Follow the Yellow Brick Road 2023

SandyShores

1. Spiritual / Personal Growth / Inner Peace - I'm finding yoga really beneficial
2. Financial - going the right way, but still need to smarten up and start watching the pennies much better
3. Career - kind of on hold at the moment, but potential changes at work could be a bonus (or not!)
4. Learning - my pile of books is still unread and I need to focus on those first
5. Physical Health - started going to the gym again and running, so just need to keep this up
6. Family / healthy work-life balance - definitely made progress here, but more needed
7. Social - improvement may be needed - I'm just a family/home bird, but I do socialise when I exercise - I think an art class might be good
8. Environment e.g. decluttering your space - a decluttering routine would be good first (then garden in the fast approaching spring).

redofromstart

Good suggestion with the dogwoods @savingholmes, I did well with red stemmed ones.  Willows make me nervous, very invasive, driven by the thirst obviously.

I used to plant everything in a spade full of gravel for drainage which had mixed results but worth a try.end of season last year I picked up a lot of cheap dehydrated coir (Morrisons) which would logically help.

SandyShores

Thanks redofromstart, I'm looking forward to making a start on the garden.

Did some exercising, cleaning, decluttering, relaxing and had time for some art as well this weekend.  Listed an item on ebay and already 7 people are watching it, so I'm hopeful it will sell.  Few bits set aside for charity, so just need to put them in a bag and pop into town.  

savingholmes

Good luck with eBay and your other goals 

SandyShores

Thank you savingholmes.  Its incredible how doing a bit a time has made such a difference.  I'm nearly there with the decluttering - just a few bits to move out of the bedroom and we're done.  Next its onto the garage and then onto getting the garden ready.  I've noticed that I'm becoming better at not buying in a rush, but at the same time better at buying the little things that will make life easier and I'm definitely more decisive at getting rid of things.  Mr Shores wanted the ebay item to go to the dump, but there are already 17 people watching on day 2, so I have a good feeling this will sell and make us a few pounds (which I may or may not decide to share with Mr Shores).  

LadyWithAPlan

Well done on all your OPs, you are on fire

savingholmes

Well done on the decluttering 

redofromstart

I was thinking of your problems and wondered about honeysuckle, they cope reasonably well with wet soil, but again plant on a spade full of gravel for drainage.  Morrisons have some good cheap honeysuckle/clematis in spring - essentially rooted cuttings for c£2 but usually nicely rotted etc. Any of the scented ones get my vote.

SandyShores

Thanks LadywithaPlan, savingholmes and redofromstart.

I am feeling like the A Team at the moment (I love it when a plan comes together ).

It feels very similar to when we'd worked really hard for a few years to pay off our £23k in debts, and then towards the finish line a couple of PPI payments came through and like magic we were finished.  Of course there's always the next goal (getting a mortgage - tick, and now paying it off) but as someone said, we just need to apply the same process to the mortgage.  Its just a bigger task, but we're getting there.  I need to get into the habit of paying smaller amounts off as well i.e. my ebay sale profits.

One thing I'm not very good at is dealing with paperwork, at the moment its stuffed in a drawer in the bedroom and tends to be forgotten and just grow until I need to find something or the drawer is too full.  I used to be really good at keeping it all filed away.  I'm wondering whether to buy a small desk to use as a side table instead of my bedside cabinet.  I don't know whether that would encourage me to sit down and sort it - I could throw it all on the bed once a week and work through it.  Or maybe I need to sort it and then just have a small basket to keep it tidy in the drawer.  Then take that downstairs once a week and tackle at the kitchen table - d'you know that sounds like a better idea (and doesn't involve me buying furniture).

Honeysuckle is a great idea.  I had a huge honeysuckle in my very first house - it grew all along the wall by the house and smelled lovely (feeling nostalgic now) - I'll try Morrisons - the one near us has a really good plant supply in the summer - and also Aldi/Lidl as they all seem to have some good bargains, so much cheaper than the garden centres.

SandyShores

I've been doing a few calculations on my gas/elec bills lately (not sure if I have already mentioned).  I had hoped that finally having the smart meters fixed would mean my payments and bills would match.  Not so - I am about £600 in credit on the electricity, and apparently was so much in credit on gas that my payments are now only £11 per month.  My rough calculations don't agree with the gas estimate (I think it will be a lot more) and I don't want to go into the new year paying extra to try and catch up.  So, I thought I'd reduce the electricity dd (£30) slightly and increase the gas dd by the same amount.  They let me reduce the elec one, but I couldn't change the gas one online - error@£$!.  Its further complicated because BG only bill quarterly and their previously billing has been a bit sporadic - so its not easy to see previous usage for the same period i.e. April-March.  So I sat down and worked out kwh and costs as far as possible and estimated the amount that must be in my account to end up as near to zero as possible (my calcs not theirs).  I can't change the dd but can make overpayments so will make sure there is enough in the account to cover everything by the time my review is due in April.  If necessary I'll then request a payment back and hopefully will be able to have a dd that will reflect (as near as damn it) my payments for the year.  Why is it it so difficult!!