A frugal life is an easy life!

Back in the 70's there were two standards of toys, the ones made in Great Britain and those made in Taiwan. Price wise, of course the British made toys cost a bit more, but they could survive the 70's child's hammerings.
The running joke at the time was "made in Taiwan" it was made of lower spec materials and lasted as long as a Christmas tree does.
By the next Christmas, the British made toys were mostly complete and still used, the Taiwan toys, were just a memory.

The simple toy car, British made was die cast with a metal base, it took some real hammering, but the wheels stayed on, didn't bend, the windows didn't break and it didn't come apart. Years later it was still in use, even after being kept under a bed for 3 years, etc.
The Taiwan toy car, looked OK, played with fine for a few days, but an accidental standing on, or any weight or pressure placed upon it, the "axel" would bend in, the plastic base would crack or break off altogether.
I am not having a go at them, you get what you pay for and the Taiwan made ones provided goods for people on lower incomes, as they were cheap to buy.

I walked around our local tescos on Thursday night, it was after 2am, as we had ran out of milk. Whilst there I thought I would have a look around the toys just incase I spotted anything for a Christmas gift.
Firts off, the choice was absolute pants!
Secondly, the quality of the goods was absolute tosh!
Reknown company like MB games, all their prices for their stocking filler games, had shot up to £12???

Most of everything else was cheap tacky tat, which was packaged up to correspond with a TV program or film that's been out. No wonder their value doesn't hold unless they remain unopened and in their packaging, take todays toys out of the packet, within a week, bits would be missing, other plastic parts would be eaten by the dog or damaged with no chance of repair, rendering the toy useless.
The most shocking part of all this, is that the prices were expensive and not based on the actual cost of the product to make, instead, based on paying for the film or TV show copyright licence and the designer packaging that comes with it!

No wonder our kids would rather sit in front of TV screen playing video games, they do not have any good quality toys to play with as they grow up.
Parents are paying for the same toy, made cheaply, over and over again, which comes in different packaging with the cost reflecting the film or tv licence.

What ever happened to quality?

A frugal trick for interior or exterior car mirrors.

Don't buy the special sticking glue or patches to fix mirrors on, they are more than £4 normally and are a waste of space.

Instead buy some "number plate pads" (all car accessory shops have them) they come in 1mm and 6mm thickness, you want the 1mm ones.
they cost around £1.50
Clean the area where the mirror was stuck to, a rag with turps on it is ideal, or washing up liquid on a cloth, make sure its dry, then cut your number plate pad to size, place it on the base of your mirror, push firmly when its in place on your windscreen, for about 30 seconds.
It'll take the windscreen to smash before the thing comes off again!

You can use these pads for all sorts of things indoors or outdoors.
Remember: they are designed to hold number plates on cars driving at 80 mph, I don't think a coat hook or mirror is going to trouble it.
Plus they are cheaper to buy than the designated product.

The reason the glues designed "specially for" sticking them on, are not good, is when condensation hits your screen.
Your mirror is on cold glass, as soon as the warm air hits it, goodbye glue!

You have no cigarettes, up pops Dot Cotton smoking a tab.
Hungry, but nothing much in the fridge/larder (do other people still have larders?) on comes the television and someone is sitting down to a roast dinner or scoffing a bar of chocolate.
You are running short on money for the week, some smug reality show pops up, "starring" some so called celeb who tells the camera how she's cutting back, by buying only four pairs of shoes in an over priced (non frugal) shop etc, etc.

Why?

After the complete joke last week, breaking two cars and a van all in the same day, then the debacle of trying to tax sprog1's car (that is sat on the drive) and ended up costing me £46 on top of the actual price of a years road fund license, due to government ripping off, when the new insurance document fell through the door today, I thought my problems were easing..... How wrong I was!

As it stands, the van wont start as the 18 month old battery has died, so yesterday I got it jump started and let it tick over and warm itself up. In the hope that when I came to start it, once I have the tax for the sprog's car, it will start first time, I will move it from the front of the drive and then move sprog's newly taxed car on to the road and put the van on the drive in its place.
Our other car, the wonderfully crap, seat leon, that has been riddled with faults since we bought it a year ago, is now sat up the road, completely useless as it will only "turn over" but won't fire up, it is also getting full of water, as the kind men at seat dealership, when replacing the windscreen (that was broken and they tried to make us pay for) damaged the passenger side door seal, and it has gotten steadily worse. So worse has it got that it now leaks in at the slightest sign of rain.

So we are resigned to borrowing Dad's old fiesta to get to and from college and work.

Today the new insurance certificate came through, ahhhhhh at last, I can now tax the sprog's car and use this instead of borrowing Dad's car... wrong!
I got in the van to move it, started up fine, put it into gear.... it wouldn't move forward!
It will move back slowly, but no matter how I tried to rock it, it would not move one inch forward.
So now, not only do I have 3 vehicles that none of us can use, I also have a big repair bill coming for the van that thinks it is a shy horse facing beechers brook!

Fair to say, it has not been my week for motoring...

The supreme court's ruling today, that the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) cannot investigate on overdraft fees charged to customers, if they are unfair or not, is yet another smack in the teeth for the people of the UK.

The immediate question it raises, is here we have a government body set up to judge on fairness (Fair trading bit of their name is a clue!) yet they are not allowed to rule on what is fair or is not.
You couldn't make this up... not allowed to judge what is fair, so what is the point of having the Office of Fair Trading?
The "final" decision, says the supreme court, but instructs the OFT that it can continue its case in other ways?

Another question is how can the House of Lords and the Court of appeal, both rule in favour of the OFT deciding if overdraft charges are fair or not, yet this new "supreme court" then suddenly decides against them and that is the end of the case?
Is this why the supreme court was set up?

All the self promoting commentators, such as Martin Lewis, who portray to all who will listen that they are "fighting for the people" - whilst at the same time making money off the back of these same people and promoting their own website that will help them to save money (by making money themselves) - now have egg on their faces!
I have heard Martin on various news bulletins, often quoting details of the action inaccurately (Today he says banks made £1.6 Billion from these charges - the figure is almost £2.7 Billion) - even Which are trying to get in on the act on the BBC.

One person who comes out of all this with great credit (no pun intended) is Stephen Hone and his forums over at penaltycharges.co.uk (Opens in a new window).

I have always found his forums accurate, completely free and on the whole, a more relaxed and helpful place, with no money making schemes behind it. (No I am no affiliated to it!)
I watched the news with interest when the ruling came out, Martin Lewis and Which - who had earlier been all over the news - were nowhere to be seen!
Stephen Hone on the otherhand, was giving interviews in a relaxed manner giving straight basic advice and not attempting to dramatise the any part of the story at all.