Payday

Ended up with £304.49 in OT this month, so my holiday fund is nearly full, yippee!

Need to start getting quite a lot whacked off the credit card, because I'll need to pay for the flights and villa on my credit card, so that if anything happens between now and then, it'll be protected. What with companies going bust all over the place, it's all a bit worrying.

We are currently looking at a really stunning villa in Kefalonia, waiting on further details from the owners.

Slogging away...

I've been churning out the overtime at work over the last few weeks but particularly so since last Tuesday when my colleague left.

Between two of us we are supposed to cover 8am-8pm Monday-Friday and 8am-5pm on Saturday. This works with one shift doing 8am-2.30pm and the other one doing 2pm-8pm plus the Saturday. (Our hours are averaged over the month.)

So without a second shift person, I'm left trying to cover as many hours as I can. Plenty of overtime for the taking - if I wanted, I could work 8am-8pm every day and Saturday. Bonanza! Realistically, though, my physical disabilities won't allow me to work those kind of hours for very long, not unless I want to make myself ill, and I very much don't.

So I'm finishing at 5pm tonight, making 15 extra hours so far going into November's pay packet. And I think I have about £250 from last month which I should get paid tomorrow.

The money is great but damn, I'm tired. I much prefer working lates; it suits my personal circadian rhythm much better. I have trouble falling asleep before 11pm at the earliest (midnight last night) and with getting up at 5.30am, I'm a little bit wiped.

Moving the goalposts

I had a nice little windfall this week - a £92 rebate on my council tax for the old house. I've bunged that straight to the MP3 fund, which would have been almost full up, if I hadn't just decided to change my mind about which one I want.

You see, I really really want one which I can get a speaker dock for. Especially a speaker dock which has a radio... and an alarm clock. And works as a recharger.

So I am now switching my pick to this:


which I can then get this with:


Yummy!

So now my target has increased, but with this windfall I'm confident I can reach it by Xmas. Maybe even next month!

Exchange rate woes

The pound had fallen last week to about $1.60 but after Gordon Brown announced his bailout plan, it's risen to about $1.72. In fact Paypal have got it at $1.76, which is kind of annoying since I want to withdraw. (I get paid in dollars for my online work since my employer is based in the US.)

I've not been sure whether to wait a while and hope the dollar increases, or withdraw now in fear of the dollar collapsing completely. Nobody seems to know what's going to happen. Based on what Paulson said last week ("US warns of further bank failures") I'm going to withdraw now. I'm worried that more bad news from the states will cause the dollar to drop even more.

Changing cars

I want to change my car – mine is now nearly 8 years old, and it’s getting to the stage where it’s needing repairs more frequently. Now that littl’un is old enough to come up on the coach or train to visit, and I don’t have to drive to pick him up and take him home (a round trip of over 800 miles), it’s not so important for me to have a powerful car. I’ve currently got a Peugeot 306 1.4, which is a great car; it’s comfortable and powerful enough on motorways to make 800 miles bearable.

However, if I move down to something like a Clio 1.2 (which was the car I hired while I was in Cyprus earlier this year and proved to be a good drive) then I’ll save on petrol, insurance, and probably road tax. And theoretically it should need less repair work, being a younger vehicle. (Famous last words…)

So I’d be looking at about £3k to get a 3-4 year old Clio (or similar; I’m not totally married to the idea of the Clio), and I can probably get £1.5k for my current car if I sell it privately. So I need to save up about £1500-£2000 if I want to do that.

I can get Mum to give me a "bridging loan" so I don't need to sell the current one before buying the new one (which is important, because although it's easier for me to get to work on public transport now, it's also expensive.)

News

THANK GOODNESS I’m finally back online.

One bright note in the whole moving-house-being-expensive thing: because I’ve changed my internet supplier, I’m saving nearly £20 a month on that. The connection speed is not what it should be, especially at peak times, but I’ll just have to get used to it I suppose.

I’ve mad a decision about taking littl’un to Cyprus next year: he’s not coming. I can’t just ignore his exclusion, and taking him anyway would totally invalidate the whole deal. I don’t want him getting the impression that he can just behave the same old way and still get special trips and treats. I’m going to plan to go the following year (2010) on the condition that he’s behaving himself properly then!

In the meantime, I’ve been chatting with my Sis and we’ve decided to go to Crete in September next year, with her husband. Yay! Although Crete is more expensive, I’ll only be paying my own way and not for littl’un as well, so it will actually work out more economical for me – but I’ve left my savings goal the same, as any extra cash will just be a bonus to spend while there. And if I come home with money, it will go off the credit card bill. I’ll be getting about £200 of overtime this month, so with my testing pay, I reckon it will have maxed out my holiday fund. Whoo! I can start saving for something else, LOL.