Tag: pay

Payday

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It’s felt a long time coming, but finally the best day of the month is here: payday! Can’t decide what we’re going to buy first – lights, worktop cutting, flooring. Tiles? Floorboards? Still can’t decide for the kitchen. The list goes on. Seriously, the list goes on so long we’re dedicating about three months of combined wages to it, just for what we want to do immediately!

I’m in a lottery syndicate at work and with the triple Euromillion rollover on Tuesday (which we sadly didn’t win), we were inevitably discussing what we would do with the (£4.85m each) winnings. Barry wouldn’t be finishing the kitchen himself, that’s for sure! In fact, we wouldn’t need this kitchen because I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t want to live in a semi-detached with that kind of dough. It’s another rollover tonight, and we’ll be playing again.

Imagine the house you could have with that kind of money. It blows your mind: you could actually have anything you wanted. I’m pretty happy with the kitchen choice though, so I may actually may buy it again with my imaginary winnings. We’d definitely be having an island…

I was all ready to write another ranting post about the tap situation last night. On our way to the cinema, we had a few minutes to kill, so we nipped into B&Q across the road to collect our cooker hood filters and ask about the tap. After spending more than a reasonable amount of time staring at the selection available, the only tap that matched the sink we have, other than the one we’d chosen, was just over twice the price. Our original tap was £89, and this one was £179.

We had a really nice member of staff helping us. He got a cherry picker to lift him and the new tap up, to check what it looked like next to our sink (which was inevitably 5m up, the furthest up). We all agreed it matched. Then came the hard part. As we’d already arranged finance for the rest of the kitchen, with the other outgoings we have this month, we weren’t happy to fork over the difference in cash for a supplier issue that wasn’t our fault. If we’d known when ordering that the tap we’d wanted was unavailable, we’d have picked the only other tap that matched and it would have been price matched. We offered Jason K (the lovely, patient member of staff) another option: get the tap we do want transferred from another store. I think Romford had the only remaining tap in the country. This was apparently impossible due to paperwork.

We did point out that, along with it being the only other mono brushed effect tap (I know all the lingo now), we are currently washing up in the bath, and we were the ones that had noticed the tap had been missing; we hadn’t been told before the delivery had arrived (or even with the delivery). I also pointed out several things were wrong with the order, they price-matched Wickes anyway, so if we knew the original one was out of stock we’d only have chosen this one anyway, and Barry made the observation that we’d spent quite a bit on a kitchen that we may have to return…

Jason called his manager a couple of times to explain the situation, but because she couldn’t (wouldn’t?) come down to speak to us, she couldn’t see that we weren’t just some grabbing couple who had decided to jump from a mid- to top-range tap with no reason. I felt a bit sorry for him at that point, because I know he would have just given us the tap (not just to get rid of us, he genuinely believed we had a good point).

Jason carefully wrote down our issues, and many reasons, and said he’d get back to us tomorrow. We went to the cinema (This Means War, quite funny), and when we came out, a voicemail from Jason was waiting.

He’d sorted it with the manager! Hooray for Jason! While we were in the area, we asked if we could come straight over to collect it, and so we did. It even comes with its own soft cover.

Chalk one for B&Q customer services; they should promote Jason.

 

Money makes the world go around

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Or so Liza Minnelli tells us.

We’re selling everything we’re ripping out of the kitchen/bathroom on eBay to recoup some of the costs of renovating and decorating.  Barry’s started everything at 1p though, so we might not get enough to pay for a tin of paint!  So far we’ve listed the loo (which I thought would get no bids as it’s used, but strangely, several people have shown interest!), sink, three radiators and two doors.  We’ll list the kitchen, oven and hob as soon as we’ve taken them out.

Like most people, we’re having to prioritise what we want to pay for each month, as it’s not realistic to buy everything all at once.  This month’s big buy was the downpayment on the kitchen, and we’ve also stretched to the radiator as well as paint for the living room, and bags of plaster.  As an aside, we’ve put up the radiator we bought and Barry’s discovered it has a hole in it, bloody eBay!  Trying to sort that now, but it will involve bleeding all of the other radiators, and then doing it all again when the new one arrives.  I hope it’s soon, my toes are looking a bit frostbitten.

Back to money!  Next month will probably be more paint and the kitchen flooring, and the month after we’ll be able to get the living room flooring.  This doesn’t even include the annoying inexpensive but numerous items like radiator valves, paint testers and sandpaper.  Not sure when we’ll be purchasing the tumble dryer and microwave and the myriad accessories we need (ok, want).

It’s maddening for me not to be able to complete a room at a time: the living room just needs the skirting boards and doors painting, new flooring and the photos and frames sorting and it’s mostly done (still got those pesky units to sort).  In the meantime, we’ve started on the kitchen because of the time constraints with the units.  I think there may have to be a break at some point (mental or otherwise).  Although we’ve got tester paint on the bedroom wall, we might have a month off after all this (although that could be four or five months down the line).

When I get to that point, what will I write about?  I’ve asked one of my friends to give me a picture of her heinous patterned carpet (her opinion, not mine, I haven’t seen it!); I think there’s at least one post about what people could possibly be thinking when they buy them.

K -5 days…