Tag Archives: money

2019-07-21 · 18:00

Doughnut Today – Holiday Tomorrow.

So today I want to talk about…

I thought about going with ‘Money’ by Pink Floyd – but decided on Shania Twain on the grounds that I actually own this album and mixed up Pink Floyd with Supertramp.

On Thursday I wrote in my journal about how I misspend my money. Then later in the day I went on to misspend my money. Yes. I started the day saying I need to spend less and ended the day spending £50. I bought shower gel, from Lush, a Thermos, and some food.

…thermos, meaning hot, if you don’t drop it…
Michael Flanders (Introduction to First and Second Law)

The shower gel is a luxury item as I could pick up something cheaper. I like Lush, not sponsored, but I could save on that. The Thermos is more of a necessary item. It means that I can take a hot meal to work. I have another one but it never held heat between making the meal and eating the meal. I now realise that that might have been due to my lack of understanding of thermodynamics and having insufficient liquid. The last part of the £50 was spent on food and this is my Achilles heal.

Ah, beer, my one weakness. My Achilles heal if you will.
Homer Simpson (The Simpsons)

The problem with food is that it is nice. I admit it might also fill a void but I don’t want to talk about my mental state. So having a treat of one sort or another seems like such a small thing. It is individual but have you ever sat and thought about it collectively?

https://www.pexels.com/photo/bank-notes-1791583/

If I spend £20 a week on unnecessary food that is £1040 over the year. When you are standing at the pretzel shop, about to spend £3ish, that figure seems so far away. It is true though if I ditch the teats I could save enough to go on holiday. Travel is going to make up the vast majority of my bucket list. I could practically list every county in the world on that list. So why don’t I do it? Why don’t more people do it?

Photo by **Tobias Bjørkli** from **Pexels**

…because it is such a nebulous future. Incidentally the picture above isn’t a nebular but look pretty lights. The pretzel, doughnut, chai, or milkshake can be in my mouth now. The holiday will be a year away and it is difficult not to equate the deprivation of a treat now to seeing something amazing in the future. On Thursday I failed to follow through. Will tomorrow, my next day off, be any better? I can’t say. It may only result in me eating the same stuff only this time feeling guilty about it. Only time will tell. Perhaps I just need a budget.

I am obviously not the first person to put forward this idea. Some people, I am sure, spend a lot more than I do. For the time being I will probably just be feeling guilty. Still I hold this fact in my mind. Even spending just £0.30 a day on a doughnut or some such thing would be £109 over the year. That could be put towards a flight to somewhere. So can I avoid temptation no doughnuts and a trip instead? Well not so far. I need to work on it though.

I just wanted to say that I have checked this post. I really have. Unfortunately my particular combination of dyslexia and dyspraxia makes it really hard for me to spot typos. Please enjoy and I’ll try not to make too many errors.

I have a Patreon page. I hope you will consider supporting this blog: https://www.patreon.com/unstableorbit

Holiday

Photo by **Suzy Hazelwood** from **Pexels**

Packing for a holiday is a strange thing – especially for one like me who could make worrying a sport. As I leave the house I always feel concerned that I have forgotten this or forgotten that. In my mind it is a big issue. In reality if I have forgotten something it can always be acquired. There are only three things you need to have: money, mobile, and your house keys.

https://www.pexels.com/photo/mountain-ranges-covered-in-snow-714258/

Naturally that assumes that you are going on a regular holiday and are not planing to climb a mountain or something else of that sort.

Yes. I have just come back from my summer holiday in Tenby. It was a lovely trip and the weather was beautiful. The choppy sea meant that boat trips to Caldey couldn’t run but that didn’t matter as there were other things to do such as visiting Barafundle Bay – most importantly just stopping for a bit. Tenby is the one place I can truly say I relax. There is something magical about a beach.

Unfortunately I was ill for the trip so I didn’t get any writing done but that is okay as it mean I completely stopped. And my parents were in the area too. It was nice to spend time with them.

I am a very stressed person and I think I would find a new place stressful. If I had paid a lot of money to go somewhere there is pressure to get out and do things. Going to the same place every year is nice. You can do nothing and it not feel wasteful. I didn’t want to come home – but reality beckons.

I hope that you have a wonderful holiday planned for this year. See you next time.

I have a Patreon page. I hope you will consider supporting this blog: https://www.patreon.com/unstableorbit

Seduction

I bought an iphone. I had it for about two days. Got it at about 1800 on Monday. I had returned it by 1000 on Wednesday. I was seduced by the idea of the iphone. They are very shinny.

If you love Apple products then that is great. I am not writing this to criticise anyone’s choices. I have an ipad which I am happy with – even that though might have been bought owing to a lack of imagination on my part.

Photo by Josh Sorenson from Pexels

I didn’t buy the iPad on a whim I spend some time considering. I knew I wanted a tablet computer and the only options seemed to be Samsung and iPads. Since the reason I was making the purchase was because my Samsung phone was having some issues an iPad seemed logical. There were, it turned out, other options they just weren’t immediately apparent to me. I am a bit dim when it comes to technology. So an iPad it was and it was expensive. I not convinced it is worth it but I do like it.

When my poor little Samsung started to show its age even more I knew I needed a new phone but which one? That choice is rather a bewildering one. There are so many options and, for my needs at least, almost anyone would do. The phone I now have is a Huawei and cost me £199 in an outright purchase. So why then did I initially get a phone that would have cost £1,224 (including minutes, texts and data) over three years?

https://www.pexels.com/photo/silver-iphone-6-50684/

I have no idea. Well maybe not no idea. iphones are smart – some might even say sexy. Then the slippy slope of bad decisions started. First I thought about a second hand iphone, then I thought about an older model but bought new, then I settled on an iphone 8 – which is also an older model but not as old. That is how the slope works. Each step seems reasonable just like ordering the large instead of the regular at a cafe – only a little more.

The thing of it is I don’t know what happened. As I was going into town to buy a phone I said: ‘I don’t need one with all the bells and whistles.’ and yet came home with an overly priced phone. Maybe this is a serious sign of a complete lack of self control on my part and that might be something I need to address.

https://www.pexels.com/photo/new-year-s-eve-december-31-fireworks-new-year-10967/

Actually there is no maybe about it. For now though I can celebrate I dodged a bullet and was able to exchange the phone without fuss. Only spending £199 on a phone eliminates the worry. I could almost afford to replace it every month if I needed to – rather than it costing nearly a month’s earnings to do the same with an iPhone.

I write this post as a cautionary tale for any purchase you might make. My Huawei does all that I need. It might not be as special by some metrics but it does the job and, at the end of the day, that is the important thing.

I have a Patreon page. I hope you will consider supporting this blog: https://www.patreon.com/unstableorbit

Tag Archives: money

Doughnut Today – Holiday Tomorrow.

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