Spending for the week

Here's what I've spent this week (week ending Friday 9th October 2009)

CASH
04/10/09 Asda (Miscellaneous) £10.25
04/10/09 Asda (Food) £33.07

06/10/09 Morrisons (Food) £6.75

07/10/09 Morrisons (Newspapers) £1.15
07/10/09 Morrisons (A4 paper) £3.49 *

09/10/09 Paper Shop (Newspapers) £1.60

Total cash expenses for week £56.31

* I bought the wrong type of paper - there is cheaper stuff at £1.94 I meant to buy.


CREDIT CARD
05/10/09 Equifax (Credit Report) £2.00

Total credit card expenses for week £2.00


BANK
05/10/09 Orange (Telephone) £34.33
09/10/09 HM Revenue & Customs (Class 2 NI) £12.00

Total bank expenses for week £12.00

My weekly readings for gas, elctricity and car miles

My weekly readings

Car
04/09/09 31209
11/09/09 31234 (25 miles in week)
18/09/09 31286 (52 miles in week)
25/09/09 31313 (27 miles in week)
02/10/09 31341 (28 miles in week)
09/10/09 31386 (45 miles in week)

I bought the car on the 12th September 2007.
2007 1691 miles 110 days
2008 3580 miles 365 days
2009 1544 miles 282 days

I've drove 6770 miles in the 757 days I've had the car.

Learning to drive (including all the manuals, lessons and tests) cost me £2048.98 .

My driving expenses each year amount to :
2007 £3114.57 (including the £2048.98 above)
2008 £1384.06
2009 £ 842.34

Click on above to see full details.

6815 miles from 905.32 litres = 7.53 miles per litre
(or 34.22 miles per gallon)
(or 13.7p per mile).
This isn't 100% accurate as there is still some petrol in the car - but nobody is reading this apart from me anyway. I could write what I want. Cheese. There - I just did. Also this is based for the 2+ years. This year I only achieved 31.13 miles per gallon.


Electricity
04/11/09 ??
11/09/09 34669
18/09/09 34763 (94 units in week) cost £ 4.86
25/09/09 34857 (94 units in week) cost £11.97
02/10/09 34943 (86 units in week) cost £11.03
09/10/09 35026 (83 units in week) cost 10.67
Total cost since last electricity bill £38.53
Payments made by direct debit since last bill - nil
I'm making a real effort in the last couple of weeks to cut down on electricity.

Cost per unit : £0.11293
Standing charge per day : £0.11270

Gas
04/11/09 2571
11/09/09 2571 (0 units in week)
18/09/09 2571 (0 units in week)
25/09/09 2571 (0 units in week)
02/10/09 2571 (0 units in week)
09/10/09 2571 (0 units in week)

My gas bill in available online just now. I'm £166.14 in credit. They estimated I used 5 units since the last reading. I didn't. I told them. In fact, maybe I should tell them my gas fire is broken and I want the £166.14 back as I won't be using it up this winter.

This annoys me......

The plastic milk bottles with tops like this :


The little bit of paper that helps you to tear the seal off the bottle 9 times out of ten rips off an gets stuck to the lid.

Dumb Ebayers

I just bought a couple of hinges on Ebay. 55p plus 20p postage.
They arrived this morning and I looked at the postage label - 76p to post them. The person has actually lost money selling them on Ebay. How dumb can they be. The minimum postage charge for 2nd class mail is 30p (?)

Father's Day

I didn't forget Father's Day this year - I just left it a bit late. I drove down to Asda (the person behind me the whole way must have thought I was drunk with my erratic driving). Driving back I saw the clock on my car said 9:10pm. I thought, I've forgotten to change the time on my clock. When I got to my parent's house their clocks were also not changed. Even the tv programmes were an hour out. Weird.

My computers

Copy of a post from a few years ago then updated :

Monday, June 07, 2004

I was recently thinking about the length of time I have a computer for and when I need to buy a new one. Right now - but I cannae afford one.

My first "computer like" thing was an Amstrad PCW10 which I bought in August 1993.

This fucked up and I ended up buying an actual computer in March 1995 - a Compaq Presario with a hard disk of 200MB - of which only half has been used to date.

EDIT : I found the leaflet that came with my first computer.
Compaq Presario 433
Intel 486sx/33 Processor
4MB RAM
200MB Hard Disk Drive
Integrated SVGA 14" colour monitor
Software installed MS-Dos 6 Microsoft Windows 3.1 (at least it never crashed on me once unlike "Fucking Windows 98" which crashes at least once a day) Still got that computer. I think it cost £1100. The black and white printer I bought cost £320. Nowadays you can buy a scanner/photocopier/fax machine/colour printer for under £50.

Update I don't have the computer anymore and I only use Windows 98 on my ancient laptop.

In September 1997 I then bought a Packard Bell Pulsar 23 with a hard disk of 4.3GB. At the time I thought it was impossible to fill this space up. How wrong I was. With all the crap I bought along with this one, monitors, scanner, printer I paid about £2800.

In June 2000 I bought a Tiny PC. I have no idea of its full name. It was advertised as having a 30GB hard disk but I found out this was actually only 28.6GB (which is now reduced to 885MB).
Can't remember how much I paid for this one - I'll need to look it up and edit post - probably around £1500.

Methinks it's time for a new one.

EDIT :
I bought another new one in August 2005 :
This one packed in about 15 months ago. I bought another one off Ebay but never got it to work. Actually I've bought quite a few off of Ebay but these were to be used as my main computer.
Again - I'll need to look up and see how much I paid for this one.

So the latest one I received on 19th July 2009. I paid £129.95 plus £14.90 postage.
I'll need to do some checking on this - I'm sure the Buy it now price was £109.00 .
Advertised as having a 500GB hard drive - but in reality only 465GB. Changed days fron the 200MB computer which I only ever used 100MB of.

I wonder if I'll ever but a brand spanking new one again.

Another Ebay computer

Well, I've bought another computer off of Ebay. I bought one on June 2nd last year. I wasn't aware the person had modified it otherwise I'd never have bought it. I've never been able to connect it to the internet. Can't even get sound on it. I was given a disc from the seller to do with the card she installed but when I chose Windows XP as the operating system as I was told it wasn't even installed. It was outside the 90 days so couldn't leave a negative. This computer I'm using just now is so slow that some pages just give up on me. I have to click the middle mouse button and wait then click it again. A strange technique. Some pages can take 5-10 minutes to finally arrive. Now, count to 15 seconds. See how long that is to wait. Then multiply that by 40. The amount of time I waste waiting for pages in a day. My neighbours upstairs have finally had enough of me and my high pitched screaming at the computer. The other week they were stamping on the floor in the early hours to get me to shut up. Embarrassing - up till then I wasn't sure if they could hear me.It is exasperating at times. I'll be typing away in this form (or this type of form - I'll then look up at the page and there is noting there and I'll have to wait a couple of minutes for anything to appear). I can't get Youtube videos. If I go to a page that had Youtube videos on it on this site (sometimes folk can put them in normal posts as well as the ones specifically for Youtbue videos) then my computer will just give up. I either wait half an hour (literally) or I'll have to reboot (another half hour wait anyway).I can't get Iplayer as I need to have Service Pack 2 (which needs a propoerly licenced version of Windows).So hopefully I'll be able to get back to some kind of normal internet use with this new (2nd hand) computer. Last years one I might just take to my football club and put it to use down there.Unfortunately I'm not in a position to be able to afford a new computer. Although with the amount of money I've spent on the two computers and postage I probably could have got a decent enough one.It will mean I am able to post photos again. Something I haven't been able to do for a long time. One photo can take me over half an hour to post and then that much power is used up a re-boot is necesary.

Credit Card charges

Just been toting up what extra I have paid to my credit card company because I have no money.
I took out a second credit card and transferred all the money - I don't pay interest on this for x amount of months - but I still have to pay to transfer the money. I then transferred the money back to the original account with another fee to pay. But another period without interest. More fees forgetting to pay. It all adds up.

Balance transfer fees £78.17
Credit Card Cheque Fees £20.71
Interest £173.59
Late payment Fees (3) £36.00

The interest was as follows :
Oct 08 4.61
Nov 08 6.55
Dec 08 7.97
Jan 09 50.53
Feb 09 46.42
Mar 09 37.97
Apr 09 18.34
May 09 1.20

I dread to think what the costs aree on my main card. But I suppose I'll have to add them up at some point.

Hiding from the Roofing Contractor

The Roofing Contractor has finally re-appeared after a couple of months. He put up the scaffold then buggered off. He was knocking at my door earlier - I didn't answer. I like in a block of 6 flats so we all have to share the costs of roof repairs. The minimum share is going to be £250 and I reckon the knock at the door was to tell me of increased costs. He already told me "it won't cost that much - it will be cheaper because we have our own scaffold". When he told me the costs was going to be £250 he then comes up with "most of the cost is in the scaffold". Rip-off merchant. If I ignore him he can't go ahead with anything too expensive - or he'll have to put in writing his intentions and post it through my door. That way I'll have a record of it.

Tax Return

Why do I leave filling in my Tax Return to the last minute?
It has to be done by 31st January - I have nothing prepared. And I certainly don't have the money to pay the tax. Credit Card cheques are the answer to all my problems - at least until my debts catch up with me.

My bets

Just a quick note to remind me of the bets I'm placing (31/01/2009)

Klb (8/11) v Gir
Klw (13/8) v Cly
Ren v Lar (4/6)

Stake £10 Return £75.57

If I don't get to place the bet this will just be a reminder of how much I could have won.

What has happened since I last wrote?

Quite a lot obviously - but reading through my previous posts....
The Portacabin - bugger all has been done to it. We are getting another one to join on to it.

The computer I bought off of Ebay - I haven't got it to work yet. Too busy doing other stuff. The other computer doesn't even switch on now. Too busy to see what's wrong with it.

Too busy - don't talk crap. You spend countless hours just reading the same bloody internet forums.

Programme editor

Seems as though I now find myself with the dubious honour of being my football clubs programme editor next season. In my role as Treasurer (I was appointed this last year around this time) I pointed out we couldn't continue making a loss on each sale of the programme. The income is mostly made in the advertising but we should also make some money on each sale. I suggested buying a photocopier and printing the programme ourselves. I wasn't expecting to be lumbered with the task of programme editor. Unfortunately we can't buy a photocopier until we get some money in. Sponsorship won't be available until 14th July. Advertising - invoices have been sent out to those that have agreed to renew but they seem reluctant to pay.

We are getting a new portacabin. The current one is too small. We use it as a committee room and small hospitality bar. So we are picking up another one on Thursday. It needs a fair bit of work done on it. Lucky we have a couple of Joiners that play for the team. I wonder if they know they will be drafted in to work on it.

Seems strange that I managed to avoid being on the committee for so long. I was first asked in 1991. And now I find myself with two jobs.

Must remember

I must remember that I have removed the back from my computer chair. I don't want to be leaning back in it while wearing my bathrobe and falling over and looking a right twat for anyone looking in my bedroom window.

Wireless connection

I'm really baffled now.

Before my wireless adapter thing was hanging over a door on a special extending USB cable - not an ordinary USB cable. I was getting a signal strength of Low Speed 24.0Mbps.

I then moved it - to a position where there was a direct line of sight between it and the wireless access point. Now I'm getting a signal strength of Very Low and a speed of 1.0Mbps.

I just don't know what to make of it.

Peacock dreams.

Edit : It's now at 12.0Mbps although it did go to 54.0Mbps. What the hell can be affectinh it when there is a direct line of sight.

BBC NEWS | Magazine | The strange decline of the paperboy

BBC NEWS Magazine The strange decline of the paperboy

I have great memories of being a paperboy. I did it every weekday morning and then every second weekend. One run meant I had to cross a railway line. Actually - it didn't I was meant to go the long way round, but what would you do - walk 50 yards and across a railway line or walk half a mile to where the road goes over the railway line.

One other experience was delivering early in the morning - a dark, cold winter's morning. I was wearing a "Mod" parka with the hood up. Delivering to a tenement building I was just about to open up the letter box when the door opened. The young woman that came out just saw this dark shadowy type figure standing at her door and ran back inside screaming. She was phoning the police. I was shouting back at her through the letterbox "It's only the paper boy". She later gave me a C120 cassettee as a present for scaring ME. This was a big deal for me in those days as I had only ever used C60 and C90 cassettes. I've still got the cassette to this day.

I've just realised something - I have an old record player/cassette player/cd player. I was about to throw it out. But I'm not sure if I'd have anything left to play all my cassettes on (shows the last time actually played them).

There were two rival newspaper shops in the village I grew up in. Whener the other lot got a pay rise our shop would up theirs to just a little bit more. He'd take all the paperboys (can't remember any paper girls in my time) to the cinema once a year for a treat. Nowadays he might be seen as a pedo for doing that.

At Christmas time any tips we were given went into a box on the shop counter. All the tips would be added up, the shop owner would add the same amount again and then the total shared amongst all the paperboys.

4 years of crap

Just noticed I've been writing drivel on this blog for four years now.

Bought another computer

I decided to buy another computer tonight. Well I decided the night before but someone beat me in that auction. My main computer keeps switching itself off. Normally I change computers every four years. I will spend a lot of dosh getting the most up to date one I can afford. The last one had tv and remote control - unfortunately I never got to use it. Every time I but a computer there is aways something I buy thinking I'll use it in the future but never actually get to use it for one reason or another.

So this new one (second hand actually on Ebay) will just be for surfing the net and emails. watching BBC programs on their iplayer thing which my other computer just switches itself off whenever I suggest it.

I have this computer (the one I am sat at now) for doing my work (spreadsheets etc). Another one for a website I haven't updated in over 2 years. A laptop for taking to the football committee meetings to explain the finances better. There is another computer I have kept - I know not why. I must have upgraded for a reason so why keep the old one.

I've also 6 CRT monitors that haven't been used in two years. Another flat screen one that hjasn't been used. This CRT one I am at just now and the flat screen one in my living room. I should ban myself from Ebay.

My healthy meal

I'm just about to tuck into the following meal.

Start off with some pasta shells and dump them in a big pot after they've been boiled and all that. Add some salad cream and stir it about. Add a large tin of tuna chunks. Add some more salad cream and stir again. Add some sweetcorn. Add two tins of pork luncheon meat cut up into tiny cubes. Add some more salad cream and stir about. Finally chop up some celery and add that. Oh, and you might as well add some more salad cream and stir the whole lot about.

Measure into two large bowls and have one of them at 1am which you know you will never finish. Have the remains for breakfast - which will be about 11am as your bed is just too warm to leave in the morning. Then have the second bowl tomorrow evening.

Can you tell I live alone?

No TV

I've had no satelite tv since a storm on January 9th or 10th knocked my satelite dish off a little. Now the aerial (sp?) has gone the same way. No TV at all now. Can't afford to get the satelite dish fixed. No way of getting up to it and doing it myself. So I'm fucked. Still - at least it means I'll miss Big Brother so that's one consolation.