Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

Thanks, @Elisheba..One thing I can tell you about "light at the end of the debt tunnel" is how amazing it feels making that final payment & realising that all your money is finally your own. We did still have the mortgage at the time but that wasn't a bad debt as only a tiny minority of people can buy a house outright. Getting rid of all the assorted consumer debt means starting afresh because we are no longer paying for stuff we bought so long ago on credit we can barely remember what any of it was! And debt-free is a really good fresh start to have.
F x

Deni_debt-free_dreamer

foxgloves said:

Thanks, @Elisheba..One thing I can tell you about "light at the end of the debt tunnel" is how amazing it feels making that final payment & realising that all your money is finally your own. We did still have the mortgage at the time but that wasn't a bad debt as only a tiny minority of people can buy a house outright. Getting rid of all the assorted consumer debt means starting afresh because we are no longer paying for stuff we bought so long ago on credit we can barely remember what any of it was! And debt-free is a really good fresh start to have.
F x

totally agree foxgloves.  I became debt free in March 21 and it is such a relief I do still have a mortgage but have been overpaying it.
I saw your mention of suffolk - that's where i mostly grew up! It is lovely, picturesque and peaceful but I don't have any desire to return.  I like to visit theatres and live music venues and there are loads of those within an hour of where i now live . I hope you achieve your dream of living by the sea though 
love Deni  x

Jellytotts

We live near the sea, can see it from my garden but I'd still like to live closer, a garden leading down to a private beach would be heavenly.  

I stopped buying new clothes (aside from undies)a coupe of years ago, we have a couple of fabulous charity shops here, one of them is a "clearance" shop for one of the bigger charities and everything is £1 clothing wise.  I pop in at least once a week because you need to browse regularly to find what you need in amongst the naff stuff but this weeks trawl came up trumps with a grey woollen military style coat that DD2 has been after, it has a button missing on the shoulder but the spare is still attached to the label so a quick job to sort.  I also got a knee length padded, waterproof coat for me, had make up stains around the neck line so a bit of washing up liquid scrubbed on before popping through the wash and it's come up like new.  £2 spent and 2 people very happy. 

Four_Seasons

Hi Foxgloves, hope you are having a lovely week of days out at least the weather is nice.  Don't forget my kettle is on! x

foxgloves

It's always nice to check back into my diary & find comments x
@Deni_debt-free_dreamer - It's my favourite county. If we don't manage to move to the seaside, it will most likely be a house-prices based decision. I do check them every 3 months or so (even though it's years till Mr F retires!) just to see if our area is keeping pace. A modest shortfall could currently be met from savings, but if the gap between the 2 regions opened up more significantly (we'd already need to downsize), we'd have to go for Plan B (campervan).

@Jellytotts - How lovely to be able to see the sea from your garden. I'd love that! I agree that lots of regular charity shop visits need to happen to find the treasures. I've had some good things over the years, but I've also bought stuff which turned out not to be so good......I suppose because it was cheap, a bit like the old sale rail argument! My best friend is coming over next week & we've planned a charity shop treasure hunting trail in town. Last time she came, she found 2 M*ns**n tops in the first shop we visited. I shall look at the clothes, but am more interested in vintage homeware atm, esp oddments of crockery which would mix & match my own crockery at home. Looking forward to it, anyway.

@Four_Seasons - Yes, thanks. Coming to the end of a lovely week. Re your kettle, I think you live a lot further south east than we ever go but I appreciate the virtual cup of coffee anyway, lol.

F x

foxgloves

Morning Campers! Wish I WAS camping as it's just the weather for sitting outside the tent (well....when we had one, before Yours Truly fell through it in spectacular style rendering it fit only for the tip!) with a G&T & pile of magazines. I'm on my lonesome today as Mr F has had to work. We've had a lovely week together though. We alternated trips out with garden jobs & relaxing at home because petrol costs are too high now to be heading out every day. We did make it over to the Norfolk coast & thoroughly enjoyed it. Also been to a historic garden in a neighbouring county, an NT place, a city centre trip, my favourite big garden centre & a lovely walk at a local-ish gorge. We've mitigated costs by taking picnics, or if we did have coffee out, sharing a scone or cake & on one occasion buying cappucinos to enjoy out on a sunny balcony, but smuggling a home-baked muffin in to eat with it. 
On the home front, we've been keeping up with garden maintenance & just this morning I've picked another 2 cucumbers (that's 8 in total now) & the first aubergine. BBQ planned for tonight - just the 2 of us - then a lazy day tomorrow before Mr F goes back to work properly on Monday,
I'm surprised there's actually been no steam coming out of my calculator this morning as I have been number crunching like mad. Mr F has been asking me recently what I think I'd like to do for my big birthday. As this is still a couple of years away, I hadn't given it any thought whatsoever, but I did agree that I'd think about it as if we want to book a holiday, we need to get that done before everywhere books up & also ensure we have the spondooliks to pay for it. So, I decided I'd like to book a clifftop cottage apartment that we've stayed in before. Oh my giddy trousers.......the prices! Even factoring in that my birthday week includes a BH, the cost has more than doubled since we last looked, pre-pandemic. Basically £1400 for the week. I wont pay that as my opinion is that the rise has been too greedy. There is a smaller apartment which is a studio all-in-one-room set-up & looks nice but that only reduced the rental by £100 & even with the sea-view, I don't feel such a small place is worth that amount. On the other side of the village, there's another cottage which is still more than we've ever paid for a week's rental (bear in mind we don't have children & usually go away off season) but a good bit cheaper than the aforementioned apartments. It's free during my birthday week & Mr F was all for booking it last night, but I just couldn't do it. I said "I HAVE to look at the financial side of it first. I can't commit to that amount of money & find I've left us short elsewhere". He reluctantly agreed (he thinks someone will jump in & book it that week) & so today. I've written out a timeline of what we will need to pay when (including the balance on next year's holiday which is already booked) & how much we will need to pay into the Holiday Pot each month to be able to meet costs. I'd made good inroads into that when I realised I had forgotten to include the cattery boarding fees, so started again to keep the calculations accurate. Then I double-checked all the figures again plus the relevant dates in my diary. Only then did I ping Mr F & say "Yes, go ahead & book". 
Well, I don't need to tell you, do I, that back in the Spendy Era, we'd have booked that holiday last night without any budget checks at all (how could we, as we never had any form of budget?!) We'd have booked it knowing we already had debts, without any holiday saving pot mechanism in place, so it would have gone straight onto a credit card. I'd have been making positive statements about how we wouldn't have a problem paying it off, so it wouldn't acquire much interest, blah, blah, when in fact, as we had no emergency fund as well as no budget, the first 'emergency' would also have gone smack onto a credit card too. I actually felt a little bit stressed last night, refusing to give Mr F the go-ahead to get the cottage booked, as he only wants me to have a lovely Big Birthday, but I am just not that financially irresponsible person any more & I couldn't do it. I even APOLOGISED that I couldn't do it, for goodness sake, but he said '"I understand, it's fine" & I said I'd have a good look at the figures today.  If it turns out that we can't have that week because it's now been booked by somebody else, I shall be disappointed, but I still won't regret taking the time to make an informed decision. As Mr F said, people who prefer to go abroad to celebrate things like big birthdays would pay out more than this, but the 'gulp' factor for me was that with keeping costs reasonable by always holidaying off-season, we have simply never paid out such a big cottage rental before......I'm sure families limited to booking in the school holidays would not be at all surprised at the cost!
Well, I shall leave you to get on with your days,
It's very hot, so remember to keep properly hydrated - it's so tiring otherwise,
Love F x

Cheery_Daff

Well done on waiting til you'd looked at the finances! I agree holiday cottage prices have gone through the roof. We've not been away for a few years, but even so, we looked recently and were horrified, and ended up not booking anywhere at all, as we just couldn't bring ourselves to pay what was being asked for what we wanted (we were after specific weeks though, and are quite fussy about the type of place). 

All fingers and toes crossed that your place is still free! 

Four_Seasons

Hi Foxgloves, lovely to have you back.  So pleased you had such a good week.  I holiday with my friend mon - fri and take our little dogs we have been fortunate in that we had several booked (I always book for the next year so that I can budget!) and when covid struck we moved them to this year so the price rise hadn't hit.  A few months ago you mentioned holiday cottages and sent me on a mission to book for next year thanx to you we have found somewhere still at a reasonable price but looking now cottages we have booked before have increased by £150 is really out priced our budget.  I live a couple of miles inland from Chapel St Leonards on a farm, so well away from holiday makers.  Just off to start building a bigger pen for my baby ducklings!! stay safe x

Deni_debt-free_dreamer

Morning foxgloves

Lovely to hear from you I don't think i could afford to move back to Suffolk now, even if i wanted to.  It suffers from its proximity to London so people can live there and commute, or people have second homes (grrrr) which prices out locals. 

I have a big birthday in 2 years (the one starting with a 6 eek!) so you have got me thinking about what i would like to do.....

On one of our other favourite topics, I bought a box of cat food for my 2 queens yesterday and it is now £5 - was 3.99 at xmas! I do have a c00p voucher for 25p off that brand but they only do small boxes.  Hoping one of the bargain HS stores will have it at a better price

Love Deni x

foxgloves

@Cheery_Daff - Yes, the cottage rentals have shot up in price. I do understand people wanting to make back income lost to Covid/Lockdown, but I think in some cases, this has tipped over into greed. We looked, out of interest at a cottage in Cornwall which we booked for a week in 2017. We could only afford to stay there in November or Jan/Feb & it was still about £100 more than we'd normally aim to pay. Well that cottage (same week in November) now costs 3 times as much. Needless to say we won't be going back unless prices start to reflect life as we know it!
F x