Millionaire Challenge

lessonlearned

No it's not self promoting at all, I find it interesting but then perhaps I'm just plain nosey.::rotfl:

You are right though, even if we relax a little, once habits become ingrained then we still tend to be "good" and keep a reasonable rein on our spending, even if we do it sub-consciously.

Plus as you say if you've got automatic systems set up then you don't need to be forever checking. You can just run your eye over things everybso often and tweak as necessary.

Anyway I'm all for a party lifestyle .......:rotfl:

And yes I know what you mean about being tactful etc with friends - no one likes a dinner party boaster. The fact is not everyone around that table will be equal, even among friends and peers who have similar jobs and similar interests there will be some who will be savvy with money and some who just seem to fritter it away and who are in debt,

The last thing anyone wants on a night out is to feel uncomfortable about their financial situation, so I agree it's best not to discuss money at the dinner table.

However feel free to come on here and keep us appraised of your progress. I love a success story.:D

Hi PIpsqueak. Nice to "meet" you. You are young with time on your side. Good luck on your journey.

Well mums funeral went well, then two days after my dad ended up in hospital. Luckily it's nothing serious and he should be out sometime next week, needless to say I've done nothing. In fact ive not been well myself. again nothing too serious - just exhaustion - so I'm having a few days resting. Currently on the sofa with the cat curled up by my side.......

Broken_Biscuits

Ive never buried a parent so cant fully appreciate how you feel, however, every funeral i have been to has felt a bit like closure and allowed me to move on. When its someone who has lived to a ripe old age the after do has been more like a celebration of their life rather than a morbid affair. So i do hope after the tears you managed to tell a few amusing tales of what she used to get up to and remembered the good times!

tea: got a freezer full of yellow stickers!!
chilli con carne, fish cakes and tagliatelle.
scooped up enough for 2 weeks worth at 38 to 45p each. All can be cooked from frozen and with a bit of bread and veg could feed me for about 10 days for £4.

did feel a little hobo'ish cleaning out the entire reduced section. Ah well. The benefits of popping in an hour before closing on a Sunday!

Karmacat

lessonlearned wrote: »

Well mums funeral went well, then two days after my dad ended up in hospital. Luckily it's nothing serious and he should be out sometime next week, needless to say I've done nothing. In fact ive not been well myself. again nothing too serious - just exhaustion - so I'm having a few days resting. Currently on the sofa with the cat curled up by my side.......

Broken_Biscuits wrote: »

Ive never buried a parent so cant fully appreciate how you feel, however, every funeral i have been to has felt a bit like closure and allowed me to move on. When its someone who has lived to a ripe old age the after do has been more like a celebration of their life rather than a morbid affair. So i do hope after the tears you managed to tell a few amusing tales of what she used to get up to and remembered the good times!

A few days resting sounds like just what you need, LL. I hope thats continued today Though with your dad in hospital, I'm guessing not. I hope he's on the mend, and able to come back from it. My mum went to A&E the other night, and they wanted to keep her in, but she refused ... its hard to know which way to think about this stuff.

As far as the whole celebration of a life thing, BB, I understand it - we felt like that when my nan died, she was 93, she was tired, she wanted to go. For me, a parent is too close to feel that way by the time of the funeral - eventually yes, but not right then. Just my personal thing.

did feel a little hobo'ish cleaning out the entire reduced section. Ah well. The benefits of popping in an hour before closing on a Sunday!

I admire that, BB! Good for you :j

lessonlearned

In both cases, with my husband and my mum, we didnt have doom and gloom funerals. We made them a celebration of life.

We chose humanist ministers, we had wonderful music and a video presentation of their lives. We had laughter amidst the tears, funny stories and fond reminiscences. It's what they both would have wanted. In many ways they were quite similar. They were both party animals.:rotfl:

My mum was brought in to the Queen of Sheba and said goodbye to the strains of Eidleweiss, with some Vera Lynne and Edith PIaff to intersperse the eulogies. Mum adored flowers so we didn't impose a "no flowers" ban, the place was heaving with flowers :rotfl: the smell made you dizzy.

My husband was brought in to the James Bond Theme tune - he was a huge James Bond fan - and said goodbye to the theme from the Archers, his choice :rotfl: - the incidental music was Cavelleria Rusticana, the bit from the Godfather, his favourite film, Sharpes Ending theme and the soundtrack from the film Rush because my husband loved Formula 1 and admired Nikki Lauder for the courage he displayed after his crash.

The eulogies were witty and funny, especially those of my husband, because he was such a larger than life character. He was only 49 when he was struck down by illness but he packed more into those few years than most people who,live to be twice his age.

I think nowadays the trend is to celebrate a life well lived, although of course when someone dies tragically young then that would be impossible.

With both my mum and my husband, whilst we were sad at their passing, we were also relieved that their suffering was over. Both of them had had enough and were "ready". As survivors we have to accept that and be prepared to let them go with as good a grace as we can muster.

Much as I mourn my husband I wouldn't have wanted him to stay any longer......it was time, even if his life was far too short.

The thing that astonished me about my mum and my husband was just how many lives they had touched. I had complete strangers come to me and tell me how kind my husband had been to them, how he had helped them etc and I never even knew.

As for my mum - well words fail me.......

We heard from the Belgian side of the family (my mum was belgian) about how she had risked life and limb during the German occupation smuggling foodstuffs and medicines, feeding refugees etc.

Apparently this was not an occasional thing. She had to cross a checkpoint 4 times a day and every single time she smuggled stuff across.

The Belgian guards who were forced to work alongside the German guards knew what my mum was doing. They didn't just turn a blind eye, they had to distract the German guards so that mum could slip by without attracting too much attention. Luckily she was a very beautiful woman so she used her beauty and charm to beguile them all.

I never knew any of this until the funeral. What a woman. At any moment she could have been found out and she would have been shot there and then.

I knew that my Belgian grandmother had hidden Jewish refugees
in the cellar but I had no idea that my mum risked her life several times a day......

She never breathed a word. So modest, and I feel so proud of her.

As for dad, hopefully he comes out of hospital tomorrow. Not sure how he is going to cope, but he is such a grumpy, cantankerous old so and so we will just have to leave him to it and see how he goes.

BB - well done on the bargains.........

A couple of days ago I received my renewal notice for my health insurance:eek: cheeky beggars. Whilst resting I have been using my time profitably to find a better deal, the new one should come in at nearly half the price...... result!!

Karmacat

Both occasions sound as though they can be treasured memories in themselves, LL.

Your mum was Belgian? I've just been in Ypres last week! On a First World War commemmoration, a Canadian ancestor who was shot, gassed and captured. Dear me, the links we all have! And how brave your mum was, my word.

lessonlearned

Extraordinary..... You're right, it's a small world and we are all interconnected in mysterious ways.

[Deleted User]

:kisses3: to lessonlearned. Just to say how moving and beautifully expressed your post was about the loss of your mother and husband. Thank you for sharing it with us.

I keep forgetting to visit this thread (millionaire ambitions being an impossible dream for me:rotfl:) but am reminded of the wise words and inspiration to be found here whenever I see you posting elsewhere, such as the Make £10 a Day Challenge . I wondered where you'd been as you hadn't posted there for a while. I hope you'll be restored to full health very soon:beer:.

Lovely to see Karmacat here too:j, who I 'meet' most days on her thread and who never fails to inspire me in what [STRIKE]might[/STRIKE] would otherwise be a long hard slog to debt-freedom. Not that Karmacat is on that particular 'journey' (how I dislike that term!) but her wisdom and joie de vivre is contagious :T

Bless you both:A

Karmacat

carbootcrazy wrote: »

:kisses3: to lessonlearned. Just to say how moving and beautifully expressed your post was about the loss of your mother and husband. Thank you for sharing it with us.

I keep forgetting to visit this thread (millionaire ambitions being an impossible dream for me:rotfl:) but am reminded of the wise words and inspiration to be found here whenever I see you posting elsewhere, such as the Make £10 a Day Challenge . I wondered where you'd been as you hadn't posted there for a while. I hope you'll be restored to full health very soon:beer:.

She's brilliant, isn't she :j:j:j

Lovely to see Karmacat here too:j, who I 'meet' most days on her thread and who never fails to inspire me in what [STRIKE]might[/STRIKE] would otherwise be a long hard slog to debt-freedom. Not that Karmacat is on that particular 'journey' (how I dislike that term!) but her wisdom and joie de vivre is contagious :T

Bless you both:A

Aw, thank you CBC! I *was* on that journey, you know! And the French mortgage is still being paid (thats a debt) and the rent I receive on the apartment has gone down by 20% and in any case I was £3k a year out of pocket already, subsidising it, plus my income has collapsed and I haven't started up an adequate substitute :eek: ... it just doesn't impact me any more, I have options for the future, thats what matters to me. You know when things changed for me? When I realised that my best-case scenario and my worst-case scenario were the same, i.e. living in a camper van :j:j:j though of course doing it for fun and doing it cos you have to, they're two very different things.

See you in a bit

Kayalana99

lessonlearned wrote: »

We heard from the Belgian side of the family (my mum was belgian) about how she had risked life and limb during the German occupation smuggling foodstuffs and medicines, feeding refugees etc.

Apparently this was not an occasional thing. She had to cross a checkpoint 4 times a day and every single time she smuggled stuff across.

The Belgian guards who were forced to work alongside the German guards knew what my mum was doing. They didn't just turn a blind eye, they had to distract the German guards so that mum could slip by without attracting too much attention. Luckily she was a very beautiful woman so she used her beauty and charm to beguile them all.

A true hero will put their life on the line for another, to think the amount of lives she touched and helped and perhaps even saved now generations of new families. You must be really proud.

Something is happening on my OH's side and they may need some financial help, so I think my saving pot is going to go bye bye over the next few months (depends how quickly things play out) they (as in the whole side of the family) are very live day to day with money and we are the only people in the position to really help out.

I had a conversation with my Dad a few months back about how people view him, my mums side have a lot of bad feelings towards my Dad financially, my Mum's side think my Dad should be showering the kids with gifts and houses..(ehem) and he is selfish, but I do believe that I see the bigger picture that building yourself up and being financially stable doesn't mean you are selfish if you don't give it away ~ but being in the position to actually help when things go wrong. I know my Dad isn't going to turn around and give me a house tomorrow, but by some chance things went wrong for us I know he would never see us on the street.

Just thought it was interesting how people perceive others with money, my ex's family also had a rich uncle (not really sure how rich or his story) and he offered to buy the cars for a funeral the family were having plus loan the money until the house was sold, grateful? No...no end of people saying he should of just paid for it if he could afford it.

afarmerswife

Hello all millionaires to be.


I'm a farmer's wife (I couldn't think of a better name) and I have been looking over the farm gate for a while now, I've read through the whole thread (phew) and I must say I am in complete awe of you all.


It seems rude to read and then leave without saying hello. I am wondering if I may join your happy band and have a go myself at making that magical number.


I have to go now as the cows are mooing at the gate but I will come back later and introduce myself and my 'girls' a little better.