What Preps are you doing this week? Part 10

[jansman]

Talking of finance preps, I've got an ISA with one of the building societies that are offering 9% p.a. interest (on a maximum £50 a month, so it's not massive). But still worth doing, it's double the rate for anything else.

A personal finance decision: I was going to buy the dvd/download of Don't Look Up, that apocalypse film starring Jennifer Lawrence and Hoosit DiCaprio, but I've just found out the director is a major donor to Just Stop Oil. I'm not contributing to his profits or viewing figures like that! I'll wait till it gets sold to a tv station, and watch it for free.

And thanks for the positive reaction Arzosah.

[Peter]

I processed enough firewood yesterday to see us through two months when burning starts again. And we use it,our burners are not high day and holiday. A good job done there. I am getting smokeless fuel in too. It is possible that the price may drop,but actual availablity is more my interest to be fair.

We’ve just had a phone call from our coal merchant ( coals2u ), with the summer offers, plenty of stock at the moment, the stoveheat premium we burn is nearly £700 a tonne, as we need it anyway we may as well have it a little cheaper.

Due to our age we can’t do a lot of things we used to, so we’ve found a few reliable tradesmen (usually word of mouth) covering as many things as we can think of, these are listed in a special folder and their numbers are plumbed into the phone.

The only preps this week are some lithium batteries, AA and AAA, they are for longtime use, as they can be recharged 2000 times, that’s every day for 5 1/2 years. They are less liable to leak than nickel/cadmium ones, but you must use the proper charger. My little EDC torch (olite) takes a single AAA battery and lasts weeks (occasional use but always in my pocket) on a single charge.

[Yorkshire Andy]

Picked up some more solar lights for the garden. Found Lidl had some solar wall lights on offer buy one get one half price so £22 ISH for 2

So far they look better than the older more industrial units I had up before glass panel should make them more efficient as the placcy ones go yellow with age old light that's been up a few years is tired and had several dead LEDs inside now

Currently mounted with vhb tape till I see how the sun hits them tried to keep them under the back door rain canopy enough to keep the worst of the weather off them

Added bonus is they have a slide off bracket so can easily fetch inside if the power goes off after dark

[Arzosah]

Couple of preps going on for me:
- found a site called Fishing Republic, with a nicely designed portable camping toilet on sale at £14. Plus an old-fashioned (non-mummy) sleeping bag, 2 seasons only, at £12. Couple of ice packs for the cooler (for when I get the car!) and a "fine knit" beanie - I like the sound of that. 10% off welcome, free delivery, it came to £32.62, which I think is spectacular. Toilet can be stored in the small brick shed, which I've realised I don't actually use.

- finance prep - saw a news article that said some building societies are opening Regular Savers at 9% pa. - and on researching found that I had an account with one of them, which qualified me to open this new account. It accepts up to £50 a month, which isn't huge, but *is* doable. Just funded it today, once I know its working smoothly, I'll set up the next 11 payments to go automatically.

- I have a refresher driving lesson booked! For next Monday - I'm getting a bit spooked about not having any transport. There are all sorts of prepping reasons to get a car - there are out of the way shops I'd like to visit, there are foraging and PYO sites I'd like to visit too. But a big family prep is that my sister has had several health scares recently, and I'm the only person who's easily available to drive her - she relied on a local friend one time for the driving, and I stayed with her while she recovered from the anaesthetic she had, but I'd like to take care of the whole thing for her, the way she takes care of me when I need that kind of stuff.

- I had to buy glasses I got my eyes tested in case I needed to for driving. I don't, but I'm having trouble with reading small print

[Peter]

I never knew about Fishing Republic, but having been on the site just for camping stuff there should
be something for everybody.

[itsybitsy]

Talking of finance preps, I've got an ISA with one of the building societies that are offering 9% p.a. interest (on a maximum £50 a month, so it's not massive). But still worth doing, it's double the rate for anything else.

A personal finance decision: I was going to buy the dvd/download of Don't Look Up, that apocalypse film starring Jennifer Lawrence and Hoosit DiCaprio, but I've just found out the director is a major donor to Just Stop Oil. I'm not contributing to his profits or viewing figures like that! I'll wait till it gets sold to a tv station, and watch it for free.

9% - where do I go for 9%?!

Also, kudos on the Just Stop Oil protest.

[Arzosah]

Talking of finance preps, I've got an ISA with one of the building societies that are offering 9% p.a. interest (on a maximum £50 a month, so it's not massive). But still worth doing, it's double the rate for anything else.

A personal finance decision: I was going to buy the dvd/download of Don't Look Up, that apocalypse film starring Jennifer Lawrence and Hoosit DiCaprio, but I've just found out the director is a major donor to Just Stop Oil. I'm not contributing to his profits or viewing figures like that! I'll wait till it gets sold to a tv station, and watch it for free.

9% - where do I go for 9%?!

Ah! I've just been having a little saga about that. Turns out you have to have been a building society member on 1 June 2022, and I didn't join till November 2022. Barstewards they sent me an internal message about how to fund the account 2 days after I joined, which was so badly worded it took 3 hours to do the deed. And when it arrived, the first thing they did was send it back to me I phoned, found out the above, and complained, asking for £10 compensation, which I think it very minimalist of me we'll see what they do. Their reviews on Trustpilot are appalling, for a registered building society.

Here's Martin's standard savings page https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savin ... -interest/

and this is the page that mentions my 9% interest account https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savin ... -accounts/

Boy, there's a lot of faffing to be done.

Also, kudos on the Just Stop Oil protest.

Thanks we have to vote with our money in the end. If I can find somewhere of *theirs* to write, I might write and tell them that actions have consequences

[Frnc]

If I can find somewhere of *theirs* to write, I might write and tell them that actions have consequences

If you want to debate JSO's tactics with them, twitter is the place to go. I don't know how likely they are to reply, but you can post on their threads. Also you can see what scientists are saying. And you could search the internet for opinion polls on the subject. Another issue is recent legislation. Also there have been studies done by academics regarding the effect of direct action on public support for a cause. eg https://theconversation.com/just-stop-o ... nce-192901
"a professor of cognitive psychology, I know that we don’t have to rely on intuition – these are hypotheses that can be tested"

There are differences of opinion within the movement, eg Rupert Reed believes XR needs to become more moderate.

[Arzosah]

If you want to debate JSO's tactics with them, twitter is the place to go. I don't know how likely they are to reply, but you can post on their threads. Also you can see what scientists are saying. And you could search the internet for opinion polls on the subject.

I wouldn't dream of doing any of that, Frnc, especially not to debate their methods, which appall me, I don't even like internet discussions with people I agree with. I go on to twitter a couple of times a day, mostly for #sophiefromromania, a rescue dog trying to settle in to life in the UK, and #catsoftwitter

[Frnc]

If you want to debate JSO's tactics with them, twitter is the place to go. I don't know how likely they are to reply, but you can post on their threads. Also you can see what scientists are saying. And you could search the internet for opinion polls on the subject.

I wouldn't dream of doing any of that, Frnc, especially not to debate their methods, which appall me, I don't even like internet discussions with people I agree with. I go on to twitter a couple of times a day, mostly for #sophiefromromania, a rescue dog trying to settle in to life in the UK, and #catsoftwitter

Well, just to leave them the message you said you wanted to leave. Some of their tweets have hundreds of replies though, presumably they don't read all of them.