Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

Hi Dottles - Yes, he managed to turn up at two cat-loving houses. We won't be adopting him though. It feels too soon after losing our dear old fur friend & also, it isn't practical to settle in a new cat with all the building work we still have to come this year......it would be all but impossible to keep a new cat indoors with builders in & out all day. So we will wait until it is calm again here, then aim to adopt another rescue cat after Christmas.
F x

PurpleFairy26

Your comment about d*ckheads made me
laugh out loud. So true. 

Baileys_Babe

I found it chilly today I needed to go and put a vest on.

Pixiehouse55

foxgloves said:

Yes, we did make up for it in rain today & yesterday, although garden still looks dry from the wind.
Pixiehouse55 - I don't know who to suggest you should complain to, but I do think it sounds as though your flooring problem has persisted for too long. Hope you can get it sorted soon.
F x

Hi Foxgloves. Yes it will be 4 weeks on Wednesday. I wonder if there is a place on the forums here that could head me in the right direction? I will have a nifty and see if I can get some advice. Will let you know. 

foxgloves

Hello diary readers,
I thought today might be a wash-out as I woke with one of those headaches which even codiene fails fully to shift, but I just did things at a gentle pace & was pleased with what I achieved. I did my budget/banking update & wrapped a parcel for my sister. Then I went down the garden to pick coriander, a few little courgettes & spring onions & to cut the spinach back hard. That produced an enormous colander full of spinach so I made it into soup, some of which I ate for lunch & the rest went in the freezer. This afternoon, I blitzed the conservatory & achieved a fresh summer vibe on a zero spend from.... shopping from home! I put a zingy tablecloth out, changed the coasters for different ones, ditto candle jars/holders & dug out some napkins in deckchair stripes which I hardly ever use. I also decluttered a lumpy old cushion to the bin, along with a picture which had faded. It still needed something so I had a hunt through my dresser cupboards for inspiration. Found an old vintage decanter which Mum got for 50p at her church fete. I gave it a good going over with hot soapy water & it is now on the table filled with cut flowers from the garden. It looks so summery, I wanted to get my pinny on & whizz up a batch of scones, but I'm intending to revisit my fitness levels in July & Aug, so I talked myself out of it & sat in the garden & plaited up our garlic instead as it is drying nicely.
The headache is still lingering in the background, so I'm hoping a decent night's zzzzzzzzzzs should shift it. Plasterer coming tomorrow so shall be on workman duty again.
Cheers m'dears, 
F x

foxgloves

Morning all, 
Feeling like less of a limp dishrag today, so have set myself a little challenge of seeing how much I can get done before the plasterer arrives this afternoon. 
And no 'nice' jobs until I've sorted all the laundry & done the ironing, so better get a shift on.
F x

foxgloves

Hi Diary Readers,
Well today didn't really go as planned - just one of those things outside my control. I'd planned my day around the plasterer coming this afternoon for the next stage of the chimney work. Mid-afternoon he contacted me to say he was having a nightmare day, having been delayed on a morning job so we have re-scheduled for tomorrow.
On the domestic front, I did the ironing, made pastry (to use up some almost out of date pastry fat) which made a sufficiently big butterbean quiche for today & tomorrow plus 2 spare blocks of pastry for the freezer. I also did next week's meal plans & wrote the shopping list.
I shall have to go now, as I can hear the mouse in the chimney again & need to investigate.
Take care all, 
F x

foxgloves

Hi Diary Readers,
What a chilly grey day. At least it has stopped raining atm, so I must pop down & open the greenhouse window before the plasterer's due to arrive time, to let a bit of air in. 
This morning over breakfast, Mr F & I were discussing city centre shop re-openings & whether we felt ok yet about going in. We felt that we'd maybe think about the smaller city centre near to us perhaps next month, but not the big one. We are trying to be realistic & not become paranoid about catching Covid19, but we are definitely not intending to throw ourselves back into our pre-Covid routines without due regard to the risks. It was also one of the topics I discussed with my sister today on our Thursday morning Skype call.
Oh my goodness, back in the pre-LBM era of the Spendy Decades, how ever would I have coped without city centre shopping visits? I have no idea! It all got me thinking about how I used to be back then & reminiscing about various Debtisodes. It is truly like a past life.
One of the biggest temptations back then was the sort of 'special offer' dressed up to look really PRETTY SPECIAL, but usually ended up tempting money out of my purse at the speed of light for something which turned out not to be that great after all. I'm talking about the "Two pairs of trousers for ££" kind of offer. I used to think "Ooooh, that's good. These should cost x each, so that's a saving of ££" - You can see that in my head I'd be thinking I was behaving like a genuine money-saving, financially savvy person. So I'd select the pair of trousers I liked the most, then pick another pair to try on with them. Considering I did try everything on before buying, I am surprised, frankly, that I ended up succumbing to quite so many of these 'offers'. As an example, let's just throw in an imaginary price & say that the trousers were priced at £35 each. The 'two for' offer would then be something like £50 or £60. So if I'd bought the pair I liked at full price, I'd have been £35 out of pocket & would have one highly wearable pair of trousers. I rarely find suitable trousers so the 2nd pair would almost inevitable end up being a compromise. Still, I used to go through with the purchase.......yet what part of getting a 2nd pair of trousers you're not really fussed about is a 'special offer'? Exactly! Completely pointless. And as a big fritterer of cash back in the day, you will not be particularly surprised to hear that sometimes I didn't really like the first pair of trousers all that much either!! It wasn't just clothes. This model of selling where you could have two items for less than the ticket price of two items or you could pay a set price for a bundle used to get me every time. Videos, DVDs, CDs........all those offers where you could get 5 DVDs for say, £30. I'd find one film I really, really wanted, then one I quite wanted to see, then an ok-ish one.......& despite really struggling to find anything at all for the last two, I'd still feel I needed to make best use of my money by taking up this offer. Just buying the one film I really wanted at full price would have saved a significant amount of money, but items marked 'special offer' seemed to call out my name like a siren song.
I suppose it all comes down to what all of us ex-spenders now know as a simple truth........that if you don't need it, don't love it, can't afford to pay for it twice (I know not everyone agrees with that theory but I think it is quite sensible & would have saved me a lot of problems back in the day........although to be honest, I'd have ignored it then, of course I would!), then you don't need to part with your money. Quite often since my financial reformation, I have been in a shop, liked an item, had the money available to buy it (we both have our monthly Personal Spends money) but have put it back because I want to keep the money (in case I see something I want more or to save for something bigger) more than I want the shiny thing.
I still find it very interesting to look back & think how my behaviour has changed.
Well, I must go & see if my bread dough has risen enough for baking & listen out for the plasterer's arrival.
Take care all,
F x

crazy_cat_lady

Hope all has gone well this morning and works are back on track today. 
I'm having a not-as-planned day today. It's after 1pm and I feel as though I've never stopped but gotten absolutely nothing done. 

marionmgcars

Hi, I was kindly gifted a tub of devon clotted cream to have with scones.  Scones are all eaten, any suggestions for the half tub of cream I have left.  thanks x