Moving Mondeo
Posted: Sat 2 March, 2013 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Finances Leave a comment »With luck, this weekend the Mondeo will finally go.
It was supposed to go last week, had sold on eBay and all good. However, the buyer didn’t turn up (and was, I think, slightly delusional as they were expecting a broken “Spares/Repair” car to get back to Leicester) so it had to get relisted. As always, a pain in the ass.
Anyway, it’s sold again, and this time the buyer is local so I’m a bit more optimistic.
It’s made a good price – better than I expected – both times, which is reassuring.
Still, it’s another of those “end of an era” kind of things/feelings.
[UPDATED 03/03/13] : It got collected today, money paid, all great. An era comes to a close, 2,179 days (just under six years) and 130,500 miles after buying it, Mondeo is no more.
Water Works
Posted: Tue 26 February, 2013 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Customer Services, Domestic, Finances, Getting Organised Leave a comment »Today I’m working from home, waiting for Anglian Water to come and fix things.
It’s nothing major – well, it is, but it’s not like a water leak or anything. Basically, whoever installed the little grey boxes to ‘read’ the water meters (for whatever reason, this house has two) fucked it up – or the boxes are faulty – and have been reporting roughly three times the actual water use. Which, of course, I was getting billed for.
The last bill came in, and I queried the figures. Anglian had screwed up something else as well, just for chuckles, so the entire thing was nearly four times what the corrected bill is. Which is, needless to say, impressive.
Anyway, today they’re replacing both readers, and providing Anglian with correct ‘start-up’ figures, so hopefully from here things will be a lot more stable.
Needless to say, I’ll be keeping a close eye for a while on both the readers and the meters, making sure they match. And waiting for a significant refund.
Bye Mondeo, Hello Saab
Posted: Wed 6 February, 2013 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Finances, Travel 2 Comments »So, today was the day I picked up the new (to me) car.
It’s a Saab 9-5, big beast of a thing, with just under 75,000 miles on the clock. It’s just had an MOT as part of the price, so that’s clear ’til January 2014 without any advisories, so that’s good news. It’s also cost me a lot less than the Mondeo did, which is also (for now) a good thing.
It’s now all taxed and insured, so I’m completely legitimate – I always am, and the insurance was in place before I picked the car up. The tax couldn’t be, as I didn’t have the V5 and so on, but it’s all done now.
So yeah, time to play with a new vehicle. I’ve got a Devon run next week, which will shake it down nicely. (That seems to be almost becoming a tradition, having done the same thing with Mondeo in its first week)
Hopefully this will last a good couple of years, get me through everything else without causing me issues. Time will tell, but that’s currently the hope.
Insured (At Last)
Posted: Thu 24 January, 2013 Filed under: Animals, Bankruptcy, Domestic, Finances Leave a comment »It’s taken a long time, but I’ve now finally got the cats insured.
It’s been a worry for a while, knowing that I live by a busy road, and that they can all be little arseholes who would run across in front of a car or whatever. With my current financial situation, something like heavy vet’s bills would absolutely cripple me, so the insurance is a good plan.
I’ve ended up using PetPlan, who offered a good deal, plus multi-animal discount, and a further discount due to having the latest one microchipped and registered.
We’ll see how it goes – and lord knows, I hope I never have to use it. But I’m happier with it in place, just in case I do need it sometime.
Cinematics
Posted: Sun 30 December, 2012 Filed under: Cinema, Domestic, Finances, Seeing Films Leave a comment »Looking back at the list I’ve kept it looks like I’ve seen 26 films this year, since May. Yeah, yeah, I kept a list – mainly because I wanted to make sure I was getting value for money from the Cineworld Unlimited ticket, but also because well, I’m a geek.
There’s probably a couple I saw pre-May, but all the same, 26 isn’t bad going. It’s been eight months since I joined Cineworld, at £15 a month, adding up to £120. 26 films would’ve cost me in the region of £260, which makes it pretty worthwhile.
In the course of 2012, I even had a couple of months where I didn’t go to see films – primarily July / August, when it was all really dire shite (in my opinion) with nothing I really fancied. So that total probably means that I really should get out more, just not to the cinema.
I won’t bore anyone with the list of films – I know I’ve got dire taste in films, but I like escapism.
2013’s going to be a year for more of the same, I’m sure. The ticket is worthwhile – it would’ve taken only 12 films to pay for itself, and I doubled that – so it makes sense to keep on with it. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
41 to 42
Posted: Mon 5 November, 2012 Filed under: Change, Domestic, Finances, Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »As usual, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and plans of things I’d like to do in the forthcoming year. So yeah, this is one of those posts. Again.
To be fair, I do get a decent(ish) lump of stuff off the list done when I post and then review a while later, but I do also have a tendency to want to do more than I actually have the time (and, more importantly, the inclination) for. But still, good intentions, and the knowledge of more personal time, we’ll see how this one goes.
Over the next year I would like to…
- Write more
- Weigh less
I might add some others along the way, but for now I think that’s enough to be going on with.