I've been feeling down for a while.
I'm finding work to be quite an unpleasant experience. I find the lack of any clear direction, the lack of common sense and, in particular, the lack of any ability to make change for the better very frustrating. I have known for a while that I disagree with some of the things they seem to have decided on, but even then I'd be happy if stuff was actually happening - I'd kinda be happy to be proved wrong, but the whole "limbo" aspect of things is just not fun to be involved in.
Of course I've also been more proactively looking for a new job again. This hasn't been going too well. I clearly have a good CV - at the least it is good enough for me to get interviews.
I've now had a total of 5 interviews, though these have not been all they could. I'll hopefully blog about it separately, but I don't really see myself getting/wanting those jobs.
And of course I'm back to the old situation of no apparent prospect of a salary improvement at work (it's now getting on for 2 years), despite my rent and various other costs going up, so I'm struggling financially again. Particularly since I desperately need to save money for the Canada trip. This last month or so I've had to spend a fortune on my car:
£450 for a complete new set of tyres
£200 on a service & MOT (plus some replacement parts)
£250 on insurance
£175 on Car Tax
So that's over £1,000: I only take home about £25K a year, so I've had to spend nearly 4% of my entire year's salary in one month!
I've also been struggling with the weight thing. I decided I was going to lose a few stones in preparation for the Canadian Grand Prix and blogged about the "progress" here, but just recently ti stagnated and then, while I wasn't blogging, it actually went into reverse - I gained 1 pound a few weeks ago (although I lost it again the following week), but this week I'd gained 2 pounds.
The problem - and it's been a problem all my life - is that when I feel down I eat. I am the very definition of a comfort eater, and since I feel down quite often, I eat quite a lot. Of course it's a vicious circle - when you get very big and find it difficult to do things like walk up flights of stairs that becomes a source of unhappiness, prompting me to eat more.
The other problem is I've not really gone about it by sticking to a proper diet. I've increased the amount of exercise I do, which has been helping to keep the last few weeks of not eating well in check, but I've also slipped back into some of my weirder habits. In particular I've been "multiple buying" again - this is where I buy several meals worth at one shop, then for some reason buy stuff for the same meals at another.
So, specifically, while I was away I had several meals to buy for and bought cheese on toast, hot cross buns and some mini-sausages plus buns as meals. Only if you do the maths while I needed 4 meals worth I had therefore actually bought 7 meals worth. Since none of it was particularly long lasting, that meant I had to eat more meals than I needed and for those meals to be bigger.
And to be honest, I didn't really need to buy any of them - I have stuff in the freezer and cupboards that I really need to get rid of (and, of course, would, therefore, effectively be free meals instead of spending more money).
I think I need to introduce some will power and/or start actually thinking about stuff more.
Showing posts with label car. Show all posts
Showing posts with label car. Show all posts
Monday, 31 March 2014
Thursday, 28 March 2013
easter
Easter this weekend so this is the last post of the week.
I’ve no particular plans for this weekend other than to relax, given how busy these last couple of weeks have been. I think the main challenge will be to stop myself from playing SimCity constantly. Really it’s the perfect opportunity to catch-up on a lot of recorded TV and watch and read some other stuff - particularly since the weather is forecast to me more of this cold stuff.
One thing I didn’t mention from the last few weeks that I thought I should record in the blog was how I locked myself out of my car before the stag do.
Basically I went to the driving range (I haven’t played golf in 4 years and wanted to “warm up” and there’s a course with a range just up the road from work) and managed to lock the car with the keys on the dashboard.
I’ve done the same basic thing loads before - I sit in the driver’s seat with the door open to change my shoes, dumping the keys on the dashboard. Once changed, I then close the door, obviously, walk around and get in the driver’s side.
Well I guess on this occasion I hit the lock button as I took the key out of my pocket (it was in my trouser pocket, where I usually put them in my jacket/coat pocket). So when I closed the door that meant the car was locked and when I went round to the driver’s side I couldn’t get in.
Luckily I’d kept my phone in my jacket pocket, which I was wearing, so I was able to call work and explain and then call for help. Basically I called the RAC and the guy came out fairly quickly. The big problem was that the keys were clearly visible on the dashboard, so I couldn’t leave the car, which, even though he was still quick, it was a couple of hours before it was all sorted.
The RAC guy had the car open in about 10 minutes. Basically he slotted some airbags into the car and slowly inflated them to create a wedge where he could slot a long pole with a hook on the end in and fished the keys off the dashboard.
It really did take him just 10 minutes. Of course, it’s not something you could do without attracting attention, but it just goes to show you - it he’d used a stiffer rod he could have used it to pull the handle, which would unlock the door.
I’ve no particular plans for this weekend other than to relax, given how busy these last couple of weeks have been. I think the main challenge will be to stop myself from playing SimCity constantly. Really it’s the perfect opportunity to catch-up on a lot of recorded TV and watch and read some other stuff - particularly since the weather is forecast to me more of this cold stuff.
One thing I didn’t mention from the last few weeks that I thought I should record in the blog was how I locked myself out of my car before the stag do.
Basically I went to the driving range (I haven’t played golf in 4 years and wanted to “warm up” and there’s a course with a range just up the road from work) and managed to lock the car with the keys on the dashboard.
I’ve done the same basic thing loads before - I sit in the driver’s seat with the door open to change my shoes, dumping the keys on the dashboard. Once changed, I then close the door, obviously, walk around and get in the driver’s side.
Well I guess on this occasion I hit the lock button as I took the key out of my pocket (it was in my trouser pocket, where I usually put them in my jacket/coat pocket). So when I closed the door that meant the car was locked and when I went round to the driver’s side I couldn’t get in.
Luckily I’d kept my phone in my jacket pocket, which I was wearing, so I was able to call work and explain and then call for help. Basically I called the RAC and the guy came out fairly quickly. The big problem was that the keys were clearly visible on the dashboard, so I couldn’t leave the car, which, even though he was still quick, it was a couple of hours before it was all sorted.
The RAC guy had the car open in about 10 minutes. Basically he slotted some airbags into the car and slowly inflated them to create a wedge where he could slot a long pole with a hook on the end in and fished the keys off the dashboard.
It really did take him just 10 minutes. Of course, it’s not something you could do without attracting attention, but it just goes to show you - it he’d used a stiffer rod he could have used it to pull the handle, which would unlock the door.
Wednesday, 10 October 2012
box sorting
No blog yesterday as at the point I was going to start writing it I was handed something to do.
That something was a bit of a mess and took all afternoon to get even vaguely on the right track. It actually poxed up all my afternoon, to be honest, but there you go.
This last weekend was incredibly busy. As well as the Korean Grand Prix and all the recorded telly I had to watch I also had to do deal with a huge pile of washing (all my holiday stuff plus the work week), sort out the boxes / shed situation and clean my car.
Well, cleaning my car was not something I had to do, but I wanted to do it to take advantage of my landlord being on holiday. Three days later it's unfortunately now dirtier than it was. There's some house building going on near the industrial estate where I work and they've been digging out a huge amount of earth and leaving trails of muck all over the roads, so with it being rainy it's made a right mess of everyone's car - it's like everyone in the estate goes rallying to get home!
I did also need to sort my boot contents out after the holiday, so I did that too.
The boxes was a bit unfortunate - I'd actually planned to do it anyway as I usually do when my landlord goes away at this time of year, but he also left me a note basically asking me to do it, which made it a priority task. However, the weather was crappy across the week and it been my intention to spread it out a bit.
What I'd been hopping to do was most of the box moving and some of the more basic sorting in the evenings during the week. However, rain and dark is not really the best combination for doing it.
As such that meant I had to do the whole thing at the weekend - a weekend when I had a big long list of other stuff to do as well.
Now I did basically do it, but it was pretty poor in terms of really sorting out, tidying up and identifying things to e-bay. Really I've just moved a load of crap from my bedsit out to the shed and ensured what's in the shed is properly boxed and stacked.
It's a little frustrating from several perspectives, but it is what it is.
It does emphasise to me that I need to move now that I've decided to stay working where I am. Indeed, I've decided I really need to move to Alton, though first I need to not spend my pay rise for a few months so I can build up a deposit!
That something was a bit of a mess and took all afternoon to get even vaguely on the right track. It actually poxed up all my afternoon, to be honest, but there you go.
This last weekend was incredibly busy. As well as the Korean Grand Prix and all the recorded telly I had to watch I also had to do deal with a huge pile of washing (all my holiday stuff plus the work week), sort out the boxes / shed situation and clean my car.
Well, cleaning my car was not something I had to do, but I wanted to do it to take advantage of my landlord being on holiday. Three days later it's unfortunately now dirtier than it was. There's some house building going on near the industrial estate where I work and they've been digging out a huge amount of earth and leaving trails of muck all over the roads, so with it being rainy it's made a right mess of everyone's car - it's like everyone in the estate goes rallying to get home!
I did also need to sort my boot contents out after the holiday, so I did that too.
The boxes was a bit unfortunate - I'd actually planned to do it anyway as I usually do when my landlord goes away at this time of year, but he also left me a note basically asking me to do it, which made it a priority task. However, the weather was crappy across the week and it been my intention to spread it out a bit.
What I'd been hopping to do was most of the box moving and some of the more basic sorting in the evenings during the week. However, rain and dark is not really the best combination for doing it.
As such that meant I had to do the whole thing at the weekend - a weekend when I had a big long list of other stuff to do as well.
Now I did basically do it, but it was pretty poor in terms of really sorting out, tidying up and identifying things to e-bay. Really I've just moved a load of crap from my bedsit out to the shed and ensured what's in the shed is properly boxed and stacked.
It's a little frustrating from several perspectives, but it is what it is.
It does emphasise to me that I need to move now that I've decided to stay working where I am. Indeed, I've decided I really need to move to Alton, though first I need to not spend my pay rise for a few months so I can build up a deposit!
Friday, 1 July 2011
emperor's new clothes
In light of my trip to the British GP next week, this coming weekend represents the last chance for me to pick up whatever bits and pieces I need. I've pretty much got everything bar a few odds and sods of toiletries and things.
I bought some new clothes, partly so I'd have some stuff that wasn't worn out, like most of my clothes, but also because I figured it was about time I took the plunge and bought some clothes that are a better fit now I'm a bit smaller.
Buying these are the clothes I've been dreading, for a couple of reasons. For one, I'm not actually sure what size I am now, and I wasn't sure whether to go a bit tight with the expectation that they'll then last longer as I continue to slim down.
Another problem is just that - as I slim down I could be in a situation of having spent a lot on clothes than I can only wear for a few months before needing to replace again.
But I decided to take the plunge, with a variety of results.
The shorts, T-shirts and casual shirts all appear to fit great (I now roughly appear to be a 3XL, rather than the 5XL I was at my peak). The boxers I bought are way to tight (this, I think, is more to do with the style of them than an incorrect size selection - I like loose boxers), the trousers are just slightly too tight (Despite stating the same waste measurement as the shorts, holding them up next to each other shows them to be slightly smaller. This is one of the problems of big sizes - you get manufacturing differences in all clothes, but with big sizes you're often buying in the dark from online places.) and the belt I bought is a bit rubbish. It's a good fit,. but it has this weird design that I'm not hugely comfortable with.
It's been an expensive week generally, actually. I had my car into the garage as my lock was making the appalling grinding noise. According to the guy it was due to an actuator and is quite common. He reckoned they can go for ages and never fail, but I thought it safer to get it replaced. The part wasn't too bad, but (from experience) car doors are horrible things to work on, so the labour was pretty heavy.
I also got them to recharge the aircon, following this last weekend's horrendous heat wave. I switched on my air con and found it to be a bit wimpy. It is four years since I got the car, so I guess that's not a bad length of time for it, and we did have some pretty hot summers so I got quite a lot out of it.
My aircon unit at home was also a life (or, at least, sleep) saver, cooling my room down so I could get some shut-eye. The heat wave was exactly the sort of weather that inspired me to get it in the first place. And despite it having cost a fortune it's nights like those where I think of it as the best thing I've ever bought.
So yeah, I've put some fairly big holes in my finances over the last couple of weeks and the next couple are likely to be pretty expensive too.
Hopefully, some e-baying will take the sting out a bit.
I bought some new clothes, partly so I'd have some stuff that wasn't worn out, like most of my clothes, but also because I figured it was about time I took the plunge and bought some clothes that are a better fit now I'm a bit smaller.
Buying these are the clothes I've been dreading, for a couple of reasons. For one, I'm not actually sure what size I am now, and I wasn't sure whether to go a bit tight with the expectation that they'll then last longer as I continue to slim down.
Another problem is just that - as I slim down I could be in a situation of having spent a lot on clothes than I can only wear for a few months before needing to replace again.
But I decided to take the plunge, with a variety of results.
The shorts, T-shirts and casual shirts all appear to fit great (I now roughly appear to be a 3XL, rather than the 5XL I was at my peak). The boxers I bought are way to tight (this, I think, is more to do with the style of them than an incorrect size selection - I like loose boxers), the trousers are just slightly too tight (Despite stating the same waste measurement as the shorts, holding them up next to each other shows them to be slightly smaller. This is one of the problems of big sizes - you get manufacturing differences in all clothes, but with big sizes you're often buying in the dark from online places.) and the belt I bought is a bit rubbish. It's a good fit,. but it has this weird design that I'm not hugely comfortable with.
It's been an expensive week generally, actually. I had my car into the garage as my lock was making the appalling grinding noise. According to the guy it was due to an actuator and is quite common. He reckoned they can go for ages and never fail, but I thought it safer to get it replaced. The part wasn't too bad, but (from experience) car doors are horrible things to work on, so the labour was pretty heavy.
I also got them to recharge the aircon, following this last weekend's horrendous heat wave. I switched on my air con and found it to be a bit wimpy. It is four years since I got the car, so I guess that's not a bad length of time for it, and we did have some pretty hot summers so I got quite a lot out of it.
My aircon unit at home was also a life (or, at least, sleep) saver, cooling my room down so I could get some shut-eye. The heat wave was exactly the sort of weather that inspired me to get it in the first place. And despite it having cost a fortune it's nights like those where I think of it as the best thing I've ever bought.
So yeah, I've put some fairly big holes in my finances over the last couple of weeks and the next couple are likely to be pretty expensive too.
Hopefully, some e-baying will take the sting out a bit.
Monday, 16 May 2011
mad panic special
(My Thursday post about the websites and interweb seems to have reappeared - all very odd. My guess is they resorted to a back up or something.)
Wowser, what a horrible morning.
A bid needed to go away by 12 this morning and those can be a panic at the best of times, but this one was bonkers, as they'd given us a grand total of 3 working days to put together an entire ITT! That's totally insane - stuff that's marked urgent usually has at least a week turn-around time; 3 days for a full ITT is just plain unfair.
Of course everyone's in the same boat, but we're a small company. Big companies can obviously all on big numbers of people to veer and haul and do stuff, but that's obviously not a possibility for us. Luckily for me I was only peripherally involved, so I didn't loose my weekend.
Not that I was uninvolved, but my mad panic was this morning. The bid was via an electronic portal (uploading files, basically) and these are always horrible. I was responsible for putting together the final versions for upload and doing the actual upload.
It was a little nerve-wracking as the 12 'o'clock deadline rolled closer and closer and bits and pieces were still not quite finished. But we got it all uploaded and done in time.
My weekend itself was okay - nothing particularly exciting. One thing I did do was clean my car. I've not had much opportunity to clean it recently and what I though it was about time. I did it on the Saturday and the weather kept looking like it was about to piss down, but it held off while I was actually cleaning it.
The main thing I focused on was cleaning the inside (giving it a real good hoover out and wiping down the surfaces), the glass and the wheels. Obviously I also generally washed the car and the inside and alloy wheels are fairly obvious areas of attention, but the glass is also something I really needed to sort.
For some reason I find that most glass cleaners give very streaky results after a few weeks. Basically, dirt seems to slowly build up on the glass in the pattern of how the cleaner has dried. What I therefore do when I give the glass a proper clean is use a 'polish'. It smells quite a lot of turpentine and what you do is apply it and leave it to dry. Much like the polish you put on a car's metalwork it dries to leave a white chalk like substance that you then wipe off.
Although this is quite a lot of extra effort, the results are excellent - it gives a surface that remains streak free and completely "even" because the drying thing doesn't happen in the same way. It does also have the disadvantage of being quite expensive. In fact, actually all the stuff I use to clean my car is quite expensive, as I buy the Autoglym stuff.
It isn't cheap, but it really is good stuff.
Wowser, what a horrible morning.
A bid needed to go away by 12 this morning and those can be a panic at the best of times, but this one was bonkers, as they'd given us a grand total of 3 working days to put together an entire ITT! That's totally insane - stuff that's marked urgent usually has at least a week turn-around time; 3 days for a full ITT is just plain unfair.
Of course everyone's in the same boat, but we're a small company. Big companies can obviously all on big numbers of people to veer and haul and do stuff, but that's obviously not a possibility for us. Luckily for me I was only peripherally involved, so I didn't loose my weekend.
Not that I was uninvolved, but my mad panic was this morning. The bid was via an electronic portal (uploading files, basically) and these are always horrible. I was responsible for putting together the final versions for upload and doing the actual upload.
It was a little nerve-wracking as the 12 'o'clock deadline rolled closer and closer and bits and pieces were still not quite finished. But we got it all uploaded and done in time.
My weekend itself was okay - nothing particularly exciting. One thing I did do was clean my car. I've not had much opportunity to clean it recently and what I though it was about time. I did it on the Saturday and the weather kept looking like it was about to piss down, but it held off while I was actually cleaning it.
The main thing I focused on was cleaning the inside (giving it a real good hoover out and wiping down the surfaces), the glass and the wheels. Obviously I also generally washed the car and the inside and alloy wheels are fairly obvious areas of attention, but the glass is also something I really needed to sort.
For some reason I find that most glass cleaners give very streaky results after a few weeks. Basically, dirt seems to slowly build up on the glass in the pattern of how the cleaner has dried. What I therefore do when I give the glass a proper clean is use a 'polish'. It smells quite a lot of turpentine and what you do is apply it and leave it to dry. Much like the polish you put on a car's metalwork it dries to leave a white chalk like substance that you then wipe off.
Although this is quite a lot of extra effort, the results are excellent - it gives a surface that remains streak free and completely "even" because the drying thing doesn't happen in the same way. It does also have the disadvantage of being quite expensive. In fact, actually all the stuff I use to clean my car is quite expensive, as I buy the Autoglym stuff.
It isn't cheap, but it really is good stuff.
Monday, 14 March 2011
running costs
I think I mentioned the other day how I don't tend to focus on current events in this blog. Generally it's a fairly light blog about the boring stuff I get up to. However, since I count watching anime and reading manga amongst my favourite past-times and tend to think of myself as a bit of a Japanophile, it seems churlish not to at least acknowledge the horrible-ness that was last Friday's Earthquake and Tsunami.
Earthquakes are pretty horrible, but Tsunami's have to be one of the scariest natural disasters you can imagine. I mean, many other disasters you can protect against, or there can be sufficient warning to evacuate, but something like that happening so close to the Japanese coast meant a heck of a lot of people have unfortunately lost their lives.
Anyway, back to me and the petty concerns of my life.
Last Friday I put my car in for a service and MOT. There was nothing fundamentally wrong with the car, so it past the MOT, but I did need some new brakes, which meant the total rose to a rather eye watering £440.
However, this is only the start of a couple of months of car related expense that's really going to hammer my wallet. Next up, I need a new set of tyres. This wouldn't be so bad, except that apparently my car is the only one that uses this particular model of tyre. That makes them slightly more expensive, but also really difficult to find. Really I need 4 new tyres and they're likely to be about £140 each with the higher VAT rate.
The next expense will be my insurance. This will cost me about £500. I could get it cheaper, but it would mean things like abandoning my no claims protection and increasing my voluntary excess. From experience, these are all things that sound un-necessary, but then if you have an accident it means it ends up costing you five times as much in the long run.
Lastly will be my car tax. This is the one I resent the most - why the hell do I have to pay a separate car tax, given the amount of tax there is on petrol? It's absolutely ridiculous. Especially with it being a flat fee. I mean, it is reduced depending on your carbon emissions, but the reality of carbon emissions is that it's actually more to do with how you drive, rather than the numbers in the brochure.
I mean, someone I know has recently got a hybrid, so has far lover car tax, yet he's only been getting about 43 miles to the gallon. I don't think I've ever gotten les than 45 miles to the gallon, yet my car tax is higher.
I can't remember how much my car tax is, but it's somewhere in the region of £150, so when you tot all that up, it's all going to set me back the best part of £1,750.
This isn't cheap, but a big part of the problem is that I've made a rod for my own back. See, the car I own is actually what was the top of the line, and that's a big part of why it's so expensive. If I'd had the bog standard model, the tyres would be at least 1/3rd cheaper, and the brakes would be drum brakes, which last a lot longer and are a lot cheaper. Also, the official carbon count would be lower, reducing the tax, and because it would fundamentally be a cheaper car I'm sure the insurance would be lower too.
Earthquakes are pretty horrible, but Tsunami's have to be one of the scariest natural disasters you can imagine. I mean, many other disasters you can protect against, or there can be sufficient warning to evacuate, but something like that happening so close to the Japanese coast meant a heck of a lot of people have unfortunately lost their lives.
Anyway, back to me and the petty concerns of my life.
Last Friday I put my car in for a service and MOT. There was nothing fundamentally wrong with the car, so it past the MOT, but I did need some new brakes, which meant the total rose to a rather eye watering £440.
However, this is only the start of a couple of months of car related expense that's really going to hammer my wallet. Next up, I need a new set of tyres. This wouldn't be so bad, except that apparently my car is the only one that uses this particular model of tyre. That makes them slightly more expensive, but also really difficult to find. Really I need 4 new tyres and they're likely to be about £140 each with the higher VAT rate.
The next expense will be my insurance. This will cost me about £500. I could get it cheaper, but it would mean things like abandoning my no claims protection and increasing my voluntary excess. From experience, these are all things that sound un-necessary, but then if you have an accident it means it ends up costing you five times as much in the long run.
Lastly will be my car tax. This is the one I resent the most - why the hell do I have to pay a separate car tax, given the amount of tax there is on petrol? It's absolutely ridiculous. Especially with it being a flat fee. I mean, it is reduced depending on your carbon emissions, but the reality of carbon emissions is that it's actually more to do with how you drive, rather than the numbers in the brochure.
I mean, someone I know has recently got a hybrid, so has far lover car tax, yet he's only been getting about 43 miles to the gallon. I don't think I've ever gotten les than 45 miles to the gallon, yet my car tax is higher.
I can't remember how much my car tax is, but it's somewhere in the region of £150, so when you tot all that up, it's all going to set me back the best part of £1,750.
This isn't cheap, but a big part of the problem is that I've made a rod for my own back. See, the car I own is actually what was the top of the line, and that's a big part of why it's so expensive. If I'd had the bog standard model, the tyres would be at least 1/3rd cheaper, and the brakes would be drum brakes, which last a lot longer and are a lot cheaper. Also, the official carbon count would be lower, reducing the tax, and because it would fundamentally be a cheaper car I'm sure the insurance would be lower too.
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