Learn to control money but do not allow it to control you

williamD1964

I hate picky people who dissect every thing people write!

savingwannabe

William, me too. Mr/Ms Ixwood, if we were all perfect we would never have joined this thread. Firewalker has produced a fantastic inspiring diary that brighten's my day and many other people's too. I am pretty amazed at your self confidence.

Dear Firewalker I hope you do not mind if I add a thought for the day:

The test of good manners is to be patient with bad ones. –Gabirol

bast

Does "anal-retentive" have a hyphen? ~Alison Bechdel, 1990 Dykes to Watch Out For calendar ................


Unfortunately "!!!!!! happens"... I am personally unable to calculate for every event that has happened in my life.....There is sometimes that eventuality where it is so unforeseen it threatens to wreck your life......Humility .... what a wonderful word.... ..... Love your diary as you can see I post rarely I am a lurker lol.................

Firewalker

SW love the quote in fact it is officially the one for today.

Bast nice to hear.

Till later
Firewalker

Firewalker

In the canons of Christianity sin always goes with some form of absolution. Initially this absolution was gained by doing penance. Later, the Catholic Church started granting (and even selling) indulgences – the practice began in 1095 when Pope Urban II declared that all crusaders who confess their sins will not have to do penance. But the point is that sin always went hand in hand with ways to get forgiveness.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me most DFWs made mistakes, in some cases mega mistakes. But I cannot think of a single diary or personal history I have come across that can pass as sin – well may be some of us committed the sins of ignorance, irresponsibility and silliness. Nothing major...One is justified in thinking than that there is redemption – after all we are all paying for our mistakes and most of us are using the situation to transform ourselves, to grow and ultimately prosper. Why are there so many people around so ready to blame us, people in debt, for most of what has gone wrong with Britain, for the national debt, for ...well you name it.

What were my mistakes? Here is a modest list:

a. I focused on earning as much as I could but never checked how much this is or how did we spend it. I earned for my family but also I am one of the few who want to pay really high income tax – civilisation is measured by the way we look after those weaker and less fortunate than us.
b. I refused to engage in the financial affairs of the unit and left this burden to OH.
c. I refused to engage with what OH was trying to achieve and the way his work/business was going.
d. I was scared and wanted to survive.

These are serious – but are they sins the scars of which I will have to bear for the rest of my life? Hardly! In this situation is judging me useful? No. Can I allow to be patronised? Absolutely no way! So anyone telling me that this is what I deserve or that I brought it on myself is technically correct – but they are not really helpful, so they get put in a box and shot into space.

Because having a debt and dealing with it is the making of me – I am not scared anymore. I have worked out what counts, what I value and what I want. And that my family will have a future.
Today I also got a diploma in NLP.

Good night and thanks for reading.

Firewalker

bast

I have heard of people making the most terrible mistakes on this forum........ The ones I admire are those who do not try to belittle others, but help with advice that, tbh I don`t always agree with but, nevertheless respect..... We all make mistakes and unfortunately some cost more than money, and for those there is no insurance/pots One of my favourite sayings I would like to share with you and I am an atheist........Let him who is without sin cast the first stone............. One last thought I sat with my o/h`s grandfather as he lay dying his thoughts were not of the money he never made or the huge amount he lost... it was of his loved ones, the mistakes he had not rectified and of the beauty of the world he would not see again.............. That made him cry...........

Firewalker

Today I realised that my computer has competition and even possibly is not my ‘very bestest’ friend any longer - my OH is. It has been coming a long time, and writing this diary has helped but at lunch time I got again, after over six months, the warm feeling that overcomes you when you look at someone who is your other half and who makes you complete. I was looking at OH. I have my best friend back – and it feels fabulous.

On the way back from swimming I told little boy to ask me who is my best friend again. He did.

‘Your Dad’ – I said and this wave of happy excitement came out of him and washed all residual worries of mine. It was worth it.

There is some news on the MSE front. Sometime ago I mentioned that I cooked a meal that was a giant leap in the world of MSE – pork and potato stew for about 37 p per portion. Guess what? Yesterday, OH completely outdid me. He cooked delicious onion soup, using high quality ingredients and a French recipe that works out at 17 p a portion, croutons and all. To beat this one I probably will have to follow in the footsteps of Jesus – well give me time. So we have decided to make this competition much more fun and set ourselves a challenge.

The challenge is: invite friends to dinner and serve three course French menu for under £1.50 per person. Watch this space...

The other news is that now OH refuses to spend anything – his money OCD is starting to rival mine. So I think we shall make it.

Off to read ‘Brisingr’ to a very happy little boy who has accepted that his parents are not getting divorced.

And the saying for today is:

‘More and more these days I find myself pondering how to reconcile my net income with my gross habits.’ – John Nelson
Firewalker

savingwannabe

Wonderful. I do love hearing your food stories. As a terrible cook it always cheers me up. Glad you are happy. You deserve it.

Mr and Mrs Firewalker!!!

Firewalker

SW, the graphics look great! Should show them to little boy - he is just at the stage where he doesn't even want to hear about kissing.

About cooking - a year ago you would not have seen me in the kitchen at all. Quite a transformation but I still need very precise recipes. I thought that I was doing two things: a) saving; and b) transferring some of my obsession with food from eating it to preparing it - read somewhere that this is why French women stay slim. But a friend made the point that it might be a way to cope with my mum's death. Whatever it is, the dinner party is on!

Firewalker

Firewalker

Silly as this might sound, today I finally realised that the way we spend and what we spend on is closely linked to very basic reasoning structures that we have developed throughout our lives. So, although for some people not spending much might come naturally, others like me and OH, for example, have to work hard to change the way in which they think. This is best illustrated by an example.

OH and I did believe that we have become rather good in all this MSE stuff – we budget, we have reduced our expenditure substantially, we do not spend on little things, we are doing well on the NSDs...In the midst of this we have decided to go camping. Now, I am not the camping kind – we have tried this once before, going on a Eurocamp holiday and the whole family dislikes it. But I – I found it eminently distressing; the long walk to the toilet, the sharing of showers, the lack of comfort. Spoilt, I know but that is me.

Next weekend, though, we are going camping for two nights. When this opportunity arose we realised that we don’t have anything for camping – so what did we do? We went and bought a tent, lights, beds and sleeping beds. We bought the best value around – so we checked, we researched, we discussed and made a conscious decision to buy these. And we thought we have done really well.

Except that it never occurred to us that the way to go is to ask some of our camping friends to borrow their camping gear for the weekend.

This is what I am talking about, this is why change of behaviour (whatever it is) is hard. Because behaviour builds upon much more fundamental causal structures and if one leaves those untouched change is either not possible or not sustainable. Usually both!

Anyway tomorrow we are off for the weekend – going to a friend’s birthday party.

Firewalker