Sunday 4 June 2006

Summertime blues

Yesterday was rough. It felt like the first heat-ray blast of summer, when I opened the front door to collect parcel post, and then I spent the next six hours in sneezing fits with a severe bout of the dreaded hayfever. Hard to concentrate when I can’t even think straight. Just updating a couple of web pages on two sites took most of the afternoon. By teatime, I was knackered. Slept off the worst. Back on regular meds for the duration...

Handling domestic money matters on the Internet seems likely to be a growth industry of the next decade. I recently signed up for online banking (mainly to pay utility bills and keep a weekly check on my current account’s balance), but I continue to save time on shopping for essentials by ordering groceries from two home-delivery supermarkets (my checkout record is four and a half minutes for a full virtual trolley), and search engines have found numerous bargains for me, over the last few years, without any High Street store hassles. Of course, there’s a downside to all this. Despite my best efforts to curb spending on ‘demon discs’ I’m still buying far too many DVD boxsets and collectibles per month, tempted by budget prices and loyalty e-coupons.

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