Sepa seeks freedom

Radish72

Never ever give up long hot showers, they are the best

I always buy myself a birthday treat so that is allowed

Sepa74

Thanks Radish.... this is a very extravagant birthday treat, particularly on top of the trip to NY that is my Christmas treat!!

But I can afford it, and I love the sculpture and we all have to live a little

I am very fortunate that my local high street is still a high street! We have a greengrocer, butcher, baker, a couple of cafes, a window shop (yes really!) an tiny little art gallery and a couple of crafty type places. But too many real estate agents! I do try and support them all, particularly the greengrocer, butcher and baker - they are the shops that make it a real high street, not a gentrified version of one that is just cafes and twee crafty type shops (although don't get me wrong, I shop in those too!!).

The art gallery is a real one, showing things by professional artists, so buying the sculpture means I'm contributing to someone's livelihood, which is a nice feeling. The sculpture was in the window for the longest time, and I kept looking at it longingly, and finally decided I would buy it!

Here is the artist: http://www.abelkesteven.com/ 'my' sculpture isn't on the page, but it gives you an idea of the style of his work.

lulabelle1

Hey Sepa, good for you, it's lovely to have a treat and you've earned it.
I read your diary from start to finish last weekend, it was nice to share the highs but I did feel a bit sad when you were talking about longing for a child. It tore at my heart strings a little bit and made me realise how lucky I am. I hope you don't mind me mentioning it but I just wanted to say I felt for you and I hope you find joy with this soon... Xxx

Sepa74

Well, I've just done my Accounts, and it is just under 6 months since I started keeping a spending diary. It excludes utilities and just focuses on my day to day spending that I have the most control over. Divide everything by 6 to get the monthly cost.

Highlights are:

Travel is the biggest single item of expenditure - £1,131.30 :eek: However I live in London, so any one who knows anything about how much travel in london costs will not be surprised. I don't own a car, so this includes the odd taxi fare as well.

This is a very interesting one because an annual travel card would have cost me £1900 had I bought one. Bearing in mind that £1100 of this is Oyster and monthly travel cards, I think this really shows what great value an annual travel card is!

Pets come next. This has really surprised me! My two adored animals have cost me £824.28 in food, vet fees and taxi fares to the vet. Wow! It's a good thing they're worth it, or they'd be out on their ear!

On the other hand, all my household running expenses, including a cleaner twice a month has only added up to £605.28. Bargain! The cleaner has cost over half of this, and it doesn't include my renovations, just the running expenses.

On personal items I have spent:

Gifts - £303.36 (but this includes 90% of Christmas, and also includes postage, which is a big expenditure for me at this time of year)
Clothing - £220.48 - It's not a huge amount, and is mainly shoes!!! I will spend a bit more on clothes over the next 6 months as several of my work items are getting old and I need to buy replacements
Personal Care - £100.73 - this is face creams, hair serums etc
Other - £145.95 includes a new hand bag, purse and the deposit on the sculpture

Food is an interesting one.... I have spent £186 on 'food on the run' which covers lunches bought at work plus the little snacky things you eat when you're out and about. It adds up to a little under £1pd, which is excellent given how busy my life is. However it could come down even more as I've been very slack about taking lunch into work over the last couple of months and I need to get back on the bandwagon!

Groceries is £673... this includes shampoos and things purchased at a supermarket. That's an average of £112 a month... not great for one person! However it does include work lunches, where I make it at home and take it in to work, and the odd bottle of wine. I will think about ways of getting this down, but I am very careful to not waste food, I batch cook, I compost all my veg waste, I don't eat much meat etc, so not quite sure how I'm going to do this! However something in me says this should be lower.

What do you guys think?

Entertainment is a big one, too, of course... £784, broken down into:
Event tickets - £122 (concerts etc)
Books & Mags - £112.40... I find it VERY hard to resist buying books, but they all come from charity shops which keeps the cost down. My Economist subscription is half this total.
Pub / Drinks - £143... hey, I live in London, what can I say?!
Restaurants - £404... this surprises me as I don't feel I eat out a lot. However it does include the times I have a nice lunch with a friend, so that may be why it's bigger than I expect.

Health Care is £512.30, which probably seems a lot for one person living in the care of the NHS!! However I have monthly acupuncture for my sinus problems, and it really adds up! Acupuncture is about half this cost. I also buy some fairly expensive vitamin supplements to help an old knee problem I had and which will also hopefully help reduce the degree to which I will suffer from the family scourge, arthritis! That's the plan, anyway

So there we are, probably very boring for most people, but I thought other London-based singletons might find it interesting to compare their costs with mine, even if no one else does!

Sepa74

Hi Lulabelle, thanks for posting, and also for reading my entire diary. Wow! :eek:

I am still quite sad about the children thing, but I am 'only' 38 in January, so I have decided I am going to give internet dating one more go and then if that fails again I will think about being a single mother. There are lots of pros and cons, not least that I'm on my own here in the UK, plus the impact on the child of not even knowing who their father is, but I am incredibly fortunate to have that option open to me and if I feel it's right for me I'll do it, no matter what anyone else thinks!

Thank goodness I live now, and social mores have changed so that there is no shame in being a single mother any longer. My elderly neighbour is single and in her 80s and I asked her if she missed having children, and she said simply 'it was all I ever really wanted'. I am so, so lucky that if I get to 80 and have that regret, at least it will be because I made the choice not to have children rather than having had no choice and feeling helpless about it.

lulabelle1

Good for you Sepa, you must do what feels right in your heart, I'm sure you have enough love for 2 parents should the Internet dating not work out....
I look forward to seeing some happiness unfold in your diary.
All the best, L x

Sepa74

Well, this week has been a dramatic improvement over last with 3 NSDs. Last night was a bit expensive as I had dinner with friends and got a round of drinks and a mini-cab home, but it's a long-standing tradition that we all get together for a pre-xmas meal. Often someone will cook a roast at their place, but as we've all got a bit older and richer we've tended to go out to restaurants more.

This year will (hopefully) be another cheap-ish week. I've got two x day long conferences which mean lunch is paid for :T and a supplier is taking us out for a celebratory lunch on Thursday because of a deal we did a couple of months back :j

I'm seeing the Railway Children with a friend on Wed evening, but that was paid for last week (one reason why last week was so horrendous!!) so we'll have a light supper, but that is all that's planned by way of festivities. The week before Christmas is currently completely free! I think everything was early this year in an effort to cut costs.

The other thing that has happened is that I've met a friend of a friend who would positively LOVE to come and house-sit whenever I need someone to look after the cats. She doesn't really like where she's lodging, so is happy to be out of the house and she LOVES cats! Fantastic! She's going to look after them over Christmas and NY, and if that goes well it sounds like she'll love looking after them whenever I go away for more than a few days

I had a long heart to heart talk with a friend of mine who is turning 40 in Jan... she's having a bit of a crisis over turning 40 and the children thing... it's all very sad.

Then after I hung up the phone to her, I rang the ex and had a heart to heart with him, so we'll see where that goes. We really are great together, and pretty much anyone else I know or am likely to meet would be second best, but he does need to get his stuff together. We'll see

Anyway, I hope everyone is having a good MS week!

Sepa74

Yikes! This weather! It was wonderfully clear and crisp when I got up this morning, then 10 minutes ago it started snowing, and now it's raining!

Grrr... I MUST go to the post office today, no excuses... I MUST drag myself out of the house no matter the weather!

Moneysaving-wise this week has been OK. I gave my cleaner her annual bonus (a month's pay), and that made over half my expenditure. I bought lunch only once, and had 3 NSDs. I bought some mittens and thermal socks for NY.

If I get motivated (and the weather looks like it's starting to clear up again... crazy!) I'll head to Tesco as they have a deal on digital cameras - a 10mp fujifilm camera for £30... sounds like a bargain to me! I'll go and have a look at it and if it's as slim and light as it looks I'll buy it for NY, if it's not I'll stick with my old digital which works perfectly well but is just a bit chunky.

Amazing to think it's perhaps 5mp and cost £250 7 years ago :eek:

It will be an adventure as I live in a Mr T desert, and will need to get a bus I've never caught before!

I think I'm back with the ex (in which case he isn't an ex... very confusing)... he came around last night and we had a really nice evening. He's much more relaxed... says he has decided to refuse to think about things when I'm with him! Which is fine, but he then didn't want to talk about our heart to heart last week in case it started him 'thinking'... strange boy. He has to tell me how he feels about it at some point.

I have also decided to start seeing a therapist - the original plan was to have someone to talk to who might give me some clarity about the stuff that I've been talking about on here, but now I'm back with the ex, I think it will be really beneficial to have someone to 'dump' my thoughts on and to stop me panicking if I don't hear from him for a few days or whatever. I'm the opposite of bf, who says when he does't know what to do he freezes, but I'm the opposite, when I don't know what to do I am desperate to do ANYTHING to make me feel in control... neither is a particularly helpful reaction to uncertainty!

Right, I'm going to graduate from my dressing gown and pjs :eek: into some clothes, and go to the post office!

Sepa74

Well, after saying this week had not been too bad money-savings wise, I then went and spent over £200 yesterday!!

I paid another £50 for my sculpture, I bought a camera, I bought a few more Xmas pressies just one more to go now, and the budget for that is only a tenner!!), I posted some gifts and cards (to Italy, so they won't arrive until after Xmas, but no matter) and had my acupuncture appointment.

It all really adds up, doesn't it!

On the bright side, I scored some real 'whoopsie' bargains in Mr S and the Co-op. Mr S had some stewing steak on special, which came straight home and into the freezer. The co-op was even better, they had packets of 6 roast chicken thighs (from happy chickens, too, I checked) for £1.40. I bought 3, which was pretty much all I could carry (and also didn't want to look too greedy!) plus they had 2 for 1 on Mr W crumpets, some muffins for 15p and a pot of cherry yoghurt for 19p. So I got all that food for under a fiver. The chicken is enough for 6 meals!

I'm having a very lazy day today - I didn't get up until 11am (although I did get up to feed the cats at 8am)... it means I lose half my day, but I really needed the lie in. The cats have taken to waking me up v. early in the morning because they want to be fed, and it's really tiring me out. They don't get fed until 7am, but their restless stops me getting back to sleep.

Boo for puss cats on diets! Already they are hovering around their food bowl, and it's only half two!

Right, I'm for a shower and washing my hair.

Have a good week, all, and Merry Christmas! I may not find time to post again until after New Years, as I'm going to New York :j

Lois_E

SeriouslySeekingtoSave wrote: »

Hey thank you Lois we need an addendum to that statement! I'm single and very happy in that state In fact I won't touch 99% of men here with a barge pole and it constantly staggers me that the population in England isn't through the floor ie what on earth are the women in this country (and the rest of the world most of the time) thinking?! [ducks to avoid flying implements of wrath from various outraged posters....]

I however don't want kids so I feel none of the 'standard' pressures to settle down with a guy. I'm really sorry to hear that you're blue Sepa

I'm happy for you, SSS.

There are lots of men I wouldn't touch with a bargepole either, but on the other hand, I would like, sooner or later, to find one where no bargepole is necessary.

I hope you'll agree, though, that wanting one when you can't find one is depressing - and worse still if you have the children/clock thing going on.

Sepa74 wrote: »

However the cat is fine, no insulin injections required. Hooray!!!! Another checkup in January to check she is continuing to lose weight, and hopefully she will be fine for a while longer.

:j:j:j:j

ms_london wrote: »

Hi Sepa

Have stumbled upon your diary, but glad I did! I am only just saving for a deposit on a house, but will be buying alone - so it is inspirational to see someone else managing living costs and all that goes with it on their own. I love the sound of the garden! I also live in SW London, also single, so I can sympathise on most that you say. ((Won't be buying in London though, so will have a commute to face!)).

Just wanted to say hello and thank you for the inspiration & motivation to work towards my own place. xx

Hi ms_london. There are plenty of us on here who are doing the MFW thing on our own. Some who live by themselves, but also some of us single parents - me and pammy for a start. It can be tough doing it on one wage, but then we don't come on here posting sad/cross messages about "my OH is wasting money and isn't interested in moneysaving". So there are some advantages!

Sepa, don't let your boyf keep you waiting for ever. Set him a deadline - "I want kids so you need to make a commitment by the time I turn 38 or it's all over" kind of thing. Otherwise he'll still be seeing how it goes by the time you turn 50 and it's all too late. How would your single parent plan work out if you were still in a "wait and see" relationship with him, do you think?

I've been a single parent for quite a lot of years now (although I was a married parent when they were babies). My advice is that if you want to go that route, make sure you have a really good strong support network in place first. Who's going to have the kid(s) if you have flu and can barely struggle out of bed to go to the loo let alone care for a toddler? Who's going to have them if they are ill and you need to go to work? Who's going to be there for you when the little darlings are doing your head in and you need someone to vent at who will give you a hug and a cup of tea and tell you it will all get better eventually? Those of us without partners who don't have family nearby have to find friends to do these things, but they need to be good friends, or you feel awful asking them all the time. As they say, it takes a village....