Posted: Fri 23 May, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Bad Ads, Cynicism, Finances, Marketing, People, Thoughts |
Following on from yesterday’s post about Nissan’s dodgy advertising, maths and small-print, the other ad currently incurring my ire is from Lloyds Bank, advertising their new “Club Lloyds” current account.
Now, while I think that clubbing Lloyds would be a fantastic idea, that isn’t the thing with this new account. Here’s the ad…
And again, here’s that small-print, while they’re bleating on about how great it is to have an account paying 4% interest…
Pay two separate monthly Direct Debits to earn variable tiered monthly interest. 4.0% AER (3.93% Gross) on balances between £4,000 and £5,000. Lower rates apply for lower tiers
So yep – that 4% interest ONLY applies if you keep more than £4,000 in your current account – but below £5,000. And if we look at that Club Lloyds webpage, what do we find? (I’m going to paraphrase, but you can look for yourself)
- Balances from £1 – £1,999.99 – 1% interest
- £2,000 to £3,999.99 – 2% interest
- £4,000 to £5,000 – 4% interest (and note how that band is half the size of the other two)
And right at the bottom of the explanation?
We don’t pay interest on amounts over £5,000.
Yep – no interest at all if you’ve got over the £5,000 in there.
Fuck you, Lloyds.
Posted: Mon 19 May, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Bankruptcy, Cynicism, Domestic, Finances |
Following on from the post about Location, and deciding to stay here for another 18 months, something else occurred to me – and it’s something good.
If I’ve lived here for more than three years, it’ll immensely simplify any credit applications I make – and that’ll be useful when it comes to rebuilding the credit history and so on.
As it is, things are going well on that front, and all is good. The score is infinitely better than it could be – mainly due to maintaining all the payments on all bills and so on, with no issues therein.
But being able to show a bit of locational stability for a while will be no bad thing either.
Anyway, it’s just another point that adds to the reasoning.
Posted: Fri 16 May, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2013/14, Bankruptcy, Change, Commuting, Depression, Domestic, Driving, Finances, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Housing, Own Business, Project 42, Thoughts, Time, Work-related |
Over the last couple of months, I’ve been thinking a lot about location – where I live, where I work, where I want to live, all that. I’ve been in the current house for two years now, and I know I’m getting a bit twitchy.
The current tenancy doesn’t expire ’til November though – due to an initial six-month one, followed by 12-month ones. As a result, I’ve had plenty of time to think about it, look at the pros and cons, and – I think – I’ve now pretty much made a decision.
As has been noted on many occasions, I’m not all that good with permanence – I like change, embrace it even. It suits me. So two years in the same place is enough to make me twitchy, to start to feel that itch in the back of my skull.
It’s not too bad at the moment though. I’ve certainly had it far, far worse than this. If I were still in the same job as well, the options would be different – I’d be needing to move on in both cases. As it is, I’ve been back on the contracting since July, and it’s kept things decently varied – which means the house side of things can relax a wee bit.
There are places I’d like to move to, some new locations and some old. (Or at least close enough to qualify as revisits) They’re more about reflecting how much life has changed in the last few years, most particularly the ability to drive, which opens up whole new vistas.
For example, I’d like to go back to the North-West, live around the Peak district somewhere. I wouldn’t live in Manchester itself again, but there’s loads of places around it that I really like. It’s still a front-runner when the move does happen. The same applies for the South Coast, and Dorset in particular. It’s an area I love, but didn’t really get to appreciate as much as I could’ve done, because I didn’t drive. So yes, that’s also a front-runner.
There’s other places too. A revisit to Bath and/or Bristol wouldn’t be out of the question – particularly when not combined with an insane commute, ideally – and there’s new locations too. I’d consider most places, but Nottingham and Derby have always been good to me, and there’s a whole heap of other places. (Plus a long-standing idea to sod off to somewhere like Cork)
However, right now there’s also a bigger plan in place. Rebuilding after the bankruptcy, seeing what comes next, as well as looking at work and finances and what the hell I want to do/be when I grow up. There’s ideas on that score, but I need to have the time and inclination to do something about them. Time I’ve got. Inclination? Less so, right now. But that’s a post for another day.
I could move, sure. But practicality-wise, where I am right now is pretty much perfect for me right now. It’s not a long-term location, but for now it’s good. I’ve got all the transport links I need – my commuting radius for work covers an insane amount of miles. It makes my contractor life a lot easier. Location isn’t in many (if any) of those calculations I have to do. For me, right now, that’s an important factor, and outweighs pretty much everything else.
Financially, it’s easy. If I move North then the odds are that my rent would drop. But for where I am, for what I’ve got right now, I couldn’t do much better. I’d like some extra space, an extra room or two – but it’s not something that’s necessary right now either.
All told, while I would kind-of like to move, I don’t need to move. And staying put has its advantages too – location, money, blah blah.
That means that – in the lack of a good reason for moving other than “But I want to” – I’ve decided I’m going to plan to stay where I am for the next eighteen months. The six months from now for the current tenancy, and then extend it by another twelve.
Of course, the landlord might decide to sell up or something, or work may throw up something that makes me have to move. Neither option is likely, but they could happen. But short of those kind of eventualities, I’m going to face up to things, and not move.
By that time – November 2015 – I’ll have been in this place for three and a half years. Then I think it’ll be time to move on – or at least move up. If my work is still keeping me based in a way that the current location is still OK then I’ll just look at moving to a bigger place locally. If things change or work isn’t a limitation (I can work from pretty much anywhere, after all) then it might be a big location change too. We’ll see.
Posted: Tue 13 May, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2011/12, 2013/14, Domestic, Finances, Getting Organised, Thoughts |
It’s now two years (well, just over, as it was the early May Bank Holiday weekend) since I moved into the current house. That move was probably one of the most stressful ones I’ve ever done, as it all happened while my dad was in hospital with heart issues, and the move itself was done in just one day.
You know how they say that the most stressful things in life are moving house, changing jobs, and relationship breakups? Try doing all three at once, with added health concerns of a parent. It makes for an interesting weekend, it’s fair to say.
A lot has changed since then – most of it for the better. The job stayed the same ’til July last year, and then I’ve been back on the contracting side and done a fair variety in the remaining time. Finances have improved beyond measure – at least relatively speaking – along with my own health, sanity and stability.
Dad’s fine too, still with us, and far healthier than he was.
Two years ago I couldn’t see this far, couldn’t see the light that was beginning to glimmer at the end of the tunnel. I’m not yet out of the tunnel completely, but that light is all too visible now, and I know things are well on their way.
Posted: Mon 21 April, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2013/14, Bankruptcy, Domestic, Finances, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Project 42, Work-related |
While the last eight weeks have been pretty tight (as written about earlier this week) with the weird and slow pay structures of the agency behind my current contract – well, current for this week, but thank God, it’ll then be over – it also has been (yet another) illustration of how far things have come. As if I needed it.
Two years ago, this whole thing would’ve been a nightmare, and would’ve left me deeply in the shit.
Now, it’s been OK. It’s been tight, I’ve had to move some things around, and make some arrangements – but it’s been OK. Some of that has been because of being able to invoice some other clients and have smaller amounts of money coming in from other sources. Of course, at the moment I have no other safety cushion – no overdraft, minimal savings to speak of (although both of those will be changing) – but it makes things a bit shakier than I’d like. Not as shaky as they have been in the past by any means, but I’ll be happier this year to put some fiscal cushions in place as well.
Until then, obviously I’ll be happy just to actually get paid, and have money in my account again, but it’s another thing I’ve managed to get through. And really, that’s no bad thing.
Posted: Thu 17 April, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Agency Idiocy, Domestic, Finances, Work-related |
This current contract has had one major downside – the agency in question have the worst pay schedule I’ve ever seen.
Of course, there are also quite a lot of other downsides, which is why I’m not going to be extending or renewing the contract anyway. But that pay schedule is definitely a contributory factor to the entire thing.
It’s come through an agency I hadn’t previously dealt with, and while they did say that the job paid monthly (which is fine with me) they carefully didn’t explain quite what they meant. This tells me that they damn well know the pay schedule is insanely broken/dodgy, but can’t be chuffed to do anything about it.
Usually, a monthly contract is paid by dint of the contractor submitting an invoice and getting paid seven days later. All well and good. You have an invoice deadline of (for example) the 23rd of the month, submit by then and get paid for month-end.
Not with this agency. Oh no.
You submit your invoice for the end of the month. They then take three weeks to pay, *and* still send it BACS, so it takes three days to hit your account. So, for example, the invoice for March, submitted by the ‘March’ deadline of 4th April (don’t ask) doesn’t hit a bank account ’til 18th April. (Which is a bank holiday – something the agency only realised when I asked them what they were doing about bank holidays) For me, because this one has gone through an Umbrella company, I don’t get paid ’til the next working day – the Tuesday after Easter.
My colleague who started on 31st March won’t get paid til the 23rd of May.
In short, that’s shocking. And I can’t wait to get paid (three days before my contract ends).
Posted: Fri 28 March, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Domestic, Films, Finances, Getting Organised, Kindle, Reading, Stupidity |
I am, on occasion, a bloody idiot. Last night was a prime example of that.
I went to the cinema to see the new Captain America film, and also had a meal. Because I was out like that, I took my Kindle, and because it was chiffing cold, I also took a jacket. (I’m normally pretty immune to cold, and don’t bother with jackets or coats at all)
When I got to the cinema, I put the jacket down by the side of the seat, with the Kindle in its inside pocket.
When I left the cinema, I also left the jacket – because it’s not in my mental software to get it, I completely forgot about it. I am, in short, a complete fucking idiot.
I went back this morning first thing (I had a day off anyway, for a number of reasons) to see if they’d found it, but no-one had handed it in. I’ll check again, just in case it’d been held over somewhere, but the odds are that the jacket and the Kindle are gone.
Of course, things could have been so much worse. It could’ve been an expensive coat/jacket, I could have left my wallet in the jacket as well. The Kindle could have had my payment details in it, or personal information. A couple of years ago, the loss of something like this would have knackered me, would have led to some financial juggling and so on just to replace it.
Now though, I’ve already registered it as lost, ordered a replacement, and it’s really not a big problem. It’s annoying – and of course a reminder that I’m a fucking idiot – but it all could have been so much worse. Indeed, it’s gone some way to showing me the changes that have happened over the last year or so, and in that, it’s no bad thing.