Put away your purse & become debt-averse

Onebrokelady

Hi Foxgloves ,I do love reading about your garden it sounds lovely, I too used to love the garden center but haven't been for a while now,my most loved plants are the ones I bought with birthday money for my 50th birthday
My daughters took me out to The Lost Gardens Of Heligan which is one of my favourite places to visit,I bought three Hellebores there because I love them and 6 years later they are still flowering,I also bought a small shrubby type tree that has really tiny pale pink and cream bell shaped flowers on it,I can't remember what it's called but I fell in love with it and that has grown into a lovely small tree

foxgloves

I like hellebores too, OBL. I brought back three from Mum's garden to plant in my winter bed. Couldn't bear the thought of so many lovely plants going to rack & ruin if the new owner (sale in progress) isn't a gardener & decides he'd rather concrete everything.
I started a collection of heucherellas but still only have three, as family stuff just consumed me the last couple of years, but I really like them & will continue to buy more as I decide I can afford them. Heucheras don't do very well in my garden for no reason I can think of, but heucherellas are perfect for my rather dank shady courtyard & look good in containers.
I have been to Heligan once & loved it. I also visited Trelissick Gardens when we stayed in Cornwall (it's a blimming long run for us!) & they were nice to walk around too. A little robin sat on my hand & shared a cereal bar. Our favourite garden to visit atm is RHS Harlow Carr - over 80 miles to get up to Harrogate for us, but we always have a nice day when we're there. Glad you like hearing about my garden, anyway. I'm always busy out there this time of year because I have all the veggies to tend as well as the main flowery bits.
F x

wishingthemortgaheaway

So Foxgloves, how about I move into a house near you and appoint you head gardener?
I love the sound of your garden but have neither the time or skill to have a garden of my own to the same standard.

Onebrokelady

foxgloves wrote: »

I like hellebores too, OBL. I brought back three from Mum's garden to plant in my winter bed. Couldn't bear the thought of so many lovely plants going to rack & ruin if the new owner (sale in progress) isn't a gardener & decides he'd rather concrete everything.
I started a collection of heucherellas but still only have three, as family stuff just consumed me the last couple of years, but I really like them & will continue to buy more as I decide I can afford them. Heucheras don't do very well in my garden for no reason I can think of, but heucherellas are perfect for my rather dank shady courtyard & look good in containers.
I have been to Heligan once & loved it. I also visited Trelissick Gardens when we stayed in Cornwall (it's a blimming long run for us!) & they were nice to walk around too. A little robin sat on my hand & shared a cereal bar. Our favourite garden to visit atm is RHS Harlow Carr - over 80 miles to get up to Harrogate for us, but we always have a nice day when we're there. Glad you like hearing about my garden, anyway. I'm always busy out there this time of year because I have all the veggies to tend as well as the main flowery bits.
F x

My other favourite place to visit is Knighthayes, they have the most beautiful walled kitchen garden there and they have lovely rare breed chickens too

Honeysucklelou2

I love Knighthayes...just to walk around the walled garden and look at all the varieties of fruit, vegetables,flowers and herbs...bliss.

Trengwaignton is another superb walled garden with interesting sloped beds .

Onebrokelady

Honeysucklelou2 wrote: »

I love Knighthayes...just to walk around the walled garden and look at all the varieties of fruit, vegetables,flowers and herbs...bliss.

Trengwaignton is another superb walled garden with interesting sloped beds .

Are you in the South West too then Honeysuckle,I haven't heard of Trengwaignton whereabouts is this garden, I also like Rosemoor, sadly becasue I can't drive I am really limited on where I can visit,I normally rely on my DD to take me

Honeysucklelou2

Yes indeed! Trengwainton is just outside Penzance. Easy to get a train to Penzance but not sure if there is a bus route that way or you'd need a taxi. It's a NT place but doesn't have a building to explore, simply fantastic gardens.

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/trengwainton-garden

foxgloves

Morning Campers,
Going out tonight, but determined to get some useful garden stuff done while Mr F is here to help me. He's going to clear & weed a bed for the sweetcorn this morning, which is good for me, as the sweetcorn plants are defo ready to be planted out this week, if I can find a break in all the rain which seems to be forecast. I'm going to sow more rocket & cut some herb bunches for tying, hanging & drying, & I want to bake a loaf too, plus another batch of cheese oatcakes.
I've also aiming to get as much laundry pegged out as possible. It looks to be a soggy week here, & I don't want to be paying for heated airer use in June. So a Sunday of jobs..... but shall be scrubbing up for a night out later (& yes, I'm fully intending to make one gin last all night!)
Oooh, I can hear The Beloved cranking up the coffee machine. Excellent.)
F x

Dottles1

Good morning Foxglove and all.
I too have just finished reading al your posts and have loved them. It has been like curling up with my favourite magazine (often with coffee in hand) and can definitely recognise myself in your stories I also came to budgeting later in life (I'm 60) and have done ok so far, I've just had a couple of expensive months with unexpected car and house bills and managed to pay for them with money I had saved which is a first for me!! I now want to be able to retire in a couple of years and need to sort out a real budget that includes separate pots so that I can plan and feel in control of my spending. I have picked up so many tips from reading your posts so thankyou.

I've now subscribed and look forward to the next instalment of your spendy days. I'm off now to make use of the dry weather to dry some washing.
Dottles

foxgloves

Hello Dottles - Thanks for your encouraging words about my DFW diary. Yes, it's never too late to learn some common sense where budgeting is concerned. If nothing else, my diary will hopefully prove that to be true.
Great that you were able to pay those car & house bills from your own money. It still feels like an achievement to me when that happens, as I always had to borrow to sort out car problems, etc, in the past. I can remember having such ongoing issues back in the Spendy Years with my old VW. My usual garage did some repairs, for which I was charged handsomely, but it didn't cure the problem. Took it to a well known chain of car repair shops & they said they couldn't find a problem. Collected it. Next morning, same problem. Only just managed to limp it to work..... which involved going past same garage repair shop. So I drove it into their workshop car park (they weren't yet open), & left a big notice under the wiper saying I wouldn't be picking it up until they'd fixed it. Well, they phoned me every day for nearly a week, saying that they couldn't find any problems so in the end I collected it & tried one last garage..... & they fixed it!! With the original big repair bill, a service, all the journeys to & from work on the train, it was adding to my overdraft right, left & centre. Even though it was fixed, I lost all confidence in it. I decided to lease a new car from work & sell my old one. Because it was a VW, I got a good price for it. Bet you can tell where this is going........ The stress of the car bills was due to having debts where a sensible person would have an emergency fund. I now had a wodge of lovely cashola in my hot little handy. Did I use it to pay off some debt & save the rest so as to be able to deal with my next emergency?
Nope!
I used it to go on holiday to Ireland with my sister. The rest was frittered away in all the fab touristy shops & craft centres.
And that, dear readers, was another time which COULD have sparked an LBM, but didn't.
So....... that was a long convoluted way of agreeing that saving a pot of money to deal with car bills or other emergencies is so very important.
Unexpected trip to the vet today, but thankfully a very reasonable price. Cat sulking. And I must start thinking about getting something to eat & putting my gladrags on for a night out.
I need a productive & frugal week.
Who's in?
Love F x