John Large ⁽¹²⁸⁾

iMac 24" Ready to unpack Well it has been a crazy month of new things. Firstly the month has seen me in and out of the doctors with headaches, which we have concluded is down to stress, and a weak right eye which is being irritated by using a screen all day. So I now have two pairs of posh designer glasses to wear which has already made a big difference, meaning I can see my iPhone & netbook and all other screens alot more clearly. To go with the new eyewear, I finally invested in a North Face hardcore…

Yesterday I grabbed a copy of the tomtom gps app fron the iTunes store to test with my iPhone. I've been a long time tomtom gps user and currently have a tomtom go in the car. The promise of similar functionality on the iPhone coupled with the inteligent route functionality to find the shortest & fastest route made this app a must for my iPhone. First impressions of the app Are mixed. The gps signal isn't great on the iPhone, and the app isn't as responsive or fast when compared with the tontom go. However the functionality is complete and…

Well I'm now in the second month of ownership and I still love the Samsung N110. This machine has completely changed the way I browse then Internet, and the fact that most of the things I do online are web based such as Twitter, Gmail, iPlayer and reading news and blogs, the Netbook is an ideal partner. I was sceptical from the start with regards to quoted battery life, but I've got to admit, even with normal usage on battery with brightness adjusted to my lining and iTunes either playing music or downloading podcasts in the background, I still manage…

As anyone who follows the blog will have realised, I haven't been posting much on the blog. This isnt because I have forgotten about it, its just that when you spend every day not spending money, you do very little that's worth discussing in a public forum. Sure we go on a daily walk in the countryside, and we keep the business ticking over, but now I've made all the cutbacks in spending I can, and tend not to buy anything, even food most of the time, there is very little to talk about. I'm glad I'm still carrying out…

Well like I say, it's been 10 whole days since my last post on here. I've had loads of stuff to do over the past few weeks which has included saving heavily for our Landrover (we got rid of our spanking new car at the beginning of the year in favour of getting a quality used car). This was for two reasons, firstly the new car thing just wasn't us, whilst we had no trouble with it, and it was great to drive, it just didn't suit us, and the depreciation was becoming sickening. Secondly, we are planning on travelling…

88 89 90 91 92 94 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 105 106 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 Thursday saw us taking a train to Liverpool to see some 'capital of culture' culture. When we lived in St Helens when I was younger and more handsome we would take the train to Liverpool all the time, but since moving to Scotland & Manchester for the better part of 7 years Liverpool fell out of favour with our more 'Cosmopolitan' tastes in cities. Vicki & I both remarked on the train that it…

Hall Street Depot - Transport Museum Well I'm as good as a month into the project and it's already getting a little tough. I need new socks badly, which I should have bought before starting the project. I've read most of the books I had backlogged so it's a library job for them. We are also getting a little bored not spending money. Vicki by default isn't spending, probably in sympathy, but as a result we have become like hermits, only leaving the house to go for a walk or to grab groceries. We where going to start going swimming…

Faerie Glen Scotland - Magical Countryside Sorry it has been a few days since I last posted on the 'year without spending' project, it has been a busy weekend meeting up with old friends and then recovering from the meet up. Our good friends Lee & Rachel from Manchester came over on Friday night, and we ended up in the local pub until we got kicked out. It was a heavy night for Vicki & I who aren't used to having a few drinks any more and got quite intoxicated. It was a really fun night, and we paid the…

Mini Magazine & Mini World - Kindly Donated by a friend Today's entry is a thank you to my friend Steven Almond as much as an update on the no spending front. Ste had been trying to sell these Mini magazine online, and when the buyer didn't pay for the items he kindly drove them to my house and donated them to me. This has been a real life saver, as there are around 40 magazines of varying age from the Mini Magazine & Mini World varieties. I love Mini's and always have. I've owned three of them, a 1275GT…

Twitter - Addictive but free! http://twitter.com/jodsclass Its now day 19 of my 'year without spending' and I will admit it's getting tougher. It's quite boring not spending money on going to the Cinema, or going to buy a new gadget or gizmo to keep me entertained. I really need some DVDr's for the business and for personal use. I may get Vicki to get them for the office and 'borrow' a couple to do my data backups. That one has been really hard, the whole not buying DVD media. I burn a lot of stuff from website and server backups,…

Remote Control Woes Well today it happened. The crap consumer stuff I buy finally decided it was time I owned a new DVD player for the office. This really is the most stupid device I've ever come across. It was a cheap £10 DVD player from Asda that I bought a few years ago for the sole use of watching DVD's in the office. It has been used for around 30 DVD's in that time, as I often watch movies on the big HDTV in the living room. So today I come to watch the last few episodes of Red…

I feel a thousand times better than I did a few days ago, thank god. I've not been that ill for a long time, and to be told by the doctors that its a viral illness which cannot be treated is not the best news. I'd be the first person to pop a pill or drink some medicine to make me feel human again, and the fact that the only treatment was to wait and let the virus run it's course was in itself a bitter pill to swallow. Enough about that, I'm feeling better and you will be glad…

Epson Recycling stuff arrived in the post Finally back to writing the blog, after what feels like a lifetime of sneezing and moaning and groaning. Things got so bad yesterday with the fever & temperature that I found myself in hospital (well the walk in centre) for an emergency appointment to find out what was kicking my ass. Apparently, after a pee test and various temperature measurements, it was decided that I'm suffering from a viral infection which cannot be treated directly. The order of the day is to stop myself overheating by keeping the layers of clothing off, and…

Hi Guys. Just a super quick post to let you know why i didn't post yesterday or today. I've been struck down with round two of this illness and the cold seems to have developed into a chesty cough and sinus pain. I'll spare you the details but safe to say I'm not in the frame of mind for sitting in front of the computer and typing an entry. Hopefully all we be well tomorrow and normal service can resume.

Home Entertainment - The Key to saving money Day 9 of they year without spending and the questions are coming in quick and fast. One of my friends Rachel, who is really interested in this whole project has asked tons of questions, and I'm glad she has because it is raising thoughts and concerns that I've yet to even consider. For example Rachel raised the important question of Home Entertainment, more importantly my unquenchable thirst for movies. In my student days, and even whilst I was working, I was a pretty hardcore downloader. I got greedy with the whole thing…

It is now the 8th day of my 'year without spending' and I'm still having a lot of fun. Granted so far I've been able to dodge shops & shopping in general (it is, believe it or not easy to spend a week without going into town), but I feel that not shopping is actually far more fulfilling than going out and spending a fortune on new stuff. One of my big worries for this year was running out of shoes. Seeing as though I'm a 25 year old guy, and I tend not to wear the type of shoes that can…

How many phones go to landfill? Why not recycle them for free! That's correct folks. I'm now a whole week into the challenge. Only 51 weeks left to go. I've found that by not wanting to spend on items, I'm freeing up a hell of a lot of time for other things, which in turn distracts me from looking at things to buy. Today, as I still sort out the huge piles of junk accumulated over 25 years as an avid consumer, I've decided to recycle stuff which will not sell on eBay or would otherwise find it's way into…

At least the hoarding isnt this bad Well today has been a quiet day on the 'year without spending'. I've almost finished my first week of the project and I'm suprised how fast the week has flown by. It seems like only yesterday I was considering this project. Not a lot to report today. With the exception of sorting out the house (more importantly the office) and selecting items to keep/trash/charity/sell on eBay, it has been a very quiet day indeed. I'm really suprised at how much time I seem to have at the moment. This could be thoroughly unrelated…

My box of Recycled Packaging Well it's day 5 of my 'year without spending' and I'm already surprised how liberated I feel. I received a newsletter from Aria this morning, with whom I have spent many thousands with in the past. In said newsletter was all the indispensable kit that I surely needed, a spanking new 24" monitor along with a 500GB External Drive, a 16GB flash drive for pennies and all the other shiny gadgets which I drool over every time the newsletter lands in my Inbox. But today for the first time, instead of drooling and sweating and…

Sorry Richard, I Like Virgin but needs must, and I must not SPEND Well I'm into day 4 of my 'year without spending' and I'm yet to feel even the slightest pinch (well OK I admit I was tempted by a 2GB Flash Drive for 99p from Aria, and a 500GB External HD from Tesco, but I managed to resist). So today two major challenges, one was to downgrade my Virgin Media cable package, and the other one was to go grocery shopping without spending any more money than necessary. Firstly, the Virgin Media issue. Since moving into our new…