Update 11th July 2020

I started my new job on Monday. I'd been furloughed for about a month and pretty much on the day I got the news I was offered another job. I accepted it and kicked back for what I thought was going to be a nice easy month.

Only it wasn't. It's been one of the most stressful periods of recent years. I'd go as far as to say I ended up in maybe the deepest depression I've been through since the end of my marriage. I don't really know why.

I'm not someone who defines themselves by what they do for a living. I couldn't give a fuck about it so it wasn't that. It wasn't the financial implications, I was only losing a couple of hundred quid that is easily made up for by not going anywhere or doing anything right now. Plus I knew I had a new job starting.

I still can't figure out what caused it but I ended up in a spiral of sadness, depression and anxiety. It peaked on Saturday when I just couldn't cope with my daughter. Nothing to do with her or what she was doing. It was entirely down to me and my inability to react properly. I got out the house on Sunday, had a bit of a day out and some fresh air and it really helped but it still hit me hard on Sunday night.

But once I got Monday out of the way I could feel myself coming out of the other side. I'm starting to feel OK again. I think I'd just got myself into a state of terror about starting the job. Being one of the few people to get furloughed at my old place had a real impact on my self-esteem. I think I kept telling myself I wouldn't be able to do this.

I've only been here three days now but I've still got that anxiety, that sense of impostor syndrome. I'm terrified about fucking this up and getting "found out". In my head I am shit at my job and I am going to screw it up. I'm going to get in trouble. I listen to myself and look at the way I've just described it and I'm a little boy again, not doing it right and not knowing what "right" is. I guess I'm just reliving my childhood angst over and over.

I realised tonight how unnatural this financial helplessness is. If you imagine how we lived thousands of years ago, or even now for the few tribal people left in the world, every human on the planet had the means to fend for themselves. That might be through hunting, fishing, foraging or even a little bit of subsistence farming but you still knew that, no matter what, you had the ability to survive whatever life threw at you.

The idea of being worried about your future must have been very alien. Right now, thousands of us are looking at not being able to cope, not being able to provide and, sadly, not being able to survive. Because the means of providing for ourselves has been taken out of our hands. It would've taken some natural disaster to put our ancestors in a position that  they might not have access to the resources they needed. There was always something you could do.

Now? We are reliant on employers. We are reliant on social security. We are reliant on the goodwill of organisations that do not care about us and certainly do not have our interests at heart. That is not how we are meant to live.

In other news... My child's school sent me a massive bill for out of hours care with a demand for payment. The bill was wrong, they screwed up. I've been getting hassled for months for payment, I've refused to pay until they fixed it. Finally, after the head got involved, the bill was corrected. From nearly £500 down to £100. Not so much as an apology, all I got was an email trying to blame me for their mistake.

And that's school administrators for you. A group of self-important arseholes who wouldn't be tolerated in the private sector you would be hard pressed to find. Medical receptionists, maybe. They are all cut from the same cloth.

Anyway, I'm sad that my child's time at this school is coming to an end but I'm happy to never deal with the twat of a bursar, or "secretary" as the rest of the world calls the job, again. I know it is petty and serves no purpose but I'm going to leave payment right until the very last moment just to irritate her.

I mentioned previously that I felt my weekly shop was getting out of hand. I'd stuck with the whiteboard idea: when I run out of something (or getting close to it) I stick it on the whiteboard. If it is not on the board when I'm doing my shopping list then it doesn't go on it. It brought my spend down by about £20 this week. I'm happy with that and hoping I can maintain that for the rest of the year, even when lockdown ends.

I've been looking into financial protection on credit card purchases this week. Months ago I bought myself a new pair of Meindl walking boots. Exactly the same boots I'd bought in 2012 and wore until they fell apart because seven years of regular wear seemed reasonable for the money. Because of lockdown I never really got to use them and the first time I went out in the rain my feet were soaked. Not happy.

So I sent them back to the retailer under warranty. Obviously, I was outside the refund period so they said they'd look at them. That was two weeks ago. I've not even had so much as an acknowledgement from the retailer. I know they were delivered but had no word from them. I'm a bit pissed off about that.

So I started looking at what my options are. There is a thing I never knew about: Section 75 refunds. If you buy something costing more than £100 and it turns out to be either faulty or misrepresented then you can raise a Section 75 complaint with the credit card company. They will then investigate and pursue it.

The nice thing is that there is no time limit on it, unlike the distance selling laws. So I'm covered. But you need to have tried to reach a resolution with the seller. That's my next step. I'm going to give them a nudge next week.

I'd prefer to be refunded. I used to be a big fan of Meindl but the boots are clearly not the same quality as the original pair I had. They feel cheapened. A lot more plastic-y. Just don't feel as robust.

Hopefully I'll get refunded. They cost me £130. I pay about £6 a week to my credit card to clear the debt for them and I've paid off maybe half of the debt. So in theory a refund would give me about £60 to transfer to my savings pot.

With the new job I've come to realise just how important my savings pot is. I did some numbers and I need to be putting away a lot more to reach my target. I think I need to be more aggressive. I also think I need to bite the bullet and pay into a pension. It means a loss of cash in the short term but it also means free money long term as my employer matches whatever I'm depositing. I think it might be a more efficient way of building up a pot of money than trying to do it on my own. I've got about three weeks to think about it and do some research.

I'm missing not having a holiday this year. It's never anything extravagant, usually a cheap cottage on part of the Scottish coast that doesn't get a lot of tourists. But my daughter likes it, we spend some time together riding bikes and walking on the beaches. It's lovely, last year's was maybe one of the nicest holidays I've had in my life. I'm sad I won't get that this year but it means I save a bit of money. It's always a struggle finding the cash for it and ends up with September being a very lean month as I pay off what I spent in August. In fact, I only just paid off an afternoon of paddleboarding a couple of months ago.

One thing to come out of this is how I've rounded down what I think is important. All the stuff that I thought I was missing out on because I couldn't afford it seems irrelevant now. In fact, it seems like something I don't even care about. More and more, the bullshit of modern life seems increasingly irrelevant to me. The idea of living off grid somewhere becomes more appealing. I can't remember if I've said this before but if I didn't have a child I'd be living in a van right now. I'm feeling pretty alienated and disenfranchised by our society. Lockdown has made me realise how little I actually enjoy what passes for "normal" life.

Update 1st July 2020

Fucking July.

This blog seems to have turned into me mourning the passing of time every month. As usual, not a lot has happened. I'm coming to the end of my furlough period before starting my new job.

Financially, it has not been any different to normal. I'm 20% down on my income but I'm not spending anything, I'm not going anywhere. I haven't really worried about it but I have made an effort to be a bit more careful.

Over the last few months I've done a single weekly shop. It was coming in around £55 and that was including the essentials plus a few little treats that I felt I could afford because I wasn't doing anything else. But over the last few weeks it was starting to grow, I think it got up to £80 one week.

Why was that happening? I realised I was just thinking "fuck it". I'd see something I fancied and it went in the trolley. I suppose I was guilty of trying to buy/eat my way happy. Now, most of the time I eat really healthily and take a lot of exercise. That is not a product of lockdown, that was just normal life. At the start of lockdown I lost a load of weight and after four weeks I had abs for the first time in my life.

But I had that same "fuck it" attitude after that. I have realised how slack I was getting with my discipline, how apathetic I was becoming. It wasn't just that I was believing I was giving myself treats, I was giving up a little bit. Looking after myself physically and financially was becoming less important as the year disappeared into the fog of nothingness.

I need to do something about that. One thing I need to stop now is my bloated shopping list. I realised that pre-lockdown, when I could just nip to the supermarket at lunchtime for whatever I needed, I was maybe spending less. That doesn't make sense, I should have been spending more because I had less of a handle on how much I was buying.

But I think what happened was that I was buying stuff as I needed it. When I go once a week there is a big element of buying stuff either because I think I need it but don't, I want to be prepared and might not get a chance for another seven days or I pretend "it's a treat". So what I've done is be more organised. I have a whieboard in my kitchen and when I run out of something (or know I'm close to running out) it goes on the board. When I do my shopping list on a Tuesday then only what is on the board goes on the list. I am only buying stuff I am running out of.

I might stick a couple of other things on there if I can make a case for it but the vast majority is replacing what is needed. It has worked for the last couple of weeks that I've been trialling it. It has got my shopping down to normal levels and this week I think I came in about a tenner under my average.

Now that I think about it, that average is just a guess. I think I might start tracking it a bit more accurately so that I actually know what the average is and can relate any drift from that to something specific.

I've been keeping an eye on my savings and what has been happening. I've kept up my monthly payment into the fund during this and I am glad I have. The fund has started to recover and is hovering between 2-3% down which is a lot better than the 25% down it was in March. It's sat at this before for a long time before turning positive. At the start of the year it had climbed to 10% up so I'm not too pessimistic for it long term. I don't need the money right now, depending on what happens in the economy that may change.

Chip has started to make savings for me again. It did £41 in June after doing nothing for all of May and most of April. It's not much but it's stil £260 in the pot. I know it is my money but I doubt I would have been disciplined enough to make the savings on my own.
I'm pissed of with the AA. I took out a car insurance policy with them based on a £40 repayment through Topcashback. The AA declined the payment. Again. This is maybe the third or fourth time I've bought products from them based on generous cashbacks and every single time it has been declined. In total, it's maybe £200 that I've lost out on. So if you use Topcashback then the AA is one to avoid.

That's it for financial stuff. Mentally, I've been up and down. Last week was really shit. I had waves of anxiety about starting the new job and it stopped me from really enjoying this period of paid leave. This is a massive opportunity that I want to make the most of: a month paid to do nothing. But I just could not enjoy it for the anxiety. I kept thinking "I'm running out of time" and it made me either do nothing or fill my day with shitty little insignificant jobs so that I could feel that I was making the most of it. It just left me feeling more and more that I was wasting my time.

I've been a bit more chilled this week. I decided to not do anything, not make a list of jobs to do each day and do what I felt like. It has been much better and I've enjoyed much more of my time at home. There has been the odd day where I felt that I was freaking out. Saturday, especially. I didn't sleep well and woke up tired out. I had my daughter that day and it was hard going. All I wanted to do was find a corner and not do anything I had to think about.

This week has been nicer. I write another blog about the outdoors and places I go and I've finally managed to finish a big piece I've been working on forever. I went out on my bike a couple of times and went for a nice walk yesterday. I've found getting out now and again clears my head. Stuck at home it is easier to disappear into your own mental world. Going out grounds me a bit.

I've found a great channel on Youtube by a woman called Abbie Barnes. She does films about her long distance walks. They are interesting enough but what I really like is that she has a lot of mental health issues that she's really honest about. I've watched a few of her films and really like them. She's in her twenties but I still find them quite relatable.

I'm in a better headspace about starting the new job. A big part of me would love to stay on furlough and just fill my days with stuff I want to do. But considering I've had a month to fill my days with stuff I want to do and not actually managed it then why would another couple of months be any different? And looking at how fast time is passing, October would be on top of me very quickly. In fact, the next few months are going to be critical for anyone on furlough. This is when businesses are starting to have to contribute more and more to the scheme. Free holiday no more. I doubt many companies will keep people on even when they are asked to contribute just a couple of hundred quid a month. we're already seeing big redundancies being announced on a wider scale.

I know I've made a good decision but I'm scared of a lot of things. That I might fuck it up. That I might be shit at it. I might not be able to live up to what they expect of me. And just the general worries about starting anywhere new.

I've got a few days left so will try to enjoy them as much as I can without pressuring myself.

Meat Preservation

I've run out of space in the freezer. I wrote about my disaster a while ago when I accidentally switched the power off to one of the freezers and had to throw a couple of hundred pounds worth of food out. I've slowly built that up again over the last few months. I hardly notice it, if I buy a steak then I buy one for me and one for the freezer. If I make a lasagne or a meat-loaf then, no matter how good it is, the last piece gets frozen. It doesn't take long to build up a good reserve.

But it means I have to turn down bargains. My local supermarket has a really good butcher section. The meat is really good quality (it's not one of the national chains, it's a small, local chain that supports local producers) but it's pricey. But if you hit it at the right time (Friday evening is usually good) then there is always a fridge for high-quality produce for a couple of quid a portion.

Normally, I'd freeze it but I have no space. So, I'm experimenting with preserving it in other ways. Refrigeration is a recent development and we've got 10,000 years of history we can learn from.

I do a lot of pickling and preserving of vegetables but I've never tried doing it with meat. I've always been a bit wary because of the obvious safety issues with it. A bad tomato is a bad tomato. A bad piece of meat can easily sneak under the radar.

I've started with doing jerky and biltong. I love both of these as a snack but they are expensive. A tiny bag will easily cost £2 and it'll probably be loaded with preservatives and additives that I really don't want to consume. So using bargain meat as a base for making my own seems like a good idea.

Youtube has been my best resource for this. I've sat through a lot of meat drying videos. For biltong, my favourite so far has been a South African chef called Ben Kruger. Biltong is beef that has been soaked in vinegar, spiced, then air-dried over the course of a week.

You need a lump of very lean meat (fat spoils quickly). Slice it into 1.5cm pieces, coat with vinegar, let it sit and then apply biltong spice (a mix of salt, coriander and black pepper). After that you hang it in a biltong box (a box that creates the right air flow and environment for safe drying) for anything up to a week. Slice thinly then eat.

Ben's video is here and he has instructions on how to make a biltong box.

Jerky is different. It starts sliced very thin, maybe 3-4mm. There is no vinegaring but it can be soaked in a marinade and then spiced. Or not. South Africans are very specific about what gets called biltong. Jerky is a lot more vague. The drying process is different as well. It can be air-dried but most people seem to do it in the oven. You hang the pieces from a rack (or lay them flat), put the oven on as low as it will go, prop the door open an inch or two to create air flow and leave for about four hours.

A good video is from Kent Rollins here.

I've had a go at jerky. My first batch I did using a piece of cheap salmon and it was beautiful. I marinaded it in worcester sauce, soy sauce, a little honey and some vinegar. I added a BBQ rub then dried it in the oven for 4 hours. Turned out really nice.

My next batch was some scrap silverside beef. I think the oven was either too hot or the air flow was too low because I ended up cooking it rather than drying it. The result was OK but it was just pieces of over-cooked roast beef rather than jerky.

I've currently got a batch of biltong on the go. I used the other half of the silverside that I turned into jerky and made a small biltong box out of a couple of 1 litre yoghurt pots stacked on top of each other and a little fan to drive air through it. If it turns out OK then I might scale it up. I priced up parts for making Ben Kruger's biltong box on Ebay and it came to about 20 quid.

To be honest, I don't know if I am beating the price of shop-bought biltong or jerky but at least I know what is going into it.

I'm also salting some salmon. Salting is one of the oldest ways of preserving fish there is. I got a cheap piece of salmon that was reduced, lay it on a bed of coarse sea salt and then covered it with more. It's been in the fridge for about 12 hours and a ton of water has come out already. I've drained it and resalted. I'll see how it turns out.

The next project I want to do is making an Armenian dried beef called basturma or arpukht. This starts with salting a chunk of lean beef until it is hard, air drying it until it is really hard then applying a paste of fenugreek, pepper and paprike.

The recipe is here.

I don't know if this is a realistic way of saving money but it is just another way of using scrap meat that doesn't involve freezing it. Sometimes money saving is not everything, it is as much about not wasting produce.

Weekly Update 23rd June 2020

I've felt a growing sense of sadness over the last few days. The world, or the UK at least, is starting to come out of lockdown. Normal life is beginning and things are starting to open up again. Soon we will be able to travel, to go to pubs and cinemas, to see other people. In theory, this is great. It means that Covid-19 cases are dropping and society, especially the economy, can start up at last.

Why do I feel so sad about it? Part of it is that all the bullshit is also now starting over. My daughter is back at school from Monday and the barrage of emails and, now, Whatsapp messages has started up from my ex-wife. My daughter has one month of school left. One fucking month. Not a single piece of uniform fits and for one fucking month I have to buy a load of shit that she will never wear again.

School has said they can wear their own clothes but oh no, that's not good enough for the middle class mothers. Yep, every fucking single one of them has gone out and bought new uniform for 4 fucking weeks. So now I have to do the same for 4 fucking weeks.

For three months I'd forgotten how much I despise these people. In the six years my daughter has been at the school I could count on one hand the number of conversations I've had with the other parents. It's not for want of trying, I'm a fairly talkative, sociable guy. But I'm not one of them. The know I am a single parent and they know, urgh, that I live in the village over the hill. You know, the one where the poor people live.

I sound really bitter. And I guess I am. It's not what I'd expected my daughter's primary school years would be like. It was great that she got into such a nice little village school but that comes with all the snobbish, judgemental, materialistic, entitled arseholes that live there. Considering that half of them inherited their places there and didn't do a stroke of work to achieve is entirely lost.

So that was that. I'd forgotten how much I cannot be arsed with all this bullshit. But the other thing that got to me is how big a lost opportunity this was.

For three months "normal" life shut down. Almost from day one I started noticing things that were never there. The constant, distant hum of the motorway was gone. Birds were singing. Wildlife was returning and the land was recovering. The air was clear. There were no planes in the sky.

And people were nice to each other. I remember reading about how, post-9/11, in New York it happened there. Normality went on hold and people acted decently towards one another. That's fading now, you can see that negativity start to sneak in, that selfishness start bubbling to the top again.

I've loved these last three months where all the pressure was lifted. I don't mean work, that was maybe even worse than normal. I mean socially. In three months I did not give a single fuck that I had a shit social life and a small circle of friends. The loneliness that I normally felt vanished almost overnight because there was no pressure to have a social life and no opportunity to do it. For the first time in a long time I felt normal.

We're also being encouraged to buy our way out of this, too. Advertising seems to have ramped up and I'm already seeing people going back to buying shit again. You can bet that a ton of that shit is being bought on credit. People losing their minds over not being able to consume can now go out and get sucked into a retail orgy presided over by utter scumbags like Phillip Green.

I feel really sad it is over. Really sad. One of my favourite writers, Edward Abbey, once said "there's something wrong with a system that can only either expand or fail". He's right. Lockdown has shown just how unnatural and fragile the world we have created is. If we pause, even for a moment, it starts to crumble.

I've thought a lot about what it must be like to live a tribal life. In a hunter gatherer community it takes a major disaster to threaten the tribe. You can always eat, you can always have shelter. It takes a lot to fuck that up. But in our world? Our "civilised" world? Three months and we are looking at the worst economic depression in modern history.

I feel very disillusioned and alienated right now. As we come out of lockdown, I feel even more out of place here than I ever did. I think if I was younger and if I didn't have a child then I would not be here. I'd pack a bag, I'd sell everything I had of any value and I'd split. Where would I go? To play in the fields of the Lord. Now there's an 1980's reference to look up.

Update 10th June 2020

End of the month so I can actually take a bit of a better look at my financial status. Most weeks nothing happens but when I get paid then I've actually got something to talk about.

I've managed to save a bit of cash this month. Last month, if I remember right, I was hitting a bit of a wall. It surprised me but when I thought about it, there was a lot of expense in the previous month which impacted it. At the end of May I was probably about £2-300 ahead.

I do my shopping once a week and I've got a fairly regular shopping list that I now buy. This was generally coming in at around £50 a week for me and my daughter. It's probably more than I would like but that is allowing for a few treats, some better quality produce and a bit more discretionary spending. I have no other real financial demands at the minute so I can ease up a little on the frugality in the supermarket.

But one thing I've noticed is that prices are going up. I don't know if reduced supply is starting to feed through into the system but there is a noticeable increase. I the bulk of my shopping in Aldi and there are a few things I've seen creeping up. Some quite dramatically. I get through a lot of nuts and I buy a pack of cashews every week. They are 85p. They have been 85p for as long as I can remember. Last week they shot up to £1.45. I noticed it on a lot of things.

It's a lot to just be price gouging. The jumps might be small on most things, 10p here, 5p there, but it's still significant. I suspect this is the reality of food shortages. At the start of the lockdown when people were panic buying, it seemed to be that they were expecting some sort of biblical famine. What was more likely, and what seems to be happening, is that there is still stuff available but just not as much as there was. The end result of that is increased prices. Makes you wonder which is more damaging, an interruption in supply when we're all living off tins and what's in the freezer or a situation where we are paying 25% more for what we'd normally buy. Either way, you can bet supermarkets, who have done extremely well out of the pandemic, are not going to miss an opportunity to take a profit. As much as Tesco and Asda and Morrisons want to shout about their charity work, they are not charities.

A positive is that my little pot of investment funds has started to recover. At one point it had lost about a quarter of its value. Considering it was only about three grand to start with (and that was hard won) that's quite a hit. When I checked yesterday, it was only down 2%. Not great (as it was about 13% up before the panic) but a hell of a lot better than 25% down.

Another savings issue that I've had is with Chip. For starters, it has not saved a penny for me in about six weeks. Nothing has changed in my spending or earning habits but it has pretty much died on its arse. It was a nice little app when I first started using it, squirreling away a couple of quid every few days until it had built a nice pot up. Now, nothing. And as it is adding in a monthly charge (in certain circumstances) it makes me question whether or not it is worth using. It has always niggled me that a. they get the benefit of holding my cash and b. they get the benefit of knowing my spending habits which can be turned into a commodity that can be sold on to third parties.

A second issue I've found with Chip is accessibility. My phone died a couple of weeks ago and I had to revert to an ancient phone I still had lying around which I could not install Chip on. But there is no other way to access your Chip account. There is no online access and you need a device with a phone number (so I couldn't install it on my tablet). That really pissed me off. Luckily I didn't need the money this month but if I did I would have been screwed. They say I can email the helpdesk but is that really the best option in this day and age? How hard is it to set up a web page to allow access? I think my love affair with Chip is at an end and I might be closing my account if it doesn't improve its performance this month.

I can't remember if I mentioned this previously, I've started using my credit card to pay more bills that will allow it. I've always preferred manually paying bills because it makes me feel like I have better awareness of what is going on. Anywhere that gives a direct debit discount I have been leaving alone. But places that don't, like my council tax, I've been using my credit card. I never thought about it until I heard someone mention it on a podcast: I get cashback on my credit card spending so why not use that for bills? Regular things like council tax I transfer the cash into my account and then pay it. It all adds to my pot. Now, as I've said before, it gets paid in Waitrose/John Lewis vouchers and those aren't places I would shop regularly. But it does mean that I get to give myself a bit of a treat now and again on something I wouldn't generally consider buying.

I think my main news is that I was finally furloughed on Monday. This has actually worked out really well because on the same day I was finally offered the job that I was interviewed for a couple of weeks ago. Same salary, same commute and a year's worth of work in the pipeline. I am putting my notice in today. So now I can happily sit on my arse for the next month. Taking a 20% hit is going to hurt but it is only temporary and then things go back to normal.

The way I look at it, if you are first to be furloughed then you are first to be made redundant. The scheme ends in October but what I didn't realise was that if you are not on it by today (10th of June) then you are fucked. The regs say you need to have been furloughed for at least three weeks before the 30th of June. I only found this out recently which is why I've been a bit anxious to get on it sooner rather than later. After today, you're facing the boot with no safety net if you haven't been furloughed already.

Getting the job offer could not have come at a better time. The government is increasing the amount employers have to contribute and I know for certain that the people I work for are going to start the cull the moment it costs them a penny. It won't hurt them, when things pick up they know they can get anyone they need and on a lower rate because it will be a buyer's market. So I am going on my own terms.

The choice is whether or not to start the new job sooner. According to the rules I can work for someone else whilst on furlough. It would almost double my salary for a month, that's a couple of grand I could just drop straight in the bank. I don't know if this is the right decision but I don't want to. I've been so stressed of late that I'm happy to pay 20% for a month's leave. Mentally, I'm really burnt out with everything that has happened and having this time to chill and just catch up has been great even after just two days.

I think it is time that I just sit down, relax and let my mental health come first. I've got plenty to fill my time. I will not be bored. For once, I am taking a fucking reward that I actually deserve. That's at the expense of the tax-payer (which I am one of) and maybe my current employer but I do not give a flying fuck about that.

Learning new skills: The Odin Project

One of the things people recommend to cope during lockdown is learning new skills. There are a lot of hacky memes about people learning Japanese and stuff like that. I'm sure there are probably people doing things like that just for the hell of it. Fair enough, good for them

But it makes sense to do something that is going to improve your employment prospects. I'd mentioned in my last weekly update that I had been learning to code. I've actually been doing it for a while, I started about a year ago and I'm getting near the end of the course.

Before I talk about what I'm doing, understanding the "why" is maybe more important. First thing to say is, I am not a coder. I am not involved in anything in the IT or technology industries. I've made a point of not saying what I actually do because it would make it really easy for my current employer to identify me from my posts. I like to shit on my employer and the company management (usually for good reason), I don't know if my posts could be used against me but I don't want to take that chance. It's better just to stay anonymous.

There were things I could do in my own industry. There are skills I could study and certifications I could do. But as I have said numerous times, I fucking hate what I do and the people I do it for. And it isn't just them specifically, the industry as a whole just seems to be run by arseholes. Things are changing slowly but it's still a largely old-fashioned, conservative, penny-pinching industry run by golf-club member-type twats.

What I did not want to do was get myself dug in further. Investing in skills related to what I do might bring advancement but it also gets me further into a world I despise. I've had a little taste of it before and it strikes me that the further up the ladder I got then the worse the job gets. The added financial reward did not make up for the sheer amount of hassle, stress and unhappiness it brought.

The other factor is that the industry I work in is very cyclic. It's one of the first to get hit during a recession and usually one of the last to recover. In fact, I'm still earning about 40% of my pre-2008 salary twelve years on. Getting new skills will do absolutely nothing for my prospects in another recession. It doesn't matter how skilled you are if there are no jobs.

So it made sense to be doing something that could lead in another direction. Coding has a lot going for it. Even junior positions are reasonably lucrative (compared to the industry I'm in), it tends to weather recessions well, there are tons of resources I can use without having to pay for courses, loads of opportunity for remote working, freelancing and self-employment, and long term it is a growth area. I've also got transferable skills like understanding engineering and design, project management and basic life skills like time management, social skills, team working, etc.

It came to me after I had a bit of flashback moment. I read an article about a year ago how where I'm originally from has become a bit of a European leader in technology. When I was a kid I was into home computers (Commodore 64's so that really dates me) and programming. I had a friend who was a couple of years older than me who went on to become the head of a big video game company in the US and I was easily as skilled and talented as he was. It really made me ask "how the fuck did I get here?". I made a couple of wrong turns when young, a couple of bad relationships as well and here I am, broke, in a dead end job, doing something that gives me zero satisfaction. I needed to course-correct or I was headed for doom.

That's what got me thinking about coding as a way of branching off my career. I did some searching around for resources and courses. I was even willing to pay for something like Open University (until I saw how much the bastards charge). That's when I came across the concept of coding bootcamps. Bootcamps are intensive, immersive courses designed to take you from know nothing to employable in a few months. But I couldn't afford either the time or the cost to do one so started looking at online.

From what I read, the most recommended options were Codecademy, Free Code Camp and The Odin Project. The general advice was just pick one and complete it, the main difference between them just comes down to the languages and technologies that are taught on the course. The skills you learn are more important than the details. So I picked The Odin Project based purely on their website being the most accessible. I signed up and a year later I am coming close to the end.

The Odin Project teaches "full stack web development". That means it teaches the "stack" of technologies necessary to create a web-based application. That means it teaches HTML & CSS for creating the visual look of web pages, Javascript for creating functionality within that web page and Ruby-on-Rails to build the code that does all the processing (like online shopping, blogging, booking hotels, etc) that exists on the server side that you never get to see.

Everything is broken down into 5 or 6 six courses which you work through at your own rate. Each course is made up of individual lessons which are usually either reading through info on external websites or watching selected videos on You Tube. Every few lessons you are given a series of projects to do that cement the learning of the previous lessons.

Some of the projects you can do in an hour, some longer. One of them, creating a chess game, took me around six weeks to finish. There are a lot of difficult concepts, too. The Odin Project says it is for complete novices but I think a bit of exposure to some basic computer science concepts wouldn't hurt before starting.

The big problem with the lessons is that it uses other people's stuff. The Odin Project doesn't have a lot of its own content, instead for each lesson it gives you a curated list of web-pages to read through. The quality can be variable and the level they are pitched at isn't consistent. Some resources seem like they are written for school-kids, others for people who know what they are doing. On the plus side, it means that they can swap things in and out as they find better resources for a particular subject. But this can also be frustrating as I've found I'll be halfway through a lesson when the structure has been changed while I've been working on it. Really annoying.

The other problem is that you are on your own. When something doesn't work or goes wrong then you need to figure it out for yourself. That can be a great learning tool but a lot of the time it is really frustrating. You need to have tenacity and discipline to see it through. There are forums like Stack Overflow where there are always similar questions that have been asked but you still need to be happy figuring stuff out for yourself.

But there are lots of positives. The reliance on external material means you are getting the best info that's out there even if you have to do a bit of extra reading because you don't understand something. And the lack of support means you have to get very savvy at solving problems. I've learned techniques for doing things because I had to work it out rather than being handed a standard method to follow. Most of all, it is really satisfying. I know how to do stuff. I know how things work.

In terms of time, it varies. I aim to do at least an hour a day but I don't think that is enough. It's not just that it takes longer to get anywhere, it is harder. You lose momentum and it's easy to forget something you read yesterday or the day before. If I was doing it again I'd aim for doing longer chunks of time even if that meant doing it less often. Some stuff is more enjoyable. Personally, I'd rather read than watch videos. But I really enjoy the coding projects and would happily lose hours writing code. I liked to spend my lunch break coding on my laptop somewhere quiet whenever I could. Or wake up early and write for an hour.

It doesn't take much of an investment in technology, either. I use a really shitty, old laptop for doing all my coding projects on. One thing I'd say, The Odin Projects doesn't work well with Windows computers. There is a lot of dicking around to get it to work with the software you need (Ruby and Rails). It all works better with Ubuntu or on a Mac. I got a cheap, old laptop for £50 on Ebay, added some extra memory and installed Ubuntu and it works fine for the coding projects. But it isn't easy if you don't know what you are doing and I still don't find Ubuntu a particularly friendly system.

A year down the line and I've really enjoyed it. I'm glad I've done it. The scary part is that I am now approaching the part where I start talking to employers and recruiters. In a couple of months it is going to become real. That's when I find out if the time I have invested has been worth it. I need an escape from this industry and I'm pinning my hopes on this being it. If it doesn't work then I don't know how I will feel about that.

I don't know what else to say other than if you are looking for a way to learn to code then The Odin Project has been a really thorough and enjoyable way to do it.

Weekly update: 20th May 2020

I'm trying to get back into the habit of uploading a weekly update. It's about time I got back into a routine.

So this week I got my car insurance renewal through from the RAC, my current insurer. £800. No surprise, everyone knows your current insurer knocks the arse out of the renewal every year. They know a ton of people will just accept it and let it auto-renew. And they know another ton of people will phone up and try to bargain. And miraculously they always seem to manage to cut it in half, a special deal just for you, just for today, so that you couldn't possibly turn it down. I don't know what their retention rates are but it must be high.

It pisses me off. I just want to be able to buy a service and that's it. I don't want to have to haggle, I don't want to sit through a script where someone in a call centre pretends to talk to their supervisor about discounts. I just want to know what I'm paying without having to do this tedious fucking dance. And it is everywhere now as well. It used to be car insurance and everyone just accepted that's how it was. But it's mobile phones, it's broadband, it's buying a fucking couch. I don't want to do it, it doesn't build loyalty, it makes me want to just get it over and done with.

As usual, I just do a search on Confused and go with the lowest deal. I never even bother going through the hassle of calling them that may or may not result in a few pennies saved. But the one thing I always do is I go through Topcashback. There is usually a kickback on the insurance search providers (they are all much the same) so I get a quote through that first. But I always check cashback offers for the lowest insurer as well. If they have a better deal then I'll dump the search provider and do the policy direct. If not, I go through Confused (or whoever) and get their cashback instead (usually about £40).

I had a look at my savings today. I'd been regularly pumping what I could into fairly conservative index tracker funds through an ISA with Hargreaves Lansdowne's. At the start of lockdown about 20% got wiped off the value. Now, they are only down 6%. A small loss is good news. Most financial bloggers say hold on to your shares through shitty times unless you really need to sell so that's what I've done. It was tempting to just move it into cash to minimise the loss but I'm going to plough through for the minute. I've also switched my monthly deposit from all trackers to half trackers and half bond funds for a bit more conservatism right now.

Chances are I won't be making my usual £165 deposit next month anyway. As far as I know I am still on track to be furloughed. And I am still super-angry about the whole thing. As far as I know, I am the only one right now. And, everyone else seems crazy busy right now as well. So everybody else has too much on but they can't find anything for me to do?

You can't help take it personally. It has soured my relationship with the company. I'm actually finding it really hard to work with other people there this week. I'd forgotten how many people are competing for the next rung on the ladder. And you see it now, so many people trying elbowing each other out the way to get recognition. Sending emails at stupid hours. Messages where senior management are copied in unnecessarily so that they get to be seen. Working well past reasonable hours all for free. The way things are you can't blame them but I guarantee that senior management are going to take advantage of the goodwill generated by this self-inhterest.

Me, I just want to get the fuck out now. I think I'd happily eat the 20% pay hit to not be working amongst them. But what worries me is that if you are first on furlough then you're probably first in the queue for redundancy when they realise that long term the company is now too big. Even with the government funds they still have employer's NI to pay so there is still a cost in me being on the books. The ax will fall eventually.

The thing is, they told me it could have been anyone. But everybody knows there are people who it won't be and I'm not on that list. On the plus side, it is pushing me into other things. I've been learning to code for the last year and I'm nearing the end of the course (I will post about it separately) so the time is coming when I will be able to start looking for work as a junior developer. And the other positive is that I saw an ad for a job the other day that could have been written for me. They're looking for my specialism which is in short supply, they are offering a similar salary and it's only a couple of miles away (I could probably cycle it). I contacted the recruiter and I've got a video interview next week.

Mentally, I've not been doing well this week at all. Monday I was pretty depressed. Tuesday, I veered between anger and depression. My phone died on Monday as well, five months outside of warranty. So now I'm back to using a ten year old phone. I don't really care, I'm not into technology. It's just the principle of it. It cost me £100 seventeen months ago and now it's going to cost me another £100 if I want to replace it.

But that's somewhere else I can save a little bit of money when I go on to furlough. I'm only paying £13 a month for a pay as you go SIM card with Vodafone. But if I'm not working and not going anywhere then I don't need much mobile data. I can swap to a lesser deal on Giff Gaff for about half of that. So I save £6 a month? Well, that's £1.50 a week I can spend on something else. A little treat for my daughter or something.

I had a lot of optimism at the start of the year. I thought this was when things were going to turn around. I guess a lot of people thought that. Right now, I'm just trying to maintain that optimism. I'm trying to be disciplined with household chores. I'm being mindful when doing tasks, take pleasure in doing it and experiencing it. I'm still working out hard and I'm probably in the best physical shape I've been in for a while.

My ideal scenario is that I get offered that job next week, I get a couple of weeks on my arse on furlough while everything is finalised and then I tell where I work to go fuck themselves finally. If it doesn't happen? Then there's going to be something else. There has to be. I just need to keep reminding myself that.

On Furlough

I got the phonecall yesterday that I had been expecting for a while. I was told that as of next Friday I would be on furlough. I had work for this week but after that, game over.

I knew it was coming. I'd done fuck all this week and started every day pestering my manager for something to do. I'd be given a simple task and 7.5 hours to do it. I knew when there was no-one chasing it that this was just something so that both me and my manager could pretend I was busy.

It reminded me of the old Bill Hicks gag:

"Hicks! Can't you just pretend to be working?"

"You're paid more than me. Can't you pretend I'm working?"
So it was no surprise. I'd expected it about a month ago so the impact isn't going to be huge. I'd already thought it through in financial terms. It translates to losing £500 a month. I pay £165 into a savings plan which I can cancel and I'm probably spending about a quarter of my monthly budget so that's the £500 taken care of.

There are discretionary things I can cancel as well. I've got Amazon Prime because the free delivery was useful in lockdown but it's £7.99 that can go. I've got £6 for membership of a local nature reserve where I like going birdwatching. I hate to do it but that can go as well as it's shut for the duration anyway. I'm going to hit up my car insurer and see if I can get anything reduced there. Weather is getting milder so I can cut back on heating.

There are lots of things I can do to make this work financially. I can't get worked up about it. I fucking despise this government but surprisingly the Job Retention Scheme is an absolute godsend. And they've extended it to October. So worst case, I've got the summer with my feet up. My line manager says that all the work that was put on hold is coming back on stream in another month or so, we're an NHS supplier so in theory should weather this OK. And if everyone is still in this shit in October then we're all fucked.

The problem is the mental impact. I tried writing this post last night and I just couldn't do it. It hit me hard and I'm still pretty angry about it. I'm really good at my job and I'm really reliable. People ask for me to be assigned to their projects. There's a lot of people there that you honestly cannot say that about. So it is a real slap in the face that I get furloughed and they don't.

And it is ironic because I fucking hate my job. I have no end of things I could fill my time with and just having the break would do my mental health a power of good. But it's just that little, shitty niggle that says "you aren't as good as these people".

I know that's bullshit and that I am just inventing a narrative based on shit that has happened in the past. I have zero evidence that that is the case. I know that the likely explanation is that I am more skilled so more expensive. At the minute, they just need the office equivalent of a labourer. They don't need skilled. So if they get me off the books then it pays for nearly two "labourers". But I just can't shut that voice off that keeps asking "so why aren't they doing it to others? Why is it just you?". And the answer to that is "they hate you, you must be shit at it".

It's my brain fucking with me. I know it intellectually but I just don't feel it on a gut level.

I'm a big fan of Jocko Willink's outlook. I know what he would say. "Good". On furlough? Good, more time to train, more time to learn, more time with my daughter. Losing 20% of your salary? Good, you've still got 80%. You aren't on the dole. There is a big part of me looking forward to what is basically extended paid leave. I keep thinking maybe this is the push I need to start a business. There are a couple of things I could be doing to make a little extra money that I'd have the time to pursue. It'd just be getting some advertising and hoping that the demand was there.

Someone else I am a fan of is Ram Dass, a late American spiritual teacher. Ram Dass had this idea of "becoming nobody". He said that we build up an identity based on all these external things. Our careers, our hobbies, the clothes we wear, the stuff we own. But all of that can be taken away. So who are you underneath it all? Being "somebody" means having all these pointless trappings. Becoming "nobody" is who you really are without all that shit. I know that I hate work so why do I let it define me? This is an opportunity to let go.

We'll see. I'm bouncing along the edge of a depression. It's not how I saw this year playing out. I'm getting older but I don't feel like I'm getting further along the track. The things I'd hoped for like getting out of debt, getting on my feet, starting a new relationship, having more of a life outside of just work and childcare, it feels like they have gone. I wanted to finally put divorce and nearly going bankrupt in the past. What is worse is that it feels like the opportunity is gone. That door has closed and there's nothing on the horizon to get optimistic about. Even wars have an end, this seems to just be the normal state of human life from now on.

Cashing Out: The Pots of Money You Forgot You Had

It's pretty clear with the economic situation is that a lot of the companies which we know now are not going to be there after the coronavirus pandemic is done.

There are a few sick men on the High Street that always seem to be on the verge of going under. Department stores, like Debenhams. Mainstream travel agents and airlines. Bar & dining chains. It's always the same names, Debenhams, Marks and Spencer, some celebrity chef's restaurant chain, anything owned by Richard Branson or Phillip Green. But there are also going to be a lot of others as well.

It got me thinking about how much money I've got tied up in companies. I'm not talking about investments or pensions or anything like that. In case you missed it, I'm skint. No, I'm talking about things like gift cards, refunds, cashbacks. Little pots of money that are sitting in my account on some company's website.

It all mounts up to a decent pile of cash. And here's the problem: none of that is protected. If the company goes tits up then good luck getting it back. I had a ball-ache of a fight when my electricity supplier went bust and that was WITH protection under the law. Without it? You're money is as good as lost.

So over the last few weeks I've been working my way round all of these. The first step is to just take an inventory of where you are. Go round everyone you spend money with and just make a little list then check out your account. You'll be surprised. A good start is to go over your credit or debit card statements and have a look at where you spent money. Same with Paypal (or any of the other payment providers). Just go round them all and have a look at your account balances with them. If you are in credit with them, even by a couple of quid, get it out. That company may not be there in a few months and that cash is better in your pocket than being lost in the system.

Refunds are a good place to check. Usually you are going to get a refund paid back on the card you used originally. Make sure that refund actually happened. Sometimes they will credit the refund to your account, though. If it is then withdraw it. It is your money, they put it there because they know the chances are high you will spend it with them. It's worth keeping track of withdrawals and just double check it ends up in your bank.

Another area to look at is gift cards and vouchers. This is your money tied up in that company. Something like 6% of all gift cards never get used which translates as millions of pounds. Guess who loses that money? It isn't the company. They are winners, they've already received money for the card and the longer it takes you to spend it the better. Inflation means a £10 gift card bought last year buys you a lot less today than it did twelve months ago. Some gift cards have expiry dates, too. So if your gift card expires then they make even more on you. There are two things to remember with gift cards: they are YOUR money and their value decays as time passes. But there is also a third issue and that is the really important one right now: if the company goes bust then the gift card is worth zero.

I have a John Lewis credit card with a cashback deal on it which I use for my daily spending. Every four months they pay out the cashback. But here's the catch: they pay it out in John Lewis/Waitrose vouchers. I fucking hate Waitrose, you might as well just shop in Tesco and just throw an extra 10% of what you spent in the bin. But I actually quite like John Lewis, they're pretty good for some big ticket items like electricals.

However, John Lewis is also one of those "sick men" I mentioned at the start. They are always warning about losing money and being close to collapse. So having £150 mounting up in JL vouchers is a big risk and letting inflation erode their value is stupid. So, I spent a big chunk of them and if things seem to be sliding for them I'll spend the rest.

You have to kind of take a view on it. I doubt we'll see Amazon collapse any time soon so their cards are probably a safe bet. You can maybe hold on to these a little longer. Others, you might want to order something soon. But either way, inflation makes holding gift cards a really bad idea regardless of whose name is one the front. Same goes for goodwill payments, like when a company bungs you a few quid because they screwed an order up. A lot of payments will be in the form of a gift card or discount code and will be in the same boat.

So as a lesson for the future, here's some things to remember:

• don't buy gift cards. There's nothing socially awkward about giving cash. Nobody prefers to receive a gift card over cash. No-one.
• if you do, use a credit card to pay for it. At least there is a chance you can recover the payment if the company goes bust.
• if you get one, spend it as soon as you can to avoid inflation
• you can sell them. Card Yard buys and sells them for a fee (I think it was 10% on an Amazon card when I sold the one I got from work as a shitty Christmas bonus). You used to be able to sell them on Ebay as well but you have a high chance of being scammed

Another place I knew I had a lot of unprotected money was in Topcashback. I use it a lot for online purchases and over the last couple of years I've built up around £400 in my account. Again, that account is unprotected. I don't know what effect this whole situation is having on them but that money is still safer in my bank account than in theirs. Like gift cards, inflation is also eroding how much that is worth. Even with the current shitty savings rates the interest is still better than nothing. So, that is going to be moved from there to my savings account.

If you've been into matched betting then you've probably got pots of money scattered all over the place with bookies. There is nothing to bet on so I cleared mine out. I wasn't hugely enamoured with matched betting, I doubt I'll continue with it after this all recovers so not bothered about my accounts going dormant or whatever. I think I only made about £150 profit but the big thing was that I had a lot of my own cash tied up there to leverage it. Some bookies are going to go bust, there is no question of that. Take it out now.

Your money is your money. You need to be really proactive with it right now. Companies will go bust, companies that you use. Sure, cashing out your gift cards and clearing out accounts might be the push some need to fold. It's a tough decision but there was no question for me. I don't have the money to spare just so I can feel like I did the ethical thing.

Weekly Update: 3rd May 2020

April has disappeared and I have barely even noticed its passing.

I haven't bothered doing a weekly update because there hasn't really been anything to update. Like a lot of people, I'm saving a shitload of money because I'm not driving, I'm not going anywhere, I'm not doing anything. By the end of the month my spending was something like £250 below my budget. I basically spend about £50 on my weekly shop for me and my daughter and that's it. I occasionally buy something for the house from Amazon. Like I have a leaking pipe and needed some materials to repair it with.

It's great but is it worth reporting? It's all artificial. I'm only saving money because of circumstances, I've not done anything to "earn" it. There's no real opportunity to do anything particularly productive.

A few people at work have been furloughed. I get the feeling that there was more to it than simple lack of work. The people chosen, if someone asked you who were either the most lazy or least competent in the place you'd probably choose them. One of them, worryingly, had had mental health issues in the past and mentioned to his line manager that he hadn't been doing too well in the last week. And, sure enough, by coincidence he was the first furlough announced.

That really spiked my anxiety and depression when it happened. There was a little bit of relief when the Job Retention Scheme was extended to the end of June. That relaxed me. But it still hasn't eased the low level anxiety that I've got burning in the background. I deal with it by just not thinking about it.

I don't know if "depression" is really what I've felt. It's more a general melancholy brought on by the loss of liberty, the endlessness of it, the uncertainty, the lack of anything to differentiate one day from the next. I'm filling my time with housekeeping and jobs that don't really need doing. Minor repairs. Tidying. A lot of exercise, I've been training really hard.

I think the key to this is remembering that tomorrow is not today. We tend to get into the mental habit of thinking that how today goes is the template for the future. But it isn't, we learn to deal with things, situations change, we make progress. That really keeps me going.

Not looking deeply at the news helps keep my mental health in check. I don't need to read the biographies of the dead that sites like the BBC love to post. I get it that some people see this as humanising the Covid victims but you have to ask what it is doing to you mentally. Especially when they love to post about the people that don't fit the normal victim profile. When fit and healthy people, people who look not dissimilar to you, are dying then that sets my nerves on edge.

Everyone says "wash your hands" but we need to bring that same hygiene standard to our minds as well. You need to be aware of where your attention is. It might seem disrespectful to the dead but you need to ask yourself: is reading all this stuff helping? The same with posting to social media: is what you write helping either you or others? Usually the answer is "no".

I had a month long break from Facebook and I've applied that principle to anything I post or get involved in. Is it helpful? Is it funny? Is it useful? If not, then I don't bother. I don't need to reply to other people. I don't need to get into discussions about who thinks who is right.

I listened to a financial podcast the other day. The guy on it said the best thing to do in situations like this is to over-react but not panic. I think what he was trying to say is that panicking means making decisions where your judgement is clouded. Over-reacting means taking steps that are maybe more aggressive than they need to be but done with conscious thought and planning.

I think I've done that. My "over-reaction" has been shut down all unecessary spending. It's fairly easy because there's nowhere to go and nothing to do. But my outlook right now is to act like I have already lost my job. I've been through my monthly bills and I know what my spending is. I know what I need to pay and when I need to pay it. I am trying to set aside cash as much as I can. I've rebuilt a decent stash of food in my freezer after the disaster a few weeks ago. Maybe it isn't the most nutritious (a lot of Aldi frozen stuff) but it's food and isn't what I'm going to be living off forever.

If I am wrong then so what? It doesn't hurt to have pared everything down to the minimum. If I am right then I am starting from a better position.

Mentally, that will be the real challenge. It makes me wonder about what this will do long term. After the last recession and then through a divorce I did the same thing. I got into the habit of being extremely tight with money and it took me a long time to get out of that. For the last year (at least) I was financially back on my feet and didn't need that same level of extreme money-saving but I just could not snap out of it because I'd been living it so long. I had to literally remind myself not to be so mean and spend a little cash now and again. Like when I was out with my daughter or on holiday or something. Yes, you can afford to go into a cafe without it bankrupting you...

And now I am back in that mindset. I don't know, I think because the circumstances I've been living in (job worries, lack of money, lack of opportunities, etc) that this hasn't been much of an adjustment. The only thing that I've really struggled with so far has been the lack of physical touch. I'd been single for a while and just got around to getting back into dating again when all this happened. Knowing that it will be a long time before people are going to start feeling like they can be physical with another person, especially a stranger, really bothers me.

But like I said, tomorrow is not today.

Saving money when working from home

So week one of working at home done for me. A few things I've been thinking about over the last seven days that might be useful. The big thing is that I'm not using my own power, heat and internet as opposed to my employer paying for it so I'm going to start with the financial aspects then maybe look some of the mental wellbeing points I've come up against.

Save, Save, Save

Looking at some of the numbers that have made it to the news and it's pretty apparent that the chance of a recession has become very real. Now is the perfect time to start ratcheting back your spending. Normal life is on hold and the opportunity just is not there for any of the big draws on your spending. You can't go to the pub, you can't go to restaurants or the cinema, you don't (or at least shouldn't) have much chance of any social life. There's no point booking a holidaybecause even without the travel restrictions there's nowhere to go.

Then there's commuting. Unless you're someone that still has to go to a workplace then, again, make the most of this. You aren't spending money on fuel or public transport. Some companies are offering to refund unused season tickets and passes. You aren't putting any wear on your car and MOT's have been extended by 6 months.

If you are sensible then you should already be giving yourself a weekly allowance that you need to keep within. If you are really sensible then it makes sense to cut that allowance back. What am I going to spend money on other than a trip to the supermarket now and again?

The money that you are not spending needs to go to good use. The two main choices are either as cash or to reduce debt (or a combination of both). Each have their own advantages. If you use this money to pay down debt going into a recession then it puts you in a better position. And if you need some emergency spending then your credit line has a little bit more capacity in it. Equally, cash has advantages. There are a lot of things you can't pay with a credit card, like rent, mortgage, childcare, that kind of thing so having some extra cash in the bank makes sense. Cash is also something they cannot take away from you. There is the chance that if you have, say, a credit card that you aren't using but keep for emergencies then it isn't unknown for the company to reduce your credit limit. I had a card that I kept clear in case I ever got hit with a big bill, never looked at it for a couple of years until one day I did and saw they'd reduced my credit limit from a few thousand to a few hundred.

It's up to you. Most financial bloggers say pay debt first but personally, I like cash. My own strategy right now is to pay down a little more but I want most of it going into savings.

Reduce

Go through your spending and make a list of all the things you can pull the plug on right now. We all have a ton of non-essential stuff. I might be skint but I've got a monthly charity donation, I'm a member of the SNP and have monthly membership subs for that. I've got a Netflix subscription that's "only" 6 quid a month. If I dumped all these little discretionary commitments then that frees up £25-30 a month. Most people probably have more. Subscriptions are the way of the world now, especially with things like entertainment but it seeps into everything. Everybody wants you to take that monthly plan and it's a massive black hole for your money if you allow it.

I'm not saying dump them now but you need to know a. What you can get rid of and b. How much that saves. If conditions worsen then you know where you can liberate a little more money from. Personally, though, I'm dumping what I can right now and those savings are all going into the pot.

Staying Warm

The big thing I noticed on my first day was how cold I was when I was working from home. If I'm at home normally then I'm doing stuff and I never notice it. But sitting at a desk all day then I get really fucking cold. Now, obviously there is the discomfort of that but it also puts an unnecessary load on your immune system as well which you really don't need.

The first move is obvious. Put some extra layers on. There's a limit to that, though. My hands get cold and working with gloves at a computer isn't practical.

Another thing I found is: choose your workplace wisely if you can. One side of my house gets the sun from morning until about 1pm and the rooms on that side are really warm. I put my computer right in my front window and I've timed my day to make the most of it, start at 7am and I've done a good 5-6 hours before it starts to get cold.

At some point you need to put the heating on. My recommendation is: only heat where you are working. Central heating is fairly efficient when you are heating the whole house but do you need the whole house to be warm?

At the end of Monday I was so cold that I went to Screwfix and bought a little fan heater. You can pick one up for a tenner. I have it on the lowest setting, pointed straight at me, so it's only burning maybe 17p an hour and I don't run it the whole time.

Power

Get yourself on the lowest electricity deal you can. Now is also the time to do a price comparison and switch if you can get a better deal. Nobody knows how long this will go on for so get the best electricity rate there is.

Again, don't use power in rooms you don't need to. I've got a habit of just automatically switching on the toilet light when I go in that I've forced myself to stop. If it is daytime then you can probably do without lighting.

Internet

Same goes for broadband. Scout around for the best deal. And, importantly, talk to your current supplier. I'm with Sky and every time I tell them I'm leaving then miraculously they find a way to bring my bill down. Every time it ends up beating the best deal I can find.

Another tip, do a line check. Sky have a service check feature on their website, I'd guess most others do too. I checked mine last week and it turned out that the speed can be improved by an engineer's visit rather than upgrading my package.

Telephone

You do not need the data that you think you need. Even at the best of times. But right now you're going to be connected to the wifi 95% of your day at least. I always aim for the least amount of data I can get away with, I think I pay for 6gb and never come close to that limit. You do not need massive or unlimited allowances right now. Unless your broadband shits the bed but I'd wait until that happens before looking at upping my phone's data allowance.

I almost never make calls these days unless it's to companies, amongst friends and family it's almost exclusively text. Again, if you're at home on wifi then use a messaging service like WhatsApp and you won't touch your text allowance.

If you need to make calls for work then it might work out better to use the landline. Check your broadband package to see what you've got and compare it to your call allowance on your mobile.

Food & Drink

One of the big benefits is that I've no excuse for not making my own lunch now. Buying shit I don't need was always my downfall. Take this time to get into the habit of meal planning, batch cooking and making the most of the freezer.

I use my teabags twice. It's not just money-saving, I want to avoid needing to go out so if it makes my teabags go further then great.

I also make two brews at the same time. One in my normal mug, one in an insulated one for later. Boiling a single cup of water seems inefficient so I do twice what I need and save the other half. I've read about some people that make a big pot of tea or coffee in the morning and either put it in a flask or just reheat it in a microwave later.

Working Hours

When I start work I set a countdown timer for 7.5 hours (my contracted day) and I pause it when I take lunch or have any longer breaks (like the days my daughter was here). It is way too easy to over-work or lose track of time. I also physically unplug everything at the end of the day so there is no temptation to go back and work some more later. Keep really good track of your hours worked and what you were doing, I keep a written diary. People will take this chance to screw you, I guarantee it.

Personally, I found I do a lot more at home than I do in the office in the same amount of time so I have zero guilt about doing this. And time is money, if it isn't in your pocket then it is in someone else's.

I think that's about all the money saving stuff I can think of right now. I'm going to do a post on the mental wellbeing aspects later.

Weekly Update 25th March 2020

First real week of the UK lockdown. I saw it announced on Monday night and I just shook my head. How stupid are people? You brought it on yourselves and honestly, I'm really glad they did it. At the weekend I left the house to buy some milk (and waited til late on Saturday evening when I knew the shop was quiet) and Sunday I went for a walk just out my front door. I never saw a soul, presumably because all these morons were travelling all over the fucking country.

The longer this progresses the more I despair of some people. I wanted to see my parents. I wanted to go somewhere nice. But I didn't. And this is what annoys me, probably the vast majority of people did the right thing and sat on their arses and it came down to a bunch of bellends to fuck everything up.

Rant over. This is supposed to be my weekly update. There's a few things I want to talk about that cropped up. The first is the possibilit of losing my job. I work for a supplier to the NHS, not a vital supplier but a supplier all the same. I'm probably in a better position than a lot of people but losing my job is still a possibility.

That kind of uncertainty puts my anxiety through the roof so I've learned that the best cure is to gather intelligence and make a plan. My big worry is losing my home. I rent so there's no mortgage holiday for me. I'd be reliant on benefits. First step was to try to find out what I'd be entitled to. There are various calculators suggested by the gov.uk website. Trouble is, they aren't particularly easy to use, especially if you aren't in the benefit system and don't know what is what. The one I found my way around suggested that I could get £272 a week, so about £1088 a month. Take off rent and council tax and that leaves £360 a month to cover everything else. Not the end of the world but not great either.

The next thing I wanted to do was understand what outgoings I had other than rent and council tax. This included utilities, road tax, car insurance, car loan and card payments. Worryingly, that comes to £650, so £290 short before I even buy any food.

It got me thinking that I need something just to protect my rent. If I could do that then it makes everything else possible. I'd looked at income protection insurance in the past but I'd rejected the idea because I was planning on switching jobs and there's always an exclusion period built into the policies. But right now I'm not moving so a policy might be a possibility.

But it was a struggle finding anything. It seems the entire country has had the same thought and the insurance companies pulled the ladder up. No deal. Some sites were closed. I applied to a couple and got rejected. I got an email on Friday that the last one I tried had actually accepted my application. I've not had any paperwork through so we'll see.

But... I actually got some good news. When I was going through my monthly outgoings I came across a monthly payment for £29 that I'd missed. I'd no idea what it was for so called the company, gave them the reference and it turned out to be an unemployment policy that I'd taken out during the last recession. Entitlement of £500 a month if I lost my job and the policy is still in place. I can't believe it, it really is such good luck. On the downside, I've paid about £3500 in premiums over the years. The benefit could be anything from £500 to £6000. Normally, I hate insurance policies like these as they prey off fear but for once I'm very grateful for it.

Spending, I've spent fuck all this week. I did my weekly shop on Monday and that's it. I bought some compost and some veg seeds which came to 20 quid. Usually that's enough that I'm self-sufficient in tomatoes, cucmbers and salad for most of the summer and into the autumn. I bought a packet of bacon from the local butcher as a treat. I've done about 10 miles in my car since Friday. I've not been anywhere or done anything.

Mentally, getting out of work and staying at home has helped my mental health massively. I was very anxious this time last week, I was getting really short-tempered at work and, stupidly, I got to the point I was threatening to walk if they didn't stop fucking around over working from home. On the downside, I'm finding working from home a lot harder than I was expecting. There are no distractions, no one to talk to so the days are really long. It's lonely. I'm surprised at that as I'm quite a self-reliant person. And it's boring. I thought I'd love having so much more time but having all that time to fill can be a curse.

But mostly, I'm feeling good. I think I've got stuff under control at the minute. I'm feeling OK about work for the next month or two. I'm working out hard and eating really well, I'd lost six pounds over the last couple of weeks and look like I'm still losing fat. I'm aiming to have a six pack by the end of this. I'm posting my daily workout on Instagram if anyone cares, I try to tailor it for people with minimal equipment and no access to a gym. Working out is maybe the best thing I've found for controlling my depression. It's @skintlife_2020 on Instagram. I don't do any other social media.

As I've been working from home I've been thinking about ways to save money and help you cope mentally. I'll draft these up over the coming days and post.

Making stuff last: learning from a lost generation

When I was a kid, everyone's grandparents lived through the Second World War. Now, there can't be many people under 35 who grew up with either parents or grandparents who lived through that kind of hardship. Most people just have no idea what financial difficulty is. You saw that last week: the poor don't panic buy. I'd guess mostly because you can't. But equally, if you are living with little or no spare cash then you just know better. Welcome to the daily life of thousands of people in this country where uncertainty, lack of resources and lack of access to just the basic necessities of normality is how they live every single day. The people who panic-bought are some of the most privileged people on the face of the planet. And, arguably, some of the softest.

I grew up with grandparents who lived through the War and parents who grew up in the post-war shortages. That experience lived with them for a hell of a long time. Even in the 1980's when I was a kid, where the world was full of "greed is good" affluence and surpluses, that memory of austerity lived large in our lives. I still remember going on holiday and my dad keeping a ledger of what we spent so there would be no shocks when we got home. Now, I find myself doing that when I go on holiday with my own daughter.

For the vast majority of people in this country, we have been able to forget how to live with hardship. You see it everywhere and the atrocious behaviour of great swathes of society just highlight that. We forgot how to be frugal because we thought affluence would go on forever. Whatever else happens in the next 12 months, I hope that lesson is learnt by society. I know it won't be, though.

Anyway, rant over. This blog post is inspired by that generation that lived through the War. They didn't panic buy because there was nothing to panic-buy. So what did they do? They made do. And that is what this post is about. Making do.

The easiest way to have enough to last you is not to go out and buy it. The easiest thing to do is make what you have go further. One of society's big mental sicknesses is that we have no idea what a portion size is. That's clear from the level of obesity and all that brings. So...

LESSON ONE: YOU NEED A LOT LESS THAN YOU THINK YOU NEED

That starts with food. We eat too much. And when you eat too much you also think you need too much. This wasteful, expensive and denies resources to people who need it. Just cut back what you put on your plate. Hunger will kill you but feeling hungry won't. There are tons of ways to make yourself feel satisfied without piling your plate up.

Add a bit more fat. Pour some olive oil over some green veg or toss a knob of butter on. Bread and pasta fills you but an hour later you're hungry again. Fat makes you stop eating sooner and keeps you going longer. A rasher of bacon will keep you going longer than a bowl of cornflakes.

Drink more fluids. It's an old cliche but a lot of the time when you are hungry, you're just thirsty.

Or just get used to it. "Hungry" is not "hunger", you can't die from a feeling. If you got your nutrients and got your calories then live with it. It won't kill you. Be comfortable with a little bit of hardship. (Because there is a lot coming our way so you better get used to it now)

Get into calorie restriction or intermittent fasting. This is maybe one of the few things that has real evidence for significant long term health benefits and god knows we could all do with that right now. Skip breakfast and you automatically end up with 18 hours between meals. You might feel hungry but the health benefits are major. I'll leave you to do your own reading.

But it isn't just food. You can just use less all over the place. Here are a few tips that I use:

• buy one of those skin scrubber things. They look like a ball of net curtain material. Use it in the shower, you put a small blob of shower gel in it and wash with that. You get a ton more lather than you get with just using your hand and shower gel goes a hell of a long way. Just stick it in the washing machine every now and again

• if you take sugar in tea or coffee then try this. Stir it. Yep, as simple as that. Stir it a lot longer than you do normally and I guarantee you'll notice your drink becomes a little too sweet.

• laundry liquid and powder. Manufacturers love you to use more and those scoops and balls are sized so that you'll rattle through it. I'll use half or even a third of what the label says depending on what I'm washing and I have never noticed any difference.

• washing up liquid. Same thing, we grab the bottle and squeeze. Make an effort to squeeze a hell of a lot less. Again, you don't need anything like you think.

• if you aren't leaving the house then go without. I'm working from home so haven't shaved in a week. And I hate to say it, if you cut back on deoderant and you smell a little stronger than usual then who cares? And if I run out then I'm not going out just to get it. Time are tough.

• do what everyone's dad says: put a fucking sweater on. We're all going to be at home a lot more. Where I was using someone else's power and heating, I'm now using mine. Put on a fleece first.

LESSON TWO: SAVE STUFF

One of the main reasons I didn't panic buy was that I have a hell of a lot of food in the freezer. Freezing leftovers and stuff headed for it's use by date is basic. And if it needs repeating, if it hasn't come from an animal then forget what the date on the packet says. It's good until it either looks or smells bad. We need to stop wasting things. If you have too much and you have to throw it out then you really need to be ashamed of yourself. There's an old African saying, the best place for extra food is in my neighbour's belly. Failing that, the best place for extra stuff is in some kind of storage or preservation.

• Instead of panic-buying milk, or wasting milk that is going out of date, freeze it. Here's what I've been doing: you get a litre of milk and you pour 330ml into three freezer bags. Tie a knot in the bag, put it inside another bag and stick it in the freezer. The great thing about this is that you can mould it to whatever space you have free. Bottles take up too much room. To defrost, put the bag in a bowl in the fridge. DO NOT LEAVE IT OUT TO DEFROST, it will go bad. And make sure you double bag it, old milk WILL contaminate anything it touches.

• Veg doesn't freeze very well and it's pretty bulky so I batch cook it into a big vegetable stew, portion it up into bags and freeze that. Takes up less space and fits anywhere like milk does. Defrost and use as a base for other things like curries.

• Learn traditional preserving techniques. Pickling is great, especially if you were stupid enough to clear the shelves of eggs. A glut of fruit and veg is perfect for chutney making. My favourite is ferment preservation. Basically storing fruit and veg in brine and letting its natural bacteria preserve it. I regularly make sauerkraut and fruit kvass. They take a bit of getting used to but I love the taste, earthy and acidic. I've got a big jar of salted citrus fruit that I made myself. These might not save a huge amount but they're fun experiments and you can end up with some lovely products.

• My parents and grandparents always used rags for cleaning. Old clothes, especially cotton, are great for cleaning rags. I have a bag of my daughter's old school socks in the shed that I keep for wiping up stuff, painting, etc.

• I have a wood stove and I save the bark from the firewood. It usually flakes off when chopping it. I keep it indoors in a mesh bag to let it dry out. Use it as kindling, either on its own or mixed in with dry wood. Stove always has charcoal in it which is great for kids' art projects. Amazon boxes make good fire lighters.

• I save egg boxes to start my tomato seeds off in. Last summer was shit but most summers I'm self-sufficient for tomatoes and salad.

• Anyone who grew up watching Blue Peter always had yoghurt tubs to hand. When my ex-girlfriend's dad died she found hundred of margarine tubs in the attic he'd saved for using for little jobs, mixing paint, storing nails, that kind of thing. Vitamin pill pots are brilliant for storage.

LESSON THREE: ALTERNATIVES

Find sustainable alternatives for things that are finite.

• kitchen roll. I bought a big pack of microfibre cloths from Screwfix for a couple of quid and I use one or two of them every day instead. Just chuck them in the wash at the end of the day. Same with dish-towels.

• I invested in a Karcher steam cleaner a few years ago and it probably paid for itself in cleaning products not bought. It's sometimes a lot more hassle than spraying a chemical everywhere but at least I don't have that shit in the air. They are expensive but you can get them cheap on Ebay. Buy a decent make, though.

• Get rid of your tumble-drier. It's a pain hanging clothes on a drying rack, especially in winter, but it saves a hell of a lot of money. You can buy heated racks or ones with a built in fan heater that are really cheap to run. Or just get a little oil filled radiator, stick it under the rack and chuck a cotton sheet over it all to make a warm tent. Works fine (just keep an eye on it).

• I use stainless steel wool balls for washing the dishes. Every now and again soak it in some bleach. I get through maybe two or three a year at most, they will last forever. Word of caution, when they fall apart you can get slivers of metal stuck to plates and utensils. Don't push them this far.

There are a shit load of things if you just stop and think: what else could I be using now? If you find yourself throwing out items after just one or two uses then you need to source something else. It's better on the wallet but it also helps the environment.

These are the basic principles I use all the time. Use less, reduce waste and find sustainable alternatives to disposables. It's no coincidence that these are exactly the same principles that are promoted to help the environment. In the developed world waste hurts us both economically and from what it does to our environment.

If nothing else, just cut down on stuff. Do not try to buy your way out of hardship.