New Year New Me, the journey continues.........

moo2moo

Being back at work has many positives. For a start monsewer le postie will be visiting you there with a parcel of goodies. Equally not being self employed means that even on a really carp week you still get paid and on Friday night you have the delights of slamming the door until Monday.

Meanwhile could you avoid the rush hour by starting earlier or finishing later a couple of days a week and avoiding the traffic that way or could you make use of your time in the car and borrow some talking books on cd from the library. Obviously comedys or something ridiculously childish although explaining to your boss that you were 15 minutes late because you were sitting in the car awaiting the end of a fictional Quidditch match may not be the brightest thing ever.

What books did you get from the library? Have you tried Kathy Lette? or Terry Pratchett?

thrifty_fifty

Just revisiting Stephen King at the mo. Hadn't read any of his books for a good many years. On the 3rd book of the dark tower series at the mo. V interesting reading.

Work wasn't so bad, apart from the reminder at 9am that the application process for voluntary redundancy requests was now open. I'm staying positive though, some more training on the way later in the month I don't care if I am labelled a training tourist, what the hell is the point of having it there if no-one goes on it, and is it sooo bad that someone is interested in developing themselves?

Anyhow, enough of that. I'm home now and none of that matters, it doesn't matter when I'm there either, so shut up Thrifty. First day of the diet went well. I even found a chocolate bar in my drawer and wasn't tempted. Itchy skin has started again. Hadn't had this for the whole time I was off, so that's obviously a bit stress related.

Anywho, I'm off to look at some crafty bits-namely a set of lips cookie cutter and some red sparkly edible glitter that I've seen on ebay, which will be really cool for making cookies for a girly night in. Distraction is the name of the game when it comes to negative thoughts.

thrifty_fifty

Morning!

A good night's sleep always does the trick. Feeling a lot more positive today. Todays tasks are quite nice ones, got a trip to a museum planned at lunch with some work colleagues (free entry), and then dinner with friends this evening. Coolio

thrifty_fifty

Had a not too bad day today, all in all.

x

thrifty_fifty

Having a good day so far. Increasingly I find myself looking at things now before I throw them out and wondering what I can make with them, how to recycle them. Today's mat hat idea is to collect pallets from town to chop down and use as kindling (does the company a favour as they don't have to pay for someone to take them away, does us a favour because it's free kindling). Also just tested out some of the christmas tree branches in the fire (not a plastic one so not going to set the house on fire), and it goes like a good one. Will therefore spend tomorrow hacking up the christmas tree and storing it in a box to be used instead of lighter fuel blocks for the fire. Win, win Wahoo.

plans for tomorrow are

Walk
allotment digging
cook dinner
clean house
chop up christmas tree
clean car
sweep red berrys off garden path and pavement-already had one trodden into the carpet mishap.

thrifty_fifty

Morning!!

Well after waking up early after two horrible dreams-one where two of my school friends decided they were having nothing more to do with me because I was rubbish, and the other where Virgin sent me a statement with my current balance on and one of my tops stapled to it, saying that my payment in clothes in addition to my money payment was no longer enough and that I would have to send them more clothes in order to keep the dogs away from the door. Shocking!!

I think this shows how much I can't wait to have them off my back.

So this morning I have updated my totals, in order to lift morale and keep me motivated. This is a couple of weeks early but these are the amounts that I will be paying off, so there is no harm, and it serves as a timely reminder of how far I've come. Two miles stones here- below 7k and also reached 50% paid off target, just in time for my 1 year anniversary of starting my debt free journey on 2nd feb last year.

This morning I'm looking into making my own celebration cards, wrapping paper and gift tags for the presents I give this year. I promised myself that all gifts would be homemade or cheap as chips but look nice bought from the shops, so I'm darn well going to get down to it.

February pay sees a big milestone in that Barclaycard will be paid off in full. Hooray!! Then I can breath a sigh of relief because I know that I can send £600/month to Virgin, rather than the token £200 that I have been sending, whilst clearing Barclaycard. I'll have had the balance on this card for 4 years come this july, so I guess that's a bad debt, although I've always paid twice the minimum payment, so I'm not sure.

thrifty_fifty

Can't believe it, after a thief was stealing veg from up the allotment, it seems now that there isn't any veg to be had, they are stealing other stuff. Our Cloche, that we haven't even had a chance to use yet. Now our seeds are going to have to sit on the kitchen table to germinate, meaning that we can't eat at our table for the next few months. I cannot believe what lowlife scumbags these people are. How dare they take something that isn't theirs. And it can't be the case the it could have blown away in the wind, because we secured it down with tent pegs, and the tentpegs were gone too. Unbelievable

thrifty_fifty

Just thought I'd swing by and say hello before the forum goes down.

Had a good week this week. Managed to get some very fabulous la prairie face cream samples, to treat myself with on occasion.
Got most of my crafty bits now, so that I can make OH some biscuiteer style biccies for valentines day, and a home made card too. It may turn out to look like a gift that a small child has created, but what the heck. The thought was there.

Have created a misc shaped balloon (thanks Moo ). I twisted a random shape and then tried to convince OH that it was a ballerina

Today I have planned to paint my wooden stars that have arrived from the bay (ebay), ready for xmas decorations for this year. I know, I know, but I love christmas and so anything that was going to be made was going to be a christmassy item.

Have therefore been a bit spendy this month, but did it in order to get things while the january sales were still on.Have gone a wee bit OD, therefore breaking my rule, but for the sake of paying twice the price for things, to buy them a month before Christmas and stay within budget, it made more sense to me at least. Got all my Christmas shopping and birthday items for the year ahead, all but two items, so probably another £10-£15 to spend Not bad. Plus when I'd normally be stressing about what to get everyone, I can spend that time baking and generally enjoying having some free time.

Also another turn up was that mum was clearing out the attic and brought down some of my bags of things from when I moved out of my house three years ago. I have sooo many clothes that are like brand new. It looks like I won't need to buy anything for the next 5 years. So that was a little blessing.

Had my moles frozen on my neck yesterday at the docs, so v painful today. They sit just where the neckline of most of my tops do, so hopefully they'll be gone soon.

So today I'm saying *** it to the housework, and I'm going to enjoy a day of painting, reading, and generally supping cups of tea and eating a sausage baguette breakfast. Mmmmmm

little_h_2

your day sounds wonderful! enjoy!

I agree about the OD - you are using the time of year to the best advantage and will genuinely have saved money overall.

and how organised to have everything sorted present-wise for the next year! wow!

great news on the clothes too - I keep finding the odd bag I had forgotten about and get a real kick when I find something 'new' which is actually old that I can wear!

thrifty_fifty

So this morning I tasked myself with sorting out the bags of clothes. After sorting them out into piles that I thought I could conceivably lose weight and squeeze into, I promptly stuff 95% of them back into the bag to be sent to the charity shop.

This would appear on the face of it to be sheer and utter madness, there are shoes etc that I could still wear. However the deeper point was that the longer I looked at those things, the memories of that time were ones which I would like to finally lay down to rest. Looking at them reminded me of the uncontrolled frivolous spending, the misery and all in all a very unhappy few years of my life which are best forgotten. Having those clothes hanging around were just acting like ghosts of the past. I could remember places I'd been to, the unhappinesss I felt both at being in debt, and being in the relationship I was at the time, and the sheer fact that just having done that this morning has left me close to tears, is point enough that they should go.

So I may be poor, I may have had clothes that could last me for another few years, but the minute I put them on, I would become "that" person again. So I am loving myself, and getting rid. Another chapter closed.

So breath, reboot, and get on with dinner.
xx