Watching my mindset shift and nudging it slightly along the way...

everypennytowardsfire

The engineer has been and gone, although the job took longer than expected - he got his mate to help him out and also had to come back for a few hours yesterday; he didn't charge me anything extra for it though, thankfully. Gas and hot water are back on but the house is like an obstacle course at the moment. I've had to empty the space under the stairs to give him/them access so everything from there is now in the middle of the living room. He also offered to remove a redundant gas pipe from one of the cupboards in the kitchen where the boiler must have been before (not entirely altruistically as I'm sure he'll be able to get some money for it as scrap) so I had to empty that as well and that is a big, tall cupboard which we call our pantry cupboard - it holds a lot of stuff. Everything from there is now all over the kitchen - you can barely move in there. I didn't feel like tackling any of it yesterday after he'd left so that is the main job for today. I actually don't mind as I'd been meaning to go through everything in the kitchen cupboards, and in the entire house pretty much, anyway - as part of an ongoing and seemingly never ending decluttering project. With regard to non-food items, I want to get rid of as many things as I can to clear some space and see if I can generate some money in the process - I will try to sell as much stuff as possible and give the rest to charity (with anything standard charity shops wouldn't accept, such as any stained or ripped clothing, I have found a dog shelter that would be more than happy to take such items to use them for makeshift dog beds). With the bits specifically from the kitchen cupboards, I've been meaning to take stock of what I've got in there and plan some recipes around it to use it all up, especially for anything that's been in there for a while (and it's still edible), that we don't normally eat on a regular basis so won't necessarily be replacing. The aim is to both save money while we eat stuff we already have but also to make space for other things I may want to stock up on (when I take advantage of bulk buying deals on stuff I know we will eat). 

Even though I found the engineer's presence in the house distracting, especially as I spent most of the time when his mate was here worrying that they might want to charge me more and hence preparing for a potential difficult conversation, I have been able to make some progress with the new accounts, DDs etc. Only a few bits left to do like double checking everything has been set up correctly closer to the time the payments are due and making sure there is money in the accounts the DDs have been moved to, to cover the payments. I also still need to request one of the switches but need to wait a couple of weeks so I can time it so that it happens after the new DDs have paid out but also before the deadline for the switch so I qualify for the bonus. So it's something I'll be keeping an eye on over the next few of weeks but most of the work has now been done. 

Today and tomorrow I'm going to focus on clearing the mess, sorting stuff and finally unpacking those suitcases properly as well. At the weekend I'm doing a couple of bank shifts at my old job - a specific type of shifts I don't mind doing and wish I could do more of, if I was to stick with my old profession as the main way for me to earn money, but there are only limited opportunities at the moment, for now at least. I might be able to get more such work through agencies in the future as well, once I've registered with more of them properly, which I intend to do soon. For now though, I've decided to take it easy for a little longer and just enjoy my freedom for a couple more weeks. The plan is to tick some major jobs off my to-do list, around the house (like the ones mentioned above) as well as some life admin, and then start working on my new work projects, while relying on my old job as a back up as and when I need to, even if it might not be the specific type of shifts I would ideally like to do. I'm grateful for my savings which are allowing me to have this little breathing space but I'm also mindful to be as frugal as I can and to not burn through them for any longer or any faster than I absolutely need to. 

Right, off to start sorting that bombsite...