Living the Good Life - mortgage free and living in line with our values

themadvix

Morning all,

Spent a good couple of hours at the allotment last night - strimmed and weeded and it's looking a lot better. Then I popped down there this morning and harvested what was left of my poor cabbages, my field beans (which had been attacked by rust, so the plants have gone into the garden waste bins provided by the council, rather than my compost heap), some rhubarb, french beans, gooseberries and another courgette. And I brought the now-dry garlic back too. It's now raining, so pleased to have been down there before that started. Cabbages are being soaked in vinegary water to clear out the bugs and slug poo 🤢. They'll either be blanched and frozen or kept for coleslaw in the fridge. Gooseberries and french beans will be frozen. Rhubarb will either be frozen, stewed and frozen, or stewed and bottled - I am undecided as yet.

Am working on a piece for UK client, but easily distracted today. The bird(brained) bank have refused me a business account - probably because I was getting narky about the endless details they needed. I'll try Monzo next. I don't see why I should be refused.

I am about to close my PC survey account. All I want to do is change my email address, but apparently that's too difficult - their website form (the only way to contact them) sends you round in circles (request to change email address; email saying you need to provide further information; send it back to email address that you've received this email from  - it's unmonitored, so receive bounce back; resubmit via contact form on website (doubt it's as secure as I'd like given they want all my information); get automatic email saying there's not enough information provided and to provide all the information I've just provided....) and I've had enough. I've got £9 in there that I'll retrieve and then I'll close it. I hate the surveys anyway as they just make my blood boil at the carpy 'products' they think people 'want'/'need'.

Kudos to MSE. Apparently the forum account is separate to the Energy and Credit Club accounts - you can't change your email address on the latter two currently, but you get a human response straight away, offering to close those accounts (and confirming it's separate to my precious forum account). Hooray, well done MSE!! 😁

Roofer quote came in at £280. More than we'd like, but not unreasonable - we've said yes, so that should get done some time next week or the week after.

MSE things:
* Clicks and HW - no wins today, so just 2p on the VB poll (M, W, F they have polls paying 10p, so it tots up quicker than just 2p/day!)
* 1P - now at 17-something
* Prolific - now at £16 something...

Gratitudes:
* Lovely Beth at MSE for her help with my account conundrum
* Looking forward to drinks at ours tomorrow with the in-laws (as the man will be here repointing) - have invited M&FIL too
* A relatively quiet day work-wise. Suspect it may get busier when main client wakes up, but enjoying the steadier pace today and feeling that allotment isn't out of control!

Have a good afternoon all!

QueenJess

I sympathise with changing email addresses... it's so annoying.  It probably took me months when I changed mine and I still haven't changed it for one of my savings accounts as they make you ring them and it's just not been on the top of my to do list.  I only changed email address 2 years ago

themadvix

This will easily take the same amount of time Jess. What I fail to see is why it is so difficult with some companies/organisations when others are dead easy. There's no rhyme or reason to it, just poor systems. And the number of emails that I continue to receive to my old email address when I've changed the email address on their system astounds me! It's a good way to go through and clear out/delete accounts too though - amazing what I've got in my password manager vault that I no longer need (old insurance companies?). Annoyingly, I've got to ring the blood donation people as they'll want to know why I don't want to donate any more - the fact that they don't want my blood type would be the reason!

QueenJess

themadvix said:

This will easily take the same amount of time Jess. What I fail to see is why it is so difficult with some companies/organisations when others are dead easy. There's no rhyme or reason to it, just poor systems. And the number of emails that I continue to receive to my old email address when I've changed the email address on their system astounds me! It's a good way to go through and clear out/delete accounts too though - amazing what I've got in my password manager vault that I no longer need (old insurance companies?). Annoyingly, I've got to ring the blood donation people as they'll want to know why I don't want to donate any more - the fact that they don't want my blood type would be the reason!

My vague recollection from setting up my own website a long time ago is that no sensible options are standard in the usual templates you get. So if you want to change your details or delete your account it requires the owner to have thought about it and added this as an extra option.

Deleting online accounts is just as frustrating and I only tackle a few at a time. I think I still have 100 different logins for various websites etc!

themadvix

You may be right Jess, but in this age of GDPR, it really shouldn't be that difficult.

I've just had to separately unsubscribe from PC and then ask them to delete my data. What legitimate use did they have for it once I had unsubscribed (but they didn't specify 'Delete my account', so I wasn't going to leave it to chance that they'd keep my data after I'd 'unsubscribed'). 

As an aside, and one I know you'll appreciate, I took great pleasure in deleting my Amazon account the other day 😁 Sadly Mr MV still has one - there are very occasionally things that it's just more straightforward to buy from there, but I can't wait for the next person to suggest I can buy XX from Amazon!

Have finished my work for UK client and returned it. I've had a gentler day today, but I think I'm entitled to one - it's been full-on since we got back from holiday. Two more bits of work have arrived for tomorrow from my main client, so that'll keep me busy (busier than I want to be when the sun will be out and Mr MV has the day off, but hey ho).

Have kept up with 1P and now at £18.something. Will I be at pay out by the end of the week?!

QueenJess

themadvix said:

You may be right Jess, but in this age of GDPR, it really shouldn't be that difficult.

I've just had to separately unsubscribe from PC and then ask them to delete my data. What legitimate use did they have for it once I had unsubscribed (but they didn't specify 'Delete my account', so I wasn't going to leave it to chance that they'd keep my data after I'd 'unsubscribed'). 

As an aside, and one I know you'll appreciate, I took great pleasure in deleting my Amazon account the other day 😁 Sadly Mr MV still has one - there are very occasionally things that it's just more straightforward to buy from there, but I can't wait for the next person to suggest I can buy XX from Amazon!

Have finished my work for UK client and returned it. I've had a gentler day today, but I think I'm entitled to one - it's been full-on since we got back from holiday. Two more bits of work have arrived for tomorrow from my main client, so that'll keep me busy (busier than I want to be when the sun will be out and Mr MV has the day off, but hey ho).

Have kept up with 1P and now at £18.something. Will I be at pay out by the end of the week?!

Yay to the deletion 🥳. I deleted mine a couple of years ago I think and don’t miss it at all. I went out of my way not to buy there before I deleted it, so it was quite easy.

As for GDPR, I guess you won’t be surprised to hear that I’ve threatened I would report a few companies to ICO and then they become suddenly able to do something in a second that was previously impossible… When it first came in it was worse and I remember emailing London Transport to tell them they were breaching GDPR as you couldn’t unsubscribe to their emails. They corrected that pretty fast 😂

greenbee

I’m trying to reduce my Amazon habit - it’s just laziness. I’ve got a few of my alternatives in place (some just buying direct from suppliers I found through them) but am struggling with a reliable source of nuts and seeds. 

themadvix

greenbee said:

I’m trying to reduce my Amazon habit - it’s just laziness. I’ve got a few of my alternatives in place (some just buying direct from suppliers I found through them) but am struggling with a reliable source of nuts and seeds. 

I’ve not tried them myself yet, but www.buywholefoodsonline.co.uk are recommended by the Riverford group on FB. I need to order some soy beans from there to have a go at making my own tofu (got a press for Christmas and haven’t tried it out yet).

themadvix

QueenJess said:

Yay to the deletion 🥳. I deleted mine a couple of years ago I think and don’t miss it at all. I went out of my way not to buy there before I deleted it, so it was quite easy.

As for GDPR, I guess you won’t be surprised to hear that I’ve threatened I would report a few companies to ICO and then they become suddenly able to do something in a second that was previously impossible… When it first came in it was worse and I remember emailing London Transport to tell them they were breaching GDPR as you couldn’t unsubscribe to their emails. They corrected that pretty fast 😂

 I’ve definitely threatened with the ICO in the past and it is amazing how quickly it works, isn’t it?! 😂

 I’ve not used Amazon for a couple of years for myself, but I have a client who sends me a £50 voucher every year as a thank you, which I use to buy cat food for my local CP branch - I figure I can just as easily do this through Mr MV’s account.

greenbee

themadvix said:

greenbee said:

I’m trying to reduce my Amazon habit - it’s just laziness. I’ve got a few of my alternatives in place (some just buying direct from suppliers I found through them) but am struggling with a reliable source of nuts and seeds. 

I’ve not tried them myself yet, but wwwbuyeholefoodsonline.co.uk are recommended by the Riverford group on FB. I need to order some soy beans from there to have a go at making my own tofu (got a press for Christmas and haven’t tried it out yet).

Thanks. I use Hodmedods for pulses, and Hexeal for stuff like Epsom salts and vinegar, so I’m making progress!