More is not always better

The birthday presents I gave the OH went down well.
We did it a few days early as my daughter is down from Scotland so we combined Chinese take away as a birthday and welcome home meal or so I was led to believe.
As far as I am concerned, OH has had his birthday. He gets a money present from a sister, a present from me and sometimes a present from one or other of the kids.
We have a nice meal and sometimes a cake.
It is the same on my birthday except I don't want a cake.

Yesterday he announced we should buy a birthday cake (BUY!)
He likes the huge choc cake from Snailsburys so we ' looked'.
£10 for a cake !!
I didn't whip out my purse and hand him money.
We went home without one .
Later he said ,we can have pizza on my birthday!
He will still be thinking about buying a cake.....

It is hugely irritating. We HAD chinese take away.
As usual there was so much that the DS finished it off next day as Lunch.
But OH cant accept that everything has a limit .

He has always had the same attitude, he sees something and then in his minds eye, it shrinks to nothing..
So his 6 pence pocket money of the 1960's was seen as 'Not enough' ,the £20 a week he was given in the 1970's was equally sneered at and nothing has been enough ever since.

Incidentally the £20  a week is the exact amount I was paid for full time work when I was 16 so that shows how ridiculous that attitude was.

I on the other hand am from the other end of the spectrum.
The penny or 2 pennies that my father only ever gave for rewards for rare tasks, were saved until we had enough to buy sweets. We didn't get pocket money and often had second or third hand presents on birthdays and Christmas and clothing was bought new only twice that I remember in my childhood and one of those events was the school uniform.
We were expected to give presents too and these were always home made or re gifted.
It gives you a whole different mentality.

My eyes don't see things shrink ,they see them grow.
I look at my survey payments and say wow £40 in a month, that is £480 a year.
I could use £30 for buying my veg seeds and we can save £5 a week on the grocery bill which is £260 a year.
£240 will pay for some nice birthday and Christmas presents online and save digging into the bank account.
Possibly saving £250 over the year.

270 has already saved 510 looking at it like that.

We can put the rest(210) towards gadgets that save money in other ways for example battery charging, food preserving, garden equipment ,parts and equipment to mend things.

The initial amount will have grown into a much larger amount.
Therefore the surveys etc are well worth doing despite their being low enough to not even reach the tax threshold.

So I ask myself what is so different in our lives that we think in such diverse ways?
This has to be a family thing.

His roots
OH parents were both single children from professional parents.
His maternal grandfather ran a business of architects.
His paternal grandfather was another successful architect although less affluent.

Neither of his parents ever needed to think about money much in their youths.
They bought cars,jewelry,expensive knick knacks and frittered money away on nothing.
They had 5 kids and poured money on them whether they could afford it or not.
They mostly couldn't.


My roots
My maternal grandfather was a resourceful man who had saved enough from  his working life to buy land and build a cabin style house with no mortgage by the time he had married.

He was semi retired I think in that they lived on the land in a small holding capacity and he used his interest in technology to provide an unofficial service mending cars,bikes ,early televisions and radios.
They ran a car  they drove to the seaside most weekends, he taught all his children to swim They were also taught  acrobatics on the gym equipment he built in the garden as he had been a circus performer in his younger days.
His wife taught the girls to knit and make their own clothes and to cook.

Mum was one of 4

My dads parents both worked and as far as I can work out dad was one of those kids who roamed the countryside to play and make dens and generally be free in very much the style of the kids in Richmal Crompton's books.
Dad was one of at least 5.

On the trickle feed side....

The survey 'sitting' is going well.
Well ,probably not faster than usual but I have a few new threads to drip from.

One is the shop n scan which has already given me two £10 Amazon vouchers since I started it in mid october.
Then there are some sites that ask you to view videos, click links and play games.
The best so far is Swag bucks which I have been doing 17 days.
I cashed out £10 yesterday also in Amazon vouchers.

It seems quick to earn on and now I have got the hang of it,it isnt that hard to earn the points.

Im also doing Gift hulk
Superpoints and
Admimsy

Admimsy is not very fast but it is easy.
Superpoints is very 'referral dependant' so I may give this one up if it doesnt pick up without me spreading their referral link all over every possible flat surface (that seems to be their aim, it isnt mine)
Gift hulk is very like swag bucks but the video watching is much more limited and the games are all seemingly 'sign up and download (along with all the rubbish )' so we will see.

Swagbucks has a few sign up games in their offers section and I tried to download one today onto the lesser used laptop(to save it trashing my main computer), it downloaded fine,seemed to install and I clicked it to play only to find it went to the website and tried to make me sign up for offers.
When I declined them all one after the other, I found I was stuck because the last one has no 'no thanks' or 'continue' or anything.

Any subsequent 'downloading' will be done in the same fashion.
Revo uninstaller to the rescue. It wheedles out the itsy bitsy files that get installed and zaps them. 

Eating at the table

We are trying to get the dining room back into commission.
Last year it was my office and so was full of scanners and computers.
We had 3 big scanners (A3 size) and then a large A4 flat bed and 2 film scanners.
Then there were the computers.
2 Windows PC's
3 Macs and of course their keyboards, Mice and monitors.
There was hardly room to sidle.

Well that all fell through when the economy took another downturn and so we have had a room full of white elephants.
Yesterday and today was spent in moving stuff about so we can have our room back.

We put two of the big scanners under the stairs.
The other is in the corner.
The macs are put away where they will fit.
One PC is in the cupboard and the other, the better one, is on a computer trolley.

Todays dinner was the first we have had around the table in about 10 months.
It was so lovely to see the fireplace again and be able to sit upright properly to eat.
Cant wait for Christmas and now we can have Xmas dinners in the old family manner with chatting and manners instead of in the sitting room with the 'telly' butting in and everyone glowering at Mr oblivious because it is another bless'ed war film..

I have the small drawer unit that was under my desk, as a bed side table now, it is lovely and deep and there is a lock.
OH doesn't know that I found the key shhh.

Frugally wrapping pressies

I have wrapped all the presents for family now.
Earlier in the month, I took delivery of an Amazon parcel which was several things all sent together to save on postage and having to 'be in' for the postie.
They were packaged in lots of pale grey paper to keep them secure,so when I had checked them all, I put the paper aside to wrap them in.

There was enough for all the packages including OH's birthday present.
After wrapping them all, I took my sharpies (coloured felt pens) and drew little designs on the parcels to make them more christmassy.

I didn't bother with labels, I put a little letter in one corner so that I can identify which one is for which person.

I used sticky tape to secure the paper so probably that was about 10 pence worth and the paper itself cost me nothing at all.
No having to buy a roll or two in poundland this year.

OH will still buy paper and cards,whatever I do, he always does.
He cant bare to think that his 3 sisters might think we are poor.

They would be wrong anyway, we aren't poor ,we are frugal and always will be ,however much we have in the bank.

In the past, buying thin paper with gaudy designs on and ready made christmas cards would have been seen as the poor option, the rich would paint their own cards to one another and wrap things in plain paper with a pretty decoration they had added themselves.
Even Queen Victoria painted her own cards to her family.

Car expenses

We have the wretched insurance to renew on the car this month.
It is hefty because DS isnt a fully fledged license holder yet and when he is, he wont have had a lot of experience of driving.
I will pay it out of the grocery budget. That will leave me £45 a week for anything else (including food) which is almost all that we need anyway.
It wont all be from this months grocery of course, I save some every month and when there is a certain amount, it goes in the savings but that wont happen this month.

Mneh, so long as we have enough to eat, are warm and healthy and happy, it is only money when all is said and done.

Wodens Day

It's been a bit of a dull day .
I have done some more exercises just to keep warm and have something to do.

• Pistol Squats X 10 each leg
• Dips X 10
• Ropeless skipping 5 minutes
• leg raises X 10
• Pull ups X8

This morning I did some work online and then read some more of the current Terry Pratchet.

I have another one lined up for when this one is finished and then a Robert Jordan book to make a change.

It has been Icy cold in the Kitchen as usual.
We have a very small radiator in there but we only have the heating on an hour morning and again evening so the rest of the time it is froozy.

Tomorrow will be spent in wrapping the presents that are sitting in my bedroom in a box.
I have saved the packing paper from an amazon delivery to use as the wrapping.
I shall make some microwaved Flapjacks too.

squatty Tuesday

I have been neglecting the running just lately.
Today I did 140 squats to keep the old legs in shape.

It is quite cold here, our house seems badly placed to take much advantage of sun shine.
While we ate tea, the front room showed 13 degrees on the electricity monitor.

I have been playing with the mended e-reader a bit today.
I put two books and a PDF file on it and they all read fine.
The transfer was easy,I can either drag books to it just by looking at it in the windows environment or I can open it in the reader program that it installs when you first run it, and put books on it using that.
It can play MP3 too although I most likely wont bother with that as I have a few MP3 players that can play them already.

Next I will make it a cover.
I'm going to hunt around for a hardback with a cover I like and use that.
We have loads of books so I am almost guaranteed to find one in the house, that no one cares about.

DS still hasn't passed his driving test.
He has another go next week.
I am disappointed for him because he is quite careful when he drives and it is just little things that are getting in the way.
Hopefully once he has his full license, he can find a job more easily,at present everything he has applied for has asked for a full license.

Today I was able to request payment on 2 sites!
One is the shop and scan site and the other was valued opinions.
Each one gave an instant link to the £10 voucher I had requested.
I don't need to get anyone presents now so they will be saved for May most likely when my daughter has a birthday unless there is anything we particularly need and Amazon sell in which case, they would go on that.

We have just had the new amount for our insurance on the car and it is quite steep (over £500)so I might try looking for cheaper alternatives or more likely suggest it to OH.

Bookish Monday

I have been reading more from SIR Terry Pratchet.
This one is called Jingo and is in my sons definition of the word, war without the need for a logical reason.
That fits the story quite well.
There are some thought provoking parallels with the world as we know it anyway, not just about the reason for war but also concerning the way one nation will treat another regarding tradition ,food, manners etc.
I think it is his most serious that I have read.
Still plenty of fun though.


I have to admit to having thought originally that Jingo was a retort 'By Jingo' for example and maybe the two meanings are not so far apart after all.


I have been watching the 'Ice road truckers tackle the worlds most dangerous roads' on Friday night TV.
Quite often,one of the drivers will say something quite thoughtless and insulting and the locals who are their companions, are very tolerant.
If they had been in Mr Pratchets book, they would have been lying in a pool of blood with their throats cut. Not that I am giving anything away.

My hero in the TV series is Lisa the only female driver on the series thus far.
She worries and worries but she gets the job done just the same.

Making old new again!

Goodness a whole week and more has passed me by!

I have been busy with surveys,they always seem to get more frequent at this time of year.
I have had at least 3 a day for the last 6 weeks.
It all goes to help,even the very small ones.

Today I had a bit of a success with my mending en-devours.
I wanted my own e book reader and after buying one second hand for my daughter for Christmas, I thought it would be nice to have my own.

So I looked for broken ereaders on Ebay and found one to bid on.
It was a Sony ereader with a touch screen but the e-ink pad part had become corrupt but it still charged okay.
Anyway,I bought it for £15.
Then I fiddled with it for a week and decided it needed a new e-ink display, so back on Ebay and ordered one from China (Sony are from over there and the screens are only available there) £41 delivered.

It came yesterday (8 days from ordering to arriving) and I was rather horrified to find that it didn't have a back made of sticky plastic .

I would have to rip the old one off its plastic backing and the plastic backing off the metal frame behind it.

It took me 90 minutes to get it all off (it has a thin mirrored glass backing and I cut my fingers with the tiny pieces as they splintered) and then today about 2 hours to clean the plastic back to it glue-less self with WD40.

Then I got a tube of contact adhesive courtesy of poundland (we already had it in the cupboard) and glued the new,terribly fragile looking e-ink display ,onto the plastic and the plastic onto the original frame.

After all that,I had to get it all back in its case in the right place and without damaging the new display.

Well I did it. Turned it on and it worked first time.

I have been singing all afternoon while getting tea started because I am so chuffed that something I set out to do,actually worked.

The ereader has cost me £56 which is a lot for me to spend on myself I suppose but I have learned a huge lot about them in a short time.
I often find PDF's of manuals or instruction books that I would like to download but as the laptop is mains only ,it isn't worth it for the non portability.
I shall try to put some on the reader when it is charged up fully and see how they view.