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The Luck Of The Devil

A few years ago my sister had an unexpected windfall from a long forgotten insurance policy - nearly £4,000 . Next day her Mother-in-law's boiler exploded. I think Sis may got some change out of that (and the MiL's house eventually). Similarly my brother took out an insurance policy over 20 years ago, but didn't keep up the payments as he developed ME and had to give up work. The insurance company didn't cancel the policy and said they'd use any bonus pay-outs to fund the subscriptions. Brother assumed all the money had long run out and forgot about it. Until last month when the company finally tracked him down through two former addresses. The policy had matured and was worth several thousands. Last week his car, the all-important means of independence, packed up.
As for me, I got a letter from the Bank today, there was an error in the exchange rate on international transactions on my Mother's account between 2010-2014. She died in 2016 but as executor of her estate I got a cheque for £1.68.
I'm spending that pronto before my siblings find out.
 
It’s happened to me twice. Not massive amounts but enough 1) to get a taxi when I was stranded by someone who’d taken money from my purse when I was out and 2) When I used to suffer chronically painful IBS and he only thing that helped was Pepto Bismol. Both times I just found note money on the pavement with no-one nearby it who might have dropped it. I’m not generally lucky but those times, I was.
 
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A few years ago my sister had an unexpected windfall from a long forgotten insurance policy - nearly £4,000 . Next day her Mother-in-law's boiler exploded. I think Sis may got some change out of that (and the MiL's house eventually). Similarly my brother took out an insurance policy over 20 years ago, but didn't keep up the payments as he developed ME and had to give up work. The insurance company didn't cancel the policy and said they'd use any bonus pay-outs to fund the subscriptions. Brother assumed all the money had long run out and forgot about it. Until last month when the company finally tracked him down through two former addresses. The policy had matured and was worth several thousands. Last week his car, the all-important means of independence, packed up.
As for me, I got a letter from the Bank today, there was an error in the exchange rate on international transactions on my Mother's account between 2010-2014. She died in 2016 but as executor of her estate I got a cheque for £1.68.
I'm spending that pronto before my siblings find out.
The last cheque I received was for 10p, the one before that was for 3p but I forgot to bank it. Many years ago after a share issue I had loads of shares in the company I worked for but later sold all but a few quids' worth, so I'd carry on getting the annual statement etc. And these are the dividend payments! Retirement does not backon...
 
When I was 7, in the mid 70's we stayed for a month at a kid's holiday camp, on the sea side and with my older sister. After lunch in the canteen, a kiosk outside was selling ice creams at a cheap price. Around it, the ground was covered in sand. After a week or so, I spent all of my pocket money and my sister didn't want to give me more of hers. But, I discovered that if I was sifting the sand around the kiosk, there was always one franc or 50 centimes, which was enough for an ice cream. It happened quite frequently, as other kids must have dropped their change and were not bothered to look for it in the sand.
 
When I was 7, in the mid 70's we stayed for a month at a kid's holiday camp, on the sea side and with my older sister. After lunch in the canteen, a kiosk outside was selling ice creams at a cheap price. Around it, the ground was covered in sand. After a week or so, I spent all of my pocket money and my sister didn't want to give me more of hers. But, I discovered that if I was sifting the sand around the kiosk, there was always one franc or 50 centimes, which was enough for an ice cream. It happened quite frequently, as other kids must have dropped their change and were not bothered to look for it in the sand.
My younger brothers used to inspect the ground around filling stations in the hope of pecuniary gain.
It seemed men stuff cash notes in their pockets with their keys after paying for fuel and then pull the notes out with the keys when they drove away.

The brothers were never short of pocket money!
 
At the turn of the year i had applied for an Irish passport. Because of Covid and lockdowns etc its been resting in the system ever since. This morning at 9.15am I received an email from them saying there was a problem. My basic birth certificate wasn't sufficient. They needed the long form one, like Barack Obama. They provided the link to order one, so i did so straight away. The cost to get it sent priority was £20. Tsk and tut.

I then went out to Asda.

When i got home around 11.30 the postman was coming along the street.

There was a letter from Lloyds Bank. I'm not with Lloyds Bank. I almost threw it away after opening it. Just read it properly. A bank account in my name ive not touched in 15 years. They're going to close it. What do i want them to do with the cash still in it. £21......
 
It's happened again. Is this an unnneeded expense miraculously taken care of? Or a windfall cruelly snatched away?

On Monday the vacuum cleaner killed itself. I had no choice but to order a new one on Amazon straight away.

It arrived last night. Cost - £79.

This afternoon an email from Virgin to give me the completely forgotten about and never expected to see gift incentive for switching to them several months ago. It was an Amazon gift card. Value? £75.


Never richer, never poorer.
 
I'm sure there's a different thread dedicated to finding what you need in unexpected places. But in its absence this one is the closest fit.

One of my guests told me she left the place she was working in today (doing up a house) to get some groceries. She realised she needed cereal. Resenting paying the full Kellogs price in the regular corner shop she went a little further to a supermarket to get the more affordable own brand version. Anyway this task was at the forefront of her mind when she found a pile - as in literally piled up, not randomly spread out - of cornflakes on the street. No box or packaging to be seen, it had clearly been placed there. She estimated about 4 boxes worth gathered in a heap with no explanation in site. She wanted cornflakes, and cornflakes duly reported for duty.
 
It sort of happened to me.

I needed to move out of my rented, huge and unheated house. My parents had died and left me just enough money to buy a small and cheap house locally, but I desperately wanted to stay in the same village. I'd been here 26 years and didn't want to move. So a neighbour in one of the little cottages just down the road from my house offered to sell me her house. She only used it as a holiday cottage maybe four times a year, she was losing the ability to drive and garden (elderly) and didn't want the place to go to 'just anyone'. But she kept me dangling. Another two years passed, during which probate for mum's estate got held up (so I didn't have the money anyway to go elsewhere). And then she raised the price she was going to charge by £20k, which I didn't have and couldn't get even as a loan.

So I was resigned to having to move into town. It would be tough on the cat and dog, but we'd survive and at least I'd have a house. And then EVERYTHING happened at once. Other neighbours from one of the other cottages suddenly split up and needed to sell, their house was £5k cheaper than my original lady wanted for hers (which is next door). My mum's probate suddenly resolved itself, I had the money and put the rest on my credit card.

Upshot was I ended up in a much nicer and more modern house than the one I was originally going to buy; I got to stay in my village and only had to move thirty metres down the road. Whereas if my mum's estate had been sorted sooner, I'd likely have ended up living in town, if the couple hadn't split I wouldn't have got my gorgeous cottage, and if elderly lady had sold to me when she was going to I'd have been living in cute cottage but with no heating and in need of complete redecoration.

Sometimes delays are for a (cosmic) reason.
Plus- your place has self-closing windows. Bonus!
 
On the subject of windfalls - one of the Snailets has tipped me the wink that the ex is cashing summat in and I'm entitled to a share.

I know all about this including the fact that I'm not entitled as I had my share sliced off years ago. I'm not stupid. :chuckle:
 
On the subject of windfalls - one of the Snailets has tipped me the wink that the ex is cashing summat in and I'm entitled to a share.

I know all about this including the fact that I'm not entitled as I had my share sliced off years ago. I'm not stupid. :chuckle:
Surely you could get, say, a tenner out of it?
 
I have a superstition/minor principle about windfalls: if I'm not in dire straits, and I never really have been, the money will be spent on something communal: meal for family, beers for mates, trip to the pictures with a friend--to spread the good fortune around.

I like to imagine that it encourages the forces of fate to favour me once more,
And a tenner for your old pal?
 
And a tenner for your old pal?

luis_ordoñez-pavarotti_color....jpg

Don't thank me.
 
I'm sure there's a different thread dedicated to finding what you need in unexpected places. But in its absence this one is the closest fit.

One of my guests told me she left the place she was working in today (doing up a house) to get some groceries. She realised she needed cereal. Resenting paying the full Kellogs price in the regular corner shop she went a little further to a supermarket to get the more affordable own brand version. Anyway this task was at the forefront of her mind when she found a pile - as in literally piled up, not randomly spread out - of cornflakes on the street. No box or packaging to be seen, it had clearly been placed there. She estimated about 4 boxes worth gathered in a heap with no explanation in site. She wanted cornflakes, and cornflakes duly reported for duty.
I have a long and tortuous anecdote about being given what you ask for.
The trick is ask Satan for it.

The price is high though. :omg:
 
You couldn't make it up. It's happened again. My magic equilibrium.

On the night of the champions league final there is not a room to be found in Liverpool...the only available hotel rooms are over a grand.

So I put my two single rooms ( normally £22) up to £100 and they were snapped up instantly. (The remaining we're already booked at the normal price)

So as of yesterday I'm expecting a windfall of about £250 in a single night.

Just been to the dentist for a follow up to my recent emergency treatment. I will need a full root canal and a crown.

Total cost? £280.

Never richer.
Never poorer.
 
This is ridiculous. The following will sound a little complicated and the sense of disbelief i feel will likely solicit an indifferent shrug from others. But it leaves me again with the profound sense of either my mind or someone working on my behalf shaping events.

An hour ago my best friend phoned me, said because of work being done on his flat he's to vacate it for two weeks- last of july, first of August - so lets go on holiday. I went to my Airbnb calendar to make sure the coast was clear...no one checking in or out during that period. And damn it all, even though i had blocked off every other date around then for unrelated reasons, there was one long standing one night booking on the sunday night in the middle of the fortnight in question. I might find arrangements to let them in in my absence, but if i went away id not be here to clean and change the room in the first place from the guest leaving the day before. We either have to confine any travel to a few narrow days either side of this person, or i have to break my umblemished record and cancel on the guest. Which im loathe to do, and theoretically would be penalised by the platform for doing so. If only they'd cancel it themselves.

I'm in the middle of typing out the details of this dilemma when...this can't be real, surely?....the very guest in question popped up, apologising because his friend now wants to travel with him so he has no choice but to cancel his stay at mine!!!

What the.... ?? I mean yes, guests occassionally do cancel, but that precise guest at that precise moment when i wanted and need him to? He could have done it yesterday or next week. Call it magical thinking, but i'm thinking its magic.
 
Not quite on theme but related at a tangent....

Walking along , as I was about to turn a corner a man coming from the opposite direction knelt down as if to his tie his laces or pick up a dropped coin.

Immediately BEHIND him on the pavement I saw two ten pound notes. Assuming this was part of what he'd possibly dropped, or else had fallen out of his pocket when he bent down, I picked it up and got his attention saying "is this yours?" as I handed it to him.

"Yeah, sorry mate" he said as he took it. His surprised, hesitant and shifty tone and expression told me he'd in fact never seen it before in his life. Still I'd given it to him now and couldn't prove it wasnt his. Jammy bastard.

I walked on around the corner. His conscience must have pricked him as I heard him call after me. He handed me one of the tenners "Half each" he said.

Honour among thieves.
 
Not quite on theme but related at a tangent....

Walking along , as I was about to turn a corner a man coming from the opposite direction knelt down as if to his tie his laces or pick up a dropped coin.

Immediately BEHIND him on the pavement I saw two ten pound notes. Assuming this was part of what he'd possibly dropped, or else had fallen out of his pocket when he bent down, I picked it up and got his attention saying "is this yours?" as I handed it to him.

"Yeah, sorry mate" he said as he took it. His surprised, hesitant and shifty tone and expression told me he'd in fact never seen it before in his life. Still I'd given it to him now and couldn't prove it wasnt his. Jammy bastard.

I walked on around the corner. His conscience must have pricked him as I heard him call after me. He handed me one of the tenners "Half each" he said.

Honour among thieves.
Reminds of a time many years go at tower hill underground station. I was third in a queue at a cashpoint.

At the front was an American tourist trying to take some cash out of the machine. The card came out but the cash didn’t.

He waited for a few seconds before walking off and saying “goddamnit” to his wife. Ten seconds after that, the machine spewed out £100. I did look for the American chap, but he was lost in a throng of people. The guy who second in the queue looked at me and said, “what do we do now?” I suggested that we chase after the guy, find him and give him the money back, but the guy said “bollox to that mate it’s his fault” and pocketed the cash lol.
 
Reminds of a time many years go at tower hill underground station. I was third in a queue at a cashpoint.

At the front was an American tourist trying to take some cash out of the machine. The card came out but the cash didn’t.

He waited for a few seconds before walking off and saying “goddamnit” to his wife. Ten seconds after that, the machine spewed out £100. I did look for the American chap, but he was lost in a throng of people. The guy who second in the queue looked at me and said, “what do we do now?” I suggested that we chase after the guy, find him and give him the money back, but the guy said “bollox to that mate it’s his fault” and pocketed the cash lol.
Could have given you half though.
 
This is ridiculous. The following will sound a little complicated and the sense of disbelief i feel will likely solicit an indifferent shrug from others. But it leaves me again with the profound sense of either my mind or someone working on my behalf shaping events.

An hour ago my best friend phoned me, said because of work being done on his flat he's to vacate it for two weeks- last of july, first of August - so lets go on holiday. I went to my Airbnb calendar to make sure the coast was clear...no one checking in or out during that period. And damn it all, even though i had blocked off every other date around then for unrelated reasons, there was one long standing one night booking on the sunday night in the middle of the fortnight in question. I might find arrangements to let them in in my absence, but if i went away id not be here to clean and change the room in the first place from the guest leaving the day before. We either have to confine any travel to a few narrow days either side of this person, or i have to break my umblemished record and cancel on the guest. Which im loathe to do, and theoretically would be penalised by the platform for doing so. If only they'd cancel it themselves.

I'm in the middle of typing out the details of this dilemma when...this can't be real, surely?....the very guest in question popped up, apologising because his friend now wants to travel with him so he has no choice but to cancel his stay at mine!!!

What the.... ?? I mean yes, guests occassionally do cancel, but that precise guest at that precise moment when i wanted and need him to? He could have done it yesterday or next week. Call it magical thinking, but i'm thinking its magic.
You were blessed by the right type of Fairy Godmother at birth! I have never had anything like this happen to me. Accept your gift. Think big :)
 
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