Hope is not an Effective Financial Strategy

shangaijimmy · 7 September 2021 at 2:41PM

greent said:

I feel the pain on a double whammy - switched last month so had old pymt come out and new supplier took 1st mth (£180 ish) up front too - ouch!!

I feel much happier knowing that I'm not alone with this one!

With new working arrangement that I've fallen into I'm kind of working from home during the day, but am then 'in' work 4-8pm for 3 days and then I have some hours over the weekends. I'm enjoying the freedom of completing work whenever and however suits, whilst being extra cautious of not constantly being in work. Today for example I did an hour before school run, and had a long dog walk with a break to visit my folks. Back just before lunch and then did another hour or so whilst eating dinner. Bit of pottering on house jobs and then another hour or so before school run. I also combine most of my 'work calls' with dog walks which is an extra win.

Not sure how long it will last, but I'm making the most of it before the 'great call back to the office'!

Anyway, long story not put shortly leads me to what I started out intending to type... whilst I've been pottering I've kept up with the whole national insurance rise going. I suppose a tax rise of some kind was inevitable, and a very quick back of fag packet calculation would put us around £500 a year worse off. Already mitigated by salary sacrificing to pensions. With both of us on pay freezes for a further year, this alongside the now annual 5% council tax rise and the hike in gas and leccy fees I think we may be in need of a major budget rejig next year. Interesting times a foot!

Baileys_Babe · 7 September 2021 at 3:40PM

The flexibility sounds good @shangaijimmy just remember works calls happen as part of work time the fact you are also walking your dog at the same time is just good time management.

Debsnewbudget · 7 September 2021 at 4:33PM

I had a vision of you shouting
Come back you stupid ******
at the dog when on a works call and having to explain that - sorry - for my sense of humour !!

MissLemon · 8 September 2021 at 10:35AM

I've just made the switch with only a few pounds savings too, and with an outstanding balance, but Martin's email predicting other price rise in April helped me decide on a 12 month fix.

I'm now expecting a huge bill this month with our outstanding balance plus September's bill from both companies... eek! But think it will workout in the long run

Cheery_Daff · 8 September 2021 at 12:31PM

Urgh, I should probably look at switches too 🙄 our bill has gone up to £89 a month now which is ridiculous 🙄 Martin reckons he can get us cheaper elsewhere so I might see what he's suggesting...

Yay to flexible working (although I also hope your dog is well behaved!) And hope the budget reshuffle doesn't work out too badly...

shangaijimmy · 9 September 2021 at 3:20PM

It seems there's many of us with the utilities dilemmas going on. Anyway mines all done, alongside the double payment so thats enough chatter for now.

My day as all planned today. School run done, little dog walk done and I then had about an hour of admin to do to tidy off what I didn't do yesterday as I really couldn't be bothered!! I was then going to do a bigger dog walk before feet up in a quiet house with a film... Well no...11:30am and I can the dreaded school phone call as DD was poorly!

Ah well...

Onto financial news, my car has an oil leak! So I have that garage misfortune to deal with. Fingers crossed its a minor job. Anything major and it'll be for the great scrap pile in the sky.

shangaijimmy · 9 September 2021 at 3:20PM

It seems there's many of us with the utilities dilemmas going on. Anyway mines all done, alongside the double payment so thats enough chatter for now.

My day as all planned today. School run done, little dog walk done and I then had about an hour of admin to do to tidy off what I didn't do yesterday as I really couldn't be bothered!! I was then going to do a bigger dog walk before feet up in a quiet house with a film... Well no...11:30am and I can the dreaded school phone call as DD was poorly!

Ah well...

Onto financial news, my car has an oil leak! So I have that garage misfortune to deal with. Fingers crossed its a minor job. Anything major and it'll be for the great scrap pile in the sky.

Jessy103 · 9 September 2021 at 7:50PM

Hope DD feels better soon 🙂

shangaijimmy · 9 September 2021 at 8:19PM

Thank you Jessy. She's marginally better, thanks to Calpol.

Some car developments. I took to youtube... Think I've isolated the problem to a common fault and an supposedly easy enough fix. So part ordered for £5.95 and I'll have a crack tomorrow. Just need to point out that may car is 14yrs old and at that point where 1 major fault and its over! So every temporary fix like this adds another month onto its life!

shangaijimmy · 11 September 2021 at 8:44PM

Well DD has tonsilitis, and a whole host of associated things from being run down; rash on her arms, ulcers, rash on her face and so on. But...she's actually not too bad. She even managed to go to a birthday party today and played for 50% of it. A few more days of her being a bit wet and then she'll be back to normal.

I had a go at the fixing the oil leak on my car this afternoon. I don't want to get too carried away but it seems like its done the trick. So I can add minor car repairs to washing machine repairs on my youtube-led achievements. If its fixed for the princely sum of £5.95 I will round it up to £20 and make a overpayment to reward myself from the car maintenance fund!

Tomorrow I will be ruthlessly attacking DD's bedroom with 2 bin bags. 1 for charity stuff and 1 for the tip!

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Hope is not an Effective Financial Strategy

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