Nice people thread part 8 - worth the wait

neverdespairgirl

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

If it makes you feel any better Lydia, I still have an attic full of boxes that were packed in 1998.

You and Lydia are amateurs in the "not sorting stuff out" stakes.

When we emptied my parents' house just before Christmas, we discovered three boxes of stuff that had made the journey from their previous house - in 1992.

We also discovered some tins of food at the back of a high-up cupboard that were old enough to double as grenades. A few had best before dates that started 19-- rather than 20--..........

lostinrates

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

You and Lydia are amateurs in the "not sorting stuff out" stakes.

When we emptied my parents' house just before Christmas, we discovered three boxes of stuff that had made the journey from their previous house - in 1992.

We also discovered some tins of food at the back of a high-up cupboard that were old enough to double as grenades. A few had best before dates that started 19-- rather than 20--..........

When I met dh I was asked to take his mothers stuff to the dry cleaners. It was routinely all done twice a year because eit had been when she was a live, no one saw any reason for that to change. I also helped his sister go through the stuff that had been boxes and stored in prime London real estate from the 90s when his grandparents died.



I now wish someone would come and de junk for us.:o

silvercar

NDG wrote:

We also discovered some tins of food at the back of a high-up cupboard that were old enough to double as grenades. A few had best before dates that started 19-- rather than 20--..........

Mother-in-law has food from before they had BB dates. She also has aspirin tablets in a glass bottle, each one wrapped in a wad of cotton wool! She also has a cheque book marked £.s.d. (She also has a newer one). She is in her sixties- just.

NDG wrote:

When we emptied my parents' house just before Christmas, we discovered three boxes of stuff that had made the journey from their previous house - in 1992

We have one box of engagement presents -early 1986 - that I haven't quite got round to sorting.

zagubov

silvercar wrote: »

Mother-in-law has food from before they had BB dates. She also has aspirin tablets in a glass bottle, each one wrapped in a wad of cotton wool! She also has a cheque book marked £.s.d. (She also has a newer one). She is in her sixties- just.

In my student days I moved into my landlady's MIL's house after she passed away. It was like a palace compared with anywhere else I've lived. (Nikkster you've seen the photos of the place).

The kitchen was full of ancient jars and bottles of pickled fruit and veg and various things in oil, all looking immensely old. We were told we could do what we liked with them. There were fungi on some of them and that was enough for us to chuck the lot in the bin ASAP.

Maybe we shouldn't have chucked the stuff out so fast. There's a legend that the manufacturer of a fizzy powdered drink back in Scotland (Creamola Foam it was called) sold the company and the recipe got lost. Somebody found an old tin in a cupboard in Orkney years later and sold it back for an eye-watering sum. Hope it's true.:beer:

neverdespairgirl

silvercar wrote: »

We have one box of engagement presents -early 1986 - that I haven't quite got round to sorting.

There you are, Lydia - you are winning points for organsiation and sorting things!

Nikkster

Urgh. After seeing the thread about student loans, I thought I would look up what the balance of mine is. Apparently doing a 4 year undergrad, followed by a number of years of postgraduate study means it looks pretty similar to what it did when I left Uni for the first time. It is very tempting to just pay off a chunk, but that would be silly when it can (just about) be earning more as savings.Mind you, I'm glad I don't have one of the newer-style loans.

Nikkster

michaels - still not sure what your ongoing situation is (apologies if I have missed it), but positive thoughts coming from this direction too

lydiaj - whilst on a completely different scale, I'm finding dealing with something that you would rather was (and probably should be) in the past pretty miserable. If I was in your position, I think I would find the nearly-ex bit very confusing to deal with. As you mentioned, you had done the dealing with it ending, there was supposed to be a formal process to make that official, but events overtook it. That coupled with helping littler ones cope with the situation (which they were all too aware of), and I guess the responsibility of dealing with the subsequent stuff on their behalf and I do think you are doing remarkably well. I do hope that this imminent stuff gets sorted out as soon as possible so it is no longer hanging over you.
(hope that makes sense - its difficult describing without going into details!)

tomterm8

michaels wrote: »

I have this theory that if you are the sort of person who could be happliy retired early on a 'modest' sum you are not the sort of person who has the drive and ruthlessness to ever make that much money whereas if you are the sort of person to make a large sum you are also the sort from whom having more and continually prooving yourself matters and thus you are unable to retire early.

Did that make sense?

Edit: I definitely fall in to the former camp

My theory is that you never get rich if the thing you are interested in is getting rich.

You get rich if you are really interested in something, get obsessed about it, work away at it for years and years,become brilliant at it, then one day you look up and you have a large amount of money stashed in your bank account.

fc123

lostinrates wrote: »

Dh got 33 on the burnout thing. We reckon that's normal to low for his sort of work.

I don't feel particularly burnt out at the moment but I got 36...but Q's on having enough time etc. probably scored it up when that is normal for us as we work to the max all the time.

When we moved back to London in 2010 I would have scored loads as it was the end of one 'battle' and the start of another.

PasturesNew wrote: »

My burn out is from years of striving and achieving nothing, then the numbness of feeling lost and insecure.

That makes me sad to read that you feel like that.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

If it makes you feel any better Lydia, I still have an attic full of boxes that were packed in 1998.

And just last weekend finally got around to unpacking an entire room full of stuff that has been boxed up since we last moved back from overseas almost 9 years ago.

Around half of it went straight into other boxes and then down to the tip.

Since the works started our main living area has been like a scene from 'Hoarder next Door' programme. The sun lounge has books + misc stuff all boxed up. I know they are prescious, life defining posessions as I selected them and put them in boxes to kep safe.
Of course, we are now living without access to any of them and haven't noticed their absence in our lives.
Same when we lived in Brighton for 5 years. Put stuff in loft and then moved back home and binned most of it.

I confess to still having 2 boxes from our last house which we sold in 1996. It was a Victorian and I had a stash of old photo frames and antique whatnot that didn't match our current place...but I kept them....and now those boxes will go to Margate.


I think posters on this thread are quite a diverse bunch on the whole.

fc123

Nikkster wrote: »

michaels - still not sure what your ongoing situation is (apologies if I have missed it), but positive thoughts coming from this direction too
QUOTE]
Same here...I even stalked your posts but couldn't find what it was so...

tomterm8 wrote: »

My theory is that you never get rich if the thing you are interested in is getting rich.

You get rich if you are really interested in something, get obsessed about it, work away at it for years and years,become brilliant at it, then one day you look up and you have a large amount of money stashed in your bank account.

Love that para. Sort of happened to us on a very small scale + whilst we are far from brilliant, we are more able now.
I got angry with myself for 'flogging a dead horse' (not a nice phrase but can't think of another) for too many years when we should have put that energy + skill elsewhere but the flogging gave us lots of 'experience'

I read the 10,000 hours book (and can't recall the author or title as it's stashed away in a box) and it's so true. Takes 10,000 hours of practise to be really good at something.