Like the weather, my mind has changed on a daily basis.

It’s been an interesting month since I last posted. One of changes but of not much substance.

I’ve been on a different route delivering every week, one week in my local area which was pretty cool and one in an area that I hated.

My local area was good to be delivering around as I got to pop home for 15 minutes a couple of times once I’d finished all the deliveries. The collections don’t start until a certain time in the afternoon so instead of sitting on the road side in the van I came home and put my feet up for a little while.

Mentally that was pretty good to get that break as the deliveries were pretty full on, 75% business deliveries which meant lots of boxes and fucking heavy one’s at that and then the remaining residential deliveries were all pretty close together so overall as a route it’s one I’d look at taking on permanently if offered.

In between that route and last week I was moved around a bit and only did half to 3/4’s of a route on any given day, so it was pretty easy.

Last week though, holy shit. I was put on a route I’d done before, but only partly. I had done the main town on the route and a couple of the villages, but last week I was given the whole route, which included 7 different villages and some in another county although they have the local postcode.

Imagine a village with 40 odd addresses all with the same postcode, all with house names and no numbers. Could I find anywhere the first couple of days, could I fuck.

Houses behind houses, behind houses, down an alley with no obvious road access and no signs there were houses there. Yeah fuck right off.

Anyway, I managed to get to the end of the week with most of my sanity in check and Friday was actually a really good day, I didn’t have that many that were hard to find and I finished earlier than I had all week, so a win win.

Mentally though this last month has been taxing as I’ve been thinking about moving on to something else for better money, but there isn’t anything local and the jobs that have been available have been too much money wise to get to on public transport.

I’ve found myself getting frustrated during the day whilst out delivering and saying to myself, right that’s it, I’ve had enough, end of the week I’m calling it quits and biting the bullet job location wise and getting something else.

But by the end of the week, I’ve changed my mind and decided to stay another week.

A good few rums sorted me out. Fucking muppet.

I was asked if I could work another weekend day this week and after telling the supervisor no, was then told that I’d have to start doing more weekend days otherwise I’d get a talking to.

After saying if that’s the case then you can find someone else to do the weekdays, I was told that it’s fine for now.

Well yeah it’s fine for now. I’m on the agency money at weekends, which is shit compared to the full-time guys. So once I’m full-time, I’ll happily do my weekend days as required.

Until then I’m not working for less money than the other guys are, doing the same job, but better because I’m fucking awesome.

But yet that’s not taken into account. Yeah fuck off.

So fitness wise I’ve managed to do some workouts during the week, not as many as I’d like to, but it’s a work in progress. A few times a week is more than I was doing a month ago.

Just need to do something at the weekends now and I’ll be on a roll.

Physically when I look in the mirror, I’m not far off where I looked a few years back, but I know strength wise I’m not as strong as I was, so that’s always in the back of my mind at the moment, I’ll get there though soon enough.

Money wise it’s been a boring normal month, which is great. Nothing extra financially to kick me in the nuts for the first time for a long while.

Our debt reduction plan is off and running. November 2021 is the final payment month, which should hopefully be the latest our debt is paid off.

Looking at our debt payment plan in writing or figures has made us feel a lot better about it, like it’s finally dawned on us that we’ll be debt free and can start using our money to create the future we want again.

Not that we haven’t tried using our money to create the future we want in the past, but we’ve gone about it the wrong way and used debt to try to gain our future, which hasn’t worked the way we’ve tried.

We’ve used the debt the wrong way and it’s not worked. I know that debt can be used to create a positive future, but the way we used the debt didn’t work.

No matter how hard we want to try something different right now, we’ve made the decision to hold off on anything business wise until the debt is gone completely this time.

The last business idea we tried we didn’t get rid of some old debt completely before starting and it hampered us from the beginning.

Anyway, who knows what our mindset will be once we’re debt free, we might never want to start a business again, which I doubt, but I can’t remember what the debt free feeling feels like as it’s been over 15 years since we’ve not had any.

2 years and 9 months to be debt free, not long really, but it feels a life time away.

A lifetime that will be filled with parcel delivery, gardening, football supporting, weight lifting and rum drinking among other things, yeah it’ll fly by I’m sure.

Until next time…

WeeMike

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Best laid plans an all that.

Getting to the end of last week I’d had plans on what I wanted to do fitness wise this week, but Thursday last week told me otherwise.

I got into the depot as normal, but was greeted by another driver who said I was with him for the day to learn the route as I was covering him for a week.

Ummm OK.

It was an easy day, being driven around all day. Shown a few hard to find farms sure, but otherwise it seemed pointless to me.

We weren’t going to have all the hard to find places in one day were we. And in fact we only had 1, so yeah pointless, but the company wanted to pay me to sit on my arse, who was I to argue.

Thursday evening came and on the way back to the depot the driver said yeah well you’ll be alright as long as it doesn’t snow, those 2 villages are shit to try and drive in the snow.

Low and behold Friday morning we had snow, fuck sake.

But I battled through the day, got as much delivered in the areas I could and went back to the depot with about a dozen unattempted deliveries, pretty good I thought.

Yeah well, Monday was busy so those 12 added to it and it was too much. I never caught up through the week and it was only on Friday that I finally caught up.

4 straight days of 12hr days delivering in an area I didn’t know.

Well I do know it now and I hate it lol.

Well the area is OK to deliver around, its just getting to it. I had to be at the depot an hour earlier every day just to miss the rush hour traffic.

And then coming back every day took nearly an hour, so about 2 hours travelling just to get to and from the delivery area, nah not for me.

As I have to take and collect my partner from her work, it wasn’t fun for her having to be at work 2hrs early and wait an hour afterwards to be collected.

Long term if I had no choice to do that route then she’d have to look at getting the train or bus, but then one of us would have to look at changing jobs to a higher paying one, so it’s a no go from the start really.

Anyway to say I’ve been mentally and physically tired is a bit of an understatement really.

Mentally tired from learning a new route and physically because its been 12hr days and to top it off my lower back is aching when I sit down for some reason.

Not sure what’s caused it but it’s probably just a knock on effect from all the effort I’ve put in this week and also not doing any weightlifting outside of carrying fifty five fucking kilo radiators and forty kilo bags of road salt.

Yeah not bitter or nuffing.

Our new car has been given the all clear pretty much, so I’m happy with that. Just got to get 4 new tyres put on it and oh yeah a new front wheel rim as I skidded on some ice and hit a curb quite fast and dented the rim slightly.

My partner is feeling well enough to start some lightweight exercising now, so she’s going back to gym in the mornings to do some walking and light cycling to see how she feels.

Shes still about 6-8 weeks away from being to do any weight bearing exercises but she’s making progress and that’s what matters.

Right, time to go off an get the car sorted.

Until next time…

WeeMike

Things break when you least expect them = fuck you 2019

So 2019 started ok financially, in that we made a 3 year plan to pay off our debt, we’d worked out all our monthly payments and put together some rather cool spreadsheets if I do say so.

We’d made a few contingency plans for along the way, ready for if/when things go wrong, but then I got a kick in the nuts after learning I wouldn’t earn as much as I thought in my new job, but that was fine, we rejigged things and we’d be ok.

But now 2019 is really stamping on my fucking balls and it’s starting to hurt.

We’ve never been people to have an expensive car, we’ve always gone down the route of getting a cheap run around that we can pay for in cash, something along the lines of a few thousand at the most and then let it run until it stops basically.

We’ve never actually had a car stop altogether over the years, but we’ve come close a few times. Once or twice we’ve had a car cost more to repair and keep on the road then it originally cost, but in general we’ve been ok with our car choices, or should I say my car choices, my partner isn’t really bothered about cars, even less then I am!

But we decided that 2019 was going to be the last year we kept our current car and we would look at replacing it towards the end of the year.

Well 2019 and our car clearly thought otherwise and took it upon themselves to put a spanner in the works.

I put our car through it’s yearly full service and mot thinking that it might need a couple of things doing but nothing too expensive.

A few days later and a weeks wages later and the car finally passed it’s mot.

Fucker.

OK I thought we’re definitely getting rid of it by the end of the year.

But no, the car and 2019 thought they’d bring things forward and on the way home from work one evening the car lost the ability to accelerate and I crawled home not being able to go any faster than 40mph.

I took it to the garage the next day and in the afternoon the garage contacted me to say, well engine wise, it’s pretty good for an 18 year old car with 150k miles on the clock, but the rest, yeah, not so much.

And they proceeded to say that something had gone in the suspension which had caused a knock on effect in some wiring and some sensors in the engine and basically it was going to cost about what we had originally paid for it about 5 years ago to fix.

They said that it wouldn’t have been picked up during the mot as I’d probably gone over a pot hole and it just buggered something in the suspension as it’s so old.

Fucker.

They managed to reset the on board computer which means it can be driven until the issue either comes back or the suspension gives up completely.

As it is I will just have put up with some knocking from the suspension and avoid any major pot holes the best I can. Getting to and from work in the dark is going to be fun for the next few days!

I’ve spent the last few days frantically looking for another car, which I’ve thankfully found, I’ve got to use the old one until the new one arrives though, as I can’t risk it breaking down on the way to getting the new one, which is a bit of a way away from where I live and work and no one is available to help me get there.

I’m not bothered if the old one breaks down on the way to or from work over the next few days though, it’s within a 20 min taxi ride home, so if it happens it happens.

I’ve had to rejig our financial goals for the year, which are not that much different, just an increase in the total debt as we’ve had to use borrowings that we’d decreased over last year and thankfully the monthly payments won’t be that much more due to it either.

I think the most we’ve ever spent on a car was £1,500 which was on the current old one about 5 years ago and the new 2nd hand one I’ve just bought is the same price.

It’s 11 years old and the history looks pretty good on it so I’m hoping we’ll get a couple of years out of it before it needs anything major done to it, the mileage is pretty low for the age too at only 85k.

This will definitely be our last 2nd hand car over 10 years old though, I said last year that I wanted our next car to be around 5-7 years old, but due to our current one failing earlier than I’d hoped, it’s been forced on us to get another one over 10 years old.

Even if we didn’t have any debt and could afford a more expensive car, I wouldn’t want to get a brand new one nor one that was younger than 5 years old as there are so many good 2nd hand cars out there it just seems silly to spend the extra money on something that will just lose value over time.

I enjoy driving for my job and also socially but I’m not overly bothered about what I’m actually driving, I’m not bother about brands of cars etc as long as it doesn’t break down on me!!

On a more positive note, my partner is healing up nicely, she’s much more mobile than last week and should be back at work towards the end of next week, which she’s looking forward to. She’s been working from home this week, but she’s looking forward to seeing some work colleagues and getting out of the house properly.

I’ve managed to do 2 workouts this week. No heavy weights though, which I was going to do this weekend, but I’ve spent most of it looking at cars and working out finances etc and my brain is pretty fucking tired sat here tonight.

Not that that’s a good enough excuse to not go lift something heavy, but it’s one I’m using!

Next week I’m aiming to do 2 body weight workouts during the week then lift something heavy a few times at the weekend.

Tonight though, some rum and some football replays I think.

Until next time…

WeeMike

First week of the year delivering and another financial kick in the nuts.

This week has flown by. It was pretty knackering after having 10 days off, but it’s done and I’m back into the swing of things.

I almost didn’t make it to the end of the week though. The agency I signed up with to get this job contacted me and told me my wages would be going down due to the previous level only being available for Christmas.

I knew that the money I was on before Christmas was higher than normal simply due to the season, but when I was told it was going down by 25% I was pretty shocked.

That turned into anger when the agency said they simply forgot to tell me before Christmas that the money would be going down in the new year.

Sure it was also partly my fault for not asking but I was still pissed.

I worked out how much I was going to get paid for the next 6 weeks, which is how long I’ve got until I go permanent with the new company and financially I’m going to be just about ok.

So I sat down midweek and worked out what I’d be on once I go permanent just to make sure everything would be OK financially and I realised that whilst I would be ok financially I decided that ok isn’t good enough.

Having a reduced income from my last delivery job to this one is fine as I’d simply had enough of my last job, the whole set up etc wasn’t working for me and I was no longer willing to accept working on an OK job due to the higher money, so I’m happy to accept that decrease.

But now that I’m in the mindset of needing a job that is better for me on the whole, I also want it to be better financially.

And ultimately its time I moved away from high volume multidrop delivering as the financial reward doesn’t match up to the effort I have to put into the job.

I really enjoy the physical exertion but if I’m going to reduce my debt this year, I need to be financially rewarded for it.

I may not be able to find a delivery job that I enjoy enough that also pays enough, but I know that I’m going to have to bite the bullet as it were and try for some truck driving delivery jobs too.

There is a lot of commercial building going on around the town I live in, so I’m hoping a business will move in that I’d like to work for, because at the moment there isn’t much choice.

And due to being limited in my travel distance, I’m also limited on the company’s I can look at to work for.

Anyway, that’s all to come and will take some time to plan and implement, I’m going to take it easy doing it and try and get it right first time, so that I can go more than a year without working for several different companies again!

Today was the first day I’ve done any this year weight lifting/exercise and it felt great.

I only did some weighted chin ups, push ups and quick set of widow maker squats with a 10kg plate in my arms.

I’m going to do something similar a few times next week and then something a little heavier at the weekend and see if I can stick to it whilst being so physically active during the day.

I know I did it sporadically last year and when I did for a few weeks in a row, I started to feel better for it, but it’s when I have a really physically demanding few weeks that I stop and then take too long to start again.

So moving on to other stuff. My partners mother in law has gone home today, whoop!

I mean it was great that she stayed to help with household stuff for my partner whilst I worked during the day, but it’s been a tad weird having her around every evening when I’ve wanted to do my own routines.

My partner is now recovered enough to do all the easy things herself now, so she’ll be fine during the day, so I can work fine knowing she can at least look after herself.

Its going to be another 4 weeks though before she can get back into even a beginner fitness routine, so she’s going to have be at work 2hrs before her official start time when she goes back in a few weeks as I start a lot earlier than her and we go in the same car as otherwises it’s expensive to go separately, which is another reason why I need to find a more local job.

Right that’s enough of a mind dump for today. Its funny how writing shit down makes me feel better sometimes. I’d felt a bit mentally pent up this week but writing things down seems to release it somehow.

Meh, time for some football and a rum I think!

Until next time…

WeeMike

Delivery Dairy 14.01.19

So today was my first day back after 9 days off. It was good to be back in the routine of delivering parcels again.

My partner had a health issue that required urgent surgery. Thankfully this all went OK and she’s now at home recovering.

I took the week off to be with her in the hospital as much as possible and then when she came home for a few days too.

Her mother is now with us for a week, mainly so that I can go back to work and start earning some money again, but also she wanted to come and make sure she was OK and would recover well.

It was an extremely stressful week after my partner ironically being given the all clear on the Friday and then by Saturday night something happened and she had to go in for emergency surgery.

Anyway, it’s all done and we’ll soon have our normal lives back once she’s fully recovered.

So today being the first day back I wasn’t sure what to expect, I did think I’d be given a bunch of shite deliveries, but it wasn’t too bad.

I was in an area I didn’t know, although it was a lot of rural deliveries I found all the addresses I needed to.

As always with a rural route, I had a few farms, a chicken farm that stunk and a sewage treatment plant that reeeally stunk, I couldn’t wait to get out of that place.

I started at 7am and left the depot at 5:30pm 10.5hrs, love it, rarely had a day like that in my last place.

But being my first day back for 9 days I felt pretty knackered so I haven’t done any weight lifting and I think i won’t until next week.

I’ll do a few rounds of some bodyweight stuff tomorrow, but tonight I’m going to chill and put my feet up.

Until next time…

WeeMike

End of the year review 2018.

So, it’s that time of year again for me to write down a year review and think about what I want from next year.

It’s been a manic 6 weeks since I last posted. I guess I should start with leaving my last job and starting a new one!

So the peak Christmas delivery period came like a flash, one minute we were being told what to expect, the next minute, boom, the volume had gone up by 50%, fuck.

That’s Cyber weekend for you though, people go stupid over sales.

I expected a drop off for a week to ten days before it going crazy again, but that didn’t happen and I was delivering about 30% more most days than at any other time in the year.

It was fine though, I’d got used to doing the 12hr+ days and working my balls off, the route gave me long days in the middle of the year and at various times throughout the year, this wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.

But, what I couldn’t handle and allowed to get to me due to being mentally and physically tired every night, was the depot being so disorganised.

On too many occasions I’d have to spend up to an hour of the morning looking for parcels in the warehouse that should have been in my bay. Now, don’t get me wrong, I understand how difficult the warehouse job is and at times parcels get missed and put in the wrong bay, that’s fine.

I’ll go fetch one or two parcels that have been put in the wrong bay, even though I’m not supposed to, it’s the job of the warehouse at the end of the day, that’s what they’ve been employed to do, move parcels from the trailer to a bay, I’m paid to load my van and delivery the parcels, and I did it without fail, every single day.

But time after time after time parcels kept being put in the wrong bays and then during the busiest time of the year it continued and in fact got worse.

When you’ve been informed that money isn’t an issue and is being thrown at the warehouse to ensure smooth sailing, but yet it continues and gets worse, it got a tad stressful.

But I got on with my job like I always did, didn’t complain as I knew it always fell on deaf ears and just got through a busy week.

The beginning of another week came and home life took a turn for the worse due an issue I won’t write about until it’s fully resolved, but to begin with was pretty worrying and put a lot of stress on me mentally.

So I started the week off not in a good mental state. The days went by, day after day of 12hr days and wandering around the warehouse in the morning wasting up to an hour, each day getting more and more frustrated with everything.

Then it came, I got up one morning and felt like I’d had enough. I got into the depot and began my loading as normal and I realised I was missing almost two dozen parcels and that was it, I had a quick look around the warehouse and couldn’t see where they were and just thought, fuck this, I’ve had enough, I’m done.

I walked over to one of the supervisors and told him I was quitting. I walked back to my van and emptied the parcels I’d already started to load, whilst the head supervisor came over and tried to persuade me to stay, but I’d had enough, home life was stressful and the work place had become too stressful for me to want to continue working there.

The head supervisor said various things like it would get better in the new year and that the missing parcels issue would be sorted out once and for all. Bollocks and bullshit were amongst a few of the words I used and with that I drove off and came home.

I’d intended to not work again until the new year, at least start registering with some job agencies and looking properly for work again, I felt like I wanted a long break, or at least long for me, a few weeks to recuperate and recover and get my head together.

Alas, it didn’t happen that way. I ended up messaging a friend who’d left the same job earlier in the year and was at another delivery company to tell him what I’d done and jokingly asking if there were any jobs in the new year he thought I could apply for.

He messaged back after a few hours and said they needed drivers now and that I should get in touch with them.

I started with the new delivery company 3 days later!

It was only going to be on a temporary basis until the new year and I was going to see how I felt about it and see if they wanted me permanently.

But after just a week with them I was offered a full-time job and was told that they’d get a contract sorted for the new year.

So there we are. I’ve left my old delivery job, one that I gave my all to, was well enough paid for it, but the hours were kicking me down and I couldn’t see it until things built up to a head.

Regardless of how well paid it was, the hours just didn’t allow me to live the life I wanted to outside of a job.

I already feel much better not doing 12hr days all the time. Yes it’s been long days at the new job, but I’ve not done over an 11hr day yet, even with it being the busiest time of the year.

If I’m still there this time next year, I’ll probably have my own route and may well do some 12hr days, but the guy who was at my old job hasn’t done more than a handful of 12hr days at this time of year on the route he has, despite it being crazy busy, the company have the resources in place to sort out the craziness, which my old delivery company seemingly couldn’t do.

Anyway, that’s enough of that, time to look forward again. Job wise it’s a crazy end to another year, but a positive start to another one.

Health and fitness wise this year has been hit and miss yet again, like 2017 was, but then being honest with myself, it was always going to be when I was still working for the old delivery company.

Funnily enough I’m actually physically in better shape than I was at the end of last year. My body shape is more how I want it to be, lower body fat, but unfortunately less muscle mass too, which is to be expected seeing as though I’ve done very little heavy weight lifting and just body weight stuff.

But it is what it is, no mulling around crying, I know what I can do, what I need to do and in this new delivery job I should be working fewer hours, so I should have plenty of energy and more importantly time to do some heavy lifting in the evenings and at weekends.

On the health side for me I’m probably healthier than this time last year though. Mainly due to being more consistent with eating more real food meals rather than just shoving something convenient but not really food down my neck.

So, onto finances and this year has been a bad one unfortunately.

The year didn’t start well due to being owed almost two months worth of money from the guy I worked for over Christmas 2017. I wasted too much time, energy and a little more money trying to claim it back from him through legal means, when I probably should’ve just paid one of the drivers at the old depot to go get the money, as several of them offered to do for me for a small amount of the money owed!

But I’m not that way inclined for something so trivial as money. If I’d been fucked over for something more personal then I wouldn’t have been so forgiving.

Anyway, we didn’t really recover financially until almost the middle of this year and even then it was only due to adding to our debt.

Now that we’re at the end of the year we’ve got ourselves stable again, so next year is going to be when we start to reduce our debt like we want to, it’s just going to take a little longer now that we’ve had to add to it to get through this year.

So, that’s all I can think of for my review for the year, it’s certainly been a taxing one for sure. Started off all over the place, got stable for a while, then ended with a bit more craziness.

2019 is hopefully going to be more stable on all fronts, but either way, I’m still alive, still with my partner and have a roof over my head and food in my belly. I don’t need any more than that, everything else is a bonus.

Until next time…

WeeMike

The bearded midget is ready for peak delivery driving season.

Well fuck a duck, its nearly that time of year again. Peak season is a few weeks away, fuck.

Last year was crazy busy, this year we’re being told to expect up to a 25% increase on parcel volume.

Bring it on!

Compared to last year I now know my route. I’m a better delivery driver all round and most importantly I’m mentally AND physically ready for peak season.

Because my route was until a month or 2 ago having me out for 10/12hrs a day, I know I can cope with peak season. Having the odd 13/14hr day chucked in is shit but I’ll be fine.

Other drivers in the depot, maybe not so much.

Most of them whinge like children if they have to do over a 10hr day. Most of them don’t look after themselves, chocolate and fizzy sugar drinks for breakfast etc.

So it’s no wonder they can’t cope with a bit of hard work.

Oh well, that’s them. I do me and me only. I focus on what I have to do each day and ignore everyone else’s shit.

Plus this year I’ve got a full on beard to get me through any tough times.

Bring on the apocalyptic rain. Bring on the 1ft of snow that grinds my country to a standstill.

I’ll deliver parcels through anything.

A bearded midget is unstoppable!

Until next time…

WeeMike