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

SecondStar

The ‘what do I have you for?’ is real! It’s interesting when you take a deeper dive into the emotions behind why you’ve kept carting things around for so long.

I’ve got some objects which haven’t been used / displayed / out of a moving box for over a decade. And more still which weren’t ever unpacked in my last house, and have made their way along to this house. When your home is only 35m2, that’s just ridiculous!

After a little bit of a declutter, I have 2 full bags for life for charity, and non-donatable items binned. There is more to go, but that’s all I had the bandwidth for doing today.

I’ve got items which could do with being sold - a guitar, an SLR camera, an A3 printer, a record player and various records - because 3 out of the 4 haven’t been used for years, and the A3 printer needs to be downsized to an A4. But it seems like so much *hassle*. It’s one of those where I know I should just *do*
 it, but I can’t be bothered yet.



In other news, we went through my partner’s budget on Friday - just a very rough draft, but enough to expose him to the concepts of a £0 budget, and to introduce the idea of sinking funds, and spending pots.

His salary is almost the same as mine, plus he gets a top up through UC for LCWRA - around £2,100 each month total. He has a couple of debts which he’s been paying the minimum to, but which he could wipe out fully in around 3 months now that he’s working. With the debts cleared, and after fixed and variable spending, he’ll have a saving power of around £1.2k each month!

We discussed his savings goals and sinking funds - Christmas and birthdays each year, a weekend away for the two of us (this is a sinking fund of mine, too!), a 3 month emergency fund, and a house deposit.

The ‘£0’ bit freaked him out, I think. I explained that some people like to keep a ‘float’, or a ‘slush fund’ in their current account, but that it doesn’t work for me personally - I’d see it as ‘free’ money, and spend it! So when we were reeling off his expenses, he kept talking about ‘leftover money’, and I had to point out there there is no ‘leftovers’!

It’s all either bill money, variable expenses, spending money, or saving money - no such thing as leftover money, it all has to go somewhere!

I’ve told him I’m not here to be his money manager - I’ve said here before that I wouldn’t combine finances with someone again, without being married first - but that I’m happy to help with his budget and his savings goals. It’s exciting for both of us to chat about what we’d like our future to look like, and how we can best use our respective incomes to get there.

SecondStar

So I started tracking my NSDs from January, when I committed to taking my budgeting and saving seriously. I’ve also been (mostly) tracking the things which I’ve bought on my ‘spend’ days, and thought it might be fun to look at the data from January - July.

So from January - July, I’ve bought 79 ‘things’.

The ‘things’ fall into several categories, in order of amount of ‘things’ - 
Reenactment - 23
DIY / Home - 21
Beauty (skincare and allll of that hair dye!) - 8
Eating out (takeaway / coffees) - 5
Presents (birthday / valentines, which didn’t have sinking funds built up) - 5
Pet Things (outside of the usual pet spends) - 5
Unknown (days where I’ve not marked it as a NSD, but haven’t made a note of what was purchased that day) - 5
Clothing - 3
Fun Couples Things (excursions, or things bought for the two of us) - 3
Books - 1

I’m not about to go and assign a monetary value to any of this - not interested in the £ amount, as I know that each month I was within my personal spending amount - but I thought it would be a useful exercise to see *where* my money gets spent.

No surprise that reenactment and DIY / home are the highest categories, as that’s where I place value for my money. It was interesting to see the low amount of clothing and eating out / coffee purchases - I’ve consciously noticed that these aren’t things I’ve been interested in buying, now that I’m keeping to a controlled budget. 

24 of the 79 ‘things’ were purchased in May. May was my partner’s birthday, and I was also off work for a week. We spent May doing a lot of DIY - both the living room and bathroom were painted - and I also bought my skincare in May as many products ran out at the same time. I also had to buy my partner’s presents, which hadn’t been fully budgeted for (Barbour-gate!).

I noticed I didn’t track my NSDs in May. I think I was so freaked out by the amount of ‘spend’ days, that I stuck my head in the sand and didn’t want to acknowledge them.

As a reaction from that, I hit June hard and only purchased 7 ‘things’ - 4 reenactment, 1 DIY, 1 clothing, and 1 fun couple things. It felt good to know that I could rein myself back after May, and that having a spendy month didn’t mean that I couldn’t try again.

July was DIY-heavy again, but as a result the living room is almost finished!

I’m predicting that August will have more fun couples things in, since there’s busy weekends coming up, plus our anniversary. These have had sinking funds assigned to them, but there may be overspill, which has been budgeted for accordingly. There may also be more DIY as a push to finish off the living room, and probably more reenactment stuff too, with the festival at the end of the month.



This is probably highly boring to people who aren’t me; but as a person who struggles to see the bigger picture, it was useful to look back through my calendar and my banking app, and remember what was going on in each month this year, and seeing how much progress I’ve made!

Sarahwithlove

I've finally caught up on your diary. Your bf sounds lovely and I'm so pleased for you that you've found someone who treats you right. A year has gone so fast! 

You are doing the right thing with bf by giving him advice and then letting him make decisions himself. After a few months of extra money hopefully the novelty of a full time wage will wear off. Though he's obviously been managing on a part time one so the difference between tie two at a minimum should be saved. But it may take a few months for him to learn what a manageable personal spends amount is for him. 

SecondStar

For my bff’s birthdays, I bought one a pretty snake plant in a shiny blood-red pot, which perfectly matches her home aesthetic. She was thrilled! For the other, I’ve ordered her a set of Windsor & Newtown metallic watercolours. She began learning to paint a couple of years ago, and the metallics seemed like a special addition to her supplies. I’m hoping they arrive before her birthday on Wednesday.

For our anniversary, I’m getting my partner an air fix model of HMS Britain - he’d picked one up a couple of weeks ago, and reluctantly set it back down as a ‘frivolous purchase’, so I know he’ll like it. I also spotted a beautiful leather bound ledger at a car boot sale this morning - with a title plate from the 30’s and pretty marbled edges - which he’d been talking about for his business expenses. I also have the remainder of the light blue linen in a dye bath in the washing machine currently - hoping it’ll come out a rich dark blue - to make his new tunic. I’ll start making it tonight, once the fabric has been dried and pressed.

I finally kicked myself up the bum to finish my own light blue dress, which means I’ve now got 2 linen overdresses for the summer.

I’ve also prodded myself into finishing up some easy nalbinding projects for sale; and I also worked up my ball of handspun yarn into a pair of miniature wrist warmers. I only had a small amount of the yarn, so they’re shorter than I’d usually make, but they’re wonderfully soft and the handspun texture makes them really interesting to look at and to hold. My commercially spun items look very boring and regular in comparison!

A quick nip around the charity shops turned up a pretty dark green cotton dress from Nobody’s Child for £7. Bit of an impulse purchase which isn’t like me, but if I don’t end up wearing it then I’ll put it on Vinted.

SecondStar

Oh and between this week and at the end of July, I’ve done 30 hours of overtime to be paid at the end of August. That’s £390 before tax and deductions, and around £250 afterwards.

I’m hoping that the overtime task continues for the next couple of weeks - it would be a welcome top up to my sinking funds and emergency fund.

Current emergency fund total - £2,867.71 / £4,347.
65% of the way there, £1,479.29 to go!

Sarahwithlove

Good news about overtime, let's hope it continued for a bit longer 

SecondStar

I’ve been dragging my heels over making this post. To sit and write it down is to confront that it really happened, to tell others is to make it real.

After a short illness, I made the decision to have my wonderful senior dog put to sleep last Wednesday.

He went peacefully in his bed at home, stuffed full of treats, and surrounded by his family. Our time together was never going to be long enough, but even 12.5 years feels too short. It was the right decision to make - to exchange his peace for my broken heart - but it feels as though a part of me is missing.



I didn’t touch my credit card in the end, but my savings have taken another bashing.

It’ll take a while for me to find my feet again, and to learn how to move forwards.

New_in_the_fens

I’m so sorry to read this SecondStar. He knew he was loved beyond words and will be waiting for you over the rainbow bridge ❤️

linz

So sorry to hear this. Dogs are so loyal they will hang on til the end. These decisions we have to make are our last gift to them. It sounds like he had an incredible life and was peaceful for him. R.I.P doggo

Sarahwithlove

Sorry to hear this it's always hard when we lose a loved one.