Keep calm and carry on....

South_coast

£30 of Consumer Pulse credit converted to Argos vouchers and I have ordered a new lamp for my lounge (only been looking for a lamp for...about 2 years? This one is as close to perfect as I think I'm going to get!) I wanted to order for collection from Sainsbury's, the same as I always do, but while I was logged in and they had the correct address for home delivery, the only collection point they would offer me was a Sainsbury's about 20 miles away (where it wasn't in stock anyway 🤔) so I had to go for delivery. It's free and it's not as though I won't be at home anyway.

It's funny how internet shopping has slowed down our desire to have things straight away - in the old days, you would have just gone to Argos, waited around for a bit and then walked out with your new lamp. Now it's going to be delivered within 10 days! No chance of just picking it up any more, as the big Argos in town that carried the full range of stock has closed down in favour of the mini one in Sainsbury's. You'd assume that as society gets more demanding we'd want everything faster, but now we're happy to wait and not get anything straight away 🤔?

Anyway, enough of my ramblings, that £30 has made a fantastic contribution to this month's free money tally 😀 Doing well so far, but I have scraped up all the easy wins now!

ruby_eskimo

All your talk of food is making me miss Italy - especially pistachio gelato.  Sometimes you need a day (or a week) to just wallow and help reset.  Fingers crossed the big weekend project comes together, whatever it is (I'm very intrigued!)

South_coast

Blimey, I feel like I've over-sold it now!!! More dynamic yes, big project no 🤣! Today I am going for a walk in a different location, and tomorrow/Sunday I am visiting my parents and going blackberry picking/helping clear out their loft (apparently there are some bits of mine still in there - no idea what, but if I haven't needed them in the 19 years since I left home I reckon they can safely be chucked!)

yogavibes

How was the walk and general dynamic-ness today SC? I managed to get the dogs walked first thing, youngest DS off to school then biked to my yoga class.  This afternoon I've been pottering trying to make some crafty things. So overall from me it was definitely more dynamic than yesterday (which I spent most of in bed/my armchair).  Am also contemplating a second bike ride down to @ldi to get some gin in for this evening  Blackberry picking sounds good - esp if it ends with crumble making and eating! Enjoy!

greenbee

My work stuff was picked up today, so I'm now officially unemployed as well... 

South_coast

It was better (although not as good as you - impressive)! I drew the curtains at least 😀  

I did a survey last week about canals and inland waterways and why I did/didn't spend time by them. That would be because I don't have a clue where my nearest one is! Anyway, that piqued my curiosity, so I stuck "canal" into Google Maps and it turned out there was an old abandoned one about 9 miles away, so I've been off there this afternoon exploring it. Maps reckons I've walked about 4 miles (which I'd agree with 😀). The car park was in the middle, so I went down to the town end and stopped when it reached a set of traffic lights on the main road and became somewhat less picturesque (it wasn't great to start with!), then back all the way I'd come, across the road and up to the countryfied end where it then ended (it used to join up with a tramway) - much prettier in this direction! Can't believe I've lived in this area for 13 years and didn't know it existed! I couldn't get a space in the car park at first (very small), so I turned the car in the opposite direction and did a little trundle along a footpath I'd seen about 1000 times from a flyover and thought "I really must go down there one day" instead, so I can tick that off the list as well 😀

Whilst meandering along, I've given a lot of consideration to a job I've seen advertised which sounds interesting but is 😮😮😮 money. It's about 7 miles from home and is actually better money than some of the roles I've seen advertised which are much further away, plus it's only an 8-month contract so hopefully the world will have righted itself by then and there will be more on the table (says she who thought she'd only be working from home for 2-3 weeks when making the move from the office a week before lockdown 🤣 Clearly I have misjudged this whole pandemic!) It would mean I have £0 to OP though, as it would just about pay my bills and allow me to put a little bit into savings each month. The "bread and butter money" that sammy70 has referred to on her diary has really resonated with me though - earning enough to pay my bills would be a lot better than not earning anything at all! Lots of "I can always turn it down...." and "Hey, they might not want me anyway!" thoughts going through my mind, but it does feel like I would be giving up a bit easily 🙁 I want to tweak my CV a bit to make it a bit more generic and I think I'll apply in the morning (not procrastinating, I need to pinch BF's work laptop to make the edits as I don't have Word on mine!)

Phew, that's enough for a Friday evening I think, might have half a glass of wine....! x

Grogged

I think it's the same wherever you live, you never realise what's on your doorstep.
We've been surprised by just how much is around us that we never knew about.
Job sounds interesting, even if it's only to tide you over.
I've always found tweaking the CV to match the job to be more successful than a generic one.
I've also found that reposting your CV every few weeks generates more agent interest.
I just renamed my CV and re-upload it.
I think it works because they're always looking for new people, which just means recently uploaded CV's.
ATB,
G.

South_coast

Thanks G x

CV tweak was needed as I thought there were some points which might only make complete sense to someone in my (old?) industry, so I wanted to de-jargon/elaborate further and take out some training courses that are irrelevant in a different role. I also needed to big up my previous role, as my head wasn't really in the right place when I wrote it and it probably sounded a bit jaded 😐 Anyway, done now, and I have applied. Still not quite sure I have mentally accepted what a 50% drop in take-home pay would really look like, but "if you don't give it a go, you'll never know" and all that. When I get home (Monday) I'm going to flick back through my book of monthly accounts to remind myself that I did manage just fine when I had that kind of income before - although I didn't have the hefty car payments then that I do now 😮!

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, good luck with the job SC. Good idea to go back through old accounts and remember all the MSE basics

Lovely to have a little waterways day out! I do love a canal

killerpeaty

I don't like the cones  on ice creams either, I'm pretty sure they're made out of sadness with a hint of disappointment.

Do you know that you can edit word documents on free office online (a little bit limited though) and also you can use google sheets, both will export to a normal word document. Personally I prefer google sheets, it's easier to use in my opinion.

Ouch to a 50% cut, however you are definitely doing the right thing. It's so important to feel some control in your life and getting a job will help with that, even if it's not quite right.