Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

My goodness @Jellytotts, that was an awful tax bill. It was very good that your parents managed their financial troubles without you children being aware of it. I think what you describe re Christmas is that whatever we think about it at the time, if we want to avoid dragging a lot of unwanted debt with us into the next year & beyond, we have to ''cut our coat according to our cloth" - an old-fashioned expression, but very true in terms of money management. It's lovely that you are going to be able to give each other something nice this year & that you were sensible by putting a limit on it.
F x

foxgloves

Past Spendy Sins of Christmas
No. 6 - The Christmas outfit
Maybe it's because I like crafts that I like sparkle, maybe it's because I love Christmas or a result of coming of age in the 1980s, I don't know. I do know, however, after several years of wasting money on Christmas outfits that I do not suit clothes which make me look like an explosion in a sequinned cushion factory. I am not even talking about a Christmas party outfit to wear for a specific occasion where dressing up is expected. I am simply talking about an outfit to wear on Christmas Day.......which I have mostly spent with family AND been involved in a fair amount of the food prep, cooking, etc.,,,,,not a situation which really calls for a surfeit of sequinned spending.
I'm not going to go over all the waste-of-money festive garments I've bought over the Spendy Decades - I've already shared the sorry tale of the triffid top - there is a photo of me sitting on the sofa with my octogenarian Grandma on Christmas Day & I look really cheesed off. I can't recall why, but it may have been because she was looking a lot more stylish than I was. Sure, I was looking more sparkley, but not in a good way. I didn't own that nasty top for long, but I do remember buying it. It was what I'd describe as an '"it's ok" purchase, rather than something one tries on in the shop & instantly loves. Back then, I wouldn't have contemplated Christmas Day without something new to wear.
Well this year, I do actually have something new. I bought two new dresses in recent months, one of which is suitable for a celebration. I intend to wear it at Christmas. However, this is not some audacious sparkle bedecked horror, it is a nice dress which I will wear at all sorts of occasions, will be ok for all seasons except the height of summer & I fully expect to be wearing it on Christmas Day next year, probably the year after & it is the kind of dress that even when it is starting to look a little worn, it will still have its use as a day dress with some chunky boots. Even telling you about this dress is making me feel happy, whereas that triffid top & other purchases of its ilk made me feel as though I'd fallen off the Christmas tree!
I remember @Onebrokelady saying how she gets around this by wearing a really nice festive T-shirt. Another way around it if the occasion defo demands sparkle would be to wear something from one's existing wardrobe but then to add assorted frou-frou such as earrings & wrap. 
So again, a case of a bit more thought about spending decisions avoiding past horrors like that damned awful top! Be wise, don't be a triffid!
F x

Blackcats

An explosion in a sequinned cushion factory - you made me snort out loud 🤣

foxgloves

Hello Campers,
I'm really starting to feel as though my normal household-running routines are back to normal now, post-builders/decorating/everything else, & have caught up with lots of stuff. An unexciting but useful day today. I've done a sort of overarching meal plan right up until Christmas Eve with the sole intent of not spending any more money on non-Christmas groceries than I have to. I decided to write down all the dates, then to see how many I could fill in with a meal using up what we already have in the freezer/pantry, plus one roast dinner which will stretch to 3 days, & the takeaway which Mr F would like for his birthday. Tonight is a case in point re use-it-up. Home made tomato soup from the freezer, a 'side' of leftover homegrown squash (it was enormous!) roasted with garlic & rosemary and a freshly baked soda bread to use up some yoghurt. I've talked Mr F into defrosting the small freezer, as I shall need it for my festive baking. Normally very amenable to assisting in whatever way, Mr F does not enjoy defrosting duties, but I happened to toss into the conversation the fact that I could possibly bake extra sausage rolls if I only had more space........ & result! He's apparently doing it on Saturday afternoon! 
Have also done the ironing, written the final 2 letters I need to enclose with Christmas cards, found suitable boxes for gifting selections of home made preserves & sorted out my craft box. This has involved a good shopped from home item. Mr F mentioned he was intending to buy a large new toolbox at the weekend as his old one was badly damaged when our shed flooded. I happened to be using exactly such an item for my craft box but would prefer a standard see-thru plastic storage box. Turns out he had one in the loft, so we have swapped & no money spent. I enjoyed having a good declutter rediscovering what craft bits & bobs I have. I also found FIVE unused marker pens in there that I didn't know I had. They will be useful as I have been wasting my good felt tips on addressing parcels, etc. I must have bought them for delivering a presentation, but it's a long time since I gave one of those - possibly when I was involved in local politics, idk, so they have sat in that box a long time.
Oh, & I finished the first of the handknitted birthday present socks & cast on its pair.
I've got a bit of a headache starting up. I've probably had too much screen time, so I will aim to post up my next Past Spendy Sin of Christmas tomorrow.
Take care, all.
F x

Humdinger1

Wonderful! One of the things I most enjoy about your diary @foxgloves is the way you describe and enjoy the texture of daily life.  I've had a few days of stock and soup making after a period of insane hours at work.  It's reminded me that I make better decisions all round when work isn't allowed to take over.  Slack in the timetable is healthy.  Love Humdinger x 

foxgloves

Well, @Humdinger1, I prefer a simpler lifestyle these days. I agree that things like soup making are very calming. These very simple activities also connect us back to our ancestors, I always think. I also agree that we are all much more prone to making  to making less sensible decisions when going through a very busy chaotic patch. It's good to leave a few spaces in our diaries for catching up. chilling out & just allowing ourselves to 'be'.
F x

foxgloves

Hello Thursday Frugalistas,
Productive morning & kind of eventually managed a productive afternoon, but am just about goggle-eyed now, due to my own silly error. This morning, I made Mr F a birthday card, dealt with a load of emails & did some surveys. This afternoon, my planned task was to get out my coloured pencils & draw up a schematic for piecing together my bedspread squares, which are still sitting in a big bag in my little HQ room, looking accusingly at me when I go past. So out came the squared paper, ruler & other arty looking gubbins. Well, I couldn't get the diagram to work mathematically, & after more number-crunching than I'd hoped, plus working through each coloured-in square at a time, it appeared that I had 2 squares less than I required. Jiggled my diagram around again (thankfully I received a nice pack of llama rubbers as a gift & they have seen some serious use today - one has had his whole foot rubbed off!)) & worked out that if I didn't want to start my drawing again from scratch, the simplest solution would be to knit 1 additional blue square & one additional green one. Dug through my yarn stash (it lives in a chest of drawers which is so full, I had to take a lot of stuff out to find the right yarn) & found some needles, intending to start knitting those tonight. Then I went & rounded up the squares I'd started to lay out on the bed & found two I'd missed. Aaaaagh!! I'd had the right number after all. What a waste of time & effort re-doing my diagram & straining my eyes over all those little squares!! I even made myself a cafetiere to assist the brain cells, then forgot to drink it! What an idiot. Ah well, I do still like the squares. They look nice together & I think the bedspread will look high-end when it's finished. It was a Lockdown project, so I shall have something to show in future for all that time spent at home!
Anyway, I'd better post my next Festive spendy sin.
Cheers,
F x

foxgloves

My Past Spendy Sins of Christmas
No. 7 - Oodles of decorations!
I love Christmas. I come from a family of Christmas lovers. Back in the Spendy Era, I used to find it very hard to resist buying Christmas decorations. I bought some very single year without fail. Having said that, I have never been one of these people who insists on an annual theme for their tree. I can't remember this being a thing, really until the 1980s, when consumerism exploded, & suddenly I knew people who were having a pale blue & peach bauble-bedecked tree one year, then purple & silver the next, etc. I have never gone down that route. My tree decorations have only ever had traditional colours - silver, gold, red & green  & although I bought plenty of things in those colours, I didn't go as mad as I might have done. No, where I got the red mist was additional decorations, the interiors sort of stuff - festive smelling candles (& let's be honest, some of the pine-type ones are rather reminiscent of T*ilet D*ck, are they not?), wrought iron candleabras, swags, wreaths, festive sequins for strewing on the dining table (how bloody annoying would I find those now, lol!), votive candle jars, smelly tea lights, glittered pine cones, baskets (yes, more baskets!) with a bit of fake greenery on, oh I could go on, but you know the sort of things. I was bad enough for buying this stuff when I lived on my own, but when Mr F came onto the scene, he loved Christmas as much as me & we enabled each other's festive buying, as well as all our other spending. I have been trying to think what our worst purchase was in terms of wasting money & there is no contest. It was a fake Christmas tree from an upmarket local garden centre. It was taller than me, not a traditional pine tree, but a fake bare winter birch with built in lights along the branches & twigs. I can remember us standing there sighing over it (me), him getting his credit card out & us both saying 'Let's get it". Well, it looked simply gorgeous decorated & lit up in our bow window. The next year, when it was out of warranty, a section of its branches failed to light up. This problem spread to half of them. We bought a new set of lights to put on it, but couldn't get the same bright silver white. Some of the magic had gone. The following year, when I was putting it up I noticed that the covering on several of the twigs was coming off & it was just bare wires inside. As it was a plug in thing, I thought it looked dangerous. Mr F took one look & pronounced it a "******g death trap" . It went to the tip. It was a big waste of money & I'm sure it will still be sitting in landfill somewhere as there was a fair amount of plastic. The main point here is that this was an expensive item - close on £100 - which we absolutely did not need. We had a perfectly nice tree at home in the loft, we just saw this twinkly beauty when we were out for a Sunday morning coffee, cake & spend, & succumbed instantly to its charms. I know £100 (I think it was around £90, actually) isn't the biggest sum of money in the world, but we hadn't saved for it, we didn't budget at all & were permanently overdrawn & endebted. 
Of course I still love Christmas & our house still looks lovely & festive. It strikes me every year now, when I go around the garden collecting greenery for making our door wreath, or collect fir cones, berries, etc, for arrangements, that I used to pay for stuff that I have always known I can go out & find for free! As for baskets, I can twirl a bit of ivy around a handle & end up with something which looks like it's come from a magazine. Re tree decorations, my favourite ones, now of course, are the ones my Mum made over the years, as she was a fine crafter. I also treasure a little velvet decoration which was a gift from a dear friend who sadly died a few years ago. These seem much more meaningful than coming home with new festive tat every year. I still have too many decorations for one tree, but it means I can shop some different ones from home if I fancy a change. 
Another Past Spendy Sin tomorrow or over the weekend.
F x

CL21

Loving this series of ‘spendy sins’ so far but this one speaks to me! I’ve gone so overboard at Christmas in the past. Now my tradition with my daughter is that every year we buy three decorations that we love and hang them on the tree. Our tree is totally mismatched - we have everything from Disney princesses to a woollen lobster with a Santa hat (don’t ask!) - but all of them have memories attached that I wouldn’t swap for anything. Hopefully this is a tradition she can carry on as well 

Deni_debt-free_dreamer

Hi foxgloves and followers
Enjoying your festive tales.  My most treasured xmas decs are things made by my DDs and a snowman my Nan knitted many years ago.  I also have 6 small cats that hang on the tree which my sis gave me when she came to visit one year, she brought me a hamper of various goodies.  She is now too incapacitated by physical illness to come to visit so they are very precious (& because i love cats too
Deni x