Dusty's Frugal Fortnights Return!

beanielou

Oh dear dusty, so sorry that things are so hard for you at the moment on so many fronts.
No wonder things seem such a challange to you 
Wish I was nearer to help.

retiredinfrance

Dusty, thinking of you and sending big hugs. You are such a strong person, keep on plodding and Bon Courage.xx

dustydigger

@beanielou and @retiredinfrance Was a bit down this afternoon,but have settled down a bit

.Watched Queen videos for a couple of hours. Nothing like Freddie's magnificent  voice.Brian's phenomenal lead guitar,or the amazing precision and timing of Roger's drumming with Deakey's fabulous bassline to cheer me up
Mr Dusty has been in the chair watching boring(to me) TV all evening,and only now after he's gone to bed can I concentrate.

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Dusty's Frugal Fortnight #8   Budget for 22nd August to 4th September

Part is online,part cash

online income: £79  pension ,£250 added to bank from our Pension Credit. I have increased my pension credit to bank from £200 to £250,for when the energy costs start in,making £329 in total

Then £73 cash to HBB (Home Budget Box) instead of £123 I was regularly saving between £60-£80 a fortnight from the HBB box to go in my savings binder. Ouch,not much general saving likely from now on .

Total income  for fortnight.-£402.

All bills paid online as follows(rounded up)

Charity DDs - £11

Broadband/phone -  £37

Kindle Unlimited - £8

Asd@ monthly delivery pass -  £6

Asd@ food deliveries  - £130

total online bills - £192.To bank buffer - £137.

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Going to be a bit tight. £20 cash for mobile phone,£5 for window cleaner leaves only £48 cash for the fortnight in the HBB.. dont usually spend all that,often only £35-£40,but usually can delight at the end of the fortnight at the nice little bundle going to the transit envelope,or into a sinking fund.

At least I had a very nice £80 left in the HBB at the end of the last fortnight.End of an era of financial comfort

Is it Friday that we hear the bad news about new energy cap? TV tonight was issuing dire warnings,people are going to freak out.Anyone on low income with debt or mortgages ,and those with children are going be desperate

dustydigger

+ Reading. Finished some of my reading challenges. I read 3 books for the Canada challenge: Yukon. Then I finished a Nancy Drew mystery,The Hidden Staircase,good fun. Also finally finished V E Schwab's A Conjuring of Light,the final book in a trilogy which has taken forever to read. I could read for quite a while,then find I had only read 30 pages! In a book 700 pages long thats not too great!

I also completed the author list on my A-Z Challenges. I have read one book for every letter of the alphabet.On the title challenge I have read  books for 23 letters of the alphabet - Q,U,and X still to do.

I had a whole list of SF titles on my TBR,but with so many issues I couldnt bring focus to bear on important classics and the like,so read a host of fluffy light kindle unlimited stuff. Fun,but not very impressive.And none of them are to be found listed on my SF website,so it looks as if I have only read about 48/80 on my list for the year,though I have read at least 20 other,maybe 30, that are independently published,so dont appear on the website. Lot of work to do if I am to cover32 legitimate titles by December. Ouch,8 books a month,before I even add books for other challenges etc.

I am so used to reading at least 14,maybe 18 books a month in earlier times,but now the wonky eyes and not being comfortable reading online for significant periods of time,my book totals are a bit dire this year. Especially since others in my group are reading 20 or more. 

I have a few books I am reading now,hope to finish at least a couple to make my reading total for August a respectable 15 titles,though some of them are short stories. Not cheating really,as classic SF tales are listed individually and count on my SF website.

As long as i can keep on reading online,I'll manage,but woe is me if I ever end up doing audio books.! Hate audio books.

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Right we have finished the Canada challenge in my group,noe we are starting a new challenge - Board Games.

dustydigger

Beguiling Board Game Countdown: A September Salute to Chutes and Ladders

Let’s play a challenge game about . . . games! For the next 12 months, we’ll count down the top 10 board games in order of popularity/sales, and start with two honorable mentions. Here’s a little history and a few fun facts to get us started with our first honorable mention, that childhood favorite, Chutes and Ladders!



Chutes and Ladders, also known as Snakes and Ladders, is a board game for two or more players regarded today as a worldwide classic. The game originated in ancient India as Moksha Patam, and was brought to the UK in the 1890s. It is played on a game board with numbered, gridded squares. A number of "ladders" and "snakes"/”chutes” are pictured on the board, each connecting two specific board squares. The object of the game is to navigate your game piece, according to die rolls, from the start (bottom square) to the finish (top square), helped by climbing ladders but hindered by falling down chutes.

The game is a simple race based on sheer luck, and it is popular with young children. The historic version had its roots in morality lessons, on which a player's progression up the board represented a life journey complicated by virtues (ladders) and vices (snakes).

The game was popular in ancient India. It was also associated with traditional Hindu philosophy contrasting karma and kama, or destiny and desire. It emphasized destiny, as opposed to games such as parchisi, which focused on life as a mixture of skill (free will) and luck. The board was covered with symbolic images, the top featuring gods, angels, and majestic beings, while the rest of the board was covered with pictures of animals, flowers and people. The ladders represented virtues such as generosity, faith, and humility, while the snakes represented vices such as lust, anger, murder, and theft. The morality lesson of the game was that a person can attain salvation (Moksha) through doing good, whereas by doing evil one will be reborn as lower forms of life. The number of ladders was less than the number of snakes as a reminder that a path of good is much more difficult to tread than a path of sins. Presumably, reaching the last square (number 100) represented the attainment of Moksha (spiritual liberation).

A version popular in the Muslim world is known as shatranj al-'urafa and exists in various versions in India, Iran, and Turkey. In this version, based on sufi philosophy, the game represents the dervish's quest to leave behind the trappings of worldly life and achieve union with God.

When the game was brought to England, the Indian virtues and vices were replaced by English ones in hopes of better reflecting Victorian doctrines of morality. Squares of Fulfilment, Grace and Success were accessible by ladders of Thrift, Penitence and Industry and snakes of Indulgence, Disobedience and Indolence caused one to end up in Illness, Disgrace and Poverty. While the Indian version of the game had snakes outnumbering ladders, the English counterpart was more forgiving as it contained equal numbers of each.

Each player starts with a token on the starting square (usually the "1" grid square in the bottom left corner, or off the board next to the "1" grid square). Players take turns rolling a single die to move their token by the number of squares indicated by the die rolled. Tokens follow a fixed route marked on the gameboard which usually follows a boustrophedon (ox-plow) track from the bottom to the top of the playing area, passing once through every square. If, on completion of a move, a player's token lands on the lower-numbered end of a "ladder", the player moves the token up to the ladder's higher-numbered square. If the player lands on the higher-numbered square of a "snake" (or chute), the token must be moved down to the snake's lower-numbered square. If a 6 is rolled, the player, after moving, immediately rolls again for another turn; otherwise play passes to the next player in turn. The player who is first to bring their token to the last square of the track is the winner.

Fun facts:
• The phrase "back to square one" originated in the game of snakes and ladders, or at least was influenced by it – the earliest attestation of the phrase refers to the game: "Withal he has the problem of maintaining the interest of the reader who is always being sent back to square one in a sort of intellectual game of snakes and ladders."


• The game is a central metaphor of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children. The narrator describes the game thus: “All games have morals; and the game of Snakes and Ladders captures, as no other activity can hope to do, the eternal truth that for every ladder you hope to climb, a snake is waiting just around the corner, and for every snake a ladder will compensate. But it's more than that; no mere carrot-and-stick affair; because implicit in the game is unchanging twoness of things, the duality of up against down, good against evil". Get well, soon, Mr. Rushdie!


• In Toronto, Ontario, the game inspired the name of a popular board game themed café: “Snakes and Lattes”. It now boasts several locations in both Canada and the U.S.


The Challenge:,
1. Read a book set in India or Victorian England OR Read a book that is #1 in a series OR Read a book whose author’s first and last initials can be found in CHUTES. SNAKES and LADDERS.

2. Read a children’s book OR Read a book with a snake or a ladder on the cover OR Read a book by Salman Rushdie.

3. Read a book that features a contest between good and evil (interpreted however you like) OR Read a book with a café or coffee shop as one setting OR Read a book with something in the shape of a square on the cover.
 

dustydigger

I love the informative articles prefacing the challenges! Already chosen my 3 books for September

Oh the Nostalgia. Back to childhood with Snakes and Ladders!

1. Read a book that is #1 in a series : Paul Cornell - London's Falling

2. Read a children’s book : Helen Clare - Merlin's Magic

3. Read a book that features a contest between good and evil:Gareth K Pengelly - At the Mountains of Crapness

beanielou

Yes, it is Friday that is the news of the new cap, nearly typed crap!
The day before the big 60 

dustydigger

Morning all.Must push myself to get out of this mental slumpSo much to think about,plan and sort,and my brain jusy skitters around unable to focus on anything 

Feeling a little better,only knee pain at the moment,back only a niggle. But little energy,and gasping if I exert myself.

At least I have got all the pictures back on the walls,so the room doesnt look so desolate with empty echoey white walls.Got to pull myself together and get out to look at carpets.From Monday next week I have to try to get back into the world.

Not that its a nice world. Mr Dusty spends all his time watching news channels,and boy is the news depressing.

Have put in an excruciatingly long week waiting for the energy news. Comes out at 7 am tomorrow.

The energy info on my Scottish Power website is still missing. All daily data from the date of my last bill Jun 11th has disappeared

No explanationsof course,that would be good customer service and unfortunately SP is notorious for its bad customer service! I did have a smart meter monitor,but when we moved everything out to decorate I moved that out and havent a clue where I put it! A bit complicated to use,which is why I rarely bother with it.I always click the wrong button at the wrong time,lose what I want to see and then have to go over it all again.

6 more days on my fixed,then one month will be on the present SVT,then all the horrors REALLY start

 

tooldle

Are they maybe rejigging the website? I'm with Bulb and they have just changed how some of their pages present. The first thing i see now when logging on is my account balance, under which is the statement 'Your account balance looks good' in bold type. 

dustydigger

New post,since that one was getting dreary to say the least. Instead,bring on the party or parade or whatever. I see I have now reached 50,000  views! In less than 4 months! Thank you all so much,thats amazing. Why are you nice people wasting your time reading this very peculiar blog,which has got darker and more depressing week by week. My train wreck of a life seems to hold some fascination which I cant fathom,but I really do appreciate all your kind and supportive comments,so many thanks for that

This started out as a place where I could muse over my budget and how to cope with the energy crisis. Said crisis has just become more and more insane as time has gone on.I spend too much time grieving for the hard times so many are going to face. Look at the state poor old Martin is in these days. And then we see the lying cheating lazy corrupt so called leaders swanning around without a care in the world. Its incredible!Oh-oh,my blood pressure is skyrocketing again I'm sure

Tomorrow I see the rates,work out with Martin's calculator what exactly I need to do,and then act accordingly.Drastic reappraisal of home makeover plans very likely. Cutting consumption? Hmm,good luck with that the way Mr D puts on the heating at a drop of 2 degrees . I did cut consumption by 6% last year,which is why I have a £518 credit balance,I was hoping that the new tabletop oven might bring about a similar reduction in usage,then SP wiped out all my data,so I cant see if it has has made any impression. Would be a little difficult to guage anyway,since this remarkablely hot summer has drastically reduced our energy usage,but at least I could make some sort of assessment. So annoyed.

Okay,time to go off to the kitchen Plantain for Mr D.corned beef plate pie for me..

Hey,windowcleaner's just been,sure to rain this afternoon............