Slight aside, this reminds me of something amusing/embarrassing/impressive I once saw in a local very nice Chinese restaurant. I.e. not one of the pay up front, all you can eat affairs, but a proper restaurant where you order specific things and pay at the end. Some chap who had been the centre of attention in their group all evening, and looking very smug, went to pay with his card. The card was declined, and the very polite Chinese waiter tried to discretely let him know of this. Difficult, because it wasn't busy or noisy. The whole exchange was very discrete and civilised, but much less discrete, although attempting to be subtle, was the fact that the entire staff were now in the dining area, all finding jobs that didn't need doing. The chef was trying to look like he was checking the menu by the front door while another lad was checking the squeaky hinge on the back door, and all the waiters and other staff were checking that all the tables around the group who could not pay were nice and clean and set properly. From our table, you could see the bigger picture of the formation they'd made. It was clear that the group that could not pay had been very strategically completely surrounded and isolated with no possibility of legging it. The bigger picture was kind of an inner circle around them, an outer circle around all of us, and the both exits blocked. Someone else in their group found a card that worked, and the very subtle but strategic formation just dispersed as subtly as it had formed.
Always carry 2 credit cards in case something goes wrong with one whilst on holiday. It happened to me (credit card fraud), but luckily I had a 2nd card plus a few hundred in cash on me. Shortly after a couple moved into an adjoining street, one of their neighbours told me the new couple were "rich", pointing at their big, expensive, new cars (looked like lease cars to me). They both went bankrupt.
Idiots! Mind you, what a humiliation, what with Scrungee, Mrs Scrungee and all the rest of the queue gawping. Absolutely. It happened to me in N Spain when my Barclaycard debit wouldn't work for about 18 hours. I was on my own and had no other cash resources like traveller's cheques and it was a desperate time as I needed to pay for several more nights accommodation and get to the airport by train. I was staying in one of the church-run Camino de Santiago hostels and I had to ask them if they would waive the cost - which was only about 5 euros, but the humiliation of having to ask was agony, I had to lie on my bunk crying for a few hours afterwards. Then I had to work out worst-case scenarios of whether I could get to the airport and if I'd have any money left over to eat anything. Miraculously, I tested the card in a machine for the thousandth time and it paid up. A problem with Barclay's central computer, apparently. Never again - ideally take cash, various forms of cards from different banking firms so if one goes down you've got a chance with another card that's not liked to it. Mind you, that was about 10 years ago before we were so internet dependent, there might be easier ways to get hold of money in an emergency now.
I haven't been abroad for years, but when I have been, I've always taken travellers cheques and a modest sum of cash, with my cards somewhere in the deepest darkest depths of my wallet, just as an absolute last resort. For me, when travelling abroad, it is not just the risk of my cards not working that bothers me, it is the prospect of being defrauded.
Travellers cheques are rarely used nowadays. I take cash - zipped up in an inner pocket - and, if in a hotel room, in the safe - apart from enough for the day. Otherwise, credit cards. Before I go I notify the credit card companies and tell them where I shall be and how much, and on what, I'm likely to spend the money. They will then keep a check on the account and query any unusual spending with the vendor.
Anybody still got their central heating on? We turned ours off a couple of weeks ago apart from the bathroom and a low setting in our lounge. I'm sitting beside a roaring fire (free wood) and getting toasted. And I've just started 30 gallons (180 bottles) of wine this afternoon that will work out at 33p/bottle. Compared to buying cheapo 3 bottles for £10 offers, that will save me £540.60.
Central heating? We'll have been in this house 4 years in come May, and we've never had the central heating on once yet.
Similar to us. We've never turned it off!! Both the under-floor electric heating and the gas fired boiler with radiators have thermostats set at a temperature we like, and remain set at that level permanently - except when we're on holiday.
Aye, you're lucky to have central heating to not turn on, we have to keep warm by burning the cardboard boxes from our free pizzas, but we're happy (said in a Yorkshire accent).
Another Waitrose shop today: Paid £1 for a day's town centre parking and got 1) Free coffee 2) Free Tea 3) 2x Pizzas using coupons to get them free, and getting a further 10% off as frozen stuff (25p per pizza) by using myWaitrose card, so 50p off our shopping. 4) 2x six packs of Linda McCartney veggie sausages (on special offer). We were rather hoping to get another 10% off these, but unfortunately not. 5) Free Observer newspaper. 6) 1L carton of rice milk that is on Try me Free, plus used a 50p printable voucher for it, so free stuff + anther 50p off our shopping. 7) A £1 parking refund - because we 'spent' over ten quid! Paid £1.65 for our shopping + £1 for parking = £2.65, but we will get a £1.41 further refund for the TMF, so total expenditure of £1.24 for all that stuff. That made our veggie sausages really cheap! They will make lovely sausage rolls made using some of that cheap Jus-Rol pastry we got (with the codes to claim supermarket gift cards that came to more than the cost of the pastry!). Unfortunately, we could only go into town early today, rather than during the 'golden hour' and take advantage of all the really cheap reduced stuff, which if on a multi-save normally only costs pennies or even takes money off your shopping.
