h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Following my builder's bill, I'm going to have to draw in my horns and exist on the minimum for at least six months. I've cancelled my trumpet lessons and I'm going to be looking at all my non-essential spending to see where I can make savings. It doesn't look as though I'm going to be able to take little on holiday this year. Shame, as he really looks forward to his camping trip.

My trumpet teacher is giving me a whole lot of stuff to practice, so that hopefully in about six months time, I'll be able to continue. He's good.

What a pain for you. I hate it when that happens.

Still, eventually I realise that it's worth it in the long term... to have a comfortable home, which is where you spent most of your time, is so important.

Hang in there and think like thoughts.


Fb

Thanks, Fb. Yes, it will be worth it in the long term, I know that. I'm not feeling good about not being able to go on holiday, though - even our usual camping holiday is probably out of the question and little really looks forward to it. I'm going to look at my other expenditure and see what I can cut back on. Clothing won't be an issue, as I rarely buy clothes, but little is going to need some different school uniform for his new school.

-like thoughts - yes - that's what I *should* be doing. At the moment, I'm pleased to see the back of the skip, but they've left a whole lot of stuff for me to dispose of. OK, the skip was a bit overfull, but if other people hadn't put *their* rubbish on it, I would have been fine.

One nice thing that happened at my trumpet class was getting to play another duet with my teacher - the easy version of 'Carnival of Venice'. I have one more class left, so I'm going to make the most of it.

I've twice gone to a music website - I have a monthly subscription, but they're so good at making me think twice about it, that I haven't unsubscribed - yet. It's about 8GBP a month for 40 tracks. If I unsubscribe and then resubscribe later, it'll go down to 30. Mind you, they all add up.

Welcome to my world.
I looked at my banque account the other day and got scared!
There was way too much money in there!
What had I forgotten to pay?
Had the banque made a mistake?

It turned out that I had been so abstemious in my penury that I had actually accumulated some money. I also had been working a lot of overtime that I had forgotten about.

Wow.

As for the musique site you were talking about, I have no idea what that means. It is an MP3 site?

It's nice finding you have more money than you thought you had, isn't it, Tonsil.

The music site is www.emusic.com. I had another fright yesterday. I found that I'd paid a big bill twice, which meant that my current account went into big debit. I transferred some money from my savings account. As I'm in big credit with my credit car, it just means that I'll be paying my bills from that for a while. I called the bank and explained and they withdrew the enormous bank charge they'd levied. Now I'm more or less back on line, it should be much easier to check, but it was rather frightening.

It IS tough when you have to economise, especially if you don't have a lot in the first place, but at least you have an incentive.

Glad the bank co-operated about the charges, you hear such awful things about them these days.

I had to do it f or so many years, I am still stingy now when I don't need to be, except for some things

I do hope you can figure a way of taking little away. It is so hard to explain to children, especially if they are used to a holiday.

Take care, think of your lovely new kitchen, and something will turn up I am sure.

Websailor

Yes, Websailor - it will be worth it in the long run. The kitchen is lovely and once I have everything put away nicely (I'm taking work home at present), it will be even better.

The bank charges were sixty smackeroos - not a small sum, so I'm very grateful that the bank withdrew them once I explained the circumstances. I've learned a lesson, though - I'll do transfers on the day now, not a week in advance (unless I get to go on holiday and need to do it after my salary comes in and before the due date of the bill.

Yes, I hope I can take little away. Poor thing, he's been rather neglected while we've been working on the house.

What? You didn't let him saw anything or bang away with a hammer?

An interesting bit of news about bank charges:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6683363.stm

'What? You didn't let him saw anything or bang away with a hammer?' Nope! Anyways, mostly by the time he was there, they'd finished for the day. He did want to saw, mind.

I had a look at that link about bank charges. Interesting. High Courts don't bind anyone, even themselves. If it goes to the Court of Appeal, that's another matter - and once it gets to the House of Lords, then it's more or less set in stone, unless it's 'distinguished on its facts'.