A frugal life is an easy life!

Thanks to Jo (Curlylox over at chatgames) I put in a claim for some Payment protection insurance on an old loan.
Within 10 days, the Alliance and Leicester have written back, knocking the entire amount off the balance plus 8% interest on all premiums paid to the company.

I had asked for the payment protection insurance to be added, so didn't think it would be refunded, but Jo had another line of attack.

• Was it applied as a lump sum to the loan? - This means that interest is being applied to it at a higher rate! - I wasn't told this
• Are there any fees to pay if you want to end the policy before your loan is paid off? (Especially when it is a seperate installment policy, ie, not added as a lump sum to the loan!) - I wasn't advised there were any fees, I was told I could write to them giving them 30 days notice and my cover would cease - no mention of any "termination fee"
• I stated I felt pressured by the advisor into taking out the policy - they have to prove that I wasn't
• Self employed, retired or already have an illness? - then put this in your claim, chances are that there was no way the policy would ever cover you!
• When selling the policy to myself, it was never stated that other companies also sell payment protection insurance, that I could take out seperately to cover me on the loan.

I am going after some other companies to claim back my payment protection insurance now.
If the companies do not respond within 8 weeks, or they refuse my claim for a full refund, then a letter goes to the financial ombudsman, I'll let them decide.

It is a poor state of affairs when it has come to this though, the onus should be on the companies to sell this insurance in a correct manner, or if they fail to do so, the refund process should be automatic from the companies, instead, the customer has to write letters and issue complaints to get back what they have been mis-sold.

Just outside having a smoke after tea, working out in my head how much the washing and drying costs the family each year and trying to think of ways to cut the cost back, when I looked up the hill and saw the street lights on all up the road, and on the road running across the hill that towers over our estate.

Who pays to power our street lamps?

We are sold "greener" appliances, which now cost more than the standard model, we are told to "save energy in the home" - whilst the more we save, the higher the prices go, etc.
Yet we have street lights on for 14 hours or so a night, lighting up areas where hardly any cars go let alone people.

A visit to any neighbourhood hills, looking out over the valley where we live, shows the whole town lit up and further in the distance as well.
Now imagine this on a national scale, all over the country!
That's some energy the country's wasting, so why is the onus to save always on us, the individuals?

It is fair to say I am "out of touch" with most people, I grew up in the 1970's - in a family where traditional British occasions were celebrated - I was educated at schools where the facts behind those celebrated traditions were taught in history lessons.
When we had sprog 1, our new family continued those traditions and celebrations, right up until he hit 16 years of age, we still do in a smaller less spectacular way.

With a new baby in the house, I worry that these traditions will have all but vanished by the time she is of an age where she asks questions about them and can enjoy the celebrations that mark each of them.

Tonight, is bonfire night a time of great excitement for me as an English child, but as I stood out on the doorstep (smoking again) I cannot recall a bonfire night celebrated so little.
I expected at 8pm on bonfire night, for the sky to be lit up with all the fireworks, the echoing on the wind of excited voices of children, as fires are lit around the country, baked potatoes, cooked on the fire, bonfire or treacle toffee, toffee apples, etc, wonderful fare, to celebrate the stopping of the gunpowder plot.
Instead, what I witnessed was a lacklustre display of just five fireworks in the sky, the sounds of silence and nearby traffic was all that could be heard.
Once upon a time, and not that long ago, whole families would take a box of fireworks up to the local bonfire, built by the children of the area and containing stacks of waste and rubbish that the neighbourhood had given to the children to get rid of, the fire would be lit, all the parents set off their fireworks and the mums would present Parkin, treacle toffee, toffee apples, baked spuds cooked on the embers of the fire.

From 7pm to 11pm or 12pm, the families would straggle back to their homes, exhausted and full up, the children smelling of smoke with blackened faces and hands, with a new memory created, that would last for the rest of their life!

In today's Britain, it is all funfares that are held on council land that we already own and pay to maintain, charging us £2-£5 entry fee to get in and to watch some damp squib of a firework display which is so far away you cannot even see the smoke created by the fireworks. The rides that normally cost £1 (expensive enough) now charge the public sheep £2 a ride.
Even the huge bonfires that these displays used to light have now gone.
What has a funfare got to do with the gunpowder plot?

Bonfire night was a tradition that cost the price of a basic box of fireworks and the price of a few basic ingredients to make some bonfire toffee or toffee apples etc.
The traditional bonfire night is almost extinct, re-enacted only by people who have a small fires in their back gardens and involves buying in enough beer to get half the town tipsy, it is now called a "bonfire party!"

This year so far, we have had Christmas adverts on television before halloween, Christmas trees are being put up in shops and stores before a single firework is lit.
Halloween, we are told, is now an industry, (only because the businesses want to sell us something - sprog1 paid £40 for a £2 shirt with some fur attached to the chest - supposedly a werewolf - just for a halloween beer party!) The scenes at asda on saturday afternoon were sad, muppets clambering for £5 tubs of haribo sweets (containing £2 worth of sweets and full of additives) and tacky masks and everything deemed by the supermarket to be "spooky" - whilst alongside of them, asda staff put up a huge artificial Christmas tree and made a display of boxes of crackers, yet the sheeple didn't seem to be bothered by the lack of subtlety from the supermarket.
Before one celebration was even over, the next money making marketing target was being put into place.
I must be old fashioned, it offends me, if I am going to face marketing and advertising, at least let one essential occasion pass by, before force feeding me another essential occasion to buy things for!

Traditional, celebrated occasions in British life, are disappearing, which I personally think is an outrage!

Here's a cracking little tip I picked up today, about re-tuning your freeview box when you lose channels after the digital switch over in your area.

I have spent the past three weeks or so, running "update channels" or "search for new channels" on our Humax freeview recorder, when channels go missing from our freeview menu.
Yesterday, all the BBC channels went to a blank, black screen.
Fearing the worst, I contacted the manufacturers, only to find the answer was right under my nose all the time.

Don't ask me why, but if you go into your menu option on your freeview box, select "Restore to default factory settings" or manufacturers settings, etc, it will reboot and then search for channels again.
Hey presto, all my channels came back on in order and all working just fine!

As luck would have it, halfway through the football tonight, a neighbour came over asking if I knew how to tune a freeview box in, as they had lost all their BBC channels, they have a basic budget freeview box, however switching back to default settings, did the trick, all channels restored.
I was then informed that my neighbour's sister was having the same problem, a phone call later and she too was sorted out. Result!

The final episode of 7 days on the breadline, was more reflective of what has happened in the last two episodes, rather than anything that actually happened.

Mel B - had to face the wrath of a teenager so distant, it sometimes seems like they are in another world altogether (we have all been there Mel!)
One of the teens Mel was caring for, did not want to know at all, mouthing obscenities at at Mel and a friend of his mums, which at first I didn't understand why.
Then when they spoke to him it became clear, that he resented Mel drifting off into Leeds until midnight, leaving a carer looking after the family, not spending enough time with them all and just playing to the cameras, which, judging by the way Mel B occasionally disappeared, could well have been accurate.

Austin Healey experienced the exhasperating feeling of a teenager, who is a bit of a lad, settling and doing well, showing their good side (daily visits to grandad, etc.) then when all seemd to be going great and new promises made of a better way of doing things, the teen "does one" and doesn't come home in time for his curfew, ruining all the great work and promises he has done and made.
Austin summed it up perfectly I thought - "if I feel desperation and let down by this, for the first time, how many times has his mum felt like this?"

Trinny, had a few heart to hearts with the elderly disabled lady she was caring for. Past memories were exchanged on both sides, but she did get her host out and about, a great effort to change her ways, then let all her work down by registering her on an over 60s dating website...

Saving the best for last, Keith Allen, who had lived in a 2 bedroomed council property, sharing it with six children of varying ages.
I like Keith, he has spent the week (from what we have seen) displaying common sense and encouraging the kids to support each other and the value of the family unit! (Right up my street that is)
He took the youngest kids to record a song they had written, of course it was bland, but they had done it themselves. The bigger kids sniggered on their return, but then Keith pointed out that the youngsters look up to them and needed their encouragement.
Over the seven days, he cleaned, he pestered the local authority to rehouse them and get rid of their rats, he tried to live as they do, he even came in £9 under budget for the week!

The only sad part for me, was the responses of those people who had allowed the "celebs" into their homes and live as they do for the week.
Mel B's swapper said that she was hearing things that she wasn't told about when Mel was there and Keith's mum whom he swapped with, told us "it won't change anything, it was good but things will stay exactly the same!"

A shame, because he shone a torch on the dark tunnel of of self improvement and they let the batteries run out!