Put away your purse & become debt-averse

Broke_Bear

Gin might not but the tonic certainly does!:rotfl:

foxgloves

Ah yes, tonic, lol. That surely counts as a usefully hydrating fluid, in fact, I'm pretty sure it would balance out the negative effects of the gin in this hot weather, so you'll be glad to know that I am hitherto reinstating gin (ooooh, that lovely seville orange one......my current fave) & tonic as a source of valuable hydration, maryb & Brokebear.
F

foxgloves

Gosh, today's declutterings were easy. It's my Big Budget Day, so I've spent the morning up in Foxgloves HQ. I opened a file box to pop in a receipt which I want to keep for guarantee purposes, & noticed how many are in there, & a quick shifty through revealed that most of them are for stuff which is out of warranty period, or even things we no longer own! So, for starters.......
*14 x no longer relevant receipts (there will be a lot more of these, but I had other things I needed to be getting on with today, so I'll go back for them because they are defo clutter. That file box barely shuts properly!
*1 x leaflet for local(ish) castle - no longer required as we visited recently.
* 2 x out of date theatre brochures.
* 1 x meeting report which I'd forgotten I didn't need to keep.
* 1 x credit card leaflet. I'd pondered switching to this, as there's a good introductory offer re interest rates, but we really only use our credit cards for loyalty points (& thus vouchers) so we pay off in full at the end of each month. So a lot of faff to switch for no tangible gain. Recycling bin. End of.
* 1 x duplicate concert hall brochure. I'm not sure how mr f managed to get himself onto this mailing list twice.
* 1 x Kenwood Chef product brochure. If money were no object, I'd still like a Kenwood with a nice lot of kit & oodles of culinary caboodles, but I don't think I really need one, as have their handblender (or 'The Zizzer' as it's called in our house) & all its related kit, plus a hand-held whisk, so I think it's time to bin off the temptation of the brochure. Done.
* 3 x expired membership letters. I'm not sure what happened to my usual 'New one in, previous one out' filing policy there.
* 1 x expired TV licence - ditto....oddly, this wasn't even last years, but 2017's.
* 1 x chunky set of local government training notes which I don't think I will need again, as if I every apply for a similar role, I am quite sure I will immediately be sent on the same training for a second time.
Really positive feeling seeing all this stuff sent on its way each day.
If I get the rest of today's planned tasks finished, I'll aim to pop back on later to share some thoughts about 'Payday'......comparing what the word meant to me in the Spendy Years with what it means now.
I'd better find some lunch now or I shall be getting a bit wobbly!
Cheers for now,
F x

foxgloves

OK, back again, a bit later than expected, as I first had to rescue 3 young blackbirds from my jungly greenhouse & they honestly were the most gormless birds ever - absolutely desperate to get out, but still headed in the opposite direction every time I tried to steer them towards the door.
Now, as I said earlier, I've been thinking how 'Pay day' is such different concept now, to how I viewed it back in the Spendy Decades.

Pay-day now: An important day in my running of the household finances. I always coincide my monthly Big Budget Day with Pay-day, or the soonest day after that if the same day isn't possible. I look forward to it. It's a day of routines & accounting, but it is absolutely the key tool to keeping us on track with managing our finances. I'd say it's as important a thing as recognising the difference between a 'Want' & a 'Need'. Since the LBM struck, a good while back now, pay-day has meant an opportunity to sit down properly with my money book & trusty calculator, first to reconcile the previous month's budget, as I did this morning with July's, then to build on that by setting the budget for the new month ahead. Of course this sometimes means that when I add up all the figures & distribute available funds, that something we were hoping to buy this month will have to wait a bit longer. Today, I had hoped to allocate a sum of money to buy some concert tickets. Once I'd factored in that we have family coming to stay mid-month & will need to budget for hospitality stuff, it was clear that going ahead with ordering the tickets now will just take our current account 'buffer zone' a bit too low for comfort. But that's ok, because one thing that budgeting properly tells you, especially if in the past like me, you've been a spender, is that knowledge is power. Generally, I find (& Mr F agrees) that instead of curtailing activities/purchases, budgeting often actually facilitates them. And it allows them to happen without guilt.
Compare this with the Spendy Years - Well, Pay-day was vitally important because it topped up my bank account.....or rather, it filled in the 'black hole' of the overdraft for a couple of weeks. Back then, Pay-day actually occurred on the same day as now, but instead of running a budget cycle to be effective from one pay-day to the next, I didn't run a budget cycle at all, of any description. This meant that pay-day was an occasion somewhat akin to having a rope ladder thrown to me to keep me out of trouble. 'Trouble' wasn't really anything to do with me (i.e my lack of budgeting, failure to engage like an intelligent educated adult with bank statements, reeling in the spending on tat, etc,) but was stuff which was done TO me by others - for instance the cashpoint refusing my card, the bank calling me in to discuss my unauthorised overdraft, the ever-present fear of my card being refused at the supermarket in front of a long queue, etc) So Pay-day wasn't something I could use positively, it was just the 'rescue' of more money, which I could carry on wasting exactly as before.
I also had a problem of denial concerning when pay-day actually took place. Yes, of course I knew the date - 27th of the month, unless that's a weekend, when pay would arrive on the previous day. The 'denial' element came when I received a bank statement, or bought things which I knew I didn't really have the money to pay for as I was always in my overdraft again by mid-month. From any date after about the 12th, I'd tell myself, 'Eeeek, Oh, it'll be OK, it's pay-day next week. But it wasn't. 7 days after the 12th is the 19th, which means even ANOTHER 7 days doesn't quite make it pay-day.
I think the major difference now is that even if we are having a tighter month, the detailed budgeting I do now on every pay-day, means that we have the full knowledge of the situation. I've found I'd ALWAYS rather know the exact extent of our financial situation, even if it's not as good as I'd like.
Back in the day, I didn't want to know, & couldn't even be honest with myself about when my pay would actually be arriving!
I think I can honestly say that the only similarities between my attitude to pay-day now & then, is that I looked forward to it then, & I still do, but for kind of different reasons.
I felt quite stressed about money a lot of the time when I was spendy. At least now when we have financial stresses, because everyone does at some point, unless they are very well-off, I am confident that we haven't caused them though our own stupidity!
If anyone is reading this who hasn't yet decided to reform destructive spendy behaviour, do plan to make a start - it really is possible to change. I came to budgeting much later in life than was sensible, but it is genuinely never too late to make positive change.
F x

crazy_cat_lady

Foxgloves I am truly inspired by your decluttering and have decided to spend August doing a few minutes at least of decluttering in the house every day.

Blackcats

Hello Foxgloves and co. Ah yes payday. In the past it was a temporary moment of having money in the bank even though it was all committed to paying for the previous spends rather than any future spends. It was always time for a treat although I was pretty good at treating myself on every other day of the month. I also loved the other "payday" when child benefit went into the account. This was a lifeline until the next payday.
I never even checked my payslip - no idea about the deductions just needed to know what went in the bank. When I got a pay rise any additional money was just absorbed into the spending and within a month that was my new norm.
At one point I had about 4 credit cards/catalogue accounts that I traipsed from bank to bank to pay in cash (usually the minimum payment) but apart from resenting the use of my time I never thought about the stupidity of this.
Ah well .... better late than never.
My budget timeline is until 4th August so I need to be careful in order to avoid busting the budget like I did last month. It looks tight but doable ....only I have the power to sabotage or succeed. It's my money and my budget after all!

foxgloves

Aww, CCL, nice to feel that I've inspired you to declutter. It's certainly motivating. Now I'm at the end of the month, I've got much bigger target numbers of items - 27 today. Starting with just a single item on the 1st, two on the 2nd, etc, was a very achievable simple start, because as you go on, you do spot more stuff thats ready for going. I'm not a hoarder & am usually quite tidy, in a fairly relaxed way. I declutter on a regularly ongoing basis & did this same challenge about three or so years ago, so the fact I'm finding all these daily items to get rid of just shows how stuff builds up.
Good luck with it!
F x

foxgloves

Well, today's declutterings were very straightforward. I popped up to my desk in 'Foxgloves HQ' to check that my click & collect order was all present & correct, & decided to have another go at that box file containing all those out of date receipts & guarantees. 27 of them duly ripped up & added to the compost bin. It was like archaeological layers..... I'm now back to 2014!! Why on earth have I kept all those?! After this, it will be much easier to find any that I need to refer to. I need to tackle some more of my big home admin file boxes too, while I'm still doing the challenge. Not many days left now.
Much more comfortable temperatures today, though managed to walk through a small flood outside Waitrose because I was so busy yakking. So I bulk bought my bargain coffee, then drank my free one with very soggy sandals indeed. I could actually hear my feet squelching as I walked round the aisles, & almost aqua-planed off my sandals completely (they are platform-soled) when simultaneously negotiating the freezer section while bemoaning the utter lack of own-brand frozen peas!
Am intending a chilled out evening doing not a lot. Mr F's cooking night, so feet up time for me :-)

foxgloves

Blackcats - I thought of you this morning when I found myself perusing the magazines at a certain emporium. You see, they'd had a little move around & when I turned round, I found myself face-to-face with the PLASTIC CACTUS DISPLAY!! The same shop had introduced new net-type reusable bags for loose fruit & veg. I wanted to shout 'It's fantastic that you're doing THIS, but where do plastic bloody cacti fit into your corporate green mission?' Just crazy!
Yes, back in the day, the big problem for us non-budgeting naughty big spenders (& there's a huge overlap on that particular Venn diagram) was that the funds received on payday had already been spent. Or wasted, in my case, as I did have everything I needed. But, like so many people who have been frivolous spenders, I had to come to the realisation of my own stupidity myself. Listening to my Mum, my Nan or even an ex-boss who apparently used to say things like 'I expect Foxgloves would just have bought that skirt without stopping to worry about the price'...... What a cheek! But she was right. This was based on an expensive dress I bought to attend a friend's wedding, which I couldn't afford. She didn't know I went back to the city centre the following week & used a bit more of my overdraft to buy a big hat & pair of long black lace gothy gloves to go with it! I think I was just always 'in arrears'. Too much of my salary was spent before it arrived in my bank account & many, many things were blamed for this state of affairs, but never my own silly behaviour.
I won't go back to this. I am happier living in a more ethical way with less stuff & I definitely don't miss that horrible stress of thinking my cards will have been stopped. Strangely, I never had a bounced cheque. Not sure how I managed this, as I used to write plenty of them!
F x

foxgloves

Hi diary readers,
Funny sort of day today..... a bit of a saga with a lost shirt still ongoing first thing. Basically, Mr F bought one yesterday, very nice, a cracking bargain, then managed to leave it in a supermarket car park. It wasn't handed in, so somebody obviously fancied a nice free new shirt. I hope it was at least taken by someone who was in desperate of new clothes, but it could have been anyone. Never mind..... He's that mad with himself as it's not the sort of thing he usually does at all, but we all do daft things sometimes, so he'll have to draw a line under it. On top of that, all the rain has meant cancelling our planned trip out for a long walk today, so I've baked bread, tidied, picked more tomatoes, decluttered & read so far, and Mr F has put the new BBQ together.
My July decluttering challenge is nearly over. Just three more days to do after today. Anyway, today's goodbyes:
* 24 x receipts/warranties which were all out of date.
* 1 x out of date money-off voucher.
* 1 x plant catalogue.
* 1 x instruction manual, virtually none of it in English, & the small paragraph we could read just stated the blindingly obvious. What a waste of a tree that was!
* 1 x carefully snipped out https address with 'Keep this' written on it in my handwriting. No clue what it was, so googled it. Ah, a link to a local government consultation dated 2015. I expect I submitted a pithy view or two about the latest round of political austerity cuts. Composted.
Tomorrow looks like the only dry day here all next week, so I'm writing a rather ambitious job list, but realistically have to prioritise laundry as my key aim is always to maximise free drying.
Hope at least a couple of people are having a dry day,
Enjoy the last bit of the weekend anyway,
F x