Watty's Awakening

greenbee

Watty1 said:

@greenbee  that is funny.  As you have noticed I have a huge WattyDog a cat 3 horses and a cleaner and am throwing money at making the house mine and I still think I am having a "no spend year" other than recovering from my ex - which redoing the house is partly about.

I was adding up my spending the other day and the VNM mentioned he would hate to see what a spending year looked like

You and I can enjoy our no spend year together  

beanielou

greenbee said:

You may find yourself nodding off @Watty1 🤣 It certainly doesn't feel like a moneysaving diary right now - I've just paid a monumental CC bill for furniture, I have a regular cleaner and handyman/gardener to help keep on top of things, when this week's snagging is done I'll have electricians to pay. I've also just paid the decorator, and am spending far more on the cats than is reasonable! I won't even think about the cost of getting the garden sorted out or any of the future work. 

You sound like me, apart from the electrician. Sigh.

Watty1

When the work is done we can go back to frugal

The VNM has gone back to his regular life after holidays and I'm back to mine.  Meditated this morning for the first morning in what seems like ages and that with a good nights sleep is helping me face the day.

Lots of work to do today as desk and office a mess.  My new Virtual PA who only does a three hours a week was a fabulous find.  She has adjusted my software that I use for pre-booking calls with me so that there is only one option of 20 mins instead of the 4 different options I had plus I have a new link so that I can charge for some of these calls and people have to pay before booking them.  (These are calls that won't result in future business but are calls where people want to pick my brains. I've been doing them free but am simply exhausted by people using my time so this seems an excellent plan).  Email goes out putting up prices this week too.  I took that feedback from you lovely lot and acted on it. Thank you.

In domestic chores, I need to do a load of washing, defrost the freezer in the house and put the bread maker on plus continuing emptying the space downstairs for the decorator.   

Watty1

Finally a non essential spend.   The bedroom is almost finished and the decorator said she would screw the sockets back today and I looked at them, paused and out of nowhere came the words no don't I am going to change them.

The room has perfectly good brass light switches but for some reason they remind me of doing up the house with the ex so I have just ordered some dark blue light switches and four white sockets with USB and USB C charging points so all can be changed.

If I feel like this about all the rooms it might be very expensive but for now I just want the bedroom to be entirely mine.  

If I can find my tape measure I'll measure up for roller blinds for the window later today.

Slinky

Dunelm and The Range have good ranges of inexpensive roller blinds.

Cherryfudge

Coming out of lurkdom to say your new PA is worth her weight in gold - and at this rate will have paid for herself in a few hours!

You could always put your old light switches up on FB Marketplace or freecycle. That may sound a bit random but we had to replace a brass one the other week and not everywhere seems to sell them anymore so it was a bit of a hassle ordering (and then the company sent a silver one labelled 'brass', so we had to go via another company...). Dark blue light switches sound very sophisticated and will look great.

I love it when someone gets those words coming out of 'nowhere' that show them where they're really going. It's happened to me a couple of times and when I've thought about what I heard myself say, it was something very true that hadn't gone through my conscious brain at all.

LadyWithAPlan

All action over here ! The bedroom sounds great and I think it’s so important you have changed the energy in there - well done on the accreditation 

I also have paused on the decluttering… and my study has taken the brunt of that.  Clothes to sell, shows and bits - it needs a 3 hr start declutter then a daily push .. 

when I tracked my spending - voluntary on here last autumn it was shocking .. - such a good exercise .. and now with YNAB it’s easy for me to track as  I go through the month and stop myself as it nears excess 

greenbee

I'm changing sockets and switches too Watty. Mostly because the brushed steel/aluminium ones already here are flimsy and hard to get plugs out of them (electricians hate them too). White plastic is more robust, easier to match, and easier to clean. 

beanielou

Dark blue switches are right up my street. 

Bargainhunter30

I've started to listen to a podcast called Clutterbug and she is amazing for motivation!