Mood triggers

[annwfyn]

It's weird how little things can just set you up - for better or worse - for the whole day.

Like today. I was fine when I left the house. I was motivated. I was chirpy. I get confused on the trains and wind up having to pay a £20 fine for not realising that my oyster card only words on tubes, buses and the DLR within London and not the overland rail.

I come into work feeling twittery and scratchy and grouchy because of this and I've been in this vile mood all day. I am completely non-motivated, I don't want to be here, and I'm convinced that everything is going wrong. I notice all my mistakes and I don't notice the stuff I get right.

Equally, I remember the days after I got my exam results last year. Nothing could touch me. Nothing could bring me down. It was all going to be fine.

I'm also pondering the very great truth of something sea_of_flame said a while ago. It's surprisingly how expensive it is to work. I mean, I was earning nothing before this week. But I was spending very little as well. I sat at home. I'd eat a bowl of cereal, or something I cooked at home. I'd be careful with the ingredients. Basically, I was living on very little.

Working this week should be bringing in money. But it's costing me as well. I'm spending approximately £5 per day on travel (not including my special bonus this morning). I'm spending close to a fiver on lunch every day - just for a drink and some food, because nowhere can one buy a cheap sandwich around Vauxhall. I buy a newspaper or a magazine to read on the way home. And somehow my money seems to be trickling away. Bah. And humbug.

As some of you may notice, my outlook on the world is dark and gloomy today.

Comments

[suave-steve.livejournal.com]

Yeah the £3 or £4 I used to spend each day on luch last me much longer not working.

[alasdair.livejournal.com]

Depending on how long you get for lunch (and assuming you only want a reasonably plain sandwich, and nothing but) you could hop on a 44 bus down to Battersea Park (or get the train to Queenstown Road), where I can vouch for the small sandwich shop not quite opposite the train station, since that's where I get lunch most days, and generally spend about 3 quid. (Assuming you've got a travelcard, which now I think of it, if you're pre-paying, you don't do you?)

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

*shakes head*

No. I'm prepay. I possibly should get a travel card, but most of the time prepay suits me fine as there are days when I will be commuting, but other periods when I don't leave Rotherhithe.

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

Just buy a weekly card when you know you are going to be temping for that week. It's a big saving.

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

Affording to get to work takes care and preparation (i.e. more work). You have to buy weekly tickets, and get up early enough to make your lunch. Most importantly you have to wokr somewhere that gives you free drinks so you can assuage your hunger pangs. Jo and I could easily spend around £30 a week on lunch if we don't make sandwiches. Luckily her transport is paid for work and mine's about £2 a day.

Make a nice sandwich, good ham, cheese and salad... drink water. It's the only way to survive the costs of Vauxhall.

Oh, and overland train will sometimes accept Oyster Travelcards (so if you put a weekly travelcard on your oyster card), but not pay as you go Oyster. It's dumb and complicated. Ken should do something about it.

[cryx]

Oh, and overland train will sometimes accept Oyster Travelcards (so if you put a weekly travelcard on your oyster card), but not pay as you go Oyster. It's dumb and complicated. Ken should do something about it.

In the specifications for the south west train franchise (up for renewal), the person who successfully tenders will have to accept oyster pre-pay. Unfortunatly I don't see it happening before then. :( It's a pain, as I have a 2-5 zone travel card, so I can use the trains every morning with oyster, but if I want to go into town, I can't just hop one stop into waterloo.

As for cheap eating in vauxhall, I don't know where abouts you are, but you could try the tesco or sainsburys?

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I'm on the Albert Embankment. I've been wandering up and down it, but have yet to locate a supermarket. I think the cheapest source of food tends to be at Vauxhall Station which is about a 10 min walk.

It may be partly me being a bit lost on occasion.

[cryx]

There is a little cost cutter on albert embankment, but the tesco is about a 7 min walk from vauxhall station. You could go diagnally from albert embankment, but if you are not great with directions it would be very easy to get lost in that area. I think there is also a sandwich place if you head in the direction of the imperial war museum...

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

You know you can put pre-pay on the same oyster card as you have your season ticket on, and it'll just get used when your season doesn't cover you?

[cryx]

yes, indeed. Infact I've got it so my pre-pay tops itself up automatically.

However, you cannot use *prepay* on overground trains, even if there are readers at both ends. If I want to go the one stop I'd have to get a paper ticket.

[chrisvenus]

the man speaks wise. Some people at work go and spend three quid a day on sandwiches from waitrose. I go and buy a loaf of bread on monday and make sandwiches for the rest of the week thanks to the fridge to put cheese and whatever else I buy on monday in. If you have a fridge you can steal a corner of its a great way to go because you dont' even need to get up early really. Otherwwise you should get up early and make sarnies. You only need ten minutes.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

*pulls faces*

Ham and cheese sandwich? Urk...

For some reason (it's truly irrational) I have this dislike of packed lunches. There is something icky in my mind about food that has sat in Tupperware for a day.

When I'm well behaved I'll find a supermarket and grab something cheap, but I can't eat packed lunches. Pure pickiness, but I've been that way since school. I used to bin the packed lunches my mother gave me and just skip eating.

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

Packed lunches from parents suck. I used to bin mine too. But when you buy high grade ham from the deli counter, thick cut home made bread, chunky cheese and light salad, then you have a sandwich which is worth taking to work with you. Or make soup and heat it up in the work microwave and look smug whilst everyone asks where you bought your soup from. Carrot and coriander soup costs tuppence to make and tastes lurvely.

[cryx]

I know what you mean about packed lunches... I tend to make sandwiches at my desk from ingredients purchased at the beginning of the week and kept in the work fridge.

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

I get bored with them too - I don't feel properly FULL (this could be because shop sandwiches are stupidly high calorie...) - there are far nicer things than sandwiches though. Cook an oven dish of pasta bake, then put a chunk in tupperware & throw it in the microwave (hot food much more appealling) - ditto a pre-cooked/filled baked potato, or couscous, or whatever.

[taimatsu]

I buy those microwave packages of rice sometimes, and take a box with things like peas, tuna, olives in, and then nuke and mix the two. Works surprisingly well.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

That's what I'm currently doing.

In fact, to make things even easier, I'm cooking a double portion of whatever I have for dinner the night before and putting half of it in the fridge instantly to take to work. Home-made pasta bolognese, hot from the work microwave, is exactly what I need some days.

[taimatsu]

Packed lunch and a book! Works like a charm! :) (I sympathise, though. I don't always have the time to make sandwiches, and those lunches do add up.)

[melsner.livejournal.com]

I hope that an attractive Asian person buys you a pizza.