Frugal, thrifty, make do, mend! Let this debt come to an end!

foxgloves

Thanks for an inspiring post, @Elisheba. I shall make a note of that book to order from the library next year....this year I'm busy hammering my 100 novels in 2025 challenge.
I wish I'd discovered conscious spending much earlier in my life. It's funny sometimes being out at a garden centre or generally shopping & I'll spot something & think to myself, "I just KNOW I'd have bought that without a 2nd thought back in the Spendy Years"......& I also notice these days how much stuff on sale is just landfill fodder. The Great Recent Queue in which I was standing for ages on my birthday was a case in point. Despite this being an upmarket garden centre, with very little tat on its main shelves, the shelving units which are used to corale customers into a long snake of queue at the tills were full of plastic cr*pola of short interest/longevity. We kept saying, "Who BUYS this? What's it FOR?" Well, landfill clearly, but I suppose people get bored queuing & despite a trolleyful, continue buying.
We had a lifestyle change when I took VR as in no way did I ever intend to stop working in my late 40s - what really surprised me is just how much it was possible to cut back our spending without getting all 'hair shirt' about it.
I enjoyed reading about your goals. You are on the pathway & no-one can achieve any longterm goals without their feet facing in the right direction on that!
Onwards!
F x

Makingabobor2

You have some brilliant aims there and I love it when I read a book that really inspires me.  I think the idea of digital detox is a great one. I am sure I waste so much time doom scrolling and deleting emails etc.  I am going to go through everything over the weekend and unsubscribe to stuff and get more organised.  I wish I could come off FB, but there is a woman I follow for exercise classes and a few others, but the c**p that comes up is awful and we do find ourselves just scrolling even when we know it is of no interest to us.  I have been thinking of making more proper plans and you have just inspired me to do just that. 

Elisheba

Happy Saturday, one and all 😁,

@foxgloves I completely agree about all the junk that is available to buy. Sadly I can't see anyway to stop it. Government's could (but won't) legislate for % profit investment in end of product life disposal, but that doesn't stop people buying what they don't need in the first place.

@Makingabobor2 I'm not leaving FB either. It's useful for catching up with people, and for my Mum to see what we are all up to. I'm just not going to use it very much. Maybe check it once a week or something like that.

Well, a fairly busy day today. I was up with the lark, but spent the first couple of hours with coffee and finishing my book. It really was very good, and I was surprised when I when on Goodreads to log it that there was only one written review and that wasn't positive. So I did my bit for the author and left 5 stars and a glowing written review. 

I couldn't quite decide what book to start next. I opened the new James Rebanks one, A Place of Tides, and it looks good. However, later on I decided I wanted a good story, so started The Shellseekers by Rosamunde Pilcher. Bit if a shock to the system to decent into 1980s materialism after being immersed in the joys of free range living in Spain for most of the week 🤣.

After finishing my book I got the lawnmower out and sorted out the front and back lawns. It was a lot cooler this morning than it has been lately so that was ideal for the work. I've got 15500 steps in today and half of them were cutting the grass and then taking it, as none of it ever seems to go into the basket on the mower 🙄. My little honeysuckles and jasmines are doing well - one even has a couple of flowers in bud. I gave them a water and topped up the earth they are in with some compost.

Then a shower, and lunch in the garden. A massive bowl of spinach, cucumber, avocado, red pepper, tomato, kimchi and halloumi, with the remains of the balsamic vinegar and some cider vinegar over it. It was very nice, and with the avocado and halloumi very filling.

After lunch I read for a bit, then headed out with silly dog. I mentioned it when I moved here, but I live near a certain book town that is having a certain festival next week, so everywhere is getting busier. It's not crazy yet, but it is noticeable. What is lovely though is that the town gets really spruced up for the festival as it's their busiest time of year, so everywhere is looking very pretty indeed, and it's lovely in this weather so see people sitting outside the cafes just enjoying themselves, and signs for all the pop up places and events that are happening as well.

Anyway, silly dog and I went on an hour's walk coming back through the town. I popped into a couple of the book shops and asked is they had a basic reading copy of Walden (I have it on Kindle but as part of the digital detox I'm trying to read more paper books). They had new copies and fancy copies, but no dog eared basic copies for a few quid sadly. 

Popped into the C00p and got a big tub of free-range Greek style yogurt, and some white stevia, so that was £8. Then came home and fed the monkeys and myself. Just had berries with Stevia and greek yogurt as couldn't be bothered cooking, and fancied something sweet.

Then I was very good, and actually did some of the Scout training that has been hanging over my head for a while. Turns out I can do it on my phone, so was able to do it in the garden for a couple of hours. I have two more hours of it to do tomorrow, but at least half of it is out the way!

So that is that for my Saturday. The sun has set and it's twilight now. I'm going to head to bed and read some more of The Shellseekers I think.

I hope you are enjoying the weekend and having lots of rest and relaxation.

Elisheba

Oh, and I forgot to mention - 1kg weight loss this week. Hopefully it will keep going down! 

Moorviews

That sounds like a lovely, productive and yet relaxing summer’s day. Well done on the loss of a kilo!
 You live in a very beautiful area and it is so nice to read that you have made a good life there. I know you have other plans for your future but in the meantime it is great to be in a good place. 

Regarding materialism and junk, I have reached that age where I don’t really want more things, so my gifts tend to be consumables, or plants. I recognise that it is different when people are still trying to build a home, although the loveliest things are more likely to be secondhand now. Such is the low quality of a lot of what is manufactured at an affordable price. Having said that, I do value my Swedish mass produced wardrobes! 

Makingabobor2

There really is far too much junk available these days. My new motto is that if we don't use it or wear it, then it goes. We are having a great declutter this year & I hate having to buy anything new that we don't really need. 2nd hand shops/FBMP or CS's are always my 1st port of call when we need something new.  
Try the library for books if you don't want to use Kindle any more. 

Elisheba

Evening, all,

Another fairly productive sunny day at Elisheba Cottage. I was feeling fairly inspired by digital detox before church and wrote a letter to my 15 year old niece. No idea what she'll think when she receives it, but I used to quite enjoy getting the occasional letter from my Gran, and a lot of the joy is in writing it.

At church we discussed at coffee afterwards having a trip to see a musical in a local town at the end of the month, so once I have numbers I'll book that and it should be great fun. I also sort of maybe volunteered myself to be an Elder which I wasn't planning on doing, but another role I had volunteered for requires you to be an Elder, so it has somehow become me being an Elder. I haven't been a full member long enough yet, so I'll have quite a bit of time yet to look into it more and get a better feeling about whether that's what I'm 'being called to' as we say in church.

Afterwards I came home and had cauliflower pizza, followed by a sort of chocolate mousse made from yogurt, cocoa, sweetener and vanilla essence for lunch. Read for a bit in the garden then took silly dog a lovely long walk around some moorland nearby. Absolutely glorious out in the sun, and I filled a poo bag with pine cones from some Scots pines up there to use as kindling next winter. Should be enough for one fire at least. I'll have to collect more when I next walk that way.

Then more time reading in the garden, and  another blooming Scout training course. This one took 2 hours 🙄, and I couldn't be bothered after that to do the remaining one, which is on data protection and so will be very dull, so that will have to be done after Beavers tomorrow night 🙄🙄🙄🙄. At least after that one they will all be finished for a while.

A few interesting issues arose today as part of the digital detox. When discussing dates for the musical I didn't have my phone with me, so had no idea when I was free. Also didn't know what bins were being collected tomorrow without my phone. So I think if I keep this up I'll need to go back to keeping a paper diary. I wonder if I can get my work to buy me one? They normally offer before Xmas every year but as I have gone completely digital I never bother. Oh and I didn't have my phone with me when I was out on the moors, and it did occur to me that would be an issue if I had a accident, or the car broke down. Also I use the OS mapping app on my phone, so if I was in an new area I would have needed that. I could just start buying paper maps again, but think having my phone on me would also be useful health and safety wise. 

Other that that it was a NSD, so that was good. Also didn't eat much as after the 2 course lunch, and with the heat I just want feeling very hungry later on. So good for the budget and the weight loss/blood sugar. I've logged just under 13000 steps so a fairly active day as well. 

Silly dog is very amusing just now as he has decided he is a sun dog. In my old house the small path I used as a garden didn't get any sun due to some massive leylandiis next door so he never really got to lie in the sun, and last year the weather was generally so poor that we didn't get into the garden much. This year he starts barking to get out, and if the sun hasn't reached the back garden yet he barks to get out into the front garden to check there 🤣. Then when I am sitting out in the back he likes me to put a blanket out for him to lie on. He really is a very silly dog as he starts crying if he gets too hot, but doesn't have the sense to come into the shade 🤔. You would think that would be an evolutionary survival mechanism, but it appears not and it isn't something he has learned yet 🤣. So I have to convince him to move somewhere cooler, but he doesn't want to do that either 🤣.

I have sorted out a few more of my summer clothes as well, so my bedroom is a bit clearer. One of the nice things about having already lost 12.4kg is that a lot of the clothes I have that either didn't fit at all anymore or had started not looking very good on due to bulging, now fit rather well. So I'll keep them around for this summer, and maybe by next summer I'll have lost so much weight that they are far too big and I can sell them then 😁. There are a few things I'm definitely selling though, so at some point I'll need to bite the bullet and see how they do on V!ntrd. I haven't sold on there before so it's a brave new world.

Tomorrow is my washing day, so I'm hoping the weather lasts long enough for me to get everything dry. It's supposed to return back to normal May weather at some point this week. I'll also need to hoover and get the bathroom cleaner within the next few days. Bins are already out for collection tomorrow, and the dishwasher is just emptied so I feel like I'm on top of things. Oh, and I also managed to both break, and then fix with twine, a cat box while I was sorting out the clothes, so that a useful accomplishment. And I also remembered to fix my front gate, which hasn't been closing properly, so that another job done.

How everyone is well rested and ready to get back to the grindstone tomorrow. 

Elisheba

@Moorviews I'm still not exactly sure what my future plans are. I could stay in this area, I could move to Scotland. I haven't decided either way, and veer between one option and the other. I still have a fair bit of time to decide, thankfully. And I agree, I much prefer the old, good quality furniture to modern stuff which often falls apart after a couple of years.

@Makingabobor2 Yes, I need to do a great declutter as well. It's on my list for this year, but I haven't really started it yet! And yes, I do use the library a lot. The only reason I wanted my own copy of Walden is that I thought it likely I would want to underline things and take notes 😆

Makingabobor2

Elisheba said:

@Moorviews I'm still not exactly sure what my future plans are. I could stay in this area, I could move to Scotland. I haven't decided either way, and veer between one option and the other. I still have a fair bit of time to decide, thankfully. And I agree, I much prefer the old, good quality furniture to modern stuff which often falls apart after a couple of years.

@Makingabobor2 Yes, I need to do a great declutter as well. It's on my list for this year, but I haven't really started it yet! And yes, I do use the library a lot. The only reason I wanted my own copy of Walden is that I thought it likely I would want to underline things and take notes 😆

Aah yes, I love to do that if a book is useful. 

weenancyinAmerica

My first visit to Book Town was way after the festival. But I ended up sending 40 boxes of books home by sea mail. About half were for me, most for my World War II collection,  and the other half were for the library I worked for (parish material for the most part). I was glad I got them when I did as the last time I went, there wasn't a Home Front book to be found. Maybe I sent them all home the first five times I went!