Hope is not an Effective Financial Strategy

CathT

Sorry to hear about your pooch, hopefully it's been caught early and you will have some positive news. 

We are forever decluttering here but it's easier now the children are bigger and have less stuff.

Keep up with those steps and runs as it's good for decluttering the mind too. 

Suffolk_lass

The same as all the other well-wishers - wishing you well with your much-loved dog. Happy New year too.

greent

Sorry to hear about the pooch x

shangaijimmy

Thanks all. So many well wishers is very humbling. We should have his plan and dates today, which will feel like we're on with fixing him. 

Decorations are all 90% down and packed away in the loft. We've just got some ornaments that we need some newspaper to wrap them in and then 3 of the outside decorations to take down. I'm getting the big ladders from brother in law this morning so they'll be done by 9.30. 1 will be going straight to the bin. It started by saying "Merry Christmas". By Christmas Eve it has lost the "y", by Boxing day it was just "Mer Christmas" and now its "M Christmas"!! So that's my 1 item for the day to be removed from the house.

In theory I'm back to work today, but I'm working from home and with hardly anyone in work in our industry I'll be pretty much twiddling thumbs for a week or so. I think I'll make my phone calls whilst out with the dogs too.

Moneywise Christmas has been fine this year. We didn't spend needlessly on the kids and probably only spent 2/3s of budget. Both of our Christmas work parties were cancelled, and then both of our nights out with friends we're cancelled due to illnesses of others and knock on effects of people being called into work or being on call. So all those peripheral spends didn't happen either. Mrs SJ gets paid on Friday which is great for current account health.

Its recycling day today which empties a mountain of cardboard, paper, plastic and bottles from the garage. Our 'men' our great and providing you get it all out and in order then take everything. Once this stuff is one from the garage I can start to move things about more and be ruthless in clearing stuff out. There are 2 kids bikes which friends are having and I'm determined to deliver them this week.

I do have a trampoline to build so may crack on with that if its dry.

Cheery_Daff

I'm going to take inspiration from tour decluttering endeavours SJ, even if it's only to make sure I get the recycling out every week! We are very rural and can't see neigh ours, and even with a reminder alarm I often forget, or can't be bothered wheelbarrows everything to the top of the drive. The result of course is that it just builds up in the house/coal shed, and often we end up taking it to the tip! What a waste of time! 

Not taking inspiration from you taking the decorations down though - ours will ne staying up until something more cheerful happens. Last year that was the arrival of the daffodils - they finally came down on Feb 28th 😮😂😂

Baileys_Babe

Cheery_Daff said:

Not taking inspiration from you taking the decorations down though - ours will ne staying up until something more cheerful happens. Last year that was the arrival of the daffodils - they finally came down on Feb 28th 😮😂😂

I like this @Cheery_Daff it has made me smile. Our decorations will come down and boxed up after our Epiphany celebration on the 6th, but when the boxes will actually make it to the loft is any ones guess one year they didn't and it is not uncommon for them to still be in the way come Easter.

edinburgher

@shangaijimmy - I don't envy you the trampoline assembly - was it by any chance a gift from grandparents? Ours was a gift from my inlaws and it took FIL and me several hours to assemble it in the driving rain. DD doesn't even like it that much

shangaijimmy

Cheery_Daff said:

I'm going to take inspiration from tour decluttering endeavours SJ, even if it's only to make sure I get the recycling out every week! We are very rural and can't see neigh ours, and even with a reminder alarm I often forget, or can't be bothered wheelbarrows everything to the top of the drive. The result of course is that it just builds up in the house/coal shed, and often we end up taking it to the tip! What a waste of time! 

Not taking inspiration from you taking the decorations down though - ours will ne staying up until something more cheerful happens. Last year that was the arrival of the daffodils - they finally came down on Feb 28th 😮😂😂

The many mysterious joys of rural living... We always like to get decorations down and away before the kids head back to school. It signals the night of 'normal' bedtime routine returning. Our replacing cheerful is Mrs SJ's array of candles and wax melts. If there's any wondering where global warming comes from, I'd take a look at our candle collection!!

Baileys_Babe said:

I like this @Cheery_Daff it has made me smile. Our decorations will come down and boxed up after our Epiphany celebration on the 6th, but when the boxes will actually make it to the loft is any ones guess one year they didn't and it is not uncommon for them to still be in the way come Easter.

I've spotted 1 window ledge size decoration that has escaped our clearing away. The very same decoration stayed out in the conservatory for a full year once. We reasoned that it looked nice, but really once it had lingered past June it didn't seem worth it. The way I'm going at the moment it may well end up being decluttered this year 

edinburgher said:

@shangaijimmy - I don't envy you the trampoline assembly - was it by any chance a gift from grandparents? Ours was a gift from my inlaws and it took FIL and me several hours to assemble it in the driving rain. DD doesn't even like it that much

It was indeed a grandparents gift...all 12ft of it. This would be our 3rd now in 9years maybe, and I'd say that I'm an experienced constructor now. Only 1 little personal injury in the form of a scratch, no swearing and definitely no tantrums. It all went rather smoothly so I'm half expecting it to collapse! Give DD a chance in warmer weather. Our kids have bounced themselves senseless on our trampolines.

shangaijimmy

Well we literally have no money left...until Friday, so I think we'll cope! The dog is having his haircut tomorrow but we'll be fine for overdraft with 'pending' payments only taken the following day. 

I made a start on the garage of doom this afternoon. Once the recycling had gone, I was then able to move a few other things out that had been earmarked for the recycling centre. They were promptly loaded into the car and dispatched. Now that the charity bag has gone, I'll get another on the go  :)I then managed to load one of the bikes and a bag of clothes into Mrs SJ's car and she dropped them off at our friends on the way to school run. There is 1 more bike that needs to go but we may need to hold onto that for a few months yet. I will get this garage streamlined in 2022!

Unfortunately no win on PB's to start the year off. Last year we managed 4 x £25 wins on less than £10k, so let see if we can at least match it this year.

On my to do list is to sort some breakdown cover out for Mrs SJ.

Cheery_Daff

Very impressed with your decluttering and trampoline assembly! Also with your candle collection 😁  

Commiserations on the lack of PB won - nothing for us either, pah!