatever day of the week that happens to be. In order to keep the seasons lined up with the calendar we have a leap month rather than a leap day. So when you compare say Passover with Easter they will move apart by a few days more each year, then one year we get a leap year and Passover jumps to a month later and brings everything back into line.
So this year Chanukah (festival of light) starts Xmas eve, but it generally occurs late November to late December, so is really late this year.

Thank you. If I may continue with my curiosity...
Among Jews who are sufficiently observant not to cook on Shabbat (is that just Hasidim or other Orthodox too?) what happens if a feast day falls on Shabbat?

In other news, I am getting tired of this tedious virus. I am now on day 11 and still have no voice. The "nose and eyes" symptoms have been pretty mild, and even the cough isn't that bad, but it's so frustrating not being able to speak properly (recently) or even at all (today).