NOT BUYING IT! 2015 - A consumer holiday

cydney65

Well me and OH had a chat last night and we have decided on some changes this year. At the moment we sleep downstairs but she wants us to move upstairs to the main bedroom. I need to measure up there as I don't think a king size bed will fit. If it does we might have to re-do the door so it opens outwards, but it is up in the eaves of the house with a sloping roof, so even if we do the door, we may not be able to get into the bed.

Fortunately the bedroom is already furnished and comfortable, but it has my treasured daybed in it. OH has put her foot down and will not allow it to stay in the bedroom I shall work on her! For now though I shall focus on the hall.

GD's bookcase may just be solved. I found a picture on Pinterest of a cube bookcase made into a dollhouse using sticky back plastic. I have found an identical case on Argoose for £18, which is how much I have in vouchers, so free and I have found a place online which gives free wallpaper samples. I'll use these in place of the plastic-I'm well chuffed!

Definitely decluttering today-I have a good feeling about this year.

CydneyX

Bobarella

Ooo IWAB what will you be changing based on his advice? I'm not really familiar with him.

IrisViolet

Hi everyone, been reading every day finding it very interesting and motivating. Have only spent once since 23rd Dec but I'm off to the supermarket today as I need to get food to take away with us tomorrow. We are off to centre PARC's for a week, we always go after Xmas as its really chepa, and the accommodation is lovely so will cook our own food and take games to play with the kids. Will spend the days swimming and going out to nearby places, will use our national trust membership for some free days out.

I've downloaded evernote and started making some lists and notes etc. I've wrote my guiding lights to keep me on the straight and narrow. I've also wrote a list of things I want to do and achieve this year, things to make it a productive year. For me its is important that I live more frugally in general but most of all its important that money I spend is well spent and not though less spends. For instance two things on my list are visit Edinburgh and visit London. Things that will cost money but will be enjoyable, great for the kids home education and things we've been wanting to do for ages so money well spent. On the other hand I also have save two thousand pounds and crochet two big blankets, learn to cook and bake better (I'm hopeless) and visit ten new national trust properties that we haven't been to before.
I hope it will help us to have a more productive year .

Off to catch up in the reading now!

vulpix

Hi All,

I am hoping to down size this year.This stems from the death of my Father in law last year.

MIL is in her 80s ,wheelchair bound and just too old to move.My husband is an only child and we live 60 miles away so we can't just pop in.

Her house is too big as is the garden and she has too many "things".

They have worked hard and rewarded themselves with "stuff". She is still buying herself jewellery from the shopping channels and is a cold callers dream.
.
The amount of work she has had done on the house isn't funny.Blummin solar panels,"they will pay for themselves in 20 years"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I researched it and their life is also about 20 years, never mind the fact she is in her 80's.

She has recently had an electric car point fitted in the garage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She has never driven in her life. The list goes on ,but it is her money after all.

It doesnt make her any nicer though,I have never met such a negative person.

My husband has reward yourself genes.Yesterday we went shopping for food.He wanted to buy a new suitcase???? a pair of trainers and other stuff that I just didnt listen to.He really does feel deprived if he doesn't have new things on a very regular basis.

Consequently he will not part with stuff because it cost a lot of money.The hundreds of DVD's he has never opened,etc,etc,etc.It makes me feel quite ill at the thought of all the excess and waste.

Anyhow,we have a 5 bedroom house with only 1 child still at home.As a reflex action to all the excess I am desperate to downsize and slimline.

We are on the very outskirt of a small town with virtually no shops other than takeaways and estate agents.I am worried that when our youngest has gone and if our health changes it will be very lonely here.

I would like to move to somewhere where there are more passers by and on a bus route.

O dear i do sound ungrateful and negative,I'm not really,sorry.

Vx

cydney65

Of course, I can put the bed in the middle of the room...idea!

Runs to Pinterest for inspiration...

peony40

Morning all,

Oceandream, i do hope you do find your dd school books.

Kittie, those daily mail dvds were good, best thing about the paper. The Cranford series I am going to watch is from a daily mail dvd.

I have a bookmark with that William Morris quote, not that it made a difference to my house, perhaps I should frame the bookmark and hang in the hallway opposite the doorway to act as a reminder in our next home.

We are in the process of downsizing. Various reasons, main one being is that we need somewhere smaller and more manageable. I cannot manage to do all the housework and cannot manage the garden at all. Also, as it seems highly unlikely that I will be joining the world of paid work again it will become easier on our finances by moving.

Thank you all for your tips on oil cleansing and also the sdrug range of moisturisers. When I get into town I will look in Sdrug, haven't been in there for decades! In the meantime I will use up a bottle of olive oil that is lurking in the pantry.

My purse remained shut yesterday. Hubby did go to the shops and bought a few basics but he insisted on paying. I will need to look at the receipt so I can make a record of expenditure. I am going to keep a notebook listing all expenditure this year as I know this will help remind me of our goals. The one thing with my fibro is my memory lapses so I need visual reminders.

Plans for today are to start putting paperwork into relevant piles of filing, shredding and straight in recycling bin. I dread doing paperwork, I think it must be my ocd and the fear of throwing something important out. We have my old bank statements from 1986 :eek: i am going to make a start while hubby is home as he helps me keep things in perspective and then hopefully when I am on my own I will not be so phased by it.

Off to have some of my bread that the bm made for me yesterday. An easy dinner tonight but I must take out some stewing steak from the freezer ready for tomorrow.

Take care all.

I_want_a_baby

Bobarella -

My plan was to save £55 per month over the 12 months to bring our emergency savings pot up to £1000, to OP our mortgage by £45-£80 per month and to save the rest/anything else towards debt repayments as I wanted to feel I was making improvements on all.

However now after reading his 7 baby steps I now want to -

1 - get emergency fund up to £1000 ASAP - all money to go towards this first so that if anything happens our debt repayments won't be affected.

2 - pay off debt in full (should take 18-24 months to clear the 10k if I am extremely focused and stay on this thread/in a frugal mindset daily.

3 - increase emergency fund to 6 months expenses. I'm going to aim for an emergency pot of £12k which is just short of 6 months income instead. This will see us ok if my husband ever lost his job or if there were ever any big repairs needed on our rental property. My haste to pay off the mortgage made me overlook this very important step.

4 - invest/save 15% of income (approx £300pm) between a pension and ISA for long term retirement savings. We want to pay off our mortgage as part of a long term plan so it makes sense to so this as well!

5 - with a decent emergency pot and savings being made for retirement, pay off the mortgage!

2015 goals from the above will be to save the £1000 emergency pot and reduce debt down to £4500 or lower is possible! The first step to achieving the above!

Financial stability is extremely important to me and much more important than anything else I could buy! My mum and dad always lived for today and when he got progressive ms and consequently my mum had to be his carer they have lived so close to the breadline and still make poor financial decisions (despite me trying to help).

Who knows what the future holds for me (or any of us), I think one day I might get Ms and so getting our finances in order and securing that element of our future is vital for my peace of mind. I do have life insurance for my husband and I too but unfortunately no one would cover me for getting ms.

I am lucky to be someone who enjoys living frugally, loves simple pleasures and my husband does too. So despite scrimping and saving we will be having lots of fun too, we aim to have one break away in this country every year and a few paid days out to supplement all the free or low cost things we do - I Strive to keep the balance right.

IWAB x

ETA - I'm only 28 and know how lucky I am to be able to organise all this now, the compound effect over the years before retirement should hopefully help too.

thriftwizard

Consequently he will not part with stuff because it cost a lot of money.

Wry smile of recognition from me! Our garage is full of bits of furniture that no longer serve any purpose inside the house, and it's not even the same house that several of them were bought for. I could sell most of them for a decent amount, quite easily, as they are well-made things. But we can't part with them because we "paid good money" for them, so they're sitting out there on a concrete floor in the damp, going gently downhill & taking up space that could be used far more profitably. He also insists on trying to pass down his old clothing to the boys, but sadly they are nowhere near as tall as he is (I'm a bit of a bantam & they clearly have their fair share of my genes as they range from 5'8" to 5'11" and OH is well over 6') or as sturdily built, never mind that they already have more clothing of their own choice than they can store! So their wardrobes are full of "good" clothes that they can't be seen not to have, but never use.

It's a baffling mind-set to me as I'm easy-come-easy-go and can love something one moment & part with it the next without a backward glance, usually at a profit, although I'm happy to give things away too, if they are in the way of change for the better.

Anyway, enough moaning! On with the day; it won't be an NSD as I'll be trotting down to the market to hoover up any cheap veg at closing time, which generally keeps our resident vegetarian in basics all week for less than a fiver. But otherwise I don't anticipate any expenditure, though I'll need to visit the farm shop in the next couple of days as we're almost out of spuds. Better done tomorrow though, as today the road will be clogged with the last of the festive holidaymakers & caravanners trudging wearily back towards Town.

TudorRose

Good Morning everybody.

Very cold with a thick frost here this morning. Not planning on going out. If it wasn't so cold I might have gone for a walk.

Work yesterday but only 60p spent on hot drinks from the vending machine. My usual spend when I have a full day at work. Was tempted to buy a stoarge unit for my bedroom which was reduced and with my staff discount was a really good price but it came ready assembled and luckily would not fit in the car and even if it had there was no way I'd be able to actually get it out of the car by myself.

Have discovered enough black opaque tights in a drawer to last me a couple of years! Remember buying some but not this many.

I am making a bolognese sauce with lamb mince in the slow cooker. Like to make it in advance so that tomorrow when it is cold I can remove any fat off the top before turning it into a large lasagna that will feed me for 3/4 days. Will make caulflower & stilton soup later to use up some stuff in the fridge.

Doing the washing today. Only two loads to do. Have come to the end of a bottle of washing gel so have taken the cap off the bottle and put the bottle in with the wash to get the last dregs used. Do this every time I finish a bottle so nothing is wasted. Never had any problems doing this as the bottle is made from the same material as the measuring device that you put into the washing machine. Does ant body else do this?

Think I'll have a lazy day today as not in work until Wednesday & tomorrow I need to sort out some boxes of "stuff" that I'm not even sure what they contain.

It's great to read what we are all doing in our own ways to live a simpler, hopefully less expensive, life.
Have a good day everybody.

FrugalinShropshire

Very cold and frosty here, luckily the sun is shining so the washing is out, even though there was ice on the washing line. OH is putting leftover lamb in the slow cooker for tea tonight and we will download a film to watch while I do some ironing this afternoon.
I spent £2.50 on sausages from the butchers yesterday and then £4 in Morissons, the bakers were out of bread rolls by the time I got there, so I made use of my £5 supermarket voucher and bought bread , milk and cheese and a few veggies.
It's lovely hearing about other peoples frugal downshifting. For years until we moved here we felt outside the norm with our veg plot, chickens and logburner. Up here it is so common, but I wish I had found a group/thread like this one years ago:T