Put away your purse & become debt-averse

crazy_cat_lady

Eesh! Foxgloves :eek:
I've been offline for 2 days and you've gone and gotten yourself mortgage free!
Massive congratulations to you and Mr F, and much love and luck for the future budgeting and works on the house.

wishingthemortgaheaway

Sounds good foxgloves - would
You consider using ynab? It perfectly fits the method you are using for budgeting and is easily accessible - it does cost about £70 a year, but I find it incredibly helpful

foxgloves

Hi Wish, I'm certainly not against using YNAB in principle - it's more that I have found a system which works for me & quite like writing out my monthly budgets in my trusty Money Book & adding in lots of notes & dates, etc. I love pencils...... perhaps that's it! And it's pretty much a free system. I am always interested to read about people's conversion to YNAB though. I think it's that thing of suddenly realising you have found something which works for you, really, isn't it?
Have explained to cat that the 'Meow Fund' is for 'needs' not 'wants'
F x

Chrystal

So pleased that things are getting sorted, and I know your Parents would be so proud of the way you're dealing with it all. X

I'm still trying to sell a retirement flat, from 3 years ago when my BIL died It's costing an arm and a leg in service charges and Council Tax, AND it's 260 miles away from where I live AND we aren't allowed to sublet... fun! :eek:

wishingthemortgaheaway

Chrystal wrote: »

So pleased that things are getting sorted, and I know your Parents would be so proud of the way you're dealing with it all. X

I'm still trying to sell a retirement flat, from 3 years ago when my BIL died It's costing an arm and a leg in service charges and Council Tax, AND it's 260 miles away from where I live AND we aren't allowed to sublet... fun! :eek:

Oh retirement flats are such a nightmare, friends had the same issue. I hope it sells soon.

foxgloves

Chrystal - I didn't know about the issues with selling retirement properties until recently when it featured in the 'Guardian'. Because I don't know anyone who owns one or lives in one, I had no idea there could be such problems. It seems to me that this is all very much built into the retirement property 'model'. Thinking about it logically, people buying these properties are of course, likely to be elderly, which means that on death, their beneficiaries are likely to be younger people who are going to be looking to sell, rather than live there. Somebody is making on this - probably the recipients of the not insignificant service charges - & it is probably something designed into the system for this purpose. It does seem that inheriting a retirement flat is very much a mixed blessing. You must feel it is just dragging on forever.
F x

foxgloves

Hello my little icicles,
Oh how cold is it today?! We'd seen the weather forecast last night, which said we could expect thick fog to blanket our region all day. So when I got up, peeked through the curtains & saw cars white with ice, but no fog, we felt fine about setting off for our city centre shopping trip. We live close to the county border, so we went to a smaller historic city centre today, rather than our big county city. I was going to tell you about a few small financial wins we had today with our shopping - but apart from mentioning that the dress I went in a specific shop to try on was 20% off in their 'lucky dip' promotion, I'm going to tell you about this instead.
We arrived really early, went for a quick coffee then split up for an hour for our respective shopping. I had noticed that it seemed really busy & assumed it was because of Black Friday weekend, etc, but then it seemed as though loads of people were all heading in one direction & some were almost running! I had to pass that way to get to the shops on my list, & there was the most enormous queue! It was snaking out of one building, across the entrances of the next 4 or 5 shops, then right down into a nearby square. I thought it must be people queuing for special gig tickets or to meet a famous person, but as I drew nearer, I could see that it was actually.......FREE DOUGHNUTS!! A new doughnut shop opened today & was celebrating by giving everyone who turned up a large box of free nuts of dough! As the queue was so long, staff were walking along offering people a doughnut to eat while they waited. So, I walked past to the shop where I wanted to try on the dress, spent ages looking, tried on that one & five others (the other five did go back on the rack, btw!) & by the time I walked back past the doughnut shop, the queue was even longer & some people were taking turns to keep their place in the queue while their partners sat waiting on the icy pavement opposite. I wondered what would induce me to stand in that huge queue for ages just for free doughnuts & decided that even if they were being handed out by Sean Bean, I wouldn't have joined that queue (OK,admit I'd have maybe had to think about it.....) I was wondering how many £££'s worth of doughnuts the shop must have handed out already & that if any more hungry carbohydrate hunters rocked up, they might not be able to cope. Anyway on the main street, the Town Crier then rocked up in full regalia, rang a big bell & informed all passing citizens at top volume that they should make their way to the new shop if they wanted a box of free doughnuts. Goodness knows how much longer that made the queue! Those poor staff! I bet there'll be some peaceful households tonight - everyone will be completely off their t*ts on carbs!! I wasn't tempted though - I don't much like that sort of doughnut. I only like the really traditional ones with red jam in the middle rolled in caster sugar or the deep-fried ones you get on Scarborough sea front!
And that fog we thought we'd escaped? By the time we were ready to leave the city centre, it had descended like a grey pall. Needed fog lights all the way home. Couldn't even see to the end of our garden!
Mr F found an abandoned £1 coin in the car parking machine today - he was almost tragically pleased at such good fortune.
Stay warm tonight - another chilly one.
F x
Give me till about 11pm tonight & I bet I start wishing I'd got a box of free doughnuts, lol x

HairyHandofDartmoor

Blimey Foxgloves the queuers must be soft in the head :huh: but then I don't even like doughnuts. Your reference to Sean Bean made me laugh :rotfl:.

Did you buy the dress you liked with the 20% off? I hope so.

I would be over the moon too at finding a free pound coin :rotfl:.

foxgloves

Hi HHoD,
Yes, I did buy the dress! I'd seen it online, but I don't buy clothes online because I am between a size 16 & 18, and am also quite short, so I need to try things on. I can't bear the faff of sending things back....plus of course, I like shopping in actual shops! So I tried it on because I'd told myself that if it looked nice, I would treat myself with my sealed pot money plus a little I had saved from my last YouGov survey cash-out. I loved the dress. It is a tunic sort of style (purple) & will look good with chunky black tights & my DMs but will also work with trousers, so I decided I'd defo have it. When I got to the till, the assistant asked if I'd like a go at their lucky dip. She offered me a tray of little folded cards & asked me to pick one, so I did & opened it. It felt quite party-game like - except that instead of saying 'Put your knickers on your head & run down the road shouting 'I believe in fairies'', it said '20% off!' She said 'Ooooh, that's the best one' & I was pleased with that, because I'd already decided I'd have the dress, so it felt like a genuine saving.
I would also be pleased to find a pound coin, but it was the way it happened. We parked, the car park was terrible icy, really treacherous so I waited by the car while he walked quite a long way to the payment machine. As he set off walking back to me, he was madly waving something & clearly excited about it, then as he got closer he was trying to call to me what it was, but I couldn't hear him. I was thinking maybe the machine wasn't working or it had swallowed his card, etc, but no.....he drew near grinning like a cheshire cat waving a pound coin.....which the machine had clearly spat out for someone else, who had failed to notice it! It honestly did put him in a good mood for the rest of the day, lol!
F x

HairyHandofDartmoor

The dress sounds really good and what a bonus to get the 20% off. I'm glad you treated yourself . I prefer buying clothes in real life too as I need to try on about a hundred to find something I think suits my shape and I'm too impatient to wait for delivery. The only exception is if they don't have my size in the shop and I've tried on all the sizes around it and can tell the right size will look good on me, if that makes sense!

I can actually imagine Mr F now walking across the car park beaming with his pound coin. It's lucky he didn't slip over in his excitement :rotfl: