Finally Debt Free After 34 Years, But Still Need to Live Frugally

HairyHandofDartmoor

I met stepdad for coffee this morning, dropped a rucksack of books at the charity shop, and then decided to come straight home after picking up some essential shopping.

I decided that if I looked around the charity shops I'd probably end up buying something and I'd rather keep the money in my purse :money:. So the only spends were bus fare of £2.40, two packs of face wipes at 99p each, plus bananas, grapes and sliced chicken at Mr T. So total spends of £8.77.

This afternoon DH and I dropped the two bags of my mum's clothes at a charity shop she liked, plus dropped a load of electrical and computer cables and broken plastic boxes at the tip. We then popped into Mr T again and bought spinach, brown sauce, baby wipes and oil. This lot came to about £4 and I would have only bought the sauce but you know what happens when you let a DH go shopping with you :mad:.

Since then I've been rooting around in the void and I've bagged up all the halloween decorations, three old framed prints, and some clothes from when the DC were small. So another rucksack and two more bags are ready to go to the charity shop .

The house is still full of clutter but I'm gradually chipping away at it. If I do a small de-cluttering project every weekend then hopefully all the clutter should disappear eventually. I feel as if the clutter is making the house untidy, using up all of our storage, making it hard to clean and holding us back emotionally.

Now I'm going to have a restful evening because I feel like I've had a very busy day, but a productive one .

Sunshine_girl2

HairyHandofDartmoor wrote: »

I met stepdad for coffee this morning, dropped a rucksack of books at the charity shop, and then decided to come straight home after picking up some essential shopping.

I decided that if I looked around the charity shops I's probably end up buying something and I'd rather keep the money in my purse . So the only spends were bus fare of £2.40, two packs of face wipes at 99p each, plus bananas, grapes and sliced chicken at Mr T. So total spends of £8.77.

This afternoon DH and I dropped the two bags of my mum's clothes at a charity shop she liked, plus dropped a load of electrical and computer cables and broken plastic boxes at the tip.

Since then I've been rooting around in the void and I've bagged up all the halloween decorations, three old framed photos, and some clothes from when the DC were tiny. So another ruckscack and two more bags to go to the charity shop .

The house is still full of clutter but I'm gradually chipping away at it. If I do a small de-cluttering project every weekend then all the clutter should disappear eventually. I just feel as if the clutter is making the house untidy, using up all of our storage, making it hard to clean and holding us back emotionally.

Well done on limitation spending and more decluttering . Am sure your mums clothes will be much appreciated at the charity shop.

HairyHandofDartmoor

Sunshine_girl2 wrote: »

Well done on limitation spending and more decluttering . Am sure your mums clothes will be much appreciated at the charity shop.

Thank you Sunshine . My mum's clothes were lovely so I'm sure someone will be delighted with them and it will help a really good children's charity. I am pleased with myself for not frittering today :T.

[Deleted User]

Sounds like a good day, HH. Well done on keeping a tight grip on your purse:beer:

I don't know whether you're registered with your local Freecycle/Freegle but people often list boxes of old cables on ours. They seem to get snapped up quickly too. I think men like to collect them for intended 'projects'. One man's junk and all that:rotfl:. As the listing is free and no charge is made for what people collect from you it's a good way of getting rid of things. I always try it first before taking anything to the tip, unless it's absolute rubbish of course. Someone on our local one last week was asking for old 'fat back' TVs, working or not:rotfl:. No idea what he wanted them for now, they're pretty obsolete. I was sad our old ones had long since gone to the tip. I hadn't heard of freecycle when we wanted rid of them. Everyone was changing to flat screen TVs and so on at the time and we couldn't give them away:(.

beanielou

Glad that you have had a productive day & well done on no frittering :j :j

HairyHandofDartmoor

Noella wrote: »

Sounds like a good day, HH. Well done on keeping a tight grip on your purse:beer:

I don't know whether you're registered with your local Freecycle/Freegle but people often list boxes of old cables on ours. They seem to get snapped up quickly too. I think men like to collect them for intended 'projects'. One man's junk and all that:rotfl:. As the listing is free and no charge is made for what people collect from you it's a good way of getting rid of things. I always try it first before taking anything to the tip, unless it's absolute rubbish of course. Someone on our local one last week was asking for old 'fat back' TVs, working or not:rotfl:. No idea what he wanted them for now, they're pretty obsolete. I was sad our old ones had long since gone to the tip. I hadn't heard of freecycle when we wanted rid of them. Everyone was changing to flat screen TVs and so on at the time and we couldn't give them away:(.

Thanks Noella . Freecycle is a really good site but I'm not keen on strangers coming to the house . The tip we go to is called a recycling centre so I'm hoping that the items we drop there will be recycled in some way, rather than go to landfill. We could have dropped the cables at a charity shop I suppose, but we weren't sure if anyone would buy stuff like that. But maybe they would. Who knows .

beanielou wrote: »

Glad that you have had a productive day & well done on no frittering :j :j

Thanks Beanie . I want to see how long I can make my money last .

milann

Pleased you’ve had a productive Saturday and met your stepdad - are you planning a more restful Sunday - don’t burn yourself out...

[Deleted User]

HairyHandofDartmoor wrote: »

Thanks Noella . Freecycle is a really good site but I'm not keen on strangers coming to the house . The tip we go to is called a recycling centre so I'm hoping that the items we drop there will be recycled in some way, rather than go to landfill. We could have dropped the cables at a charity shop I suppose, but we weren't sure if anyone would buy stuff like that. But maybe they would. Who knows .

I don't think charity shops want things like that. I Offered some of ours to a couple of charity shops once but they refused them:(. We had a big box full of tangled up cables and such like. No idea what most of them were from or why we hung onto them for so long:o. At least they hadn't been stored in the house so I expect it was 'out of sight out of mind':rotfl:. Our local tip is a Recycling Centre like yours but when DH goes he often comes home saying the section/receptacle for certain things isn't there any more and the operatives tell him to just throw them in the landfill skip:eek:. DH was quite upset last week as he said the 'landfill' skip was full of all sorts of usable stuff.


I never like strangers coming to our house either but I always make sure DH is here when they've arranged to come. I also make sure we keep the items that they're collectimg out of the house somewhere such as garage or shed, or on the driveway if the weather is nice. We never invite strangers into the house. It's a sad state of affairs that we have to be so vigilant and almost mistrustful of people nowadays isn't it?

daisy_1571

Our local scrappy takes cables/wire etc as there is copper in them I think. You dont get much but it all adds up esp if taking other metals there too.

Congrats hairy on the job, amazing news. When a previous job, as well as in my private life nowadays, I always told/tell people to take the job even if its not quite what they want or not quite enough hours or even fully volunteering as "you never know what it will lead to". I'm so pleased in your case that it has led to permanent work so soon after starting, fingers xd more hours will follow at some point even if just a bit overtime some weeks before becoming more stable.

Brilliant news.

Daisy xx

jwil

HairyHandofDartmoor wrote: »

Thanks Noella . Freecycle is a really good site but I'm not keen on strangers coming to the house . The tip we go to is called a recycling centre so I'm hoping that the items we drop there will be recycled in some way, rather than go to landfill. We could have dropped the cables at a charity shop I suppose, but we weren't sure if anyone would buy stuff like that. But maybe they would. Who knows .



Thanks Beanie . I want to see how long I can make my money last .

If you put it in with the electrical stuff they will be recycled