The Senior Wonder Years!

[Deleted User]

I have always been a very routine led person. Having everything tidy and in order is bliss for me. 

I like to go out or go to bed knowing there is nothing that needs doing when I wake up or return.

At the moment the fact that my gardening is far behind because of the weather I find troubling.

I have noticed through reading the debt free diaries that there seems to be a correlation between money issues, lack of organisation and clutter. In fact declutterring seems to be a major theme in a lot of threads.

It seems that once people start to take control of their surroundings their money management often improves too.

I have never been a hoarder and can be ruthless about clearing things out that are no longer required.

That said anything to do with family history is carefully stored away and labelled. Photographs are in albums and digital photographs and videos in computer files.

I have a small study where I keep my books and papers and I enjoy being in there. It has a weekly tidy to keep it comfortable. 

Just some random Saturday thoughts lol!

helensbiggestfan

Interesting random thoughts there Baron.  I agree about the correlation between debt and clutter and just generally being untidy and chaotic.  Chaotic lives and chaotic finances do seem to go together.   

I have all my bills etc automated, with at least the minimum payments for my credit cards, although I clear these in full so never pay interest.  I set them up automatically just in case for some reason I couldn't pay them on time (ie unexpected hospitalisation or whatever). At least that way I would never default on payments and incur penalty charges.  

I also believe that the quality of your morning and therefore day is determined by whether or not you go to bed with a messy house, unwashed dishes etc.  I like to spend a few minutes "resetting" the house before I go to bed.  The only time I can't do this, for example when my grandchildren have worn me out I do find a real difference when I have to wake up to a messy house.  

Waking up to a tidy well organised house and clean kitchen definitely set the right tone for the day for me,  

Although I tend to think of myself as quite a free spirit (back to my old hippie days😂). I have learned that I actually find it liberating to be disciplined and organised because it frees my mind for more uplifting and rewarding content instead of feeling bogged down and my head space being crammed with mental to do lists.  It also gives me the time and space to be spontaneous, instead of getting in a blind panic when presented with an unexpected invitation or opportunity.  I can literally just drop everything at a moments notice and go out and have some fun.  

I can thoroughly recommend a Ted Talk by Admiral McCraven - his "Make Your Bed" speech given to university graduates.  In fact there are quite a few graduation speeches that I find very inspiring. Yes I'm long past that age of needing guidance in starting out in life but I still find the wisdom in some of those talks very inspirational.  I can recommend Denzel Washington, Matthew McConaughey, Jim Carey and believe it or not Arnold Schwarzenegger. Whenever I lack motivation or my mojo deserts me I listen to some of these motivational speeches and they give me the kick up the derrière I am needing and I soon get back on track.  

I can also recommend a very good book called "Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad One's" by James Clear.  Lots of tips and advice on how to build good routines and habits. 

Suffering from discalculia and struggling with maths it took me a long while to fully understand the concept of compound interest.  And for a long time I also failed to make the connection and understand the wider use of the compound effect and how it can transform lives, not just our financial well being but also our health and fitness and our personal relationships.  How small steps taken consistently over time can be transformative.  Now I fully understand I am a huge advocate for small daily incremental change and improvements.  

Re the gardening, yes I think it's been quite a cold, wet early spring. I have managed to mow my lawns a couple of times and do some weeding so mine is not  looking too bad. I am renting and it is quite an established garden so I basically just maintain it and keep it looking neat  and tidy.  I am looking forward to buying my own house soon and being able to create a nice garden again.  

Have a Happy Easter Everyone, hope the Easter Bunny pays you all a visit.  🐣

Rich1976

I do generally agree too that those people who live disorganised and chaotic lives are also careless with their finances or at least have a more care free attitude to most things and see it as ‘what will be, will be ‘ way of living.

For example a couple of the people I work with are like that and will freely admit to always arriving at the airport right at the very last minute in a stress because they haven’t planned how long it will take to get there, or they will arrive at their holiday destination to realise they haven’t packed the sun cream or their sun glasses are still in the car back home. The type of people who always complain they’ve got their car MOT due but have no money set aside to cover it. Or they will admit to leaving the ironing to mount up for weeks because they ‘forget to do it’. Like how can anyone forget to do the ironing!

We were sitting in a cafe yesterday morning having breakfast and one woman on the next table was getting into a flap because she’d parked her car outside the cafe and a traffic warden was on the other side of the road. She said to her friend next to her , ‘ how long do we get to park here?’ ‘ oh I’m not sure, I didn’t look at the signs’ ‘Me neither, but then I never bother to check whenever we go’ said the woman.

incredible! 

badmemory

I am a mix.  Finances have always been organised & the only debt I have ever had has been mortgages which have been history for a lot of years.  I have lists for everything.  I even have fully comprehensive shopping lists so I am never going to run out of anything unless the shops no longer sell them.  My finances have the life spreadsheeted out of them.  All that is fun.  

Then there is the but.  Last year I took three car loads to the charity shop & my bin was always full.  Trouble is you can't tell that anything has gone.  I have stuff still untouched from when we moved in over 30 years ago.  It keeps getting left until tomorrow & as we all know tomorrow never comes.  I am hoping that the need for a new kitchen will spur me on this spring.

I will never land up going away without something because, you guessed it, I have lists for weekends away, weeks away.  Never forget a birthday because I have lists for that. 

I've only once risked a parking ticket but that was getting my son to a hospital appointment & I knew I was taking a risk, not just ignorant.

I am sure that all reads as boring, but once I have left the house everything is done & stress free.

Dizee123

Very interesting random thoughts indeed.

As someone who managed budgets for most of their working life, I would propose that there are some people who should never be put in charge of finances .  This meant others would have to make 'get well' plans for their projects when their chaotic approach to planning and managing their projects resulted in the inevitable slippage, budget overruns etc.  It often correlated that they had chaotic personal lives as well. 

However, these people were often highly intelligent and full of bright ideas and just couldn't focus on the discipline and minutiae required to balance the books.  The trick was to pair up these people with those who had that discipline and then everything worked well (basically identifying the roles needed for a successful team and putting the right people in the right roles).  These people also functioned better in their personal life when they partnered up with someone who would do the necessary admin tasks.

Rich1976 - I can easily forget to do the ironing as I hate ironing with a vengeance!  Line drying clothes with a good quality fabric conditioner is my solution, leaving only a few things that must be ironed ......   

Rich1976

Dizee123 said:

Very interesting random thoughts indeed.

As someone who managed budgets for most of their working life, I would propose that there are some people who should never be put in charge of finances .  This meant others would have to make 'get well' plans for their projects when their chaotic approach to planning and managing their projects resulted in the inevitable slippage, budget overruns etc.  It often correlated that they had chaotic personal lives as well. 

However, these people were often highly intelligent and full of bright ideas and just couldn't focus on the discipline and minutiae required to balance the books.  The trick was to pair up these people with those who had that discipline and then everything worked well (basically identifying the roles needed for a successful team and putting the right people in the right roles).  These people also functioned better in their personal life when they partnered up with someone who would do the necessary admin tasks.

Rich1976 - I can easily forget to do the ironing as I hate ironing with a vengeance!  Line drying clothes with a good quality fabric conditioner is my solution, leaving only a few things that must be ironed ......   

I absolutely hate the ironing too and would love to be able to forget it and hope it goes away or the ironing fairy comes along and does it. You are right about line dried clothes. Today is a good day for that and they smell much better too 🙂

[Deleted User]

I actually enjoy ironing! lol. The smoothing of everything appeals to me !
However, all bed linen and towels go to the laundry service so I am spared those!

badmemory

My ironing board doubles as a rest for my jigsaw board as it is much better for my back.  My iron hasn't left the cupboard since March 2020 the week before lockdown.  That has just outed me to anyone who knows me.  Including a plumber I needed to call in a couple of months ago who walked in & said "Oh you're the jigsaw lady". 

uralmaid

I always have lists. I too have noticed that some of the people on the debt free section are totally disorganised and also they post about not having enough money to see them through the week/month and then the next thing they are posting a list of items they have purchased - mostly wants not needs.  I was always brought up to only spend what I could afford and still maintain that to this day.  

Floss

Can I just point out that a section of posters on any / all of the boards are likely to be suffering from illness, whether physical or mental. It is a little judgemental to make sweeping statements about people based on their level of clutter or poor financial management.