Why is it that just when you start to relax, something happens that messes with your complacency?
A week off work, whoop, even though I've spent many weeks off week recently, thanks to COVID-19, they weren't a paid holiday, and there was always a pressure about knowing if you were going back to work this week, and if not, how were you going to make up the 20% loss of wages, while on furlough, (Yes I am very lucky to have had the back up of furlough, which has most certainly saved me from losing my job, but a 20% reduction on wages still hurts, and was part of a discussion I had with James O'Brien on LBC Radio a couple of weeks ago which centred around the stigma of being on Furlough, and the negativity felt/directed by some, towards people on Furlough, by those who may worked all the way through the lockdown... but that's another story altogether).
I had a little extra money set aside for us to use to go out and spend time together on little trips/days out... after all, with all the changes, often daily, about which country you could visit, without the need to quarantine on your return, plus the overall feeling that 2020 really isn't the year to go abroad on holiday, it made sense to stay home and just have a few nice days out...
Well you know what they say about best laid plans... they are there to changed... extra money, what extra money?
The clanking and screeching noise from the tumble dryer wasn't a good start to the week... surely that can't be a good thing right? It wasn't... no matter what setting it went on, no matter how hard I looked to see if I could figure out what the noise was... no luck, it was a goner... we
needed a new tumble dryer.. an expense we could have most certainly done without, and a emergency fund emptier!
We got lucky and discovered that the Blue Light Card that my partner owns, as a social worker, got us a 22% discount off of a new machine from Indesit, which really helped, and took some £70 off the bill, which made the Blue Light Card membership fee of £4.99 for 2 years of usage, pay for itself many times over.. So a little win from a annoying and expensive, unexpected issue..
Oh well at least it's sorted and we can get on with a week off..... Hmmm what's that weird noise and buring smell? It's the friggin' vacuum cleaner, it's making a horrible screeching noise, that sent the cat running for the hills, and an acrid burning smell, I'm still trying to remove remnants of, from my hoodie... My Shark, super duper cleaner is a gonner... literally happened 5 minutes before I was heading to the dump with a load of excess items we have been meaning to get rid of for months, and so the vacuum cleaner headed off the big recycling centre in the sky....
But it had to be replaced... do we go cheap, preferable as our emergency fund, was having an emergency of it's own, due to a lack of funds, or do we just hold our hands up and get another Shark, as to be honest, we had our old one for years, and it's been really good.... Shark it is then... But they are still £160... I scoured through Topcashback to find a retailer that could deliver fast and who we might be able to get cash back from as well, (I don't buy anything unless I'm getting a coupon deal or cash back!), but had no luck.. the only retailer who had stock, with immediate delivery was Argos, and they weren't offering any cash back... what a pain, surely I wasn't going to pay full price and not get some kind of cash back offer.. and then
I remembered that Argos are teamed up with Airtime Rewards, and that meant that anything I purchased would give me a 3% cash back, which I can then use to to help pay my mobile phone bill, and this was worth £4.77, so I went ahead, ordered the new Shark, and still got a little bit of cash back as well... it did at least cover the delivery charge, I felt I got a better deal, so was happy, and the new Shark was delivered promptly the same evening...
So my holiday week off, wasn't a cheap one at all, we still had a nice week off,. and have 2 nice new appliances in the house... I remember thinking, let's hope bad things don't really happen in three's ..... got a text last night to say that the oil light has gone on in the car.....
