What's your cautionary tale?

[BrightInMyNorthernSky]

Having just got through the most stressful week ever due to a nightmare situation of my own making, I thought I would share a previous and current cautionary tale.

1. Always remember to change the address on your V5 and not just your license. I didn't. DH got caught speeding twice on the same day on the same stretch of road (33 in a 30) in my car. Both fines went to old address. Didn't answer them, obvs. The whole sorry mess played out without me being aware and by the time it all caught up with me it was had been banned from driving for six months and fined £2k - five months earlier! So had been driving while banned for five months!!!

Absolutely this. We had major redundancies coming up in a restructuring and people plotted and connived and planned against each other. It was awful.

Never leave a light on and window open when it's dark outside. When I lived in my last house my son left the bathroom light on and windows open all night and it was literally a butterfly farm in there but with moths and craneflies! I had to fumigate it by spraying a whole can of fly spray and closing the door for 10 minutes

No dairy for a couple of hours either so no cereal or yogurt for breakfast. I set my alarm for 6.30 to take mine, then go back to sleep.

Nothing on the prescription or on the internal medicine leaflet for accord levothyroxine

Many people have mentioned this 30 minutes window, but it doesn't seem to apply to all brands

If you break a back tooth, and it doesn't cause any pain don't think you can live with it. I did this and got an infection so bad my lymph node swelled right up and I was really poorly before finally having the tooth surgical removed

Never be under the illusion that a company’s HR department is there to do anything other than protect the employER, not the employee. The employer literally pays their wages

When making life decisions, try your best not to base them on something that's important to you in that moment but may change. For example, don't turn down a great job opportunty because the hours don't work with the hours of a new partner, or buy a particular house in the wrong area, because it has a spare room and your friends from overseas mentioned they might come and stay at some point.

I haven't done either of those things specifically but have done these kinds of things so many times and made huge decisions based on things that have become irrelevant shortly after, or could've just been worked around.

This is particularly important for anything you're getting into contractually - jobs, houses, cars, divorce agreements, etc.

Try to imagine what future 'you' might need and value, and what the variables could be between now and then.

HOWEVER

If you do make decisions on this basis and they don't turn out to be the right ones, also don't beat yourself up. You made the best decision you could, based on the information you had at the time.

If your toddler has the habit of keeping food in their mouths like a hamster, it will cause tooth decay. I learned this during lockdown

No dairy for a couple of hours either so no cereal or yogurt for breakfast. I set my alarm for 6.30 to take mine, then go back to sleep.

nothing about eating dairy either - although I don't have much dairy, it certainly doesn't alter my blood tests on either counts

If your young daughter gets a uti check your mother in law hasn't given her advice on drying herself after the bath by putting the towel between her legs and see sawing it

Years ago dh got points on his licence for having loose empty cans of drink in the car. He learnt his lesson.

'nothing about eating dairy either - although I don't have much dairy, it certainly doesn't alter my blood tests on either counts'

I have the milk in my drink after 1 hour (I have a slow digestion) - going to stop this, because after 6 months of no caffeine/ no food my blood tests have changed, and I am on a slightly lower dose.
We are all different, so might not work for some.

HAVE A CLEAR WILL.

two generations of my family at war and NC over two wills and one unclear will which is currently with lawyers. We are not even talking huge sums of money but decades or resentment.

If you are going to hug a tree, first make sure it isn't covered in giant hairy red spiders.

When answering the question set by prospective car insurers of; 'Have you had any claims in the past X years'? always check with your current insurer that they haven't paid out some spurious claim without telling you.

This happened to me when I slightly rubbed the front bumper of a neighbours (very badly parked car) when reversing out of my driveway and my insurer paid his claim of over £2,500 without telling me. LV Insurance if anyone's interested - they said it 'wasn't policy' to let me know a claim had been paid!

That's really shocking.

A cracked tooth will never fix itself.

You killed all those fabulous insects? Why not just gently help them out? Fly spray should be banned, vile stuff.

That's what I thought, just close the bathroom door, turn off the light and put a light on outside.

Never make a priority for someone for whom you are only an option.

I learnt that the hard way when I always made time every week to see my best friend to the detriment of my relationship at the time. A few years later I got really ill and she disappeared overnight!

Don’t get into teaching, it will NOT be like the advert where the teacher has jokey banter and high-fives with the kids

Hmm, not sure I agree with this…some doctors just dismiss women explaining pain full stop

I went to A&E After a fall. Site occ therapist (was visiting one of our production sites) sent me there as they were concerned I’d broken my elbow. A&E doctor spoke with me, got me to move it, I told him it was extremely painful. He decided it couldn’t be broken and sent me on my way with it being a sprain.

i drove home 500 miles- took me most of next day due to the excruciating pain I was in

3 days later, went to physio - she sent me to A&E with a note “ please x-ray this lady this time” . Yes, it was broken

had Exaclty same thing with broken metatarsals after another fall in France, about 3 years later. Ignored. Not identified as broken 3 metatarsals for 11 weeks. Foot still has toes as wonky angles and lots of foot issues since.

I didn’t scream and cry for either. More fool me.

We keep scans of ours and the DCs passports (three of us are dual nationals so that's a lot of passports) on Dropbox.
I have had two UK passports stolen in East/Southern Africa and one came back, and I've got across two land borders without a passport (one with my national identity card from the country I was working in, one with a temporary travel permit from the country I was in to get to Nairobi for my flight. I got my passport in one day from the British HC, my photo was taken at 7am by a local photographer using his "dark skinned people setting" and as I was pale and tired anyway you could hardly see me in the photo. For 10 years. I started chatting to the immigration officer in the first country in the language of the country and DH was getting really worried that I was not getting my documents but actually we were getting along like a house on fire).

I agree with this. My friend was in a meeting with his abusive manager and a member of HR. At one point, the abusive manager let her mask slip and shouted and swore at my friend.

Later, when the abusive manager wasn’t present, my friend commented on her behaviour to the HR manager. The HR manager looked away and said, “I didn’t hear anything”. My friend realised at that point that he was never going to be treated fairly, so he resigned soon afterwards.

And as important…Always have Lasting powers of attorney for both welfare/health and finance/legal

even if you’ve got an old enduring power of attorney- swap it- the processes of initiating it are difficult, and they’re way less flexible. We know that as a family.

and always make sure you have substitute attorneys …ideally have more than one main attorney to spread load and decision making burdens - you may be using the powers for years and years in case of dementia or brain damage.

you will never know the problems and pain that not having this causes your relatives who are trying to deal with your care and/or financial affairs if you loose mental capacity.

and a lot of people don’t want to think about all the myriad of ways people can loose mental capacity even at young ages.