Yesterday, and for the last few days, I have decided to give myself a sort of financial makeover now that Christmas is well and truly behind us and whilst the winter is certainly not over, the month of January seems to be proceeding apace and there are just a few hints that Spring might be in the air. For example, I notice that in Waitrose when I go into collect my newspaper, the Valentine's day cards are starting to appear although this event is still three weeks away. As an old friend of mine who I used to see when he was out walking his Jack Russell terriers, he confided to me the name of his first girlfriend so I used to send him a Valentine card each year, with disguised writing, and the message that the memory was still strong of days of passion spent together (one did not have the opportunity for nights of passion in those days in the late 1950's) So in the spirit of looking forward and doing some planning for the months ahead, I thought I would treat February as a special case and avoid spending any money whatsoever on either Amazon or eBay which I have been wont to do over the months. I think there are some items which are certainly worth buying more cheaply through Amazon (and eBay) providing it is done cheaply and judiciously and therefore save the shoe leather trailing round shops but more particularly the petrol in getting to the store in the first place. It is also probably the case that some things are more expensive in Amazon who trade on the fact that there is a general assumption that they will be cheaper, which is not always the case. It is also true that particularly if one has taken out a Prime membership where delivery costs are reduced to zero, there can be a temptation to impulse buy. So as we are approaching February, this will be an interesting case as I will keep meticulous financial records for that month to see if any expenditures can be pruned. I would not say that I spent great amounts on Amazon and always feel a touch of regret when I do but the amount spent on Amazon by the great British public is amazing. When I did some research, I discovered that in 2023, about three in ten online shoppers in the United Kingdom (UK) spent 50 to 100 British pounds on Amazon.co.uk on average every month. 26 percent of surveyed UK consumers spent over 200 British pounds, on average. These are quite extraordinary figures and I have often wondered whether an 'online sales tax' would be a source of much needed revenue for the government, even if it was confined to just a token contribution of 50p or £1 spent on each 'delivery' made. Comparable figures for eBay are hard to come by and the picture is muddied as there are a large tranche of costumers who probably sell as much as they buy, making their expenditure in this direction essentially neutral. Nor can we ignore Facebook's Market Place where only global figures are available but these are staggering. Up to 40% of Facebook’s 3.07 billion monthly active users shop on Marketplace and estimated 491 million or 16% of active users log in to Facebook for the sole purpose of shopping on Facebook Marketplace. But personally, I do not use (or ever intend to use) Facebook in any case.
The day proceeded in a fairly chaotic way as I had received a text last night (to which I assented) whether I could assist a single carer when they were scheduled to turn up at 8.50 - an hour later than usual. In fact the young Asian male worker who we often use turned up about 25 minutes late because the previous call had turned out to be much more complicated and time consuming than the 30 minutes allowed. I had given Meg some little pots of yogurt to sustain her as she was a bit inclined to be agitated first thing in the morning and I suspected that she needed some food inside her. When the carer arrived, we got Meg ready between us and then I fed her some porridge and set off to do my weekly shopping whilst the care worker undertook his 'sitting' duties (Meg fortunately being asleep) I was assiduous in my shopping to only buy the things I absolutely knew that I needed and was delighted both to half my shopping bill and get it home and unpacked with the assistance of the carer. Meg was very sleepy the whole of the day but I took delivery of the new air-controlled mattresses that had been ordered for us. Then I phoned the District Nurse team and a few hours later, a couple from the team came and fixed up the new (air-flow) mattress for me. I took the opportunity to take the former mattress and install it on my camp bed which I have next to Meg. I need to phone them up and ask them to take it away but in the meantime with my back in a rather parlous condition having picked Meg off the floor countless times, I think I have a good use for it. Then later in the afternoon, we had a call from a company that specialises in pest control as we have a firm suspicion that the leak we had a fortnight ago was caused by squirrel damage and we also suspect that we know the place in the roof where they gained access - so this needs fixing as well.
There is news that Sainsbury's is going to cut thousands of jobs and is getting rid of their in-store cafes and also that Santander (which happens to the bank I bank with) is thinking of quitting the High Street. Whether this means they just concentrate on online banking or pull out of the UK is a detail that I will have to try to discern. So the British economy is showing all the signs of bumping along the bottom and although not quite in a death spiral, the gloomy economic news always seems to be outweighing the good.
© Mike Hart [2025]