Champagne Lifestyle on a Lemonade Budget.

lessonlearned

Good evening everyone.

Well I have had a lovely day - more later.

But first Happy and Contented - what a beautiful, haunting poem. I am sorry you are going to lose one of your dear friends, cherish the time you have left together. It will be bitter sweet.

Jackie......give yourself a huge pat on the back for dealing with such a horrible situation. :T:T. I take my hat off to you, you did it and came out stronger than ever.

Candy .....hello my dear. Yes you have had a rough few weeks haven't you. Losing Buddy was hard......I'm glad you are feeling a bit brighter. And I'm glad my posts cheer you up.

Well as I said today was just lovely.......one of those magical days you want to put in a bottle and keep forever so that on the down days you can take it out and look at it.

I met one my oldest and most treasured female friends for lunch. We have known each other for 52 years. There have been breaks along the way when our lives took us on different paths but we always stayed in touch and always kept our relationship going,

New friendships are of course wonderful but somehow nothing quite compares to the bonds we forged decades ago. The shared history which makes us the people we are.

Then this afternoon I had a glorious time playing with my first grandchild whilst his mummy, my DIL, worked on a presentation for her work. He is now 4 months old and we have such fun together. What can I say, I'm his abject slave :rotfl:

The love of my family and friends is perhaps, for me, the greatest luxury and pleasure of all. My sons are my pride and joy and the princesses they have chosen to share their lives with are just wonderful. I couldn't love them more if they were my own daughters. And now a grandson:D:j:j ........my greatest sadness is that my husband never lived to see his grandchild.

But there you go......

Pain and sorrow is the price we pay for love.

As some of you know I have a great passion for Shakespeare and the Bard always had the right words. He was right .....it really is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. I had 34 glorious years with my husband. I am grateful for every day.

Cherish your loved ones whilst you can, and then when the time comes, let them go and be happy for the times you shared.

The tone is a little melancholy today isn't it............but all is good. Life is still sweet.

skogar

Hello Lesson Learned,

I have been enjoying reading your thread.

You all make me laugh with your ideas about a luxurious life style, only because I find myself agreeing with so much of it, real coffee, making homemade fruit wine so I can use it extravagantly in cooking, linen or 100% cotton bedding, I'm going to add my flannelette sheets as well and real homemade jam, marmalade and chutneys.

I love beautiful old furniture and lovely fabrics. I love to go to the theatre, days out, holidays etc. etc.

The national theatre etc. events at cinemas are not cheap but good for seeing top quality productions without the expense of trailing down to London.

Here I find it is quite reasonable to go to the theatre but it depends on both the theatre and what you are going to see. Some of the local theatres have a few seats which are much cheaper than the others or the price varies depending on the day. The one I go to most frequently if I go on say a Tuesday or Wednesday in the cheapest seats it is usually £10-£12.50. There is only one row of the cheapest seats. Another I visit regularly also has some cheap seats at a similar price. The trick is to book early and know your local theatres.

Also find out what your local cinema's best offers are. For us it is Vue and on a Monday you can get a ticket for £3.99 providing you buy it in person (they charge you an extra 75p if you book online). There is a small community arts centre near us that show some excellent films, a bit after the release date but also good films that were not shown widely and never hit our local cinema. For £4 a ticket it is excellent value. If you have something similar you may get some good bargains. I know one community arts centre type venue that shows the National Theatre screenings much cheaper than our local cinema. Unfortuantely it is too far from us to be a sensible option. Local film clubs also may screen films of interest at competitive prices.

If you are happy to give a vague area where you live then maybe we can share some tips if there is anyone in a similar area.

candygirl

HAPPYANDCONYENTED, my heart goes out to you hun .I lost my best friend aged only 26, to cervical cancer in 1994.She was literally the life, and soul of the party, and her Daughter was just 8 when she died Luckily we are still in touch, and I can relive the memories of her Mum with her. Her Dad remarried asap and rejected her

lessonlearned

Skogar. I live in Derby. As a small to medium sized city we have a reasonable selection of theatres, cinemas, small music venues such as pubs etc but our big concert hall is alas, no more. It stands there empty and forlorn.......

A bit of a bone of contention I'm afraid. There is talk of it reopening but no one seems to be holding their breath. :rotfl:

Anyway I'm pretty busy really from now until Christmas. I do have quite a few nice outings planned but no doubt I shall be scouting around for fresh ideas in the new year.

My car has been checked over and they couldn't find anything wrong.....hopefully it was just a one off. Just have to wait and see.

Busy weekend...tree surgeons coming tomorrow, plumber also coming to take final measurements and make plans. Saturday the new fencing goes in. I might try and sneak out to the cinema on Sunday. Will have to see how it goes.

caronc

What a lovely thread:).
As someone who had to retire very early due to a life changing health problem and consequent large reduction in income as well as loss of plans/future, I can completely relate to a lot that has been said. I certainly went through the "grief cycle" when it became clear my health issues were not a temporary blip but I am lucky compared to many battling illness.

Champagne lifestyle, well I don't like fizz;) but do like good food, nice wine, decent gin and gardening. My kids are finished their studies and in decent jobs so support is no longer financial but social & moral and I have all the time now to give this in bucket loads when they need it. The extra time to spend with my family & friends is fabulous.
I run a tight budget for day to day things and gone are the thoughtless spends like takeaways or a quick trip to M&S foodhall just because I didn't fancy what I had in. I have budget categories for the things that give me pleasure and over the last year it has pleasantly surprised me how well this has worked. I have bought or done everything I wanted to buy or do including a couple of very expensive lunches which ironically when I had more money coming in I probably would have said I couldn't afford.:o:o

candygirl

'LL, have you seen Bohemian Rhapsody yet? It's well worth a watch

lessonlearned

That's what I'm aiming for on Sunday. .

Caronc..you don't have to drink bubbly to live a "champagne lifestyle". Lol.

I'll definitely join you in a nice gin and tonic......

I think you are right though, it's by watching the day to day spending and cutting back on the "thoughtless" spends that enables me to indulge in the treats.

It's funny you Mention it but I too have found that I now eat better, dress better and generally live a better life now that I have a tight budget than when I was in funds and didnt have to monitor my spending or budget so carefully.

Quite an eye opener isn't it.,

humptydumptybits

Many years ago I managed a young man on a YTS scheme. He had £25 a week and managed it well, bought his bus pass, give one third to his mum and split what was left into spending money and holiday savings. I met him about 5 years later, he had a good job earning about 14 or 15 times more, was still living at home and he was in debt. He said he had never been as well off as when he was on £25 a week. He suddenly had money and started spending, getting a car on credit, spending on a credit card because he could afford it and suddenly he was drowning in debt.

lessonlearned

Oh the luxury of sitting here with my coffee, watching four strapping young men tackle that monster of a hedge. :rotfl: I feel like the Queen of Sheba.

I have made them teas and coffees though.......

So far they have removed the inner fence - took them about half an hour. It would have taken me a couple of days.:rotfl: and then probably a couple of massages to get over it.

Some things are well worth paying some one else to do.

Right I'm going to see if I can sweet talk them into letting me have some of the bark chippings. :rotfl:

caronc

lessonlearned wrote: »

It's funny you Mention it but I too have found that I now eat better, dress better and generally live a better life now that I have a tight budget than when I was in funds and didnt have to monitor my spending or budget so carefully.

Quite an eye opener isn't it.,

Scary isn't it and I think it shows how much time pressures (certainly for me) play havoc on spends.....
As a busy working person I didn't want to spend too much time shopping around as it got in the way of precious leisure hours but I've no excuse now, ditto there's no need now to buy the odd lunch because I was working late the night before and was too tired to make a pack up. Factor in the endless "lifts"/raffles etc. at work and before you know there's £100 a month disappeared that I never really thought about:eek:. Take out travel to work and other work costs and yikes maybe I'm not as skint as I thought.

My "good things in life" wouldn't suit everyone but taking a good hard look at what I spent my money on and prioritising the things that give me the most pleasure (many of which I've discovered have little or no monetary cost) is something I should have done years ago. I seem to have more money now for the important (to me stuff) than I ever had. I've never spent more than I had and had always put some money by for a "rainy day" (thank goodness as that day came ...) even when that was hard with 2 kids and one income, but looking back there was a fair bit of mindless frittering!:o