No Buy Year

nobler

mandy47 said:

Have I failed? 
I've just ordered a replacement for my broken kindle.
I used survey cash and vouchers. 20% off for trading in my old kindle and topped it up with my birthday money. I'm left with £8. Plus cashback when it comes through. 

It sounds like you bought it in the most cost effective way possible for a new item. The only other options I can think of would have been getting a second hand/refurbished one, or downloading the Kindle app and using it on a tablet (if you already have one).
If you tend to buy Kindle books see if your local library has Borrowbox (or similar) for borrowing e-books. I imagine Kindles probably only let you read Kindle books though, so you'd need a tablet to do this.

ruby_eskimo

nobler said:

mandy47 said:

Have I failed? 
I've just ordered a replacement for my broken kindle.
I used survey cash and vouchers. 20% off for trading in my old kindle and topped it up with my birthday money. I'm left with £8. Plus cashback when it comes through. 

It sounds like you bought it in the most cost effective way possible for a new item. The only other options I can think of would have been getting a second hand/refurbished one, or downloading the Kindle app and using it on a tablet (if you already have one).
If you tend to buy Kindle books see if your local library has Borrowbox (or similar) for borrowing e-books. I imagine Kindles probably only let you read Kindle books though, so you'd need a tablet to do this.

Agree that it's not a failure, it's a replacement of something that you use regularly.  It's only in the US that you can read library books on Kindle which is really annoying.  I tend to get most of my books from the library but I do have some Waterstones vouchers that I kind of need to use this year before they expire 😐

kimwp

First non-necessary spend of the year - takeaway as work is a bit stressful and my cat is acting weirdly so wanted to not think about lunch so I could call the vet in my lunch break.

Other female team leads - do you have men in your team that laugh at you and say "task B is my priority" when you tell them task A is now the priority (and you are responsible for allocating them tasks)? 

lovemula21

I love the idea of a no buy year. It’s not on the cards for us this year due to some planned spending (home improvements) but we will certainly be more intentional with our spending. 

My main aim for both 2024 and 2025 is to widen the gap between income and expenditure so we can save for a larger house in 2026 (either by extending or moving) After that we will be aiming to retire in 2036 and live on savings. 

I’ll bookmark this and look forward to reading how people approach a no spend year. 

ruby_eskimo

kimwp said:

First non-necessary spend of the year - takeaway as work is a bit stressful and my cat is acting weirdly so wanted to not think about lunch so I could call the vet in my lunch break.

Other female team leads - do you have men in your team that laugh at you and say "task B is my priority" when you tell them task A is now the priority (and you are responsible for allocating them tasks)? 

Hope everything is ok with your cat @kimwp and sorry to hear you're having issues with your team.  I used to have problems like that when I managed a team.  To start with I'd joke back saying "haha but seriously, can you do task A because so and so has changed direction now".  I also documented everything e.g. send a follow up email confirming that the priority was now A, would check in (again via email) on progress and if they did whatever they wanted to because they found it funny, then I didn't stand up for them when the higher ups started complaining about the fact A hadn't been finished on time.  Petty I know but why should I take the fall for someone who want's to mess around.  It was only 1 individual that I had issues with but he also didn't like being managed by someone who was not only female but almost half his age (he actually put a grievance in to HR complaining about it when I was promoted).

Cherryfudge

ruby_eskimo said: Agree that it's not a failure, it's a replacement of something that you use regularly.  It's only in the US that you can read library books on Kindle which is really annoying.  I tend to get most of my books from the library but I do have some Waterstones vouchers that I kind of need to use this year before they expire 😐

It may depend on which Kindle you have - I can use both Borrowbox and Libby on mine, which is a Kindle Fire. The previous Kindle didn't have as many functions.

The Kindle app can also be put on a phone, but it's a really small area on e which to read a book so I tend not to use it.

kimwp said:

Other female team leads - do you have men in your team that laugh at you and say "task B is my priority" when you tell them task A is now the priority (and you are responsible for allocating them tasks)? 

I'm not longer a leader but surely that's not only rude, but unprofessional? It needs to be documented and addressed formally, but on an informal level, you could always check with them why they want to prioritise Task B. There might be a good reason, but even if there is, you are the leader, and it's not up to them to choose to ignore what you're saying. If they came up with something valid, perhaps you could say, 'Okay, I can see that's important, you can start on it after Task A'. If they ignore that, they shouldn't be working for you.

MrsCatz

Hello all, I am going to be joining if that is ok. This forum has already helped me to not buy when boredom browsing. I have had to repurchase a lot of toiletries in the last few days as everything appeared to run out at once. I usually buy the larger volume of shampoo, moisturisers if I can. Where possible I do go own brand.

kimwp

ruby_eskimo said:

kimwp said:

First non-necessary spend of the year - takeaway as work is a bit stressful and my cat is acting weirdly so wanted to not think about lunch so I could call the vet in my lunch break.

Other female team leads - do you have men in your team that laugh at you and say "task B is my priority" when you tell them task A is now the priority (and you are responsible for allocating them tasks)? 

Hope everything is ok with your cat @kimwp and sorry to hear you're having issues with your team.  I used to have problems like that when I managed a team.  To start with I'd joke back saying "haha but seriously, can you do task A because so and so has changed direction now".  I also documented everything e.g. send a follow up email confirming that the priority was now A, would check in (again via email) on progress and if they did whatever they wanted to because they found it funny, then I didn't stand up for them when the higher ups started complaining about the fact A hadn't been finished on time.  Petty I know but why should I take the fall for someone who want's to mess around.  It was only 1 individual that I had issues with but he also didn't like being managed by someone who was not only female but almost half his age (he actually put a grievance in to HR complaining about it when I was promoted).

Thank you @r@ruby_eskimo. The vet has found a large mass so they are doing a blood test now and we (cat and I are going to wait for the results in case she needs to stay for fluids). I had a little cry in the room but it feels too big to let it out fully.

That man sounds horrible to work with and I don't think your actions were petty at all - you just weren't stepping in to defend him when he'd deliberately ignored you (at least twice on the same subject!) and messed up as a result. That's good advice about keeping records. Hopefully it won't come to anything (management are really good and we have a no blame culture), but it's never a bad idea to have an accurate record.

kimwp

Cherryfudge said:.

kimwp said:

Other female team leads - do you have men in your team that laugh at you and say "task B is my priority" when you tell them task A is now the priority (and you are responsible for allocating them tasks)? 

I'm not longer a leader but surely that's not only rude, but unprofessional? It needs to be documented and addressed formally, but on an informal level, you could always check with them why they want to prioritise Task B. There might be a good reason, but even if there is, you are the leader, and it's not up to them to choose to ignore what you're saying. If they came up with something valid, perhaps you could say, 'Okay, I can see that's important, you can start on it after Task A'. If they ignore that, they shouldn't be working for you.

I agree with you on that. Our/my manager has offered to have a word with him, I'm just a bit worried that that will make the situation worse. I'm going to try having a chat with him about the situation (how does he understand his and my responsibilities to be, how does he understand a team leader- team member relationship to work), mention that it feels like he's laughing at my decisions, then document our interactions and see how that goes. I already had a conversation with him about not telling me what to do and he said that he really didn't intend to so it's possible he's not intending to come across this way.

bouicca21

@Kimwp, my sympathies, though actually in my last team the awkward one was another female. I’m with @Cherryfudge, document it.  You need to cover your back.