wherethejourneytakesme

January 20, 2019February 15, 2019

fEAsible ~ what works for me

It is so grey outside but I quite like it – it feels restful and quiet – just right for a period of reflection and I find January is a good month just to ‘be’ rather than do.

Transition is my focus word for the year – a period of adjustment – and I need to adjust some of my household routines to fit in better with my new circumstances. So, since the start of this year I have been steadily working on a list of household tasks I need to do everyday now I am not working in order to …well keep order… and prevent a build up of clutter and chaos that can arise from letting things pile up. You might have the same problem with little piles appearing in corners or on a table or worktop. They tend to quietly build up over time because finding time to deal with them is often in short supply.

My starting point has been to think about what worked for me and what didn’t last year, what will I continue to do and what needs improvement or ditching altogether. My word(s) last year were ‘The power of small’ and I did just that – some of the things were just little changes, some became major improvements and some…well I even surprised myself.

The small changes that worked for me are…

Making soup – I never seemed to have the time to do this regularly when I was working – now it is almost routine – and what is better than a hot bowl of soup full of winter vegetables. We don’t have it for lunch everyday but I do freeze some and it is great to use at a moments notice for a picnic.

Winter Picnic

Taking picnics and flasks on our trips out – it might be shopping, or a day out or travelling but wherever we go the first thing we do now is make the picnic and fill the flasks. DH is getting very good at this and not only is it a good money saver but we also prefer it to some of the cafe lunches we have had as the vegetarian choices can be limited. It will be a real treat now to have a bought lunch and we can limit this to visits our favourite places that we enjoy.
Keeping up daily with the ironing and the finances – I make sure that I iron everything I washed the day before in the morning and this way the pile never builds up. I did lapse at Christmas when I was busy doing advent activities but I am back on course again now as I love seeing my empty ironing basket. I do the same entering my receipts and keeping a tally of my spending.
I grew courgettes in a large pot again this year and this time from seed – it is so easy and the results are so satisfying and they taste wonderful. I am expanding this to grow some outdoor tomatoes this summer – I have earmarked a little space for them in the garden by the fence where they will have the most of the sunshine and shelter.
My Year Book – I can’t tell you how much pleasure this has given me and I have just started a new one this year. I keep a list of my monthly intentions, notes of books I want to read, recipes I might find, decor and gardening ideas and bits and pieces of everything and anything and it is a great place to stick all my cuttings of things I might want to do.

…and the major improvements

this has to be focusing on the outside of the house – we took one step at a time completing one job then moved onto the next and the rendering and repointing has made such a big difference to the look of the house and cleaning the brickwork brought it back to look like new. Once the weather is better we will continue with painting the front door, replacing the garage door and relaying the tarmac drive – but of course these are quite expensive projects so we need to make savings elsewhere.
Somatic Exercises – the Feldenkrais method – if you have never tried these then I can only recommend that you have a go. Try the Posture Queen on you tube – it is the best way I know to help any posture problem like tense shoulders and general stiffness – it is so gentle it feels like you are not doing very much but the results can be felt after just one session. They do take quite a while as taking it slowly is key and scheduling time for this is still difficult for me so I am going to make a positive effort to do some each day because it works.

and then the unexpected –

Our Italian holiday – I had forgotten how much I enjoyed travelling and seeing other countries and cultures. Since we bought our little cottage the renovations took up all our time and holidays but having the wedding to go to gave us the nudge we needed to have a break from this and plan a proper holiday.
Leaving paid work – this was a ‘biggy’ – not exactly planned and not exactly ideal timing as I cannot draw my state pension yet but I am getting used to being at home, trying to get used to a drop in income and easily getting used to not rushing about all the time – though I can still feel guilty about that.

The little changes have almost become habit and I will add more changes to these as there are things that did not work for me last year and I will need to work on those.

dEAr diary ~ just in time

This is a day of celebration – we have finally finished the decorating at our elder daughter’s house, the new fireplace has been installed and the carpets were laid yesterday on the stairs and in the living room – it all looks wonderful – clean and bright and ready just in time for her new baby coming (due date the end of January).

A close call though.

DH and I are relaxing today after our marathon and catching up with a few household jobs ourselves. I feel we can now concentrate on getting our new kitchen chosen, ordered and installed and fitting out the pantry which we will do ourselves. It has been a long time coming and I just hope that nothing happens to delay our progress this time as we first started the whole new kitchen thing back in 2008 and since then it has been one crisis or drama after another that has meant our kitchen has had to be put on the back burner. I have got to the point where I dare hardly mention the words ‘new kitchen‘ as I don’t wish to tempt fate.This room currently known as the dumping ground will be our new pantry – it is the old downstairs cloakroom and toilet which we never used very much – we have only capped off the drains and water supply not removed them entirely so it could be turned back at some time in the future. As you can see not a pretty sight – though some of these boxes are actually my daughter’s belongings and some items can go back into the new shed. Thank goodness I have been able to just shut the door on all this – but now I have the chance to get it sorted – starting tomorrow. Maybe.

This morning I washed some of my daughter’s throws that I brought home with me to lessen her load and got them out on the line. She is washing her baby clothes to prepare them which is much more exciting so I also volunteered to wash all the dust sheets for her but they will have to wait for a dry windy day.

For lunch I made another batch of tomato soup and for tea we had an old favourite using leeks – Cheesy Leek ramekins (which will do two meals) and tonight will be served with a winter salad. It is so much easier having a menu plan and I find this way we have far less waste and don’t over buy with the shopping.

January 14, 2019May 3, 2019

trEAsury ~ a review of 2018’s spending

“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen [pounds] nineteen [shillings] and six [pence], result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

We should be happy then as we didn’t exceed our income but I always feel I could do better. I knew it would not be a pretty picture when I ran this years accounts report – and it did disappoint a little when I read the final figures as I had tried quite hard and even managed to get DH on board with being slightly more spending aware on the grocery shopping now he is helping me to do it. I was hoping for better figures though and some bigger savings.

It wasn’t all bad – we did make some enormous savings –

I only bought 2 lunches at work whilst I was still working at a cost of £7.40 the rest I made at home which gave us a big saving although you have to factor in buying extra bread and salad to make them.

We also cut down on our grocery shopping by sticking to a menu plan as far as possible, buying items only on offer and looking out for yellow sticker food; but at the same time we have been battling ever-increasing prices so we seem to be running to stand still – overall though we came in under the last two previous years totals. As frequent readers may know we are vegetarian which helps (although fruit, vegetables and nuts are not the cheapest of foods these days) and eat organic foods where possible which is always dearer – but we would not compromise on this even to buy cheaper food as I totally believe in organic farming methods as a sustainable and healthy way of life.

Christmas came in at £400 which is much the same as previous years now that we do a Secret Santa within the extended family. Each person spends £50 on a gift so our spend is a £100 for the both of us. The rest of the £300 is made up of presents for the children in the family – any grandchildren, nieces and nephews who are still in full-time education are not part of the Secret Santa and we buy as normal for them (in our case it is now 4 little ones), a few small presents for our closest friends, a small hamper of goodies for my mum, a present to each other and a few bits for our two daughters, the Xmas tree and any new decorations, postage, cards and wrappings – in fact anything to do with Christmas other than the food and drink.

I repurposed a lot of unwanted gifts and hope no-one received something back that they had given to me – I do think I managed to match the gifts to a person quite well and it did shave a good £50 off the gift budget.

We made a profit of £478 on our eBay sales and gained a lot of space in the house. We still have items to sell so as soon as I have another offer from eBay for capped final fees and free listings I will be selling again.

Our savings have generated a nice passive income which is hard in this low interest environment. We had a few good fixed deals that will end soon but as I am not working and paying tax I will be able to look at reinvesting in any savings account not just ISA accounts.

However, not everything was a win –

One area which is our biggest expense of any month is fuel. We have been up and down both the A1M /A19 to North Yorkshire and the M6 to Scotland many times and it takes about a tank of petrol depending on whether we go far once we have reached our destination – I am not sure how I can reduce this cost as I need to see my mum regularly to relieve my sister a little bit and also I do like to see the grandchildren as often as we can. Mum used to come down by train and we would run her back but now she cannot cope on the train with the crowds and her luggage so we have to go and pick her up – a round trip of 180 miles. Rising petrol costs (in our case diesel) is really starting to eat into the monthly state pension and probably uses about a third of the £164 a week we receive in a bad week. I can’t see any way around this though.

We had some other very significant costs this year – the maintenance on the house – repointing and rendering is not a cheap job and not something we could have done ourselves. Looking to the future though this maintenance work will have added value to our property and it is a whole lot warmer and drier inside now too.

Alongside the house maintenance we also had to replace our shed before it fell apart on its own. As we had to move it out of the way to allow the contractors access to the walls it seemed like a good time to ditch it and buy a new one. The difference in price though was quite marked as we only paid £99 for the old shed back in the nineties this time round it was nearer to £400 although it is far better made and uses preserved timber.

Our other major cost last year was one that I don’t regret and that was for our trip to Italy and Venice for our niece’s wedding. We had the most wonderful time and the memories will always be with us. Because the wedding location was off the beaten track and we travelled around it is a much dearer way of having a holiday than a package tour but much more enjoyable as I am not one for sitting around a pool all day. What a good job I was still working though to cover the costs.

Our clothing and footwear bill would have been lower had we not gone to Italy but the summer clothes we bought will last us a while and now I am not working and won’t be needing clothes for work a clothing budget of £200 should more than see us through this year.

We are currently reviewing all our bills to see if there are any that would benefit from switching – switching is such a hassle – who invented switching? – someone with heaps of time on their hands and a degree in gas and electricity units terminology.

DH has a phone contract of £7.50 a month, mine is still a PAYG and cost me £30 last year – the dearest year ever! I do need to find a cheap contract from Vodaphone (the only reliable network for the cottage area in Scotland) but each time I try to buy a cheaper deal using uSwitch it doesn’t connect through.

The biggest savings to be made in our budget have to be:-

the No Spend Days – we are having many more of these now we are both at home.
taking drinks and picnics whenever we go out
being able to get by with casual clothes – or better still not buying any for a season
passing unwanted gifts on
making my own cards
planning a menu each week before doing the grocery shopping
cooking once but making a meal for two nights
using up all the food in the fridge once a week to avoid food waste
buying toiletries only on offer
constantly checking for better deals with electricity and gas companies
avoiding the magazine aisles in the supermarket
Sainsbury’s double up Nectar reward points week

At least the day to day housekeeping and groceries are reducing I just need to find ways of lowering our other outgoings further such as insurance and utilities bills whilst trying to fight against rising costs. Even if by the end of this year we find we have only stood still it is better than an increase or overspending.

We still have some major outlays for the house maintenance – outside we need a new garage and front door and the driveway resurfacing. Inside we need a new kitchen before we can continue with the redecorating of the remaining rooms in the house. I don’t mind these costs quite so much as it is all adding value whereas paying for phone calls, heating and insurance, although necessary, doesn’t really feel value for money.

I have ideas though to get us through this year which I will talk about another time. Of course the house maintenance, new kitchen, decorating and any capital costs will come out of our savings but our general living costs will be covered by our meagre income of one state pension – mainly because I am interested to see how possible it is to live on one state pension and what kind of lifestyle we would have if this is all the money we had coming in. We do have a small private pension to back us up should we need it but for the experiment this will be out of bounds.

Phew, I am a bit exhausted now and need to go for a lie down – at least that won’t cost me anything and if I do it in a darkened room I will save on electricity LOL!

Back soon x

January 10, 2019February 15, 2019

dEAr diary ~ has Elton saved John Lewis?

Their sales increased over the Christmas period according to the latest news.

Although I do like to shop at John Lewis if I can afford to sadly it wasn’t down to me; but I am pleased this might mean they will not go under – not yet anyway.

Meanwhile Debenhams and M&S are still struggling with decreased sales.

If in fact Elton has been instrumental in helping John Lewis through a bad patch perhaps someone might persuade him to take over the Brexit talks after all we don’t seem to be getting anywhere with them at the moment.

A lady interviewed on the lunchtime news (from Barclaycard I think) said that they were looking at how they can get customer confidence back to spend more on the high street by introducing memorable ‘instagram’ moments through experiences whilst shopping. As an example she said such things as free coffees and Yoga mornings. I smiled thinking of my aging mum doing Yoga whilst shopping and then perhaps taking a selfie – not that she isn’t active still but I think when she needs a new dress she might just want to go and choose one without having to contort herself in the process!

I wonder too at the necessity to make the whole of life an instagram moment.

I don’t often mention the news but I am feeling more and more concerned over the things that I am hearing and the messages we are receiving through the media. Maybe the reason sales are down is just that people don’t want to buy so much stuff any longer or perhaps don’t have the means to keep on spending with prices rising on food and the basic essentials.

We seem to have got into a catch 22 situation now where we have to keep spending to keep everyone in a job. That is quite a burden for me as I don’t actually want to keep buying stuff any more – nor do I want to buy into these ‘experiences’ either – I can find my own by just having a walk along the seashore or a picnic in the country.

It has seemed quite strange not going back to work after Christmas but it is nice to have more time now to plan out the year ahead and set new goals. I will get back to chatting about my progress tomorrow. x