Put away your purse & become debt-averse

Blackcats

I'm another one who came to my financial senses at a late stage. I recognise myself in the stories and reflections here (not the tinned tomatoes dream though!,,,).
I'm not quite a natural at sensible money management yet though. This week I had reason to go to a large branch of a supermarket with a large honewares department. I was still entranced by the pretty cushions, colourful towels, candles that will apparently smell of wonderful, nonsensical things like moon dust and Unicorn breath. Artificial cactus, mugs with spring flowers on them. All of these things lured me towards them. I don't need more cushions, I've never needed an artificial cactus in a sparkly pot. I even bargained with myself - if I used my Nect*r points then these treasures wouldn't even cost me any money, despite having allocated the points for Christmas spends. If I just bought a packet of scented tea lights then they would fill my world with joy even though I've got a drawer full of tea lights. But I did walk away because I want to achieve my aspiration of retiring in 2 years more than I want more "stuff".
I was also ridiculously chuffed to receive two interest payments on my savings this week. I darent even speculate how much interest I've paid over the years but to get even a small amount of interest from a financial institution was a great feeling.
It's a slow process but I'm getting there and diaries like this with your inspiring money management ways and your contributors really help. I even stood in that supermarket last week and thought "what would Foxgloves do?" And I concluded that you wouldn't buy a plastic cactus no matter how sparkly the pot was!

joedenise

At least you argued yourself out of all those things Blackcats and didn't give into the whims.

Definitely an achievement to remember that your points are for your Christmas spends rather than for stuff you don't need.

Budgeting does get easier over time. It's taken me years to really feel in control of my money.

Denise

Blackcats

Thank you Denise. I do feel a bit pleased with myself and I can smile at my savings head arguing with my spending head. I've also just done a quick review of my savings pots and moved some money to an account with better interest. This is something I would never have done in the past - mostly because I didn't actually have much in savings but also because I didn't worry about interest rates. Just as well because some of my creditcard interest rates were probably astronomical. I used the snowball method to prioritise howto payoff my debts which really made me think about the impact of interest rates.
I remember back in the 80's/90's when mortgage interest rates hit10% plus. Every letter from the building society meant a further interest rate increase. I always paid my mortgage but they were very tough times. Ironically now I have some savings interest rates are comparatively very low indeed.

foxgloves

Lol, Blackcats, I know the home department of which you speak, & you are damn right I wouldn't have bought a plastic cactus in a sparkly pot!! I have only once owned plastic flowers. I was eight years old & inherited them from a great, great aunt's house when she died. They were hideous, but I liked them because they were in a plastic coach.... as in the old fashioned type pulled by horses. There were no horses included, just this bizarre arrangement of plastic blooms poking out from a black plastic coach. A completely pointless item, though I expect my elderly relative liked them. And you know what? Those flowers were binned once we no longer played with them but they will still be there, somewhere in landfill, never to biodegrade, because the sobering thing about plastic is that every piece of it ever made is still around. We can throw it away, but if it doesn't biodegrade, there Is no 'away'. So that plastic coach full of equally plastic flowers is still lurking somewhere & you can be sure that all those plastic cacti in sparkly pots will be destined to follow! A greener buy would maybe be a real little cacti potted into an unusual container you already own & topped with a layer of found pebbles.
I do always look at that home section, though. There are some nice things, but also some that are clearly just passing trends. I'm sure landfill will be chocka with fake reindeer heads in years to come.... Future archaeologists will probably think it was something bizarre & ritualistic.
Well done for resisting temptation.
Oh, & like you, I remember the insane mortgage interest rate rises in the Thatcher years..... hard to explain to younger generations that interest rates actually hit 16%, but they did, & they were scary times.
F x

foxgloves

More fab garden freebies today, as I did a mini plant swap with a friend. I gave her several of the pink primroses I divided up yesterday, plus half a dozen of a fancy variety of sunflower which I grew from a stash of out of date seed packets found at Mum's house. She brought me some sweet peas plus some zinnia, verbena & ipomea babies. Most gardeners end up with a surplus, so swapping is a lovely way of getting a bit more variety without being sucked into the dangers of Garden Centre Temptation. Oh.... & my friend had also been dividing up her snowdrops, so she gave me a bag of those too, which I shall plant at the hedge side of my new winter garden bed. I intend to swap a squash plant for those, but they've not germinated yet, as I don't sow them until the middle of April.
Anyway, a very pleasant afternoon catching up over coffee & warm home-baked scones with blackberry jam. Simple things, but it did us all good. Sometimes simple things are just what we need.
Take care all,
F x

foxgloves

Morning Campers,
Well, the washing machine is churning, I've got everything out ready to make bread, then it's set to be a big gardening day for both of us. This will defo NOT involve a garden centre visit, as with a bit of imagination, all our planned projects today can be carried out with stuff we already own or can improvise.
Really aiming for a productive day out in the sunshine.
Enjoy the BH, everyone. I shall aim to pop back & share what we've achieved today.
Spring Blessings to all,
F xx

foxgloves

What a happy & productive day in the garden & I'm pleased to say that we stuck to our plans of using what we'd got, rather than making any sneaky little trippettes to the garden centre.
I've planted out some hellebores I brought back with me from Mum's garden, & Mr f used some of the rustic poles he saved when cutting down the thicket at the back of the shed to make a wigwam for the extra sweet-peas I was given last week. I've also potted up some seedlings from Mum's stash of out of date seeds, while Mr f emptied the remaining compost bins & re-sited them.
On the food front, I planted the aubergines & cukes into their final position, planted out the first lot of lettuces & potted the next lot into modules, & motivated by the success of the sweet-pea wigwam, we used more of the 'recycled rustic pole stash' to rebuild the climbing beans structure.
Another free win.... Our garden hose isn't long enough. Mum had a longer one, but still not long enough. Today Mr f found an old connector joint in the shed & managed to join them together. Pleased with that as it's saved on buying more plastic as well as cash.
More veggie garden jobs lined up for tomorrow. Ready for a scrub now & for the kettle to go on.
Cheers,
F x

Onebrokelady

Hellebores are one of my most favourite flowers,I bought three for my 50th birthday from The Lost Gardens Of Heligan,two white ones and an almost black purple one,I can't remember the varieties but they have been in my front garden for 6 years in June and flower like little troopers every year,I don't do anything to them,I just let them do their thing, they are beautiful

Well done on the hose repurposing, I have a really lovely long hose that reaches my whole back garden but for some reason the outside tap has stopped working,I'm going to ask my brother in law to have a look at it when he has time,when I move the chickens I will need the hose to be working to hose down their run

I have spent a very enjoyable day in the garden as well today,after losing my enthusiasm I seem to have got it back all of a sudden,I've been reading a blog called Down To Earth and I think it's that that has inspired me,it's Australian so you have to take that into account but I just love her lifestyle,it's so how I would like to live and I'm now feeling as if I could actually do it despite working

foxgloves

Glad you've rediscovered your gardening mojo, OBL. I have always loved growing things, but I must say I'm finding that being outside tending our garden is tremendous therapy after the two years I've just had. You'll probably remember I lost my Mum last Autumn... well, the year before that, I lost my Dad & also a dear friend who I'd known since my first week at university aged 18. It's been a proper sad old time & although there have been nice things too, all the stuff that's needed doing following both parents dying so close together has seemed neverending - though the end should be in sight soon as I accepted full asking price on their house last week. Fingers crossed it all goes through. So... my time spent out in the garden this year, sowing & planting, clearing & planning, and just pottering around & enjoying the flowers & wildlife, it's all doing me lots of good.
I did have to go to the garden centre today. I went to get my packet of sweetcorn seed out to check the sowing time & couldn't find it. Most unusual, as I sort everything I intend to sow over the coming year into my seed box which is arranged month by month. Checked my main stock box of seeds - not in there either. It wouldn't be anywhere else, so I obviously hadn't bought any after all. I now have a pack ready to go. Things I didn't buy while there: Coffee & scone in the cafe, bedding plants (they looked gorgeous, but honestly, why was I even looking?? My greenhouse is rammed with homegrown plants), large ceramic pot. I shall need one soon to pot up a very big conservatory plant, but I didn't want to spend the money today.
And I'm eeking out bagged compost like mad by mixing it with our own home made stuff. I've looked at those root-trainer modules in the past for sowing beans, but have never succumbed as I like to re-use big yoghurt pots/takeaway coffee cups, as I've been doing today.
Must get up & walk around in a minute as I can stiffen up after a day's gardening when it's still early in the season - the joys of being a woman of a certain age, lol!
F x

foxgloves

Well, here I am again, at my big WW1 era desk, which my lovely old Grandad rescued from somewhere or other back in the 1980s & refurbed for me to use. It's up in the little front bedroom which serves as 'Foxgloves HQ'. I share it with our cat, who has his nice snuggly bed in here right next to the radiator......a snuggly bed, I might add, that he has spurned for the last fortnight, having decided that my chair in the lounge is more to his liking!
I've been clearing a few routine financial tasks this morning, ready to tackle my next Big Budget Day, which is this Friday. I've made no secret on here of the fact that I've come to financial common sense later in life than many, & one thing about this whole budgeting lark is that once you get going with it, you keep finding all sorts of little 'tweaks' which make the job easier or more effective, or hopefully, both. Something I've been dong for the past couple of months is that as Budget Day approaches (it's always on pay-day or as soon after pay-day as I can manage), I take a sheet of A4 paper (from my recycled stash of course!), head it 'Things to remember for Budget Day' (the clue's in the name) & then I weigh it down with a cat paperweight a friend bought me years ago. He's a big heavy smooth pebble painted to look like a snoozy grey & white cat & he's perfect for the job. Anyway, there's no mystery to this sheet of paper.........I use it to jot down things I need to factor into the coming month's new budget. Not the usual routine things like 'Allocate grocery money' or 'Pay our Personal Spends', but those extra things which are easy to forget when your head's full of minutiae like 'How many shopping Saturdays in May' or 'Is this the month that X is due?', etc. So far, my piece of paper has enscribed upon it the not exactly riveting fact that mr f 'only requires £10 travel budget this time', that I have 'already paid & accounted for the campsite fees', how much I need to put aside for his Lordship's cattery stay & a flag-upin big letters that I need to decide how best to budget for festival day tickets. There's also a little note reminding me that I need to pay an additional £10 to our 'Just for points' credit card to cover tickets for seeing Ben Elton, as I'd written down the price of this as £10 less than it actually was......probably wishful thinking on my part! While this might seem like micro-management, I do find it's proving very useful, because I have had a few occasions where i've worked hard on the new month's budget, written it all perfectly in my Money Book, then realised half an hour later that I've missed something & will now have to change the figures or pay something from a different pot, etc. Much better to have my new 'Piece of recycled paper' system on which I can jot these things as I think of them........Oh, look, here's another one........a modest birthday meal at the weekend.....which budget shall I use for that? How much will I need to allow? Oh, & another.........can I buy that big ceramic pot for a triffid-like conservatory plant in May, or would it be better for the budget to wait until June?
Such trifling details in many ways, but if they keep our finances on the straight & narrow after so many years of being such twits, I really don't care how many notes I make!
It must be time for a coffee now, do you reckon?
Have a good Wednesday all,
F xx