Dusty's Frugal Fortnights Return!

Floss

Dusty, are you in rented property or your own home? If it's rented your landlord should be sorting out the leak & mould, and insurers should be repairing/ redecorating.

dustydigger

Every few days I check up on my Scottish Power figures. They publish daily figures,and  I had all figures up to 14th August,both in KWs and pounds.. I could also compare with the last 3 years month by month. So imagine my surprise today when all data after 11 June,date of my last bill has disappeared. Gone . Kaput.. My old fixed tariff ends Aug 31st. After that I will go on SVT since they are asking a ridiculous £367 a month for a fix. I am also annoyed because I am now using a tabletop oven,I wanted to be able to compare new and old costs. Nope,all figures for June,July and August have vanished into air,into thin air,as the Bard says.

Anyone else with SP in similar circumstances.Its so suspect.........

dustydigger

Floss said:

Dusty, are you in rented property or your own home? If it's rented your landlord should be sorting out the leak & mould, and insurers should be repairing/ redecorating.

Hi Floss.Our council have huge backlogs of repairs,they really only do emergency work. They assumed that they fixed the leak,didnt check properly and cut out a square around the little hole where the water leaked through to the sittingroom below and put up a new ceiling board spoiling the paper.. Never even bothered washing or cleaning where  dirty water came through. We had to wait TWO MONTHS  before they came to put up the ceiling board. Obviously some water was still leaking behind the paper and coving.,and caused mould. My eagle eyed son reconized the mould,which just looked a bit discoloured,I assumed from the original leak. Knowing how slow the council are,he decided to do it himself,but work intervened and so he is just doing it now. Who knows when the council would get round to it,a bit mould is unimportant in their eyes. We didnt know about the still existing leak hidden unde the floor and slowly seeping into the hall.

I sympathise with the council,year on year with the Tory government,labour councils have been starved of cash,and they are now desperate. They have cut things to the bone repeatedly. We used to have 3 working plumbing teams,now there is only one,who have a large catchment area,and sometimes they have to sub contract to private people,which I suspect is very expensive.It annoys me immensely when the govt yap about ''leveling up'' when they are the ones who caused the extremely bad conditions in the first place. Now they desperately need to keep all those traditionally labour voters on their side for the next election so they laud leveling up.while not actually doing it. Good luck keeping all those former labour votes who only joined the tories because of Brexit. With another 2 years of energy crisis,good luck with them enthusiastically supporting this terrible govt.

Oops,an off topic rant. What a surprise!

dustydigger

A little progress with the painting.Biting my tongue not to tell DS1 what to do. He has never decorated before and its not up to my standard,but beggars cant be choosers,and at least its ten shades lighter!. I had wanted him to do a second coat on the ceiling,to my eyes it is still a bit dingy. But he started saying that after all, yesterday it was yellow,now its white,he was tired,he had limited tim etc Boy,is he a chip off the old block    I gave up,and now I wince everytime I look up at the ceiling. Never mind

 But its true he is super busy at work,and has been fitting me in in between.He goes away on Sunday and it away for 3 weeks. So no hope of doing the kitchen for weeks. He is doing consultancy work for a business in Scotland,and more and more people are hearing of him and wanting him to do their inspections and certifications. Gas fitters obviously need to be regularly retrained and their work inspected,blowing up their customers doesnt look too good So originally he had about a dozen visits all over Scotland,and was supposed to work for this business about 2 days a month. More and more is piling on,and he needs to use his computer to work out the best routes for covering all inspections. People dont realize that just trying to fit in 2 or 3 extra visits completely throws off the schedule and he has to redo everything. At the same time his old boss here wants him to set up a new training centre and be in charge of development and the website.Meanwhile he has to be involved in closing down the bathroom business they set up,but was ruined by covid. No wonder he is always super busy.

One good thing. the mess in the bathroom? He says it is a much bigger job than it looks. The council obviously knew this and only did small repairs. The whole sink and piping needs dismantling,removing ,and then replacing properly. So since he is dismantling a bathroom business,he is going to get me a whole bathroom. He did all the actual work setting up bathrooms in the showroom of their business,and is a wonderful tiler,the bathroom set ups were wonderful. So I will get a whole new bathroom ,modern mixer taps,shower,flooring the lot. But much later in the year. No idea how and when he will do it,could be November. But it would be a wonderful Xmas present.

Of course,for now we have a dismantled tap in the bathroom sink,and mould in the sittingroom . My other son was supposed to come and sand doors,and steam wallpaper off,so we could put on new wallpaper and do that mouldy corner. Its obviously more of an eyesore with the rest of the walls newly done. ,and he was called away for work in Oxford,or Reading,or Wigan,who knows. And neither son has ever hung wallpaper. So for now the old wallpaper will stay on the feature wall,and we just paint that corner once the mould is cleared off. So a mess of a room for quite a while........sigh..........Why is my life never easy?

I have been searching all over the web for an exact match for the paper tto cover the mouldy wall,and cant for the life of me find a match anyway. Looked at literally HUNDREDS if not a thousand wallpapers,but cant find mine. Should I just paint the corner for now? Its to the right of the door into the room,and the couch is at right angles to it,its not something visitors would stare at.,and the door being open hides that 3 feet of wall.And I rarely have visitors anyway,just family. Then in a little while I get a proper decorator to paper the feature wall and the mouldy corner. I had huge plans for making over the whole room,removing wallpaper and coving, sanding and plain painting walls,get new interiors doors,shelving,the works. But 250% energy price rises take priority. Even with govt help I reckon I will have at least to find £4000 over the next 2 years just to give to those rapcious so and sos.

And Mr D doesnt help. Its a lot cooler now,around 18C,I am so much brighter because of it. But Mr D asked for the radiators on last night,he felt cold. I told him he wasnt cold,just cool.,couldnt he put a jumper on(in this weather?) but no on went the radiators so he could sit almost on top of it and warm his hand. Boy do I need a medal for putting up with him for 53 years he went out of the room a little later and I surreptitiously turned off the heating.,and he didnt notice. Up to 3 days ago I could have checked my usage this morning,and shown him how he wastes heat. Cant do that,all data since my last bill 11 June has been wiped off

dustydigger

I've been checking out energy costs in September after my  fixed tariff ends next week. I think I will pay about £180 for Sept,unless they start charging the new October tariff immediately,as Martin has warned..Still,being on the fixed saved me around £380 since April I think.I couldnt believe my eyes when I checked (yet again! ) for any changes. Its just unbelievable. They had been offering me a £367 fixed. Now that figure is a mindblowing,incredible £518 a month,£6224.There are now only 2 fixed tariffs on offer. One has boiler insurance included,the council does all maintenance free. The other tariff includes an extra amount to a cancer charity. I already do this personally myself. Not even a basic rate without those extra charges,which were there to a week ago.

Hey I shouldnt be so caustic. After all our wonderful ''caretaker PM'' is really showing a personal initiative to reduce energy usage. He has gone abroad yet again. Big energy reduction there.

beanielou

Great news on the bathroom to come 

slm6002

Hoping everything is ok as you have been quiet the past few days

beanielou

Hope all is well in your world 

dustydigger

Not been too well this weekend. Lethargic,brain fogged,butterflies in the stomach like someone waiting anxiously to see the headmaster or the dentist. Skin problems (rash) diarhoea,knee pain. Plus a rather difficult time with Mr Dusty. Last time he got our pay we got that £326 off the govt. Bank statement showed he took all money,£326 plus normal pay,£800,out of the bank. But then what? I say - and put in on my last frugal fortnight budget,that he gave me normal cash. Huge rows since when he says I MUST have got the money from him,and I say I didnt. I do know recently he sent 2 lots of cash back home to pay for expenses of sick daughter,I think he used that money from the bank,and has forgotten,his memory is shot. He admits that he doesnt remember a specific amount given to me,my normal £123 plus £326. And I certainly dont remember a huge stash of cash in the HBB box. So there's the first cash help from the govt down the drain. He is now reminding me every few hours to remind him when the next payment is due. He went for our normal money today,and I asked his to put an extra £50 in my account as my scottish Power fix ends next week.When he came home he said there was some extra money in the bank and he took it out. Couldnt tell me how much,and refuses to ask a teller.about transactions,stubbornly will wait another week for his bank statement. I have no idea what that money is.There was a bit of stress getting him to understand that since he had put £50 extra in my account,he needed to give me £50 less. Such a fuss,tried to give me £60,then £80. Making change for £73 was no easy job. And this from a man who had the top maths ''O'' level results in the country,who became a pupil teacher of maths till he went off to college to study accountancy. Its heartbreaking. Away from finances and understanding time(cant understand 24 hour clock at all) he is OK. We just have to plod on.......

dustydigger

Well,in three visits DS1 got the room painted. Have been too lethargic the last few days to tidy up or put pictures etc back on wall. Havent even hoovered the room,its a mess. I'm in that weird state where I can see what needs to be done,but cant bring myself to do it. Paint was dry Friday,took till last night to ask Mr Dusty to hang up the curtains..It took 2 days to get up the energy to address it,2 minutes to carry out!

Its going to be several weeks before DS1 does the kichen,stuff is still all over the yard getting wet. I'm just going to put the table back in place,stack a few things under,but cant refill display cabinet because all the furniture will need moving out when I get a new carpet. So weeks more chaos and emulating Steptoe and Son. I should be cleaning the stairs and paintwork since DS1 insists we do livingroom and stairs together,but I am incapable right now of doing housework.Also cant bring myself to leave the house,Mr Dusty has just gone to local town shops for a few items. I dearly want to do my own shopping and for the most part am physically capable,just mentally all at sea. We'll see how it goes.

At least another fortnight has gone by without alchol,hate to think what state I would be in if I was still  drinking. Only got to get through today without giving in and ordering a bottle on my asd@ delivery tomorrow!

Mr D is coming in from shopping,so will end now. I'll try to get back on in a couple of hours to post my budget,and new monthly book challenge

Sorry these posts have been a real drag,hope other posts will be a bit more cheerful.