£67,031.92 is a frightening number indeed....

enthusiasticsaver

I would have to say even though I can afford it now I would not buy fresh flowers every week. It somehow would make the occasional bunches of flowers my OH buys me less special but that is just me. I have planted lots of pinks this year which should I be so inclined would have meant lots of fresh cut flowers. That, plus daffodils in spring and chrysanthemums in autumn. Have you any space for planting flowers which would be nice for cutting?

GeorgianaCavendish

I do like fresh flowers but not at the moment because I basically live in a sauna in the summer months and any flowers would be dead within 2 days. I do have a cactus but somehow it's not the same :rotfl:

Daffodil season is the best, £1 a bunch in the supermarket and they look so cheerful

System

Aldi £2.59 bunch of flowers lasts a good 3 weeks in my house ! I treat myself occasionally.

Suffolk_lass

I think Martin's email this week featured two hanging baskets on offer - could you maybe have those instead of flowers?

Honeysucklelou2

I do grow flowers at the allotment for the simple joy of cutting a small bunch to put on the kitchen window sill. Flowers like sweet peas are easy to grow and the more you cut, the more they grow.

I think you mentioned living near the coast. Is the sea near enough to walk to or a very short drive? Watching the waves is very therapeutic and calming, I find.

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 23: Day 7

Thanks for all the ideas yesterday. We do have room to grow flowers but again there is an initial outlay of both money and time (we have space, but I would need to turn that space from tatty lawn into beds), and we are near the sea and moor too, but both a good 20-30 min drive, which puts it out of reach of being a daily event. Library is a good idea, reading the bath similarly achievable. I need to aim small over the summer while wrangling the DC.

The teachers seemed really pleased with the jam/marmalade gifts, so I'm calling that a win.

I have a client today, then hoping to get some work done this afternoon so we can head to the beach tomorrow (forecast uninspiring, but we can take soup and go for a walk, and I have a voucher for a surfing lesson to use).

to do today
1. Ice biscuits for client.
2. Clean before client arrives.
3. email local young archeologists club for DC1.
4. Charity shop stuff into car (did tip run yesterday).
5. sort lego into tupperware.
6. plan out (cheap/free) activities for next week.
7. Find something for dinner from the cupboards/freezer.
8. make soup with leftover veg.
9. Spend an hour or two on smaller business.

to do this week
1. survive MIL visiting. :A . She's going home today and we're both still alive. Win.
2. continue with cleaning the house thoroughly one room at a time. Ongoing.
3. charity shop run with decluttered stuff that is currently (ironically) cluttering up the hallway.
4. plan out the first couple of weeks of activities for the summer holidays.

Aims for July
1. Pay some extra off the MBNA card - I'd like this card gone asap. Well, a whopping £15 paid on top of the minimum payment so far, hoping to make another payment before end of month.
2. Pay for camping holiday commitments out of self employed income rather than adding to debt. So far so good, but there is one more camping trip to cover in August.
3. Stick to the budget even more closely than in June!

sashybo

TOP, my local library also has an online service where you can download & read magazines for free as well as books. You sign up with your library card & download an app onto your phone/tablet or go to the website.

It's only certain magazines but quite a good selection and I download them to my tablet to read when I have time. Worth checking if your library/local authority have this.

Well done on surviving your MIL visit :T, my MIL is descending on me in a couple of weeks to steal my baby again. :eek: And this time she's staying with us. :eek:

I feel sorry for my DS being the sole recipient of her craziness (and he's not even 8 weeks old) & told DH that's why we should have another baby in a couple of years - it will split the crazy between 2 grandchildren rather than all being focused on DS. :rotfl: DH is an only child so no brothers or sisters to take MIL attention elsewhere/provide other grandchildren, more's the pity.

toph

Good effort getting the debt down so far.
i've not read all the posts so apologies if its already been covered, but, you really are best off tackling the high interest debts first. That Tesco loan at 10% should be your main priority, have you checked if your bank can do you a better loan? Brclays currently offering ~5% on a loan. If you paid the same amount that debt would pay back quicker, else you could put the savings on the other loans or credit cards. Either way 10% of £21k is £2.1k per year in interest, cut that interest rate to 5% and your paying £1k in interest with the other £1k going to better causes.

Good luck

Treadingonplaymobil

toph wrote: »

Good effort getting the debt down so far.
i've not read all the posts so apologies if its already been covered, but, you really are best off tackling the high interest debts first. That Tesco loan at 10% should be your main priority, have you checked if your bank can do you a better loan? Brclays currently offering ~5% on a loan. If you paid the same amount that debt would pay back quicker, else you could put the savings on the other loans or credit cards. Either way 10% of £21k is £2.1k per year in interest, cut that interest rate to 5% and your paying £1k in interest with the other £1k going to better causes.

Good luck

The reason I haven't prioritised the Tesco debt is because we were anxious about getting another 0% card. To be honest, even though we've got one, I'm still hyper aware that if we failed to get another one next time the 0% runs out, we'll be screwed, which is why we're overpaying on the CC debt for the moment. Once it's down a little and we're more confident of our 0% skills, we'll focus our energy on the Tesco loan.

Treadingonplaymobil

So I've been undertaking an interesting (to me. Please don't expect to be gripped by this) experiment for the past few weeks. Every time I've fancied buying something, I've pinned it to a Pinterest wishlist instead. It hasn't in any way had the desired result of me no longer wanting the items after a few days - I still want to order lots of things - but it has made me realise how much I would previously have spent. I'm not saying I would have bought every single one of the items on the list, but I probably would have given in on a fair few...

The list (I think the first item was pinned about 3 weeks ago):
£21 Thermos mug (I will get this at some stage, DH has one and it's ace)
£355 surfboard
£25 floor desk
£8 dry shampoo
£20 nail polish
£20 nail polish
£15 nail polish (sensing a theme?)
£60 small fan heater (for winter yoga)
£55 travel yoga mat
£50 floor cushion
£28 yoga mat rug (don't ask)
£144 roof rack (for camping gear)

So that's a cool £801 I could easily have spent this month. In reality I wouldn't have bought all of that in one month, but pre-LBM it's reasonable to assume I might have bought the roof rack and some other bits, and then waited for next month (being 'sensible') before buying the surfboard, and probably a couple of other bits there too.

It's really frightening to see not just how those big purchases - roof rack, new surfboard - add up, but also how I could easily have sunk £300 on 'extras' without really thinking about it. And that's before we get started on the clothes I might have bought in the same time frame.

Sadly none of this is making me swear off shopping for eternity - the chances are that at least half of this list will make it into my life at some point in the coming months - but it is really helping me to see how unconsciously I was shopping before, and how even though I thought I was being frightfully sensible and not making loads and loads of 'big (£100+) purchases in a month, I was making at least one big purchase most months, and then another few hundred in 'little'(!) purchases in between times.

As it stands, I haven't ordered anything off the list, and I'm going to continue to add stuff as I find it and want to buy it, and then when I have the money I can browse through it and decide what the top priority is.