Ryan Air

Aw man, some discount airlines just plain suck. As a side note, I've plain out refused to book with RyanAir, mainly because I hear that they are shit, but mainly because they recently decided to have an online vote to determine where their newly imposed extra fee should lay - and the savvy internet users decided to add that extra fee for plus-size passengers (ie. those whose hips touch both armrests). Now, I am on the heavier side, but certainly not enough to impede the comfort of my fellow airplane riders, and I would refuse to be embarassed by paying an extra fee.

I understand that horribly obese people cause a major problem for those around them, as they sort of, spill onto their seat-mates.

Okay, back to the point. My friends who were visiting were out in Edinburgh touristing and on their way to Belfast. They were flying with... ta-da!... RyanAir. No problem, dirt cheap flight, and they both have tiny hips. :)

However, they weren't aware of the baggage restrictions on RyanAir (and I wasn't either), and unfortunately they were (combined) over 10kgs over the 15kg per person limit. The damage? A whopping £150 fee for the baggage. That's right, RyanAir charges a whopping (yes, I know I've said whopping twice now - it's that, well, whopping!) £15 per kilo that a piece of luggage is overweight. Splitting it up won't work either, because while you can have up to 3 pieces, the combined weight has to be less than 15kg.

They paid it, begrudgingly (not sure about the spelling on that one). I think, if I had no time constraints, I might have just walked over to another counter to see if I could book a flight with another company for less than £150. Either way, that's rough.

Plus, now they've got to figure out what to do for the flight from Belfast back to London to see me. They'll obviously be overweight again, and if they paid another £150, that's just plain rediculous. That's over $600 Canadian dollars! Man alive. I suggested that they pack and mail a box to me in London, as it would probably get here before they left on July 16th, but again, they could just pack and mail a box back home. It's rough. Funny how some of these things that are meant to save money end up costing more and more with each fine print.

So really. Book with RyanAir, but for the love of god (and your pocketbook!), read the fine print. It might save you a whole lot of cash! Have you ever used RyanAir or something comparable?

Scammed

My poor flatmate and his friend have just been scammed out of tickets to see The Killers on Friday. I feel bad for him, as its become a hectic scramble to find new tickets, plus sort out the chaos with their CC issuer for what I can hope will be a full refund. However, I also feel the nagging urge to lecture people about internet safety.

I consider myself reasonably adept at computers. On a scale of 1-10, where 1 being never used a computer and 10 being able to hack into a government database, I can safely rate myself a 6-7. I'm fully capable of blowing off and rebuilding a pc from scratch, and consider myself very savvy at using the internet. As much as I'd love the knowledge of major computer hacking, I've never found a useful medium for learning such things without the fear of making a mistake and accidentally erasing my registry (or something equally heart-breaking. Nothing like the Blue Screen of Death.)

Add my internet savvy-ness with a healthy fear of losing my money and a reluctance to trust other people, and I've become quite the leery shopper. I very rarely buy things online anymore, mainly because London has so much to offer. However, back home in Calgary, sometimes I chose eBay over Walmart and other equally boring stores in my search for unique things.

If you must visit it out of curiosity, the fraudulent website in question is Hyde Park Tickets. While my flatmate argued that it was a proffesional-looking website and his friend trusted it, there are several things that put me off this website - most of which were found within a quick 2-minute look.

Now, a lot of these don't raise any alarms on their own (well, a couple do), but when noticed all together it can be rather fishy. A-hem.

1) The website address is "Hyde Park Box Office" but the company name is "Hyde Park Tickets". In fact, both hydeparktickets.com and hydeparkboxoffice.com both link to an almost identical (but not the same) website. While big companies like Apple have purchased links such as ipod.com, they will link directly to the main website (or a sub-section of that website), not to a brand new website.

2) Under the "Contact Us" button - there is nothing except for a submit form. No phone number, no e-mail address (except for info@hydeparktickets.com - no mention of whether it is checked or just an automated e-mail system). While many website have opted for this type of form, for a legitimate business with a legitimate office, they will include a contact phone number or address.

3) They can't make up their mind on ticket prices. When I visit "hydeparkboxoffice.com", the ticket price is £65, while on their sister site, "hydeparktickets.com", the price is £45. Right then and there I would take my pounds elsewhere. But, just for fun, let's keep going.

4) Here's something fun. When I receive those annoying "faux-bank-account-crisis" e-mails in my spam e-mail account, I like to click on them and fill out fake information. 100% of the time, if it is a fake website, they will let you "log in" with any information, because they have no way to check its authenticity. Well guess what, this website does that, too. I just finished filling in a fake form, including fake name, address, phone number, CREDIT CARD (including fake - and invalid - expiration date and authenticity code). And it worked. Now, I'm sure that many websites do the same - accepting CC information without making charges right away - however, this just adds to the already very suspicious list of strange things.

And finally, the cherry on the top:

5) A quick Google search seals the deal. What did I ever do without Google? It's hard to imagine my life without it. It's that sad. Either way, I typed in "HydeParkBoxOffice Fraud" and got 6 hits. A search on "HydeParkTickets.com Fraud Scam" and got well over 107 hits, mainly forums, all with users poor reviews of buying tickets through these sites and, while being charged on their credit cards, never received the tickets. While 1 poor review isn't always enough to keep me from buying from someone (especially through eBay, as people can sometimes hold grudges and leave poor reviews for no cause), 107 pages of poor reviews is enough to turn me off forever.

Now, I've spent most of my adult (and teen... and childhood) life on computers, and have learned the ins and outs of the internet. I understand and respect that not everyone used computers as much as I do, but the internet can be just as dangerous as it is lovely. There are real people lurking out there, eagerly fighting others to take your money, with or without your permission. While there is no guidebook for internet use, a quick Google search could very well save a lot of stress, let alone your money.

Any other tips and tricks that you use to detect and avoid the fraud and scams out there?

Arguing about Apples

My life has been quite hectic over the last money with so many visits from friends. It has been stressful and wonderful and above all, very very busy.

Other than the boring basics, I would like to share a recent argument I had with one of my visit friends, over something that would seem quite trivial, but really aggravated me.

We are at the grocery store buying some food for the following week while her and her boyfriend are staying with me - we are all buying food seperately, so it's not really any of my business, but here goes.

She goes to buy apples - debating over which kind of apples to buy, when they finally decide on a brand. She goes to pick up a carton of 4 pre-packaged apples, for a cost of £2.64. I point out that a bag of 6 identical apples is on sale half-price for £1.60ish. She turns around and tells me that she only needs 4 apples, and should buy the carton instead. I immediately give her a strange look and point out that the other bag is more than £1 cheaper than the other, and that she'd be getting more. She gives me a bit of attitude and says that no, she only needs 4 apples. And in the meantime I'm thinking Right, I know, but you could do something else with the other 2 apples, like give them to me, or my housemates, or the birds! Yikes.

I didn't press the matter further, for a couple reasons. First of all, she can be quite quite stubborn and argumentative, plus it's her money, and really, I didn't want to press the matter. But seriously, it would'be been such an simple answer for me - buy the cheaper bag, and eat as many apples as I could and toss the rest - all while saving over £1 - $2 in Canadian money.

She is trying so hard to save money and be frugal while out here, and while I didn't want to push the matter, it seems quite, well, stupid to me to spend money unneccesarily while on vacation. Especially on something like apples. Hmmm.

Am I crazy? It seems odd that I was quite worked up over it, but it frustrated me to no end. Argh.

Spoke too soon

Well I got the quote from the camera repair place, and it's not pretty. Unfortunately they didn't tell me what exactly was wrong with the lens, just what they were going to go and the parts that needed replacing. I e-mailed them back to see if I could get a direct answer from them, but for now, I know that the labor and parts on the lens alone add up to £291.65. That's over £130 in parts and another £90 in labor, not including 15% VAT. Plus, that's not a final count. If I okay the repairs and they find more stuff wrong that value could go up. 

At this rate, it's more worth my while to get a new lens bought for me back home at the Canadian cost of $750 or about (£370), rather than paying almost £300 in repairs and risk the chance that they could find something new that's wrong and have that figure jump higher than the cost of purchasing a new one. Fortunately I have a group of friends coming to visit me on the 9th of June, and they could bring me a new lens. 

It's very frustrating and upsetting - mainly because this could've been completely avoided if I had just been more careful. Somehow its not really the money - about a month ago I had come to terms with the fact that I might need to replace my laptop while I was here - but that was because it was a pos and Vista sucks, not because I threw it down the stairs. It's the same amount of money, yet the fact that it is my fault makes it that much worse. Plus now, I'm going to be without a camera for the next 3 weeks - a HUGE amount of time for me. 

Either way, it sucks. A lot. So very very much. But, I guess it's just one of those things that happens. Not the end of the world I guess. 

Back from Vacation Land!

Hello! I am just starting to get readjusted to home life after a whirlwind of a month of vacation with my mother and aunt. As a quick recap, I'll go over quickly what we did:

My Mom and aunt arrived on the 25th of April. We spent the weekend in London before hopping an early morning train on Monday to Salisbury. We spent three nights at a lovely B&B in Salisbury, sightseeing and spending one day out to see Stonehenge. Thursday we took the train from Salisbury to Bath, where we spent two nights at another B&B. The first couple of days we sightsaw (is that even a word?!) around Bath. I saw the Roman Baths and the Salisbury Cathedral. The final day, before we returned to London, we took a day trip out to see Avebury Stone Circle, Stonehenge (again!), and two little villages called Castle Combe and Lacock. We took a late train back to London that night. 

We arrived back in London on May 2nd, and spent the next 9 days in London. We took one day trip out to see a village called St. Alban's, but other than that we toured around London. 

On May 11th, my aunt flew home and my mother and I flew to Edinburgh. My aunt had limited vacation time, while my mother had more, so she opted to stay longer. We spent 4 nights in Edinburgh and toured the city. We saw the several castles, a beach (I know!), the Royal Mile, and took a trip out to see Rosslyn Chapel. Very lovely. 

From Friday night on my mom and I spent the next 4-5 days in London. We saw some new parts of London, like the far East docklands and deep into the South Bank, which was a nice change for me from the usual. She flew home on Wednesday the 20th and I have just started readjusting to non-vacation life again. 

The month didn't hurt me as bad as I thought it was going to after the first week. Looking at the money we spent in our first week in Salisbury and Bath (which was more than I had planned!) threw me off, although I recuperated well and spent very little while in London. Edinburgh was also reasonably cheap - the flights cost less than 80 quid each and my lovely mother treated me to the B&B. 

It was a bit strange, thought, being treated to things again. Here, on my own, no one buys me things - we also buy ourselves dinner when we go out, and I'm not much of a dater. It was nice to have people buy me things, and lovely, but it also felt a bit awkward, especially when I know my mother worked hard to save money and come here. 

All in all I finished £855 shorter than I started the month with (and I got a paycheque from the old job, too) - and I'm waiting for my awful camera repair quote to come (eeek!). I'm pleased that I had an awesome vacation without going too much overboard.

It's also nice to know that I still have £6,527.96 left to last me. I'm glad to know that even with pumped up spending over the summer I could survive until the end of January 2010 without working again. Of course I am going to seek out work, most likely starting in August, and with that extra money I should live comfortably until I am ready to go home next spring. 

In the meantime, I am comfortably surfing the next week, waiting patiently for my camera repair bill (uuugh...) and looking forward to more friend visits next month!

It's been forever since I posted, and I won't apologize since it seems pointless (even though I am sorry). I hope you all know how much I still love reading your blogs, and that it's been a very hectic two months. I have gone on a whirlwind trip of England with my family and am expecting more whirlwindedness over the next month with visits from friends. 

I am catching up on my budget, having fared reasonably well over the vacation season. I dropped my camera in the Edinburgh airport, resulting in some major damage to a major lens, with, other than resulting in many tears and curse words, will most likely result in a hefty repair bill. We'll see.

For now, know that I am still around, and still catch up with your lives on a daily basis. Adieu.

April Fool's!

Hello everyone and welcome to April Fool's Day! Now that I've been paid and settled and everything, I thought it was about time to do my March re-cap. 

I didn't do great in March, I ended up over-budget, and it was all because of food. I bought and ate way too much food, as well as went out too much. I don't often eat out, mainly because I don't have a lot of outside work and flat friends, but I did end up going out a couple times with friends to celebrate random things, and that all adds up - especially at the end of the month when I know I have no money left.

So, in all its glory, here is where I stood at the end of the month:

So there it is. It would be, in fact more than that, if I hadn't had some extra cash gifted to me, which I used almost exclusively on food. Food seems, now, like such a waste of money, since it's not something that sticks around... it's just fuel. 

Don't get me wrong, I love food - and I enjoy food a lot, but I can't keep spending so much money on snacking. I've been good the last week when it comes to food (mainly since I had no money left!)

I'm still toying with my budget for April. I have extra money set aside for the spring (to the tune of £1,500 - but I'm not sure how to work it into a budget. I think that I will create two budgets, one to cover the basics then another one specially designed for the trip. I'm already starting to buy things now for the trip, including plane tickets and boots and such, and it seems odd to ding my curent budget and drain it of all its fun money to buy things for next month. 

We'll see how it works out! Will definitely be better than March, though. :) 

Credit Reports and the likes

While I'm a bit of a space cadet tonight (I don't really know why, I'm just all over the place), I'd really like to write a post. I don't think my brain can sit still long enough for a well thought-out post, so I'd like to share with you some thoughts that I've had recently:

I just looked up my credit report through Equifax (I opted for the paid one, rather than have one sent to my house in Canada where I am not)... and I'm pleased to announce that my FICO score has risen from 744 to 756! I have now officially jumped to the 'average' section from last year's appearance in the 'slightly below average'. It would be higher if I hadn't forgotten about a measly $10 I had charged on an HSBC card and paid 1 day late (back in 2006). Oopsie!

Other than that I like to know that everything is in order, which it is, although they still list my employment as Subway, when it hasn't been Subway in a while. Not sure if it's worth it to change it when I'm not working at all in Canada.

I have many credit cards on file (6 in total!), and I only use one of them regulary. Not sure if I should close the rest when I get home, especially since some of them (like the HSBC one), I've long since destroyed the card. Hmmm. 

My flatmate has just left back home to South Africa to scramble to apply for a Highly Skilled Migrant Visa before the end of March, since the UK Goverment has changed the rules and he would no longer be eligible under the new rules. He is still waiting on one last peice of documentation which was supposed to come in the mail Friday (and didn't...), so we're hoping it comes tomorrow and if it does I will have to scramble down to the Post Office and send it as fast as I can to South Africa. I am stressed for him, because I think at this point I would be a wreck of stress if I were him. 

I made sushi today! And I didn't do as miserable of a job as I thought! Yay! I made the rice a-ok, although it was a bit too soft I think (less water next time), and made one roll with crab and avocado and cucumber, and another with salmon (I used trimmings.... not as good as salmon steaks, but I didn't want to spend the $$ on high-grade salmon) and cucumber, and I made a couple hand rolls with shrimp. I'm very much pleased. I bought a big thing of Kikoman soy sauce (sooo good), although it was a bit too dark, it was very satisfying. I didn't buy any wasabi or ginger, since I don't really like either. My only problem was the knife - way too dull. I'm going to need a sharper knife next time around, as I pretty much butchered the sushi trying to cut it. I'm sure Waitrose or M&S has a cheap, sharp knife around. 

Other than that, It cost me around £20 for the following:

• 2 packs of seaweed sheets (10 per pack)
  
• 1 box of sushi rice (will need to buy more, cheaper at the asian grocery store)
  
• 1 cucumber
  
• 1 avocado
  
• 1 bunch of spring onions
  
• 1 pack of crab-sticks
  
• 1 pack of salmon trimmings
  
• 1 pack of pre-cooked shrimp
  
• 1 huge bottle of soy sauce
  
• 1 pack of chopsticks (can't eat sushi with a fork!)
  
• 2 mini plates
  
• 1 tiny bowl for soy sauce
  
• 1 wooden paddle
  
• 1 bottle of rice vinegar
  
• 1 wooden bamboo rolling mat
  
• 1 bag of sesame seeds
  
• 1 packaged of unagi (seasoned eel)
  

I already had:

• Salt
  
• Sugar
  
• Pots
  
• Knife (although this one was no good)
  

Other than the rice, which will only do me another 3 or 4 rolls (1 c of rice or so), the rest will either do me permanently (chopsticks and plates), or a long time. I still have almost all of the veggies and sauces left. As well, I only used 2.5 sheets of sushi nori (seaweed). I would've only used 1.5 sheets, but I got water on one and ruined it by making it soggy.

I could probably spent the next week eating sushi without using all this up. It took quite a while, especially since I haven't made it in such a long time. Once I get better prepared I'm sure it'll go by faster. But, when I could spent £20 on one night of sushi, £20 for a week isn't too bad. Espeically when £6 of that went directly on some frozen seasoned unagi (eel). Mmmmm unagi. Can't wait to break that shit out. It's gonna be AWESOME!

I'm also glad to report that right now I've got a grand total of £7,507.61 in the bank. AND I haven't get gotten paid by the job, which (hopefully), will bump it up to over £8,000. Anyways. This all means that even if I spend double my budget for April and May (which is what I've planned), I can freaking make it to NOVEMBER on my current money and budget. HOLY CRAP! This just keeps getting better and better. 

During a low time a couple of weeks ago, when the old housemate was really killing my drive to live here (he was a partier/alcoholic - listening to shit dance music and getting out of control and abnoxious - THANK GOD he's gone!), I was really considering coming home sooner rather than later, and I did, at one point, tell my mom that I was thinking of coming home next January, rather than waiting until the summer when my VISA expired. She was pretty bummed, as I think she was planning to come out and visit me again in the spring. She loves it here, and as she doesn't have a whole lot of money, basically said that 'while I'm out here she's got a reason to visit when she shouldn't spend the money'. Now I don't want to be the reason for my mother getting in debt, but she's pretty much going to do it anyways. Now that the horrible roommate has left I'm loving it here again, and am planning to stick it out as long as I can. 

On a completely OTHER note, several of the people that have lived in this house waaaay before I got here (think at least 2 years ago), have gotten increasingly threatening letters from collection agencies about overdue debts. We used to just toss old housemate mail up on top of one of the cabinets, but I cleaned out and decided to send them all back. I opened a couple that were damaged, and that's how I learned about the debts. One guy owes a couple hundred quid, while another owes almost £3,500 to some phone company. No one has called the house as far as I'm concerned, but since we have no answering machine they might for all I know. However I just got a letter today, and peeked through the clear stuff to read "DOORSTEP COLLECTION NOTICE" in BIG red letters. Well shit. I don't want these people coming to MY HOUSE to collect debt for someone who doesn't even live here anymore. I'm not sure what to do. I'm going to send the letter back (I always write "DOESN'T LIVE HERE. NO FORWARDING ADDRESS" on all of them, but it doesn't seem to work). I'm just worried that someone will show up at the house and be mean and agressive. That scares me. I'm not sure what to do! Has anyone has this problem?

I mean, for all I know no one will be here when these people come. Everyone except me works 9-5 jobs, and I'm usually our touristing during the day, so none of us are home until the evenings, but if they came in the evenings, what would happen? I hope they would be nice and leave when I tell them that this person doesn't live here, but if they think I'm lying or harboring this guy? Gaaah! Why can't people just pay their freaking debts! Any suggestions? I guess I could pass on the land lady's contact information and hope that they leave ME alone, but I'm not sure she would appreciate that. They were HER tenants, though - she might have more information. 

Hmmm... what other news to share?! OH!

I bought some UGG boots last week. I know, I think they are ugly too, but have you ever worn them? It's like walking on clouds made of fog. lol. What an image. Anyways, I was looking at their fuzzy-lined rubber boots, since I need a good pair of rubber boots, but I couldn't even get my feet in them (big feet!), so I ended up buying a pair of fitted, slip on leather boots with the fuzzy lining. The damage? £146. Ouch. Yep.

I ended up taking them back 2 days later. I wore them around the house a bit and just decided that they weren't worth the price. I can buy cheap rubber boots for like, £20, and then just buy fuzzy socks. It's funny, I spent a lot of time in the store chatting with the sales lady, who actually ended up going into the back and pulling some of last years old stock for me to try on. She was exceptionally helpful and sweet, and I feel bad since she probably lost out on some comission, but I just couldn't swallow the price. Especially when the UGG boots that are £146 here, are only $146 back home. Same price, different currency. That basically means I'm essentially paying double. Yikes. 

I think by the time I had riden the hour-long bus home I had decided to take them back. And I absolutely HATE taking things back, since I avoid conflict, but everyone was quite sweet. And I had a huge sense of relief when I left the mall, which I take as a good sign. 

I'm still on the hunt for good boots, and will resume hunting next week. 

I have also received my tax refund, which was a fat $1,500. I find this impressive, especially since I don't contribute to an RRSP (I know, BAD pf-blogger!). This means that my office-job was WAY over-taxing me - since I usually only get about $600 back. Yeeeesh! This did help, since it bought me another month in the UK (or the inevitable flight home... lol). I haven't done my UK taxes yet, as the tax year doesn't end until April. I will get my P60 in the mail soonish, and will have to figure out how the hell to do my taxes after that. I don't think I will be entitled to a huge refund through the UK, since I've paid barely any taxes. 

I got a lovely £20 gift voucher from my job this week, as a reward for all us being awesome and winning some competition. I also traded in a bunch of my unused Nintendo DS games that I brought with me (most I haven't touched in over 6 months!), and got £51 on another voucher! I used part of this month to buy a new DS game: Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars! I'm very much enjoying it, and will definitely get my money's worth out of it. I still have £41 on the gift card, so I'll be able to buy some stuff in the future. I'm resisting the temptation to blow it all on crap I don't need and save it for things I need - like when my headphones eventually break. Heh. 

Well, I think that's enough rambling for one afternoon. I'm struggling to put concrete, coherent sentances together anymore, and I'm sure my spelling is getting to be atrocious. Maybe I'm hyped up on too much sushi! Either way, I'm very much looking forward to more sushi tomorrow.... after I find a better knife. 

Thanks for reading this far, you're a star!

Steps to Home Ownership

Gail Vaz-Oxlade has written an excellent post about the steps to home ownership. It's in my future goals to own a home, in fact, I'd like to own  one before I'm 30, which is approx 6 years away. If I start to save for an eventual downpayment when I get home (in 2010), that gives me 5 years. 

However, this article really enlightened me about the true costs being buying a home. Of course, things like the cost of new furniture/dishes/other household items, as well as the obvious (bills, mortgage, etc), things like 'closing costs' and other home-buying fees didn't cross my mind. 

I'm really going to have to sit down in the future and budget a future plan for my home-buying adventure. Check out the article if you're thinking of buying a home in the future. 

Snacking

Okay, I'll admit it. I'm a snacker. I enjoy snacking, whether it's on mini-oranges (I can eat them like potato chips!), or on potato chips, toast, candies, whatever really. I find that especially when I'm bored or stressed, I find that I turn to snacking as a way to release stress and waste time. 

I'm also horribly impatient and have a bad attention span, so I have to be multi-tasking all the time. I find movie theatres, while a lot of fun, boring sometimes because I have nothing to do with my hands. I think that's why people like eating popcorn so much, as it takes so long. I don't like popcorn, though. 

(For example, right now, I'm watching Top Gear on tele, surfing the net (blogging), waiting for dinner to be cooked and chatting with my housemates). And i'm still a bit bored.

What is the point, you ask? Well, this snacking has put quite a large dent in my food budget. In fact, so much so that I've eaten all but £16 in my food budget for the month. In fact, I ate about £8 of junk food in the past day and a half. Not good. Not good for me, or my budget. Junk food is expensive. Boo.

On another front, over the past 3 weeks, I've managed to work pretty much full-time (not too bad for only 1 guaranteed day a week!), which will make for a pretty paycheque at the end of this month. I've only got 3 more dedicated shifts at the store before I leave at the end of March for vacation fun-time, which is sad since I'll miss everyone there. 

On another good note, our store won a contest back in January, and as such, we all got £20 gift vouchers! Woo hoo! And I know exactly what I'm going to buy: The new Grand Theft Auto game for the Nintendo DS. Call me what you want, I loooove video games. Especially Grand Theft Auto.

I hope it doesn't suck.