Put away your purse & become debt-averse

kayannie

I'm trying to pluck up courage to cut my hair - I did my fringe but the rest needs about 10cms off. I haven't had it cut since last February! I've resorted to tying it back, but long for my 'bob' again. 
KA

foxgloves

Just go for it, Kayannie. If it's uneven afterwards, just tie it back. I've had the straighteners on mine this morning & could instantly see we'd missed a bit near the front, so I grabbed the scissors & chopped it off, while I could see where it was. It does feel good to have got rid of all the dry ends, though. 
F x

foxgloves

Hello Snow People!
Awoke to Narnia this morning, though sadly only the white stuff & no gothy lady doing the rounds with tempting turkish delight. Perhaps that was because I cheated & just looked out of the bedroom window, without going through the wardrobe?
Have progressed my usual Monday jobs, despite Mr F being on leave today - I often find myself side-tracked with extra coffee & chat when both of us are here, but it's nice to have the company. I've got my 2nd load of laundry in & the heated airer will help with the ambient temperature in the conservatory today, as there are currently brass monkeys in there very definitely missing their trouble nuggets! Have also done rubber chicken duties. The Indian spiced chicken recipe Mr F did last night makes tasty leftovers. I've divvied it up to have some tonight with home made jacket wedges & salad, and the rest will be wokked with onions, peppers & a bit of curry paste tomorrow & served with garlic flatbreads & possibly some home made coleslaw or carrot & raisin mayonnaise. Also enough for a decent-sized sarnie for packed lunch.
I've done my Monday morning budget updates but I knew today was the only day for a while when I'd be able to get into town for the building society to pay this month's current account skim into the ISA. Well, I wrote out the cheque, got the passbooks into my handbag, then the snow started billowing down again........coat off, waited again. It kept stopping, on my coat would go, then another flurry. In the end, I thought 'Oh for pity's sake, I'm not made of sugar, am I?' put my coat, hat & gloves on & asked Mr F if he fancied coming with me, parking at the castle, then having a snowy walk down to pay in my cheque before coming back via the castle grounds for a fresh air & snowy leg stretch. We really enjoyed it! I also feel much better that the money is paid in. We decided at the start of the year that we would stick to all our budgets like glue, & do a monthly 'account sweep' into savings on my Big Budget Day. I haven't set up a standing order for this because the amount is likely to be different each month. For  instance, I swept £250 in last month, but this month was able to do £300. I like the motivation of seeing how much I can manage each month, whereas if I set up a standing order, I think I would err on the side of caution & make it a lower sum than the amount we are actually capable of saving 'just in case' some or other issue came up. So yes, I loved our snowy walk round the castle grounds, but I also had a bit of an inner glow because that cheque had gone in & I knew I could no longer be tempted to divert it to a different pot or do something else with it.
Just one more load of laundry to hang on the heated airer, then my evil black fluff dress which I always launder separately, although to be fair, the fluff problem has reduced a bit. Then I intend to finish reading my book with a cosy hot water bottle tucked up behind my back.
Keep warm m'dears,
F xx
P.S If anyone remembers the odd mystery we had the other year of all those peeled uncooked potatoes tipped onto the drain cover outside our house? Well yesterday I noticed the same thing had happened again, but this time it is chunks of swede & carrot!! How weird that somebody would think to dispose of excess prepared veg that way instead of composting it of if no compost bin, just putting it in their own wheelie bin. Never mind, perhaps the local rats will save it all up & make a stew!

Onebrokelady

I love transferring money into my savings,I don't think the novelty of it will ever wear off 😊 How odd about the carrots and swede 🤷‍♀️We don't have any snow here and probably won't get any eithe, it's freezing cold though but with a lovely blue sky at the moment 

crazy_cat_lady

I haven't been out for a walk today foxgloves - although I might have quite enjoyed a bit of a brisk, snowy walk. Mind you - I'm still recovering from my beach walk yesterday - mega exfoliation and refreshment there. It is nice to be out and about even if the weather isn't great.
I may end up needing a bit of knitting advice from you. My mam has asked me to knit her a jumper. I want to do it for her because I love her so much, and her hand shaking is so bad now that she can't knit or crochet any more - but I am a bit cack at knitting compared to crochet. And I can't read a pattern as well as I can a crochet pattern. AND there's a cable needle in there as well (gad!) But I want to do it and I want to do it for her as soon as I actually can, but I might need some help from a knitting expert please. I will nag you for advice.

foxgloves

OBL - Yes, I feel the same. I spent so many years telling myself & anyone else who'd listen that I didn't earn enough to save (which was rubbish) that I think I will now always find saving money motivating.
CCL - Cable can look very daunting, but really, it's usually just a way of knitting some of your stitches in a slightly different order to make a twist or a rope pattern. My ability to assist might well be rather limited at a distance, but if you get stuck, I am certainly willing to have a look.
F x

foxgloves

Hello Snow People,
Not much melting gone on overnight as it was so cold, plus we've just had another two snow flurries. Bright sunshine in between though. I have got well ahead of myself with tasks, largely because yesterday morning saw me turn into a Dentist Wimp of the highest order, meaning that I threw myself into constant activity to keep my mind off the drilling I felt certain was looming. Thus, I finished off the laundry, vacuumed, chopped everything ready to cook dinner when we got back, did next week's meal plans, wrote a shopping list & did an online grocery order. This morning, I have only needed to do the ironing & feed my sourdough jar, so have also tackled 2 things from my Annoying Jobs list: Mended the hole in my nice warm grey patterned tights - they are quite old but may as well see out the rest of this winter and did an experimental fix on our extremely irritating bath panel - we'll see how that one goes over the course of the day, but if I really have fixed it with a lump of blu-tak rolled into a sausage, then I will wish I'd thought of this years ago! Have also done a couple of surveys.
Talked to Mr F yesterday on the way home from the dentist (34 mile round trip) about doubling down on saving this year. He is all for it. Last weekend, I looked at houses for sale in the area we would like to live in future. Bearing in mind we will probably need to downsize to 2 bedrooms, I pretended we were in the market to buy somewhere now & looked online for an actual property we would be likely to go & view. As things stand now, I reckon our current house would be valued at about £20k less than the one I used as an example, which means having a genuinely 'spare' saved £20k to make up the difference, as we have no intention of taking out another mortgage now we've got shot of it. Of course things could change. The area we want to live is quite near the sea & the more affordable properties could be hoovered up as holiday accommodation or could increase in price out of all manageable proportion to our current region, but we can only work on the information available at this present time, which is that we CAN do this if we ensure we keep saving. This won't only be for making up the price differential, but to take us into retirement also, as I will not receive a full state pension or works pension because of taking VR when I did. So the upshot of our conversation (& I did not have a numb gob because I need to make a special appointment for my filling due to strict Covid safety measures) was that Mr F is completely on the same page where funnelling money into savings is concerned. We stayed firmly away from the subject of just how much money the pair of us have wasted in the past, as this is regrettable, but we can't turn back time. I'd be lying if I said I never found myself thinking about it, though. 
It was only in the evening when I was knitting in front of the stove & watching 'Rebecka Martinsson' on TV that I realised quite how badly I'd been stressing over the dentist. I finally relaxed & I think my shoulders dropped about 10 cms! My dentist phobia has got a lot better over the years, but I think I need to go regularly for this to continue, & hadn't been for nearly 2 years because of Covid. What a big jelly!
Keep warm all of you. Even Mr "I don't feel the cold" F set off for work this morning in his scarf & hat.
F xx

Onebrokelady

I am petrified of the dentist and I'm so glad I seem to have teeth that never need anything doing to them, I have had two  fillings when I was a child all my wisdom teeth out in my early 30sand one removed that I broke on a cake decoration about 10 years ago, apart from that nothing else has been done 
I have been wearing my woolly hat this week even though I don't like wearing one,it's just been so cold without it 🥶🥶

kayannie

Foxgloves - I have mentioned that we bought a house by the sea over 3 months ago. Although smaller than our house that we sold, we had to pay £3Ok more for it than what  we got for our house. Unfortunately, due to covid, we haven't moved in yet. The new place needs a bit of upgrading & as it is very small, we want to get the work done before we move. We've done some jobs in between lockdowns, but are currently still living in temporary accomodation until we can move without flouting restrictions. The new place is over 100 miles away and in another country of the UK, so we have 2 sets of rules to comply with! When you are looking at the houses in the area you are hoping to move to, be prepared to pay more than the asking price. Our new house is one of the cheapest in the area & we still had to pay £15k over the asking price to get it. We were the first to view it on the day it went on the market, left our offer with the agent, and got a phone call 2 days later to say our offer was accepted. Meanwhile, over 30 others had made enquiries about it including 3 who had made offers but luckily our offer was accepted. As so many houses in the area are holiday homes, I think the vendor was happy to sell to us. Hopefully we will get there before too long, I want to have my morning coffee sitting in our garden overlooking the sea!

foxgloves

How frustrating you haven't been able to move in yet, Kayannie. Yes, I think that is good advice. There isn't any way we will be able to afford a property (even a beach hut, lol!) in the desirable 'holiday homes' parts of the area we want to go. I do know the county quite well as my parents grew up there & we visited often to see grandparents, for holidays & outings, etc, so the plan will be to look for properties just a little more inland which don't have such a "2nd homers" prestige whiff about them. There are a couple of places we have in mind, but if it doesn't come off for major financial reasons, like a huge hike in prices there or a collapse in prices here, when the time comes, or some other change in circumstance, well, there's not a lot we can do about it, but it's all a good few years away yet, probably a decade, & I'm sure we will have a Plan B up our sleeves by then, for back-up.
Hope you can get moved in soon - something lovely to look forward to after the Covid madness has calmed down.
F x