Find the SecondStar and soar, and then straight on till the morning…

KajiKita

Fantastic news about the pay uplift - what a relief 🤩

Loving the sound of the decor for the bathroom too 😊

KK

PennysIntoPounds

Bathroom plan sounds gorgeous, and fantastic about the payrise, congratulations!

SecondStar

Can’t remember if I said, but the roof got fixed! Then started leaking again! Then got actually fixed again!

I paid £250 for the first fix, and when it started to leak again the roofer said he stood by his work - I hired him to fix a leak, it clearly didn’t fix the leak, so any additional work would be free of charge. There turned out to be another hole in the felt, higher up the roof, which has now been replaced, and should stop any further leaks!



It’s been a blooming busy weekend. We were running different sewing and textile workshops for reenactment members who wanted to learn, so I spent yesterday teaching seaming and construction hand sewing, and today teaching decorative hand embroidery stitches, in 1.5 hour workshops, to groups of 3-6 people at a time. My brain is pickled, but everyone learnt something, and came away pleased.

My partner came down for the weekend too - his own reenactment group has disbanded (they’re still all friends, but no one wanted to be responsible for organising group activities or plans), and so I’ve slowly been indoctrinating him into our group haha. He’ll never be told ‘you have to officially join, or else you can’t come and hang out/come and practice/come and join in with things etc.’, - it’s more like joining by osmosis, and by association. I’m an official member, when I go to events or gatherings I’ll invite my partner, and he’s more than welcome to attend and be warmly accepted.

He can be nervous around large groups of new people, but he held his own and got stuck in with various repair and maintenance that needed doing, and got to know a bunch of the members better, and generally enjoyed himself this weekend.

It does mean I’m going into a full work week without any downtime this weekend, after lots of extended socialising and brain exertion, which is a sure fire recipe for exhaustion.



My tax expires on the 30th April, and I can only get an emergency MOT if the car is ready, so I’m hoping to get it squeezed into the garage in the next couple of weeks. The £288+ will hurt, but it’s an unfortunate necessity.



I’ve also costed out my bathroom makeover, and was stressing that I don’t have a spare £200 to spend. Then it occurred to me that I don’t have to do it all at a once (obvious, I know!). I can do just the panelling & panel paint first, and then space the rest out for the next time I get paid. It doesn’t hit the ‘DO IT NOW’ button the same way, but it does make it more financially viable.

SecondStar

Speaking of hitting the ‘DO IT NOW’ button, I made an impulse eBay purchase yesterday.

It’s a vintage quad sheepskin rug (4 sheepskins sewn together), and it’s enormous - 115 x 180cm. When I got the single sheepskin for my partner’s valentines gift, it cost me £22.50 and I was thrilled - single sheepskins are a bargain if they’re under £30. A quad sheepskin can go for over £100. This one was listed at £45, and I put a super cheeky, sure-to-be-declined offer of £35…and had it accepted. £43, including postage.

I had allocated myself £40 of Misc. money this month, plus a £20 refund on some hair dye I didn’t use and brought back to Superdrug. I’d thought to spend it on/save it up for decorating the bathroom, but I guess this happened instead.

I’m not mad about it, it was a phenomenal price, if I need to I can easily resell it for at least double the cost, and it’ll serve as a super cosy base layer for our bed this season. But it has made me think a little about the separation of Needs and Wants, and then the categorisation and prioritisation of our own Wants.



For example, at the start of the month I allocated myself £20 for toiletries (make up, skincare), and £10 for clothes. But when I sat and looked at make up and skincare to order, I just…didn’t want to. I would rather have kept the £20, or spent it on something else instead (sheepskins, apparently!).

Don’t get me wrong, I would *like* to have new make up and skincare, and I’d like to buy some new (to me) clothes…but not as much as I’d like to have other things, and I can’t afford to have All The Things, and so I’m pretty content to not have new make up and skincare.

When I think about it like that, I feel a bit weird thinking that I’d rather spend £20 for a brooch for my reenactment kit; rather than spend £20 on a takeaway as a treat, or a new outfit, or a couple of drinks at a bar. I could have used the £43 to buy the panelling and paint for my bathroom, but I would rather have bought a massive sheepskin instead.



It’s not that I think my hobbies or interests are embarrassing or weird, but it is a tell towards how I think about and treat money.

I’ve written before about how I grew up poor, until suddenly around the age of 13/14 my mum started buying everything she wanted, everything I asked for. This was the first time I’d ever been aware of money - I don’t think I’d known we were poor up until then, despite the hand me downs and the secondhand everything - and the takeaway was ‘if you have the cash and you want something, you buy it’. When I was 13, there was no acknowledgement of where this money had come from, or any sense or planning with it. There was no talk of saving, or investing, or putting anything away for the future.

Over a decade later, going through my mum’s paperwork, I’d find out that this money had been a very large inheritance from my grandad. The inheritance had come into my mum’s current account, and stayed there - nothing saved away, invested, or kept for a rainy day. The account was linked to her debit card, and the money got spent through in 5 years. When she and I had to leave the abusive household 6 years later, there wasn’t a penny left.

I repeated this exact same pattern when my mum inherited another very large amount from my granny. It came and sat in a current account, and it was almost spent through within 4 years. I copied the patterns I’d seen growing up - when you have cash and you want something, you buy it. Looking back, I used to be desperately ashamed of this. It’s only recently that I’ve started to give myself grace, because I had never known or been shown any different. Neither had my mum.

This pattern only began to change after my mum died suddenly, and I woke up to the fact that the small amount that she left me was going to be the only cash amount I’d ever get again - everything else I would have to work for, and learn how to save. These past few months have been my first time ever practising this new behaviour, with a single income and an extremely tight budget. I’m trying to give myself a bit more grace and understanding.

When you’ve been used to having more leeway to ‘DO IT NOW’, which I have had in the past either with available cash or with a 2nd income to the household, it becomes extremely difficult to prioritise Wants, and then commit to saving for them. When I clicked ‘submit offer’, I would rather have had the instant buzz from buying something, rather than saving up for the decorating I want to do. It’s much more difficult to hold yourself accountable, when it’s just a single income, and just yourself making your own financial decisions.



I don’t actually *know* anything about money. I know how to pay bills, and I know how to separate and pare down my Needs, and I know how to keep the roof over my head; but I don’t actually know what I *want* from money. I don’t know what my goals are, or how to go about achieving them. I don’t know what I want my life to look like, and how money will factor into that. I’m still so lost a lot of the time, a by-product I’m sure of spending my formative years in a caring role for a parent - I feel like I’m still waiting to be told what to do next, or where to go, or what to do.

PennysIntoPounds

I have written a long reply for which my apologies (I do tend to go on!) and no offence taken if you choose to ignore it as too energy-sapping. But I thought as honest and brave a post of yours deserved a pondered response.


That is a really insightful post and I think you should be proud of being self-aware enough to have written it, and to have a lot more capacity for reflection than quite a lot of the general population!

It sounds like the rug was a great deal that you used your expert knowledge to recognise. Bathroom and household needs have a tendency to hang around so I think it's fine for you to have prioritised the rug, especially when you've been excellent by not buying stuff you weren't feeling even though you'd allowed yourself to. Having a 'hit' of having got a great deal on something you'll use or profit from is not the same as a 'hit' from mindless spending.

Your hobby is something that gives you aims, skills, a community. Needs and wants aren't clearly defined by cost.
I go to the pub a lot which many people on here may think is wasteful money-wise and unhealthy, but it gives me a feeling of being part of my community, it gives me reassurance that I have ties to the area I consider home but won't be able to afford to ever buy in, and gives me a change of scenery as I work from home and allows me mindful mindlessness time where I can just sit and scroll or read, or get inspiration for work.

In terms of feeling lost, especially after the emotional and practical hard work of being in a caring role for a parent, maybe it would be helpful to ask your GP if you can be put on the (very long!) waiting list for a few sessions of counselling. It's not saying you need therapy or that it's a long commitment, just helpful to be able to chat to someone impartial for a bit when you're processing really important things.

But I would also say, all adults are faking being adults, also we're surrounded by Life Goals as a lifestyle norm but if you're happy enough in yourself it's fine to see what you fancy in your own time, and also while money is obviously important and you should aim to have enough to secure preferably nice necessities, it can't be that good working towards having loads or all the people who are billionaires wouldn't seem to be highly morally corrupt or seriously unhinged!

KajiKita

Sounds to me like the sheepskin was a ‘quality of life purchase’ and a carefully thought through one at that 😊

The understanding about your mum and the spending patterns you absorbed from her is a really powerful insight. Just seeing it will start to loosen its hold on you. As for not knowing about money, well me too 😊🤷‍♀️ I’m just clueless really, kinda starting to ask some of the right questions, prioritising some of the right things, but I still have the endless merry-go-round in my head of “Should I focus on the mortgage? Should I be filling up my pension to get the most contribution from my employer and maximise tax efficiency? Should I be investing? Blah, blah, blah ….” 😉😂

We are all walking together here and it’s amazing what you can learn from reading about the experiences of others. It will sink in over time and what you are just sure of, you can ask about. 

KK

SecondStar

Thank you both, I really appreciate the time you’ve taken to reply!

I still worry a lot about doing things ‘right’ or getting things ‘wrong’ - a throwback to always following the ‘rules’ as a child/teen, the ‘rules’ being set either by my mum, my school, or other authority figures. If I followed the rules, then I was ‘good’ - I would be praised, held in a higher regard, or awarded advantages. I thrived in an environment with challenges, but also with structure, routine, predictability, and a solid indication of whether you were doing things ‘right’ (no idea how it took till I was over 30 to realise I’m autistic!)

This is all good and well when you’re under 18, but trying to navigate life as an adult who needs all of the above things in order to feel OK is difficult. We have to reimagine what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, and set these things for ourselves. There is no one to tell us what to do, or to praise us for anything. It can make decisions, or long term planning, unfathomable tasks.

I do miss being able to afford to see my therapist! I’m not as maudlin or introspective online when I’m in regular therapy haha.



In other news, I told my partner I wouldn’t be able to go to the big event next month - he was disappointed, but understanding. We both have big aspirations for reenacting together, and this is the biggest event of the year, but it’s just not feasible for me. My partner offered to take my nalbinding stock down with him to sell for me, without me even having to ask - he’s just the best, honestly.

The group is running more workshops soon, and I’ve offered to facilitate again. It’s very rewarding for me, I enjoy teaching. A really small, quiet part of my brain says that this might be something I’d like to run by myself, and maybe even do part/full time, one day. For now, it’s enough to practice teaching others in an environment run by a third party.

I’ve got some sewing projects to finish up (lightweight wool apron dress STILL needs straps, grey linen apron dress STILL needs it’s straps remade, orange linen apron dress needs it’s straps altered, heavy green wool apron dress needs to be finished, brown wool blanket needs to be made into a coat, still haven’t made sleeping linens for myself or my partner, still haven’t made any caps or head coverings for myself…), and I’ve put aside my nalbinding for a while. So naturally, rather than finish off anything, I decided to set up my rigid heddle loom again and practice weaving again.

A bit of a pipe dream is to eventually weave my own wool fabric lengths, and make a dress from fabric I’ve hand woven myself. (The super duper pipe dream is to make a dress from fabric I’ve hand woven, made from wool I’ve hand spun! But one thing at a time!) My loom is 50cm wide, which might be juuuuust too narrow for making garment lengths for myself. I’d really need an 80-120cm wide loom, to be comfortable.

For practice, I’ve warped up 3m of an undyed wool cone that I got off eBay for a fiver, and I’m just weaving away at the full 50cm weft (not very successfully, but it is only practice) to see how much of the length I can get from the remainder of my cone. It’s a rhythmic, meditative process (mostly), and it’s exciting to see fabric being made under your fingertips. I think I’ll make it into a bag for myself - right now, I’m just using a cheap pilgrim-style satchel made from cotton canvas, that I bought for LARP. It does the job and looks inconspicuous enough to pass, but it’s nowhere close to being accurate. Eventually my partner will carve me a set of Hedeby bag handles, and by then I should be well practiced enough to weave up a nice piece of material; but for now I’ll stitch this practice piece into a new bag to use. Right now the practice piece is coarse, uneven, and slubby - if I was a Viking, it’d maybe be suitable for my thrall to wear! - but I’m still proud of it!

I’ve purposely left this weekend open to spend time just with my partner - Viking Stuff is in full swing now, and most of the weekends are taken up with one thing or another. We both enjoy it, but it’s important to take time just for the two of us as well. He’s ripping out a kitchen this week, and is in full home-DIY mode. He suggested building the cupboard and shelves for my living room this weekend, and I about bit his hand off haha. I know he offered, and I know he enjoys DIY projects, and I know he always wants to help and provide me with Nice Things; but I’m glad it was his suggestion - I can still be shy and uncertain about asking for help or favours, but I’m getting better at it.

I also got my rates bill for this year - £3 lower each month than last year! Not quite sure how that’s happened, but not going to sniff at it in this cossie living crisis. Gas prices have also come down. I had planned to put extra money aside each month through the summer, as a buffer for the gas and electric in the winter, but I’m thinking I might just top that extra money up onto the meters instead, to take advantage of the lower rates right now.

I’m on track with my grocery budget, so long as I’m careful, though I might end up going over my petrol budget. It’s been 10 No Spend Days in April so far. 

SecondStar

Gosh, the weekend has been a rollercoaster!

My poor lovely dog took a funny reaction, either to the seaweed supplement I started him on (on a 1/4 dose to begin with) on Thursday, or to the eye drops he was prescribed on Friday. The ‘reaction’ has been liquid bowels, and has meant 3 consecutive mornings of cleaning up explosive poo from the kitchen floor. I’ve cut out both of the potential offending items until his tummy stabilises, and if he has another accident tonight then we’ll be at the vets tomorrow. He’s still happy and well in himself which is reassuring, but prolonged runny tummies aren’t good for older dogs.

We have a large, active rookery at the end of my street, and the rooks have been very industrious in building their nests the past few weeks. It’s a 30mph zone, and a quiet residential area, so it was heartbreaking to come across a downed rook underneath the trees where they roost, yesterday afternoon whilst walking the dog. It was alive and not visibly injured or bleeding, but had clearly been hit or clipped by a car and had internal breaks or injuries, as it couldn’t stand. My partner had never collected any injured wildlife before and was a little bemused, but keen to be of help. I instructed him on getting a cardboard box, gloves, and an old towel together, whilst I messaged our local wildlife rescuer. Sadly the rook passed away before it could be seen to, but at least it passed somewhere quiet and calm, and wasn’t eaten alive by the local seagull population. I plan to return the body to underneath the rookery, so that the family can see what has happened to it.

My partner woke up to a dead phone yesterday morning. It had been on the fritz for a while, but had totally given up, which resulted in a trip to CEX for a ‘new’ handset. £200 he couldn’t really afford to spend, since the money he was earning last week was to go on fixing his car for the MOT.

On the plus side, my quad sheepskin arrived! It’s huge, and came in a bit of a state, but I’ve been brushing it out and it’s coming up lovely. It’s so snuggly and warm, it’s going to be invaluable for camping.

And the carcass for my cupboard is up! It took a long of wrangling, and a bit of the ceiling will need to be patched, but it’s in! We got the plywood for the shelves, which are going in tomorrow, then it’ll just need doors on. If the doors might take a while, I may put up a curtain across it temporarily. It’s very exciting to see the size of it, and to plan what will go into it. I’m hoping it will hold all of my craft and sewing items, which will empty out the 6ft sideboard currently occupying my bedroom. The idea is to reduce as much free standing furniture as possible, since my floorplan is bijou. This cupboard is an essential first step to rearranging the layout and use of my home, to then begin to decorate in earnest. Super exciting!

Our payslips with the uplift don’t come out for another week, but using the online salary calculator I’ve been able to project a rough budget for next month. With the uplift, I should be able to save £100 towards my emergency fund each month, as well as saving for a few modest sinking funds too (Christmas, birthdays, car repairs, decorating). Of course I know that the hard bit about budgets isn’t writing down all the numbers - it’s actually sticking to them, and having them be realistic. Proof in pudding, and all that.

It’s my partner’s birthday on May 10th, and he doesn’t usually Do his birthday. I’ve told him that we still don’t need to Do his birthday, if he doesn’t want to, but I’ll be making him a cake. He’s said he doesn’t know what gifts he wants, so I’m thinking I’ll sew him a new under tunic, and then buy us an experience somewhere - canoeing possibly? or similar? Not sure just yet.

SecondStar

No explosive dog poop yesterday, or today! Think we’ve come through it now, thank goodness, and I’ll not be using the seaweed again.

Car went into the garage this morning for a new exhaust, a service, and a few things adjusting before the MOT - that’ll hopefully be tomorrow. My partner offered to follow behind as I was leaving it off, and so I took the opportunity to take the day off work so we could spend it together. Definitely not a NSD today!

First stop was coffee and tea whilst we waited for the shops to open, and then visited at least a dozen charity shops across 2 local towns, plus a chippy for lunch by the harbour.

I picked up 2 balls of wool yarn (full balls, half retail price!), 2 pairs of jeans (I only had 3 pairs - 1 pair is ratty, and the other 2 are getting too big for me), a tiny pair of sewing scissors with a local maker mark showing them to be about 100 years old (still sharp, and only 50p!), a pretty pale cream jug with cottage flowers on it (aspirational for the kitchen, to put flowers in!), and a hook with blue and white ceramic knobs, and a blue and white floral porcelain container (both aspirational for the bathroom - the hook for the back of the door to hold towels, and the container for cotton pads). A very successful haul all round!

Back home, I repaired and reinforced my partner’s old reenactment tunic ready for the weekend, whilst he put in 3 of the 4 shelves for my cupboard. It’s looking fantastic already, and I’ve been able to clear out 99% of the sideboard into it, and still have a whole shelf to spare. Once the internals are finished and the doors are on, I can spend time making it outwardly pretty, and then we can finish decorating the living room.

The main bits are a couple of holes to patch, and then getting the right green paint mixed and tested. The walls and ceiling are going green, possibly the woodwork too, though I still have a question mark over painting the doors. I’d quite like to try stripping the white gloss off of them, but I don’t know if it would be an expensive, messy, time consuming, and ultimately rubbish-looking venture. How To videos make it look easy, but I think that’s the point!

There’s still a shelf to install above the arch between the living room and kitchen, shelves to put above my desk, and shelves to go in a little corner nook beside my bedroom door, which will hold all my books. The books have been kept in a massive suitcase in my living room for almost a year now, and I’m sick to death of it!



Almost a year! It’ll be a year on May 5th, and I can’t quite fathom where the time has went.

I never really marked the occasion when it happened. I told the people who needed to be told, and informed people of the change of address, but I never really marked it. Getting my keys was a relief; a culmination of so many months of hard work, uncertainty, anxiety, and emotional exhaustion. I was happy and relieved that it was done, but also very, very sad. Getting my keys was really the start of having a safe space to grieve my relationship, and to grieve for myself and what I’d been put through. It wasn’t a time for celebration.

Now though, a year down the line, (whilst I do still have work that I am always doing) it is something I want to acknowledge, glorify, and revel in. I want to celebrate my success, my achievement, my guts and moxie and bravery. I want to shout out with pride THIS IS MINE, I DID IT MYSELF.

I’ve not decided what this celebration will look like, but the date will be witnessed. Hopefully with a painted living room? Maybe?

doingitanyway

SecondStar said:

Almost a year! It’ll be a year on May 5th, and I can’t quite fathom where the time has went.

I never really marked the occasion when it happened. I told the people who needed to be told, and informed people of the change of address, but I never really marked it. Getting my keys was a relief; a culmination of so many months of hard work, uncertainty, anxiety, and emotional exhaustion. I was happy and relieved that it was done, but also very, very sad. Getting my keys was really the start of having a safe space to grieve my relationship, and to grieve for myself and what I’d been put through. It wasn’t a time for celebration.

Now though, a year down the line, (whilst I do still have work that I am always doing) it is something I want to acknowledge, glorify, and revel in. I want to celebrate my success, my achievement, my guts and moxie and bravery. I want to shout out with pride THIS IS MINE, I DID IT MYSELF.

I’ve not decided what this celebration will look like, but the date will be witnessed. Hopefully with a painted living room? Maybe?

Inspirational. I hope you find an appropriate way to celebrate. Well done. really, well done.