KonMari 2016 - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

Igamogam

Pooky wrote: »

first house was £36k and we got 100% mortgage for it with an income of just £8k - that was 18 years ago now and houses along that road sell for around the £185k now which is daft.

Our first house was 15k and we got a mortgage even though we were both undergrads living on student grants. Building society manager's attitude was "well if you think you can pay it, then why not"!!! Imagine that today. ......never mind 'student GRANTS' and building society MANAGERS':rotfl::rotfl:

Just put our student DD2 on insurance of one of our cars......cost £700 for year FC and protected NCB and that is with both my OH and me with unspent speeding points Think postcodes play a part in insurance costs.

Kondoing slowing down here........must put more on Eb*y. Sales close to £400 now.........and and all of this I was going to take to CS :eek:

Extremely frosty here today but gorgeous sunshine. Mountains looking glorious with their first proper coating of snow this winter. Birds are kondoing the fat balls and bird seed at a great rate! Going to cut down a huge clematis now whilst it's still sunny then will spend the evening doing paperwork in front of log burner. ....so will kondo a few logs and paper waste.......kondoing is going on afterall:T

GreyQueen

I'm an early 1960s child from one of those austere working-class families, born in a 16th century cottage whose sole concession to plumbing was one cold tap in the kitchen, and whose central heating was an open fire in the sitting-room. Which would have been the only downstairs room for centuries until a kitchen was tacked-on in the late 19th century.

Bucket privy, tin bath, copper in the kitchen, the full country experience. Not especially unusual for my peers in the rural areas, it wasn't considered deprivation, it was just everyday life. Everyone was working and you still had burger-all.

I think a lot of people now have no idea that there are people who've lived without just about everything they regard as essential and who are only middle-aged now. We got the telephone on in the 1980s, and thought very well of ourselves for having an avocado green rented dial phone, so's we didn't have to trot down the road to the phone box for our rare telephony needs (no one else we knew had phones, either).

But yeah, it's sobering that parents feel so pressurised that they get into debt to buy their children techy toys so they don't get mocked by their little friends.

Trouble is, the more you fake it, the fewer resources you have to eventually make it.:(

Floss

GQ I can empathise - this week in Tosco I've seen burgundy cord pinafores similar to one I got for Christmas in 1975, along with a cream skinny rib polo neck and a hardback copy of Pride & Prejudice We had an oil fired CH system, no use in 3-day weeks & power cuts as the pump didn't work, a coal fire and an Austin 1100 until DB3 was born in 1971 when we graduated to a vehicle large enough for 3 kids and a baby-en-pram.

There seems to have been a complete memory-wipe for some people, I know what life was like in the 1970's and 1980's and it still resonates in 2016...

oceanspirit

GreyQueen wrote: »

But yeah, it's sobering that parents feel so pressurised that they get into debt to buy their children techy toys so they don't get mocked by their little friends.

Trouble is, the more you fake it, the fewer resources you have to eventually make it.:(

You've hit the nail on the head again, GQ. Becoming financially rich is simple - spend less than you earn and invest the rest. I'm not saying that that is easy, or that it's fast because it isn't. But getting into the saving habit early in life and learning about investments has ensured that I am comfortably off having lived a varied life.

Comfortably off for me doesn't mean I am living a life of luxury - I live simply from day to day which ensures plenty left over for holidays and meals out which are things I enjoy.

Kondoing slowly over the last few days. A set of 4 spoons gone from cutlery drawer and some cocktail sticks which have been there for decades and not used in that time will go on the fire. More papers sorted through for shredding, filing and recycling.

GreyQueen

oceanspirit wrote: »

You've hit the nail on the head again, GQ. Becoming financially rich is simple - spend less than you earn and invest the rest. I'm not saying that that is easy, or that it's fast because it isn't. But getting into the saving habit early in life and learning about investments has ensured that I am comfortably off having lived a varied life.

One of the frustrations in having people (friends, acquaintaces) ask for informal financial counselling, is that there seems to be an impression that yours truly is in possession of some secret way of living comfortably on a low and part-time (60% fte) income.

People are utterly convinced there must be some trick, possibly just one big trick, which I can share with them and which will create instant and effortless prosperity in their own lives.

They are soooo disappointed when the trick isn't a trick at all, just a thousand very small decisions which collectively add up to spending less than you earn. It isn't rocket science, it isn't particularly hard to do, if you're prepared to apply yourself, but I find a lot of people aren't prepared to challenge their assumptions about what their lives should be like.

You need to be consistant to achieve your goals. Being able to access the net on the hoof isn't important to me. It's actually less than not important, it's a complete and utter irrelevance.

I always joke that the most important plastic card in my wallet is my library card. With that, the world is my mollusc.:rotfl:

MMF007

Yep, my primary school had outside loos of the one-holer bucket variety, in the late 60's. We moved into the new primary after my first year and that was really plush, inside loos and a proper dining room and we learnt the metric system, so as we could wait 30 years to use it in the shops / diy emporiums :rotfl:

Wallpapering is finished, and mighty fine it looks, too. I thought the dark paper would be unforgiving but it is decent quality and went up really easily ( well as easily as can be in a tiny bathroom with wonky walls, wonky beamed ceiling and a deep window recess ). It spurred DH on and he has given the upstairs skirtings and door frames a coat of gloss. I do like a good round of Autumn decorating

Didn't get round to kondo anything, although I suppose putting the wallpaper in its proper location, rather than standing on its roll in the multipurpose room, may count??!

M

Slinky

Forgive me fellow Kondoers, I have made a 'black Friday' purchase..... since we redecorated our lounge with our lurid tropical wallpaper a few weeks ago, we've decided we want an overmantle mirror above the fireplace as the wallpaper is very busy, any picture will look wrong. Discovered that a local supplier was doing a 20% off sale so went and had a look this afternoon and will be taking delivery on Wednesday.


Whilst out we called past B&Q and got the chalk paint for our dresser. Decided on the satin version which doesn't require waxing afterwards, anything to make the job a little simpler. Wish us luck!


We looked at wallpaper pasting tables but decided that the ones on offer were no better than our existing one so that will continue to be used.

PollyWollyDoodle

Applying wallpaper definitely counts as Kondoing. And I don't object to taking advantage of 'Black Friday' offers, it's the pressure to buy stuff.

GQ you're absolutely right as usual. I saved hard to pay off my mortgage, and friends tell me I'm 'lucky'. As someone famous once said 'the harder I work, the luckier I get'!

Poppy_Golightly

GreyQueen wrote: »

I always joke that the most important plastic card in my wallet is my library card.

Snap! I say that a lot too!!:beer:

GreyQueen

PollyWollyDoodle wrote: »

Applying wallpaper definitely counts as Kondoing. And I don't object to taking advantage of 'Black Friday' offers, it's the pressure to buy stuff.

GQ you're absolutely right as usual. I saved hard to pay off my mortgage, and friends tell me I'm 'lucky'. As someone famous once said 'the harder I work, the luckier I get'!

Ten years ago, to the day, I was on a 5 week backpacking trip around New Zealand. People back home told me how lucky I was to be able to do that.

I had formulated the plan to travel there in my late teens (my parents can remember me talking about it then, and this was long before NZ was fashionable). It took several years to save the money and the right time to organise myself to be away from the workforce.

For this long-term planning and prudence, I get called 'lucky'. I also kept full accounts when travelling and everything (flights, insurance, hostel accomodation, food there, transport there, excursions and incidentals, every penny spent) cost me £2,759.65.

They have YS in NZ, too, thank gawd.

ETA; One thing I remember about discussions prior to the trip is how one pal said she couldn't possibly bear to do as I would be doing; hostelling. Staying in a bunkbed in a room with anything from 4-12 complete strangers every night just wasn't acceptable to her.

I remarked that this was the only way I could afford my trip; bunking at an average of £8 a night, riding around the country on buses (with my YHA % discount). Proper hotels, car hire, more than the very occasional pub meal or glass of beer, all these things would have rendered the trip unaffordable.

I recall my wonderment when I asked if she would forgo the opportunity to travel if she had to stay in hostels and she was adamant that she would, travelling cheaply was not acceptable to her, it was far better to stay at home.

She was a regular working joe, not some moneyed princess, btw, but she had standards which she would not go below. I would prefer to stay in boutique hotels, hire a nice car, and eat out all the time on holiday. Prefer, but cannot afford to, but I certainly wouldn't let having to be a budget traveller keep me at home.

After all, the wondrous scenery is just as wondrous whether you're staying in a backpackers hostel or a 5 star hotel.