Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

We've lots of local independent shops in town too, Blackcats. We do have some national chains too, but I think with the indies, you really do get the benefit of their staff knowledge. I can go in our local health food shop, or our baking/cake decorating shop or real ale shop & know that I will be served by people who are knowledgeable about their products. I've been baking since I was 11, but I still learn things when I go into our specialist baking shop in a way that I wouldn't if I bought similar items from a supermarket, no matter how well trained the staff. For instance, I was trying to source a particular sort of carrier for a special cake, which I know would have cost me between £20 & £30. The owner of the local indie baking shop asked why I didn't just use a cardboard cake box. I didn't know you could buy them that big or that the cake would stay fresh in one. She sold me one for a couple of quid & it was fine. Cake was lovely & just as easy to transport. If I hadn't gone in that little shop to ask, I'd have just bought the expensive version online. I think it's the little independent shops which make a town interesting, really, isn't it?
F x

foxgloves

And hello diary readers,
It's been a pleasant but slightly odd day today. Mr F had to work all day, so I got up at the same time - I'm not one for lie-ins unless I have a good book on the go - & decided to see how much I could progress today without knocking myself out.
I wouldn't have minded a little cycle down to the village coffee shop for a change of scenery, but it's simply wazzed down with rain all day & I could see I'd get soaked just squelching down the garden to the shed to fetch my bike out. Although we have been fortunate not to flood at home (unlike Mr F's work), the ground cannot take much more water. Our back garden has reached a stage where if you put your foot on the lawn, it's like treading on a sponge with an ooze of water seeping up around your boot. Anyway, plenty of decent jobs to do indoors.
I've made some apricot stuffing to get ahead as we have friends coming for Sunday lunch tomorrow, - that used up an annoying little heel of stale bread. I've wrapped a few more Christmas presents, sorted out how to 'wrap' Christmas money for one of our nephews....that was a 'shop from home' win actually, as I found a tiny gift bag at the bottom of my wrappings stash which was a perfect size. I've had a damn good tidy up, set the dining table ready for tomorrow & finished the socks I was knitting for a December birthday & wrapped them. Then I baked a trial batch of mince pie twigs. Yes, they are perfectly nice. Even though I cut each sheet of filo pastry in half, they are bigger than I expected at about 18cms long, but they are very easy and really do require only a pack of filo sheets, a jar of mincemeat, some icing sugar for dusting before they go in the oven & a couple of baking sheets lined with parchment. I've now sampled two, lol - in the interests of research, you understand, & can therefore inform you that they are nice both warm & cold. I intend to warm some up tomorrow when our friends are here, to serve with coffee. I will defo bake some for Christmas. It felt really weird using bought mincemeat as I always make my own, but it was very nice, tasted as thought they'd done more than just wave the booze over it anyway!
So I feel I've progressed a few things - I haven't written any more Christmas cards yet, but can carry on with those next week. I'm intending to read by the fire for a while & give my hands a rest as they are quite achey today - big stiff blunt rubbish scissors & arthritic thumb joints don't go together! I guess a really simple solution might be to buy new scissors........
Wishing everyone a relaxing evening unless anyone's hitting the town for a bit of a boogie - if so, enjoy!
F xx

HairyHandofDartmoor

You've been very productive Foxgloves and seem very well prepared for Christmas. Does knitting make your hands sore? I'm really struggling with writing at the moment as I have arthritis in two fingers on my right hand. I'm thinking if I write two Christmas cards a day then maybe it won't be too painful.

I was interested to drive past some very flooded fields today. I saw a caravan marooned in a field of water and several trees that had become islands. I'm glad the flood hasn't ventured as far as your house.

foxgloves

That's quite hard to say, HHoD - my basal thumb joints are the worst. Any activity can make my hands feel stiff & a bit sore if I do it for a long time, so I try to mix my activities up to avoid this. I think the worst activities are cutting with big scissors, chopping hard vegetables with a not-sharp-enough knife & trying to unscrew tight lids off jars & bottles. I also have re-occurring tendonitis in my right thumb down into my wrist from keyboard use, so I have to watch that too. That was actually what originally got me to the Dr's..... he sent me for x-ray on the tendon & that's when the additional osteo-arthritis issue came to light. I can hand write letters & cards, etc, but if I did those, followed by an afternoon of knitting & then played a few pieces on my piano, I'd have sore hands later that evening. The x-ray only looked at one thumb joint, but the arthritis is clearly in both hands & most of my fingers. I'm managing it OK though. We can be a 'Two-Woman Support Network', lol. I know it is wear & tear & can't get better, so I'd just like it not to get worse.
F x

Onebrokelady

foxgloves wrote: »

OBL - It sounds like your little GS might let you have a sock knitting lesson before too long then!
Sorry to hear that your daughter might be going for the debt route. I don't blame you for banging on about it to her. People like us who have lived or are still living through the paying-off process are the best advocates on living within one's means. But she isn't likely to listen until she has her own moment of realisation. I certainly didn't. It's just way too easy & normalised nowadays for people to regard available credit balances as 'their money' instead of 'some more debt which will need to be repaid & will quite likely become burdensome'
My credit card provider recently reduced my credit limit because they noticed I don't make use of it. I was fine with that. I mostly use it just for points for loyalty vouchers or to 'hold' a necessary larger purchase until payday. I spent many years borrowing & apart from mortgages & loans for a car so I could commute to work, none of the rest of it was remotely necessary or even very memorable. I couldn't go back to that.
F x

The thing that annoys me most is if she found out about my debt she would be really angry,I got into a tiny amount of debt several years ago and she moaned like hell at me for being so stupid,I told her at the time that it's not always that cut and dried when you get into debt ( the debt I had then was mainly from emergencies happening like vet bills and broken appliances because I didn't have any savings to pay for them )

She was really good with money until she got married,her husband likes to shop and she is now the same, they do earn really good money (4 times the amount I earn annually) but she is always saying they haven't got any money, 5his rings alarm bells for me, hopefully they will learn sooner rather than later

My son in-laws brother and his wife earn even more and currently own three houses, they had a lovely terrace house that they now rent out and they bought a big swanky house in the country which they renovated but they are going to sell that now and move into a smaller thatched cottage because the house they have now is too big, they have to work really hard to pay for it and it interferes with time they could be spending with their children so they are downsizing ,that seems like the sensible option to me

HairyHandofDartmoor

foxgloves wrote: »

That's quite hard to say, HHoD - my basal thumb joints are the worst. Any activity can make my hands feel stiff & a bit sore if I do it for a long time, so I try to mix my activities up to avoid this. I think the worst activities are cutting with big scissors, chopping hard vegetables with a not-sharp-enough knife & trying to unscrew tight lids off jars & bottles. I also have re-occurring tendonitis in my right thumb down into my wrist from keyboard use, so I have to watch that too. That was actually what originally got me to the Dr's..... he sent me for x-ray on the tendon & that's when the additional osteo-arthritis issue came to light. I can hand write letters & cards, etc, but if I did those, followed by an afternoon of knitting & then played a few pieces on my piano, I'd have sore hands later that evening. The x-ray only looked at one thumb joint, but the arthritis is clearly in both hands & most of my fingers. I'm managing it OK though. We can be a 'Two-Woman Support Network', lol. I know it is wear & tear & can't get better, so I'd just like it not to get worse.
F x

I think my arthritis was caused by a journal I kept for six months. I wrote quite a lot every day but had to stop eventually due to sore fingers. Now some days I struggle to write my name because my fingers can be so sore . I'm being very careful what I do.
Peeling potoatoes and that type of thing puts a lot of pressure on the fingers. Scissors make my fingers sore too. Do you have a jar opener? I use a bottle opener to release a little bit of the vacuum (but not enough to pierce the lid) and then opening jars is easy.
I think you're very sensible to be careful with your hands as you don't want it to get worse. I think the cold wet weather doesn't help. If my fingers are sore at night I find ibuprofen gel helps.

foxgloves

Yes, it's quite helpful, HHoD. The Dr initially prescribed 'Fenbid forte' gel & also co-codamol for the tendonitis pain. I don't use the latter now that's improved such a lot. I don't need the gel very often. In the winter, I find it helps to keep my hands warm. A good massage with hand cream helps too! I've been waiting for physio for 8 months. I must chase that up, but I bet it's just the length of the waiting list. I want to ask the physiotherapist if there are any specific movements I should avoid or amend to help prevent it getting worse.
I used to keep a journal too & enjoy creative writing so yes, as you say, that's a lot of intensive hand use. Also piano, computer keyboard, gardening, knitting & lots & lots of chopping from all my preserving & cooking everything from scratch. Mum & my Nana had arthritis in their hands too.
F x

foxgloves

OBL - I think you are right that it's a bit of a 'Red flag' when people on a good income regularly say they 'have no money'. That put me right back to the time leading up to my Big Massive Final Definitely Real This Time LBM. When I was working full time too, our joint annual income was around the £56K mark. Now I'm sure there are plenty of people (including that angry chap on Question Time recently) who would regard that as chicken feed, but it isn't, & we could live like kings on that now.
What resonated with me from your post is the 'no money' bit. You see, back in the Spendy Years, I used to say that all the time. And I was right. We didn't ever have any spare money. That's because we never budgeted, constantly overspent our salaries & were servicing 2 car loans, 1 bank loan, 1 consolidation loan, 3 credit cards & 2 overdrafts. Add to that the positively Olympic Gold level of frittering we were doing right, left & centre and it's easy to see that our lack of funds had precious little to do with our income & everything to do with our stupid irresponsible attitude!
The LBM Fairy certainly did us both a big favour by turning up when she did!
F x

PurpleFairy26

foxgloves wrote: »

When I was working full time too, our joint monthly income was around the £56K mark.

Monthly :eek:Typo!?!:eek:

I definitely agree about people saying they have no money as a red flag, hope people in these situations have their LBM as it's one of the best things that's ever happened over here can't imagine going back now and not budgeting and tracking all spends.

crazy_cat_lady

I never have any money even with my good wage. I thank the cost of separation and divorce for that.