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A Simpler Life 2018

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  • fuddle
    fuddle Posts: 6,823 Forumite
    It's started in our house. DH and I have rejigged the budget to claw back more of his wage for savings. We start 15th of this month and intend to carry it through to next year. Although I have the 'simple life' in mind DH is clueless that he's fitting into place nicely. He just wants to save more.

    This strategy has worked in helping develop his money mind for sometime now. He doesn't know he's about to strip it all back even further but he'll slowly embrace it as if it was all his idea. ;)
  • fuddle wrote: »
    It's started in our house. DH and I have rejigged the budget to claw back more of his wage for savings. We start 15th of this month and intend to carry it through to next year. Although I have the 'simple life' in mind DH is clueless that he's fitting into place nicely. He just wants to save more.

    This strategy has worked in helping develop his money mind for sometime now. He doesn't know he's about to strip it all back even further but he'll slowly embrace it as if it was all his idea. ;)

    Can you come and sprinkle your magic on my OH please. :D
    Make £10 a Day Feb .....£75.... March... £65......April...£90.....May £20.....June £35.......July £60
  • jackyann
    jackyann Posts: 3,433 Forumite
    I too am enjoying this thread. I do want to sound a note of caution about getting over-enthusiastic about some things!
    We choose (and I recognise that some have little choice) to live simply for different reasons.There shouldn't be any sense of 'failing'. If something doesn't work for you, think about why, whether you really want to do it, and how you could make it work.
    I read that KonMarie has worked for a lot of you and am glad it is helpful. I wonder though, whether being too enthusiastic about getting rid of 'stuff' means buying more later????? Of course, a lot depends on space.
    Lessonlearned: I completely agree about giving only small gifts to grandchildren, and saving money for them. However, it is worth looking at different kinds of 'access' depending exactly on what you want to achieve. We have chosen accounts that can be accessed for big things like bikes, or possibly in the future, the more expensive kind of school trip. The 6 year old is interested now to learn about money and saving.
  • lessonlearned
    lessonlearned Posts: 13,337
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    edited 5 December 2017 at 2:21PM
    Well said jackyann

    In the past I have been a bit too enthusiastic about decluttering and have then having “sellers remorse”. Unfortunately at the time I didn’t really have a lot of choice, I had to sell anything that wasnt nailed down I order to survive.

    Re the savings for the grandchild. I think I will probably open two accounts. One not to be touched until maturity investing annua lump sums and one monthly saver that can be accessed for larger purchases or emergencies,

    I can look at that next year.
  • jackyann wrote: »
    ...I read that KonMarie has worked for a lot of you and am glad it is helpful. I wonder though, whether being too enthusiastic about getting rid of 'stuff' means buying more later?...

    We never had lots and lots of stuff to start off with, but we still decided about 2 years ago that we had too much.

    Some of it just accumulated over time and some of it was out-of-date and no longer needed. For example we had a hole punch and stapler we owned for years. We realised that we just do not staple, or hole punch anything any more so no longer needed these items.

    We reduced things in cupboards, furniture and other clutter and this has made a great change for us:

    - We can now clean the house in about 1 hour 45 mins instead of the 3 hours it used to take

    - We have been able to make the smaller back bedroom into our main bedroom and use the larger front bedroom as a hobby room. We now have a decent place to exercise and for the first time in years I have a table for sewing.

    - Capsule wardrobes makes getting dressed easier for both of us and most tops go with most bottoms and shoes too.

    - We also (about 4 weeks ago) finally cleared out the garage and my husband can now park his car in there. No more ice scraping the windscreen before he has to go to work.

    Our life is so much simpler now then before we started the clear out and so we do not miss any of the stuff. You need to make sure that you only get rid of those things you do not need though.
  • LameWolf
    LameWolf Posts: 11,234
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    amber03 wrote: »
    Forgot to add on my previous post , as mentioned in somebody else's post that I am going to concentrate on making me and OH a priority. Instead of running around and being worried what others think, we will spend more time on 'us'.
    Yay! Go you! :T:T:T I spent the first 42 years of my life trying oh-so-hard to do what was expected of me, not what felt right for me (except choosing not to become a mother - that was non-negotiable, though I got an awful lot of flak for it) but since I've been with Mr LW, it's been different. I can be as much "me" as my health allows. I still get know-it-all people telling me what I "ought" to do, but I ignore them nowadays; as long as Mr LW is happy, I don't give a stuff what others think.:D
    fuddle wrote: »
    he'll slowly embrace it as if it was all his idea. ;)
    That's the trick; I now have Mr LW as happy to get rid of clutter as I am; when I first moved in here, the loft was chok-a-blok with stuff that hadn't seen the light of day in years, and Mr LW's finances were a mess. I got him to sort the former - which he readily agreed needed doing; I dealt with the latter, as that's kind of my forte, (I made him a promise that if he let me deal with all the household finances, we'd never be in debt, and I've made good on that - we are even mortgage-free) and he's now as much a "collector of money" iyswim, as I am. :D
    For example we had a hole punch and stapler we owned for years. We realised that we just do not staple, or hole punch anything any more so no longer needed these items.
    Just proves, it's all "horses for courses", as with so many things; if anyone deprived me of my stapler and hole punch, I'd be very put out, as I use them a lot, particularly the hole punch.:o

    Our "indulgence" if you will, is computer and console gaming. We both enjoy it (we actually met at table-top Dungeons & Dragons) but we don't spend loads on it; we select our games carefully, and replay them again and again. We are currently on a bit of a "blast from the past" and replaying Neverwinter Nights, which first came out in 2002. :D
    If your dog thinks you're the best, don't seek a second opinion.;)
  • jackyann
    jackyann Posts: 3,433 Forumite
    One of the reasons I like this board is that mostly people are supportive, and recognise that we can have common goals and offer helpful advice without necessarily agreeing on every minute detail.
    LW - I sympathise - as I often say 'there is always someone who thinks they can live your life better than you do!'.
    When I became a grandparent, it was obvious that having spent my entire working life with families and children, that I had a lot of experience and knowledge. I said to the new parents 'If there is anything that I feel is absolute - a specific danger or issue you need to be aware of - I will tell you clearly. Everything else is opinion and ideas, happy to share, happy for you to take it or leave it'.
  • LameWolf wrote: »
    ...
    Just proves, it's all "horses for courses", as with so many things; if anyone deprived me of my stapler and hole punch, I'd be very put out, as I use them a lot, particularly the hole punch...

    If I still had it I would have happily posted it to you as it was a really nice pretty red one.

    I run a business from home and it had been sitting on my desk for years. Every week I picked it up dusted underneath and then dusted the hole punch too. I suddenly picked it up one day and thought why I have still got this? So off to the charity shop it went.
    LameWolf wrote: »
    ...
    Our "indulgence" if you will, is computer and console gaming. We both enjoy it (we actually met at table-top Dungeons & Dragons) but we don't spend loads on it; we select our games carefully, and replay them again and again. We are currently on a bit of a "blast from the past" and replaying Neverwinter Nights, which first came out in 2002...

    My husband got a much wanted VR kit for his birthday - it gives me motion sickness though.

    We run a board game club in our village. Clearing stuff out means that we have had room to buy a few more games and fit them in our cupboard. Recently, one of the members bought a really old game with them which we played from the late 1970s (a mining game) and I have a Scrabble from the the early 80s we still use.
  • LameWolf
    LameWolf Posts: 11,234
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    We run a board game club in our village. Clearing stuff out means that we have had room to buy a few more games and fit them in our cupboard. Recently, one of the members bought a really old game with them which we played from the late 1970s (a mining game) and I have a Scrabble from the the early 80s we still use.
    Our Scrabble is ancient, too; it's one of the things Mr LW found lurking when he cleared out the loft, so now it lives in the lounge and actually gets used. :T We also have the Talisman board game which was from Games Workshop, and which is no longer available, and is *possibly* worth a bit of money as a collector's item - but again, we do still use it. Sadly we don't have any of the add-on packs though.
    If your dog thinks you're the best, don't seek a second opinion.;)
  • Evening lovely folks

    May I join in as well? So many great ideas on this tread already!

    Sometimes I think that I am quite a simple person. I love homecooked meals, sitting with a cat on my lap and my knitting while drinking tea and listening to the radio (or watching a movie), going for long walks with a flask of tea, reading in the bathtub and things like that.

    But other times I end up in consumerism far more than I like it and buy stuff I don't need or spend evenings watching one silly video after the other online... I buy too many books, too much yarn and quilting fabric I will never use... And I waste too much time on silly things...

    So I will have to focus again on cooking from scratch, thinking about what I buy and use things I already have. And I will have to have a close eye on my screen time... Keeping it down to radio (not exactly counting as screen...), a few movies or series and knitting podcasts.

    We "do" presents by the way, but we make sure that it is something needed or wanted. My sister for example asked for a handknitted scarf to go with her new winter coat, Granny loves a posh body lotion which she would never buy for herself, my aunt is happy about crazy coloured socks... So I think I got it down to things that will be well recieved this year. Plus I knitted quite some of the presents.

    Reading about your OHs I think I can be happy to be single... My cats are happy with however we live, they don't mind clutter but they also don't mind me decluttering - as long they can keep their toys and an assortment of bottle caps, tin foil balls and rubber bands...

    And some of you seem to live with some sort of twin of my Dad... When my parents moved and my Mum started decluttering and downsizing he suddenly clung to everything that was long forgotten at the back of a cupboard... Suddenly it was the most useful thing ever or of huge sentimental value...

    So, have to go back to my knitting :-) Want to do a scarf and three pairs of cuffs until Christmas...
    Fashion on the Ration 2022: 5/66 coupons used: yarn for summer top 5 /
    Note to self, don't buy yarn!
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