Hoarding - A New Start

tattycath

greengoblin wrote: »

You are not alone! Pay day (and pms!) was yesterday and out went about £70 on Amazon as soon as I got in. Then I felt embarressed and cancelled about £20 worth.
Does anyone else find that you spend the last 2 weeks before pay day thinking about what you will get when you get paid. Blow most of it in the week of pay day and then start the cycle again?! I have decided that I am going to try cash only this month in an attempt to not spend it all without realising on plastic. This could be interesting!

I do think about what my take home will be a week or so before it's due, but i don't 'blow most of it' in the week of pay day as I have household bills to pay-gone are my carefree days of just being able to 'blow some of my wages' on frivolous stuff.
This month I have 'treated myself' to a couple of new mugs and some much needed skincare cream-what an exciting life I lead. :rotfl:

sjprmc01

Oh, yeah, usually mine is for needed stuff, well, needed-ish!

Yesterday I bought a microwave (the old one has been past it for a long time and will go to recycling centre), bed set (this will replace one we are chucking) a mattress protector, pair of boots for 1 dd, 2 x netting rails.


The day before I bought paint, wall stickers, musical note wall stickers, a lampshade and I think that was it.

On Mon I bought 2 underbed boxes, wall border, wall stickers and a lampshade

I have in mind to buy tomorrow (my payday) boots for youngest dd. that is all so far, lol!

whitewing

sjprmc01 wrote: »

WHITEWING. Do you mean this relating to me? My mum is not dead.

Oops sorry, getting the histories all muddled up, the downside of an anonymous forum.

I decided to donate some furniture to the local charity shop. They are collecting it next week, but were very delighted. The slight delay in getting it out of the house may become an advantage if it spurs me on to clear out some other bits and bobs to go with it. (Even if they can't take the extra then, we can always drop that along).

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Hmmmm. What have I bought this week?

Milk.
Bread.
Salad leaves.
Bacon.
Packet of salt n vinegar snack a jacks.
Bag of cat crunchies.


Oh, and a crunchie for me. Emergency rations.

This_Year

Since being put at risk (very real risk as in it's happening) of redundancy this year, I overnight stopped buying. Everything costs too much. It doesn't, but I'm begrudging it!

I find myself putting things back on the shelves as "it may be less elsewhere" or better still "I don't need it" :eek:

Really focused my mind.

lostinrates

Any body else do shopping like me?

I don't shop often, and when I do I agonise. Put stuff in the basket and wander around with iot for a bit, then....put it back.

When I shop with my mother it drives her mad and she often offers to buy me the thing. But I think just walking around with it for awhile is enough for me a lot of the time.

Pitlanepiglet

sevenup01 wrote: »

I think you have hit the nail squarely on its head with this. My mum died just before my 9th birthday and the only things that i recall coming to our grandmothers house with us is our clothes, beds and toys. Everything else was burnt in a giant bonfire. Her clothes, many photo albums (not all the photo albums went but most), her bed and all the other 'stuff' that made up our home. We also had to give our dog Freeway to one of our uncles. I think it doesnt help that for us children - four of us - there was no closure as we were not allowed to attend the funeral so the last we saw was our mum in bed and we couldnt wake her. I think she was still alive as we did see her carried out of the house on a stretcher but that was it. next thing was being told she was dead.

Oh Sevenup that's awful, finding your mum like that must have been horrendous for you <<<hugs>>>

I wasn't allowed to go to Mum's funeral either although I didn't want to go anyway, I couldn't bear people talking to me about her or looking pityingly at me. With hindsight, whilst it would have been hugely painful for me, I would have got some closure.

These things do shape us but I agree with LIR about the effect that we allow things to have on us. I was lucky that my grandmother was hugely wise, she was a lady approaching 70 years of age, who had lived through her husband volunteering for WWII and being in Burma for years without her knowing if he was dead or alive, to them have him home, mentally scarred to then lose her only child to cancer and find herself caring for her granddaughter.

She taught me that you can't change the things that have happened to you, but you can influence the way you deal with them and the way you live your future and your present. I remember as a 12 year old laying in bed thinking that I wasn't going to be a victim of my past. Nan taught me these things - she was a survivor and she taught me to be one and to recognise that I am responsible for my life.

She also told me she'd come back and haunt me if I didn't live life the best way I could and she meant it!

She was also the world's greatest hoarder and I'm still clearing her stuff out 14 years after she died....

blossomhill_2

There's an OS London meet up on 11 Feb - details here

wannabe_sybil

lostinrates wrote: »

Any body else do shopping like me?

I don't shop often, and when I do I agonise. Put stuff in the basket and wander around with iot for a bit, then....put it back.

When I shop with my mother it drives her mad and she often offers to buy me the thing. But I think just walking around with it for awhile is enough for me a lot of the time.

I do internet shopping like that. I haven't been 'out' shopping since Christmas. Internet supermarket shopping I put all the stuff I fancy on the list, then I look at the total, :eek::eek::eek:, then I take off what I don't need. Internet supermarket shopping means that I don't get YS stuff but it does cut out a lot of impulse buying. I couldn't get to the shops for years so need to retrain to avoid impulse buying there. I try and use a small trolley, or a basket, so I can't physically buy a lot of stuff.

Things like Amazon are a real hazard to me. I really need to work on that. It's not just the money, it is the space that all the stuff will take up.

Jojo - your shopping list is my target. I have a way to go.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

lostinrates wrote: »

Any body else do shopping like me?

I don't shop often, and when I do I agonise. Put stuff in the basket and wander around with iot for a bit, then....put it back.

When I shop with my mother it drives her mad and she often offers to buy me the thing. But I think just walking around with it for awhile is enough for me a lot of the time.

Yup. I've done it. I hate supermarkets because they're so brightly lit and noisy and glaringly awful (and I resent giving my money over to someone using such cynical schemes to extract as much of it from me as possible) - but sometimes I have to use them.

If it's a particularly bad day in there, I can't think straight, so I have to go super slow and regularly stop and ask myself

a) how many meals is that?

b) can I carry this to/from the bus stop (only 100 yds if that, but it's an awfully long distance if the bags are too heavy)?

c) have I forgotten anything?

and, my particular favourite -

d) what was I thinking when I put that in there?


and yes, I do put quite a lot of things back as a result. I never liked shopping with anybody else - it's bad enough shopping at any time, but with somebody else, they can want things that are promoted but won't ever be eaten, expect to keep tons of things in the fridge just because they are on sale, that kind of thing. My mother would be constantly poking and prodding at me and waving stuff on multibuys at me, complaining about me being miserable to random people in the place when I pointed out that the loose grapes were half the price of the same grapes in a plastic box.



Or then there's the desperate need to have things 'what if' I have a few tins of soup, a few of beans, a few of spaghetti, noodles, some UHT milk, that sort of thing in the cupboard. I'm just round the corner from the shops. If I run out of anything, it's not a disaster, it's twenty minutes taken out of the day.



I certainly never understood the boyfriend's near panic if the cheese ran out. We'd have conversations something like this;

'BABE'

'BABE'

'BABE!'


[Sigh. I really wish he'd speak to me instead of bellowing at me the whole nine foot distance from the kitchen to the sofa. And give me the chance to answer] Yes?

'We're out of cheese'

OK, I'll get some when we need it again.

'But we're out of it now. And eggs.'

Did you want a cheese omelette for dinner?

'No. We're having chicken, aren't we?'

That's right.

'But what if you want to put some cheese on your dinner?'

I won't.

'But what if you did?'

I don't. And if I did, I would just have to go without.

'I can go and get some cheese so you don't have to go without it'

I don't want any cheese. Do you?

'No. What if you get hungry later? You won't be able to have cheese on toast'

I'd have a ham sandwich instead, then.

'If I got cheese, you could have a cheese and ham sandwich'

I don't want a cheese and ham sandwich. Stop worrying about it.

'I'll make you Welsh Rarebit then. But we haven't got any eggs.'

I don't want eggs. Or Welsh Rarebit.

'That means I can't make you any eggs if you get hungry'

The world's not going to end. The shop is just round the corner, if I suddenly decide I must have eggs and cheese, we can go round and buy them. But we don't need them right now.

'Oh. Did you know you've only got two pints of milk in the fridge?'

[and breathe] How much milk do I have in tea?

'Ummm. I just wave the carton at the cup from the fridge and that seems to do you.'

Do you think I will need more milk within the next five days?


[silence]


'I could get you some more milk when I go out to get you some eggs and cheese.'


:wall:



***************

I am considering doing some shopping tomorrow. I may be looking at a handbag that appears to be suitable for my needs, on the understanding that if it is, I will be disposing of at least 3 others. I still have a bit of a thing for bags - mostly charity shop ones, so buying one from new is an unusual event. After all, amazing shoes aren't something I can do anymore.

I will also be looking at possibly getting a new purse, as I've got a teenage girl's one at the moment. If I do, that and any others I find will be going.

****

Resorted the medicines in the kitchen cupboard today. They take up quite a lot of space, and as I'm due another delivery of meds next week, I needed to do it before I had them waiting to be put away as well. It's shocking how quick the meds turn into a great mountain in there.


But none of that's certain, as I don't know how I'll be feeling then.


Never mind, I'll worry about it tomorrow