Things that can be achieved from home using a home computer, an internet connection and a debit card

I used Royal Mail pick up when it was free but you have to pay for it now.

Tax returns. Car tax. Passport. Driving licence. Access Medical history. The list goes on. ?

Jaxjacky

Lucca we have iPads too and a printer, I can print remotely from my phone should I need to. I used the printer yesterday for my voluntary work, I find it easier to look thorough a list of clients on a hard copy than on the screen Maw. There is a laptop in the house, rarely used though.

Yes I know but I rarely need to print!

Could never pick up stitches properly, to form a collar, or a band, in knitting. Thanks to Hannah on You Tube, did it perfectly. Have learnt to cook authentic Spanish and German dishes from You Tube too. Kept me going through lockdown, and well as Duolingo and on line education from Future Learn. Couldn’t have done all this even 10 years ago.

Brand new Car.. Order, paying, sorting costs out, signing all the paperwork, everything that a local dealer would do, and saving about 4k.
To a sparkling new car pitching up on the back of a trailer to my house.
It was a first for me, and painless.

Lucca we have iPads too and a printer, I can print remotely from my phone should I need to. I used the printer yesterday for my voluntary work, I find it easier to look thorough a list of clients on a hard copy than on the screen Maw. There is a laptop in the house, rarely used though.

Printers have a short life span in this house. So anything I need printed I e-mail to DD who only lives 15 mins away and she prints it for me.
I do everything on my phone, the laptop I had I gave to ny son when his broke.

eConsult with the doctor. We have used it a lot and resolved so many issues or set things in motion over the past two years very quickly.

Recently, one very urgent one. Within 3 days of filling in the eConsult form plus photographs, I had an appointment at the hospital's skin clinic.

We have two printers in our house!

DH has a scanner/printer linked to his PC and I have one linked to mine, they are both networked, so that even if I was out of the home, I could print something from my phone. (Though that would be a very rare occurance indeed!) ?

It's a throwback from my teaching days, when I was always studying and needed to hand in assignments.
I suppose being a geek also has something to do with it.

I agree about needing it less and less, but being old fashioned I recently had to minute our TAS committee meeting and had to print the minutes off to proofread them. There is still something about the written word on paper!
I also kept hard copy of all the letters I had to send after my husband died, just to keep on file.
And I use it a lot though for printing off labels for sending stuff as we no longer have a post office in the village and a 2-3 mile drive, finding somewhere to park and queuing up in a local town’s PO does not appeal.

Well, I could buy one if needed, ordering over the internet, delivery by DPD, note on the door delivery option, but I rarely print, so for me paying for a print and having it delivered is far cheaper and much better quality than I could get with a printer at home.

I haven’t even got a “computer” . My laptop died and I just use iPad now.

MawBe

I could not imagine having a computer without a printer!

I haven’t got a printer ! I suppose before retiring there was school printer and I don’t often need one now that I’m not working. . If I do I have a friend who prints for me or I go to the library.

I could not imagine having a computer without a printer!

> pay for postage and arrange to have parcels collected by the postman

The problem there though is that one needs a printer to print the label.

Though, although I have not used it yet, even that could theoretically be resolved by using the viking online print house to print the hardcopy and then that be delivered to one by Royal Mail.

Disproportionately expensive for just the label to be printed but if one is having other loose sheets being printed the label could be added into the same job, as long as one is happy to have it on the same size sheet and choice of paper or card.

But it depends how important and urgent is sending the parcel. Still a lot cheaper than getting a printer and having to do setting up and ink cartridge stuff if one rarely prints anything, and does not already have a printer available.

It is unfortunate that Royal Mail does not allow one to just write the umber on in pen, even if that would mean an extra fee because they would need to print the label from that pen written information.

Thank you Maw, that’s very handy to know

I do everything on line, our whole kitchen was viewed and ordered online, including registration of warranties. New carpets, two piece suite, three mini break holidays, greenhouse and various plants. I bank, make investments and buy insurance for the house and cars. In fact there’s very little that’s not done online here.

Crossed posts, Maw! ?

EP, you can buy postage online and postman can pick up parcel or letter. I did it with a letter I wished to send to Italy.

For example I wanted to post a letter sometime before the pandemic and could not get to the letterbox.
You need parcel.royalmail.com/
Royal Mail Click and Drop - your postie will collect the next day (and you can leave it outside the door if you don’t want to hand it over in person)

Buying foreign currency and having it delivered directly to your home....a distant memory.

changing printer cartridges- in case anybody thinks I regard them as artworks!

Yet some things cannot.

For example I wanted to post a letter sometime before the pandemic and could not get to the letterbox.

People often say "ask a relative or neighbour" but what if that is not possible as relatives live many miles away or one does not wish to impose upon a neighbour, who may not be in a position to help anyway, notwithstanding the sweeping generalised advice about "asking a relative or neighbour" that often gets trotted out.

Oh and online banking of course.
Consulting YouTube for tricky (to me) things like hanging printer cartridges or crochet stitches.
Booking doctors appointments (although I haven’t had to do that since before Covid) - there is no end to the list!

Paying my family and my neighbour, directly into their bank accounts for shopping they got me, when I was sheilding

Oh indeed, I use Moonpig (other card sites are available) a lot especially for personalised cards for the grandchildren, as you say with photographs . I also send “letterbox” flowers, read three national newspapers online, pay for postage and arrange to have parcels collected by the postman, book deliveries by our friendly Hermes courier, obviously email friends, waste too much time on sites such as this, watch films or TV series via Netflix or Amazon Prime, take part in Zoom meetings and classes, enjoy Zoom webinars and “virtual” tours of U.K. cities or abroad (TAS) and listen to Radio programmes I may have missed on BBC Sounds, as well as TV on iPlayer/ITV Hub etc!