KonMari 2016 - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

MMF007

It is surprising what you can do on a smaller budget. People are amazed that we go on a wintersun hols to a place that is always considered very expensive. We are able to do this by i) saving up and foregoing nights out / takeaways etc and ii) staying in cheap self-catering away from the beachfront. We still pay out what seems to me a fair chunk of money but when I heard colleagues talking about a week in Spain in August I found our hol was cheaper!!

We actually have a running joke relating to what you say, GQ - same scenery no matter what accommodation ur in.
On our winter hols we walk to a beautiful beach ( 10 mins stroll from apartment) where there are about 12 discreet but large homes of the super rich, spread out round the bay. I joke with DH that he is my millionaire, as we swim in the same sea, under the same sun, and dry out on the same beach. OK, our cheap swimwear and sunglasses are a giveaway close up :rotfl: Truthfully I bet we are as happy, or happier, than most of the folks who own the houses.

Right, better get going again!

M

hebwood

Hi everyone


What has been said about saving, and choosing where to put what money you have certainly resonates with me.


Our family had very little, a fire and carpet in the living room only, no fridge, telephone or proper car until well into the seventies (my parents had to save up), just before I left school. It was unthinkable you had any credit other than the mortgage.


When I had my first flat (eighties), if I had not had food coupons as part of my salary I would of been very hungry indeed and fish & chips on the first Friday after being paid was a REAL treat.


When I tell my younger relatives of such things they look at me in wonder. Such a different world, but perhaps better values? Early training?


Anyway, stay warm everyone, it looks like its going to get very cold.


H.

GreyQueen

Sounds like my family home in the 1960s and 1970s.

The carpet was a non-fitted one inherited from my Grandma which covered most of the Marley tiles on the living room floor. Every couple of years or so, it was carried into the back yard and scrubbed with a scrubbing brush and a bottle of carpet cleaner. We had a carpet runner on the stairs, a very cheap cord type, bought from the previous house. I regularly used to slip on it and be told off for 'galloping on the stairs'.

Until, one day, Mum slipped on it and cracked her elbow on the wall. White-out pain. They replaced it then with a fitted carpet on hall, stairs and landing. Which is still going strong 35+ years later.

They got the phone on the year I left home (it'd be almost a decade before I actually got to live anywhere myself with a phone on). Car acquired when I was 11, the hurdle of needing to take driving lessons had to be got over first. Teal blue Austin 1100. My parents are on car No 5, all bought secondhand and kept for 10+ years or until beyond economic repair.

These days, I get to hear people have forty-fits at having to wait two days to have a shower repaired and being reduced to a strip wash, and others insist that you can't raise kids in a home unless it is fully carpetted throughout.

I keep a straight face, but I think plenty......... :rotfl:

Lindlou

Someone I work with put their central heating on way back in late September "for the child"!
We never had central heating until I was in my late teens.....

grunnie

I grew up in a huge house next to the sea. Just a dirt track between the sea and us. Storms at times tried to flood us and nothing grew in the garden because of the spray but ooo my it was wonderful. No central heating or hot water or fitted carpets. A coal fire heated the lounge and a kettle heated on a gas stove heated the water. We didn't have an inside stair and I had to go up the outside stone stair with a candle to go to bed and back down again if I needed to p. Don't ever remember being cold. I still love candlelight. I remember the sunsets the sunrises and the sea at it worst and its best. I would swap back again in heartbeat.
Agree with GQ live within your means. I remember a boss of mine wondering how I managed to live and have a house with no mortgage and still just have a parttime job while his wife worked full time. I saw him in the supermarket one day and his trolley was full of ready meals snacks and booze while mine had reduced stuff fresh meat and loads of fruit.

GreyQueen

What a wonderful place to grow up, grunnie, I can almost taste the salty air just reading about it.

I've known people insist that the central heating on 'because of the child' because it was September. Able-bodied child not poorly one. It was also in the high twenties (above 30 celcius for several days and didn't drop below 20 celcius overnight) at the time. Madness.

Plenty of cultures have made a point of raising children to be tough and self-reliant, whereas some of us in this country seem to be aiming for the very opposite effect.

I've been up at Tosspots picking up some YS bargains. I never ever see any of my neighbours up there among the happy band of regulars. Neighbours who are fast enough to tell you how skint they are, between drawing on their cancer sticks.

Ach well, I don't need any extra competion. That huge gammon joint was off the shelf one second after the final reduction sticker reduced it by 90% - there were several going and all of them went in moments.

Tis now in the oven. Will be too late for tonight's meal as requires 3 hrs 24 mins, but I shall allow it to cool and slice it before bedtime.

grunnie

Should also add that now I have huge garden ( almost an allotment at my back door)and grow all my own veg.:D I manage to grow enough to veg, potatoes, apples and fruit to last till next year's crop is ready. Except this year my carrots are rubbish and the onions aren't keeping well as it has been so wet.

kazwookie

I grew up in a house, with no Ch, or carpets, the ground floor was terrcotta tiles laid on earth!

Mavymoo good luck xx i am off the following day, so would have come up to help, I am up tomorrow on my long drive but won't have time to stop by.

MMF007

Uh uh, my abiding memory of my childhood is being cold. Even now I cannot stand the cold. So if I am not active during the day and i start to feel chilly i will put CH on. It' s never roasting in our house but I simply refuse to feel cold while i can afford the heating. Warmth sparks joy so I'm allowed, ok?
We have reasonable eco credentials so I feel this minor luxury is one i can indulge.

:blushing:

Pooky

We didn't have central heating or fitted carpets either, the phone didn't get connected until I was 14 in 1989. The carpet in my bedroom was prone to blowing up in the wind, the furniture stopped it taking off but I always enjoyed trying to "whack a mole" the billowy bits. I had 2 babies in flats without heating and they've both survived nicely. Our heating here goes on rarely as even though we're both home during the day we prefer to layer up and light the fire after lunch. Thermostat is set at 18 so even when we do put it on it's not very tropical but suits us, the cold doesn't bother me.

No chance of any kondoing for the next 10 days or so as everything seems to be happening, squillions of appointments, lots of stuff with DDs (DD1 turns 21 tomorrow, how did that happen?) and then a funeral next Monday for my Aunt.

I did however get the Christmas stuff out of the loft so I can start prettifying the house when I get a spare half hour here and there.