5 months to emerge as a butterfly

Blackcats

Happy holidays.  Sounds like a great way to start the Easter break.  😍

Drawingaline

Hope you have a good holiday 😁

benbenandme

Yesterday was quite a lazy day, today I have cleaned ds bedroom, currently doing the second load of washing from that.  The dishwasher has been on too so using quite a bit of electricity today, but it has to be done sometimes. Both are being run on the eco setting which uses less power. 

I've also cleaned his carpet (lots of biscuits squashed into it ...), and hoovered upstairs. Currently I'm sat in the conservatory, I've downloaded the Vinted app and am going to try and get a few bits listed on there, it seems a bit easier than eBay. I'll see how it goes. 

Other than that I'm back on minimal sugar - today I've had my porridge with berries and I've had spinach linguine with mixed beans for lunch. I've drunk about a litre of water so far, I'll keep chugging lots of that throughout the day too. I was going to go and do a big food shop today but have decided I'm on a mission to use up stuff from the cupboards and freezer. I will need to go tomorrow and get milk and some veg, but otherwise I'm trying to keep it as minimal as possible while I run stuff down a bit. 

Tomorrow I've got someone coming to give me a quote to get rid of two trees, I've had two quotes so far - one was £1200, he was shown the door promptly , the other was £250, agreed the price and have never heard from him since! This one did some work for a friend this week and seems reasonable, fingers crossed. 

I'm still waiting to hear back from Shell Energy re. my bill, or lack of. I've spoken on live chat twice and been assured I'd get a bill within 5 days, that was about a month ago. I've put in a complaint now (a week ago), it says they respond within 10 working days so we'll see ... I haven't had a bill since December despite having a smart meter. My account is now £450 in credit but obviously that isn't a true reflection. The energy prices are bad enough, without not being able to track it properly. 

benbenandme

I've also decided that, weather permitting, I will do a car boot sale next weekend. I know its Easter but if I don't get it done the stuff will just sit there for ever more. Any decent clothes will go on Vinted, a couple of bigger bits (old bikes etc) will go on marketplace, the rest will get sorted out, boxed up and taken to the car boot. None of it is worth more than £1 or so but hopefully a few £££s will be made and some space cleared. There's no point just leaving stuff dumped in the garage for ever more. Indoors my house is fairly minimalist, I don't like clutter, but if you saw the state of the garage .... It also gives me a focus for this week

badmemory

benbenandme said:

Yesterday was quite a lazy day, today I have cleaned ds bedroom, currently doing the second load of washing from that. 


I'm still waiting to hear back from Shell Energy re. my bill, or lack of. I've spoken on live chat twice and been assured I'd get a bill within 5 days, that was about a month ago. I've put in a complaint now (a week ago), it says they respond within 10 working days so we'll see ... I haven't had a bill since December despite having a smart meter. My account is now £450 in credit but obviously that isn't a true reflection. The energy prices are bad enough, without not being able to track it properly. 

He's got way too many clothes!

I hate energy companies.  They whinge about the ones that went kaput but at least you could get bills out of them easily enough.  I even had an email early April from British Gas to say my bill was ready - except the site was still down so I couldn't access it.  Why does it all have to be so hard.  I thought the internet was supposed to make things easier.

benbenandme

He doesn't have that many, he just lacks the ability to (a) put them in the wash or (b) put them away, resulting in every now and then I blitz his room and chuck the whole lot in the wash as they are in such a scrumpled up pile on the floor that they aren't fit to wear anyway Most of it is work uniform, he has clean t-shirt and trousers each day but as he spends a lot of time in the kitchens he comes home filthy

I totally agree about energy companies - with a smart meter they are getting my readings so why haven't I had a bill for 4 months?! Their app can tell me my daily usage yet no-one can figure out my balance ... its all bonkers

Right, I've got 5 items on Vinted - lets see how we get on. I'm not expecting great things but hopefully if they sell its a few more £££s than I'd get at a car boot for them.

benbenandme

I've also just sorted out my broadband - I went through Quidco so should hopefully get £56 back from them one day, I've changed to Plusnet (from Sky), I was paying £40 for broadband and landline  , now it will be £29 and that's much faster broadband too. Todays turning into quite a productive day

benbenandme

Another fairly lazy one today, I have managed to get a reply from Shell on twitter, apparently my bill will be showing on my account by tonight, lets see ...
Other than that I have mooched a lot today, but at least haven't spent any money. I have made about £8 so far today on prolific, its the only survey site I do these days apart from pinecone, the surveys are interesting and usually fairly short.

benbenandme

I decided I needed to do something today or I'll be so bored by this evening, so I've cleaned the shed (ds sits in it to smoke when its raining). It didn't take long but its another of those little jobs crossed off the virtual list. I then went to pay in a cheque for ds, his bank doesn't let you do it on the app so I had to go there, £1 for parking but at least its done. I walked back through M&S to the car and picked up some reduced bits; pea and ham soup (reduced from £2.75 to 55p, best before 15th?), 6 wholemeal rolls (£1.80 to 67p), 12 pigs in blanket (in the freezer and will have them with Easter roast , £3.50 to £1.40), pack of mince (£2.00 to £1.15), I also got 4 pint of milk (not reduced ) and the whole lot came to just under £5.00  

benbenandme

So having tweeted Shell Energy about their lack of service I got a response and overnight my bill has been sent. However, having checked it they have been estimating my gas usage since December 2020, despite me having a Smartmeter, and have now adjusted it. I had been billed, and paid, £296 for gas usage from December 2020 - January 2022, they have now decided it should actually have been £431. I have done some googling and it seems they can't charge you for energy usage over 12 months ago if they haven't sent an accurate bill. So I am happy to pay the correct amount from last April onwards, but December 2020 - March 2021 they shouldn't be able to rebill me for. I've retweeted, lets see what they say. If not there is a handy letter on the Citizens Advice website I can use to send to them. Fingers crossed it gets resolved quickly. It's not a huge amount difference but my bank account needs that money way more than theirs does. I'll keep you updated