Changing my life, goals and finances!

leftatthetrafficlights

@savingholmes - there are always lots of gratitudes in my life! 😁 I'm exceptionally lucky and there's never a day goes by that I'm not conscious of that - I have an excellent relationship with my dh and after almost 30 years we are still very much in love; I adore my dd, grandbaby and sil and the feelings are mutual; I love my home and garden and derive real pleasure from it; I live in a beautiful area which allows me to be rural but within walking distance of a reasonably deserted beach.

I'd be hard pressed to find a better existence and the journey I am currently on is to show more respect for the opportunities I am so fortunate to have and to carve out a way of living that nourishes my mind and body. 

Now that I have complete control of my day to day existence it's a gift which is far too precious to squander.....I am now 'retired', my only responsibility in the house is doing laundry and cooking (I have a cleaner), we own our home outright, our income is sufficient to mean that we don't need to worry about money and we have savings, so I'm taking this opportunity to really concentrate on my health and to enhance my appreciation of what I have - hopefully taking better care of myself will mean that I can enjoy it all for longer! 😉


113 days to go! 

Update time: 

Asanas- going well, taking it very easy at the moment to protect my ankle but starting a new 7 day program tomorrow as its starting to feel better 🙌 

Meditation- still doing 10 minutes twice a day; tomorrow I'm going to give a guided meditation a whirl and see how I get on

Nature - very limited at the moment due to a combination of my ankle and the extremely icy weather! Other than putting out bird food and grabbing celeriac and leeks from the garden I've pretty much been indoors 😔 I did have a couple of days last week where I was out for longer but it's been almost a week since my last extended period. I'm missing it but it's not worth risking a fall so I'll wait for the ice to go! 

Purity - doing really well on this! 😁 I'm off the alcohol (it's been a week since I have had any at all). I've only eaten raw food this weekend (bloomed wild rice; raw vegan 'mince' made from walnuts, courgettes and mushrooms; macadamia and cashew cheese; papaya salsa; salad leaves). I've drunk a ridiculous amount of herbal teas and water too - I feel that I may be becoming addicted to chamomile tea! 🤔😂 I've done the mealplan for the next week - all of it very healthy - and I have enough watermelon and frozen berries to do breakfast smoothies.

Self care - I've been dry skin brushing before my showers, moisturising after them and today I will be exfoliating, doing a face mask and a hair treatment. 

I'm really pleased that I've maintained my commitment to these five practices- they're starting to become habits now and I feel much more peaceful generally 😁 

Finance wise, it's been less successful! 🤦‍♀️😂 I've bought quite a bit of stuff for my grandbaby and had a bit of a blowout on my dh too - dh has some upsetting family stuff going on so I've been overcompensating by buying him stuff he really likes 😔 I'll need to be less frivolous for the remaining couple of weeks of this year but it's all been cash so no debt incurred, however,  it's highly unlikely that I'll have any excess to add to the BB fund at the end of the month. 

I've decided that in the new year I am going to start giving my grandbaby pocket money as opposed to just buying for him. He's getting to an age now where he needs to start learning about money and costs so it will help him learn and limit the amount I spend!! He'll get the opportunity to spend it when we have him on our weekend and what he doesn't spend can go into his moneybox. 

In other finance news, I'm doing pretty well on surveys - I've transferred about £20 since I started! 🙌 I'm really happy with that, it's easy cash! I'm going to be putting my earnings from it into my persie savings - they cover things like my weekends away with my sister, meals out with my dd etc so it will be nice to have a bit more going into them from time to time ...

I've still got to buy a few bits for the solstice period - I've got the food and drink for solstice itself but as its midweek my sil is working the following day so we're having a second celebration on the Friday. I need to sort the buffet for then and I'm thinking a hot buffet will be best - I've seen quite a bit of frozen vegan stuff in aldi/lidl so I need to free up some space in my freezer!! 

Right, essay done, I need to go and feed the birds!! 

savingholmes

Sounds like things are going well. I like the idea of limiting spends on your GS. He would benefit most if you saved some of the money you would otherwise give him towards uni or his first car. I think with hindsight our kids had far too many toys and stuff in general. My ex-MIL was great at saving for them though which they are reaping the benefits of now.

Blackcats

What an uplifting post - it's a good reminder to be grateful for all the good things in life.

We have a lot of grandchildren and have an arrangement where we buy a premium bond for their communal pot and give a token birthday present.  Christmas presents are as requested.  I also buy a £25 premium bond each month.  It soon adds up although it would be nice to win something occasionally/ever.

leftatthetrafficlights

Thanks @savingholmes and @Blackcats 😁 

We do have a savings account for the grandbaby so it's just the additional spends I need to get control of!! 🤦‍♀️😂 

Unfortunately we have had another bereavement (it's fabulous having relatives who live to a very ripe age but it does mean that losses tend to come in clusters 😔) which has required another funeral abroad and the associated costs. Once again the funds have taken a hit and I'm going to have to replace those funds before I can start increasing the debt neutral fund again. Hopefully I'll be able to start in March with that. 

The bereavement has also meant that my five daily things haven't happened for a few days and to be honest, I'm just not in the right place to commit to them again yet - however, my new year starts on 22nd December so I'll reintroduce it all then. 

I still need to sort a few bits for solstice- I'll be getting those on Tuesday and it's already budgeted for so no concerns with that but I'll try to keep it reasonable and not do my usual 'grief' buying - learning that I can't compensate with overspending is a lesson that I have learned this year. 

Anyway, other than that things are ticking along and no major things to report. 

savingholmes

My sympathies on your loss. It's hard when there are clusters of losses. 

leftatthetrafficlights

Happy Solstice!! 🎄🥳🥂

Everything has been bought for the holidays now (may have slightly overdone it but I certainly won't be going to the shop for the rest of this year!) and I'm feeling very organised 😁 

Dd and grandbaby will be here mid morning and sil after work - before anyone arrives I want to get my bedding washed and prepare the veg for tomorrow's dinner as I will cook that while the oven is on today 😉 

I made the decision a couple of days ago that this is going to be my first alcohol free solstice in over 40 years! I've bought two bottles of alcohol free wine (one sparkling, one still) and a bottle of Elderflower cordial (I only have half a bottle of homemade stuff in the freezer 🤦‍♀️) along with some diet lemonade so they will be my drinks  😁

I'm intending to remain alcohol free for the majority of the next 12 months - the older I'm getting the less the alcohol agrees with me and it's not conducive to a healthier lifestyle. I've spent the majority of this month so far without it (most months this year I've been lucky to have had more than a couple of days off it) so it's not going to be as difficult to quit altogether. 

Thanks for the sympathies @savingholmes - it has been a traumatic couple of months as the two relatives we have lost recently were firm favourites of ours 😢 the only consolation is that they both lived long and happy lives and were loved dearly by everyone who knew them. Neither of them would want to have their loved ones grieving for their loss; they were much more the 'celebrate my life' types and although it's impossible not to be affected by losing them, I'm not going to dishonour them by dwelling on it - I will be raising a non-alcoholic glass to them both at tonight's celebrations and will keep them in my thoughts. 

Other news - I've started to reintroduce some of the five things - asanas, nature and purity; meditation and self-care have been a bit tricky over the past two days due to having my grandbaby and will remain so until Friday for the same reason but I'm more than happy with that and am happy to start the whole thing properly on Friday's new moon. 

We've got a busy evening on Friday but I have from mid-morning until late afternoon on my own so am going to make the most of that time to fit in all of my daily observances - plus a nap!! 😉😂 

Anyway, I really need to see if I can get a bit more sleep before I start my day - hope you all have a fabulous solstice!! 😁

Chrystal

Wishing you a Happy Solstice.  XX

savingholmes

Happy Solstice 

leftatthetrafficlights

Merry christmas to all who celebrate it! 🎄 

Solstice went well,  as did the family celebrations on Friday- I remained alcohol free  for both which I am pretty proud of to be honest! 🙌


I didn't get any alone time on friday as I expected to so didn't get everything done that I'd planned but that was okay - I exfoliated etc so the self care wasn't totally a wash out! 

Today I'm going to visit my dd then come home and relax - I won't have any further visits or visiting until after new year now so I have a quiet week ahead; I want to do the food inventory for the new vegan thread and check out/finalise my budgets etc for 2023.

I'm getting my daily practices in again although the clean eating hasn't been observed to the letter - no real rubbish eaten but I've had white bread, I'm having pastries this morning at dd's and I'm drinking cordials which are high in sugar. Today will be the last day of that though - I'm nearly out of the cordials and I've eaten all of the 'rubbish' food that I bought for me for solstice 😉 

Anyway, the shower beckons- have a fab day whatever you are doing! 

leftatthetrafficlights

Today is food inventory day! I've set up the 2023 Vegan Storecupboard Challenge and need to get my inventory posted ready for January- I am determined this year to treat it as a proper challenge and use up as much of the stocks as I possibly can! The more I use, the less I spend from the grocery budget and the more I can save in the BB fund and the Debt Neutral fund. I'll spend some time today writing some meal plans (well, a list of meals that I can make from current stocks! 😉)

I have had a good look at the finances and I should be able to get the slush fund back up to the required level by tomorrow- this is the fund that we hammered for flights etc for the funeral - so I'm happy about that! I'm hoping that I'll be able to kick start the Debt Neutral fund too with a few quid 😉 

The rest of the finances are looking good - I have a number of 'pots' for our regular costs (oil, solstice and birthdays, house insurance, car insurances/tax/MOT'S etc) and they are all slightly over where I want them to be which is very comforting! We've also been incredibly lucky recently as we have been gifted a reasonable quantity of heating oil which means that I won't need to buy any in January 😁

We have visitors for the first week of January so I'll need to accommodate a few extra costs for that but I'm hoping to keep it a low spend week - I've got a bit in my persie spend fund to do a meal out and I'll get dh to buy the alcohol for the week. 

Dh is visiting relatives from 30th - 2nd so I have a few days on my own. I'm planning on giving the house a thorough clean (cleaner is on her chrimbo leave 😉) and get my 'monthly' tasks completed - I want to get more organised so have decided that on the first of every month I will do things like descale my kettle and shower head, clean out the filters in the wm & td, run a washing soda clean in my wm to clean the pipes and scrub the dispenser drawer and clean the grout in the hallway. Having a specific day to do these tasks will help me remember to do them - at the moment its very much on an ad-hoc basis!

I'm also heading out into the garden to rake the leaves and start off the leaf mould stash! 😁 Tomorrow we will go through our seed stash and sort it out - I bought a partitioned box earlier in the year so I can sort the seeds by their sowing dates which should help me stay on track in 2023 - I really want to make the most of our veg beds and produce as much as possible- hopefully the weather will be less unusual in 2023! 😳 I still have cavolo nero, celeriac and leeks to harvest and the garlic is growing well but I would like to have more choice in the winter next year. I'm pretty sure that the only seeds I will need to buy will be bush tomatoes- we have cordon tomato seeds but the greenhouse isn't really tall enough for those so they'll be grown outdoors next year. 

Well this has turned into an essay! 😳😂 I am intending to write in here daily from now on to help me stay on track with living frugally and looking after myself but hopefully it won't be quite as long winded as this 'war and peace' entry!! 😂😂😂