Statement of intent

abouttimetoo

Think you mean did the upgrade cost extra points? If so, no it didn't :j

I think they just did it out of the goodness of their hearts

I'm busy stocking up on Novotel points at the minute, not especially my favourite chain as they can be pretty variable but I've got my eye on a European City break next year where they have a new hotel opening -actually the new hotel is opening this month but I don't have the holidays, money or points just yet

StuartGMC

Got a good bargain yesterday; needed a couple of belts and picked two up in Burtons. One marked £10 when rung up showed £12, so they honored the £10, then the second one marked at £12 came up as 1p! Turns out that the stud which hooks the belt is "faulty", well it is a screw-in item so really needs some glue to hold it, so I though 1p is worth the risk just need some glue now...

Shirts from Next though were £25 and £28 so not cheap but they are usually good quality work shirts.

StuartGMC

Well, I've been busy elsewhere recently so no posts

Spent a lot of time researching new laptop PC for DD. Now she is in secondary education the older laptop we have is showing it's age and, despite some complete reformats of the HD, it still runs slowly with only 0.5GB of RAM. I would have upgraded it but the battery also failed (well over £60 to replace with an unbranded one or £120 for an Acer original...). So that unit will be the back-up one and OH will have it as her own. However, I don't think my idea of running Linux on it will go down well unless I can show how much quicker it can be than Windows XP.

Whilst a desktop would be cheaper, it doesn't help DD and the netbooks don't have the grunt or screen acreage for full-on work rather than just web browsing. I had trawled the comparison sites for hours to try to identify best option new laptop and have finally settled on another ACER unit. Checking online prices and cashback etc for the unit at £400, finally opted for Amazon as it was £380 instead (no cashback but still cheaper than elsewhere). So that will be DD's Christmas and "surprise" birthday present to augment those she'll get next week; hope it lasts about 4yrs....

We will also have to get MS Office software; I'm really unhappy that schools don't use OpenOffice which would be the most sensible option as it is free, all parents/guardians can thus afford it, and we can all update at the same time. Sadly MS seem to have it sewn up... That said, we will get it from software4students which is an authorized MS educational software retailer, so it should only cost about £45.

Have been trying to generate some ideas of cheaper presents for my own list and need to get some ideas for others as it is not far off now!

I'll post a mortgage update tomorrow when my pay should be coming through.

evab_2

Stuart don't forget to go through Nectar for your Amazon purchase to get your points!

StuartGMC

Evab
Thanks, I don't have Nectar so am now kicking myself.... I'll have a look to see if it is worthwhile getting a card (I can't get those points now order is in place of course), it's just one thing I have gotten round to doing

StuartGMC

Evab
Thanks for the pointer; it's been a long time since I looked at Nectar and they've certainly increased the number of retailers with whom you can collect points. So I registered online for a card tonight :beer:

chirpchirp

I'm not a big fan of Nectar but found I had over £200 sitting on the "joint" card when I came to apply for my own after split.

Now spending that £200 on Christmas presents from Argos.

setmefree2

Ooooo laptop sounds lovely.

I love nectar. You can use your Nectar card as payment in Argos. Really easy:D

southantrim3

Looking forward to your mortgage update - enjoying your diary.

StuartGMC

southantrim3 wrote: »

Looking forward to your mortgage update - enjoying your diary.

Many thanks for that.

Mortgage payment for December will go out on 1 December. We remain >100% offset with the savings account and current account, and extra now gets dropped into the e-Savings account to earn a fraction more interest. Currently mortgage debt outstanding is £9700, standard payment plus OP will be £450 and an additional OP of £200 will be made so we'll be down to £9050 owing :j with our present total net position being about £18k positive which is nice but it'll drop with monthly costs of course.

Some expenses upcoming with my car tax (if the new rates are in then it will be about £405 ), DD's birthday celebration at the weekend (cinema with friends for the next Twilight movie) plus the new laptop for her.

New laptop is very nice, boots quickly and runs fast! I need to get to the Acer site and order the Windows 7 upgrade and install before DD gets the PC for Christmas. I'll then play with the old laptop and try out Linux as OH only uses OpenOffice, Firefox etc which have Linux variants (just need to check on Thunderbird and Sunbird - respectively e-mail and calendar packages we use) - all being open source and hence free of course! (I recommend you try them).