Tag: thrift & wealth

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trEAsury ~ nectar points shopping haul

I had just over 20,000 nectar points to exchange which gave me £100 to double up to £200 to spend in the Sainsburys Double Up event which started today.  We decided to go down to the supermarket this morning so that there would still be plenty of choice before the shelves started emptying as the event progresses.

We usually take advantage of the wines that are included in the double up offer – which is only on their own Taste the Difference wine but this is fine for parties and gatherings (we are no great wine buffs) and what isn’t used at Christmas and New Year will keep for Burns Night in January.

Nectar Points double up

For our £200 worth of vouchers we bought 9 assorted bottles of red, rose and white wine £66, 2 luxury bath sheets (I bought two a while ago on offer and they are really soft and wash well) £22 each, a pack of colour printer inks £35 and one black one £17, a box of indoor/outdoor Christmas lights for the tree £15, a rope storage tub £10, a Santa mug £3.75 and a small wooden tray £10.  The total of the purchases ran over by 75p but I was happy to pay the 75p for all this.  Being able to double up the value of your points in effect makes every item half price.

Although I can justify buying most of the items and some of them like the wine, towels, Christmas tree lights and printer inks are a bargain on the double up; the last three items you may have spotted are not really needs but ‘nice to haves’  – I do have a use for each of them but I may even decide to return them yet or give them as gifts if I feel I have been too indulgent and bought things that are simply going to add to the clutter again.

It is on items like this that I often get stuck, they are not necessities, more decorative and there are so many lovely things out there to buy – but none of it is really needed.  I will give myself a cooling off period and see how I feel about them in a few days time.

Later in the day I collected a parcel from Boots as I had ordered some hair styling foam that I use and bought two whilst on a half price offer and we had the paint mixed for the shed and front door – DH got quite a good discount as he opened a cash account at the Crown Decorator Centre a while back.  The shed is coming tomorrow – yeah!

On Thursday we may be having an official visit from a gentleman from the National Statistics Office who is conducting a survey on behalf of the government and we have been bribed with given a £5 voucher already for taking part!  This should be quite interesting as I never consider ourselves a normal or average family in today’s world.

have a good day x

 

 

 

 

 

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dEAr diary ~ shopping and ‘Shalloween’

Saturday’s plans changed.  The weather changed – it was windy but a warm wind as if someone had a hair dryer on you.  It rained on and off too.  DH was at a loss as his jobs at the moment are outdoor based.  So I suggested we went to collect the click and collect from Wilko’s in town and then do a few ‘in town’ things finishing up at the local Wyevale garden centre as they had sent me a £5 off voucher (without a minimum spend).

Wyevale’s prices are dear but something free for £5 (if you can find anything for that value) is not to be turned down.

The click and collect (not very exciting – just a car bulb set to keep in the car for DH) was collected then we went round to the library to have a browse.  I only came away with two books – Homemade Christmas and The English Seaside for a bit of nostalgia.Then onto Boots for some Aveeno body moisturising cream – I only buy it when on offer as it is quite expensive but is really good for my skin – having no Thyroid gives you very dry skin.  Of course the larger 500ml was out of stock. Annoying as it is out of stock on the internet too.   I will just have to keep checking.Good as Gold NotebookRound to WH Smiths – DH persuaded me to buy the notebook I wanted as he pointed out it is something I use all the time.  As it happens I had a Love to Shop voucher for £10 given to me at Christmas from my old work place.  So  I bought it and this is now ready for January.

Last stop in town was Marks and Spencers.  For some reason not many supermarkets do Maris Piper potatoes  they seem to favour the Maris Peer (quite different taste) – so I get my spuds from M&S when I can.  The standby Vegetable Crispbakes I get from time to time to keep in the freezer have not made an appearance for ages – probably discontinued – I wish shops would put a shelf note on when products disappear.

We had parked in Sainsbury’s in town – 2 hours free for a £5 spend.  This works out better than handing over £2 for nothing (other than the use of the car park of course!) to the cheapest of the town centre parks.    I might as well have something for the money – we got two organic wholemeal loaves reduced to 40p and topped up with a few tomatoes, a leek and 2 pints of milk to last us to Monday and a box of my organic teabags.

I had a free drink voucher at Wyevale too so when we arrived we indulged in a hot drink each and shared a huge scone for £4.  I think DH is finding all the scrimping and saving a bit depressing as it reminds him of our earlier ‘just had the children’ days when money was tight back then but I see it as a challenge and a way to conserve our emergency private pension fund to use for other things like holidays.  I am also interested to see what it is actually like living on one state pension and can it be done.

I am looking for a planter to put beside our front door for when DH re-stains it and then something to put in it.  (Not sure if the state pension will run to such a non-essential item) but anyway I was not impressed with the range of plants on offer at Wyevale they are expensive and I am not one to make a snap decision about the pot (also expensive) so we came away to think about colour and shape. 

The £5 coupon finishes today so I can’t dither too much, but as always I need to shop around a bit to be certain of what I want.  So a trip to Totties (our local nursery) today it is –  I have a £100 voucher to spend at Totties  –  a leaving gift from work – so I will go and look at their range of pots and plants first and then make my decision.  There is another Wyevale close to this so I can then go and spend my £5 on plants if need be – or should I say a plant!

I must say after yesterday’s shopping trip I was left feeling very frustrated at the way all the shops are pushing this Halloween thing.  I have no objection particularly to Halloween in moderation but every shop we went into had Halloween stuff piled high – even some of the usual items have just been given a ‘Halloween’ makeover – a bit of orange and a black spider web and they can charge more and sell more – a Halloween notebook and pencil set – I ask you what has that to do with anything – it all seems a bit superficial, as Christmas is becoming, as if it is the consuming that is the all important thing rather than the event and there is no stopping it once it starts it all just gains momentum.

And while I am on the subject why are we trying to reduce plastics in one area, like drinking straws and carrier bags which actually had a purpose, and then we are allowing cheap plastic imports of absolute rubbish into the country, and heaps of it.  Most of the cheap plastic items sold for Halloween will end up in landfill eventually (after all our teenage son or daughter will not be taking their plastic pumpkin to Uni with them LOL!).

I do think it is bad of companies to target children with all their marketing strategies when it is also compromising their futures at a time when we are trying to work towards a more sustainable future for them.

At least a pumpkin is a natural item – it can be carved for lanterns, used as decoration and eaten – it will eventually rot down and compost and can be returned to the garden – end of.  And isn’t the fun of Halloween making the decorations and dressing up imaginatively.

My suggestion would be to boycott the plastic ‘Shalloween’ and only buy paper or natural decorations.

Rant over!

What are your thoughts on plastic Halloween?

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trEAsury ~ simplifying money matters

As autumn is underway now and my world of paid work is but a distant memory I still feel I haven’t settled into any worthwhile routines or daily rhythms.  I suppose they take time to shape and develop, so I am going to give them a bit of a nudge and create some that are a bit more in step with my life now and reflect the simplified life I want to achieve.

You may have noticed over the years that I am hopeless at routines – evidenced by my erratic posts – I plan to do things then get absorbed in something else.

I did have a really good ‘getting to work’ routine – well I did have 19 years of practice – but I don’t need that now (the work routine not the practice of course).  In fact I could be tempted to sneak back to bed in the mornings – but I don’t.   Honest.

Since stopping work I find my mornings are spent doing a bit of this and that, checking emails, reading blog posts, tidying, ironing – but nothing consistent or that could be considered a routine.  I tend to agree with the idea that a good morning routine is the foundation of any successful day as well as starting early – unfortunately, I am no morning person either – so that will be challenging too.

One of the daily routines I am going to tag onto my morning routine, such as it is, will be a daily financial check so that I can keep a close eye on our spending.  As the effects of being on a limited income are now being felt I can vouch for the fact that a single *state pension alone does not go very far and the monthly bills soon eat their way into the bulk of it.  I need to take action so we don’t overspend and start drawing on our retirement fund.  I don’t intend to dip into that unless it is absolutely vital.

I read somewhere that you should take time each day to actively manage your wealth and set aside a further 30 minutes to an hour every week to review your budget and handle the associated paperwork mountain – statements, bills, insurance and utilities.  Now I have the time each day I plan to adopt this daily and weekly routine to help me to keep on track and highlight any areas I think we may be overspending.

I am also determined to simplify the process, it seems to take far too long and perhaps one of the reasons why I often put off doing it or just can’t find the time to sit down and do it.  And so it all builds up and then takes a long time to sort out.  I think little and often would be much better – it is worth a try – so during October this will be one of my main goals.

So, starting today, and first thing every morning I will get into the habit of overviewing my finances for ten minutes, noting the amount of cash at the start of the day and recording the previous day’s receipts and spending.  Each week I will then balance statements, pay bills and check the bank balances.

Well that is the plan and by starting small I might even succeed.  I must admit I quite like a financial challenge – in my teen years I was always good at managing my pocket-money and setting aside enough each week to buy all my relatives a present for Christmas – usually from the Co-op in the village where each year they had a wonderful display of bath salts and embroidered hankies – you know the kind of thing.

I must admit the stack of paperwork on my desk at home waiting for my return is a bit daunting almost as high as my ironing pile was a few weeks ago. I have been very inattentive to our finances since leaving work other than keeping in mind that I shouldn’t be spending as much as I was…on anything.  I should have set up a new budget by now more in keeping with our new income but confess I just haven’t got round to it.

After banging on the calculator for a few hours, adding, subtracting, dividing and multiplying the *state pension I decided is not going to go very far (no overtime available and not much chance of a pay rise!), and annoyingly paid every 4 weeks on a different day each month, so my conclusion is we need to conserve money where we can and be vigilant at recording and monitoring our spending and challenge ourselves to plenty of ‘no spend days’.

Today just happens to have been one of them.  We survived.

*I still can’t quite believe I am talking about a living on a pension (where did all those years go before this point).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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dEAr diary ~ enjoying the slower pace of life

It was sunny and dry for most of the day, the day before yesterday at least while we were in the garden – it has turned out that we picked a good few days after all to visit the cottage.  Thank goodness as there is so much to do in the garden and we are trying to take it slowly and sensibly to avoid an achy back.  I have areas to put to bed but also areas where I want to have a move around – plants that have outgrown their space or would be better in a different location.  When I started in this garden it was a case of getting anything in to cover the ground – well it has done that and more.  Everything here gets a bit oversized because of the mild climate.

I will be doing a garden update soon of our progress – perhaps a few before and after pictures if I can remember to take the ‘befores’!Bramley apples

The windfall apples are outside our gate now waiting for any takers – I am hoping people will come with large bags or big pockets as it would be a shame for them to go to waste.

Tuesday afternoon we had to drive in to town for more provisions and to swap the empty spare gas cylinder.  Living so far from the nearest town (15 miles) it is essential we have a backup in place.  The place we buy the gas is one of those places that sell all kinds of oddments and the guy was selling off bags of branded farmyard manure for the garden at £1 a bag – normally £4.  Bargain – so we bought 3 bags.

All though I never need an excuse to visit a stationery shop I had to buy a birthday card for my older brother (he is 70 at the weekend…blimey!) so I took  the opportunity to have a quick look in W H Smiths for a new notebook at the same time.  I could only find page a day diaries and they are expensive, but on buying the card I was given a voucher for 25% off a 2018-2019 diary.  It doesn’t really matter that the pages are dated I can ignore that if it makes buying a notebook cheaper.   I didn’t go back and buy one – I am taking a moment to think about it.

We stocked up again at the supermarket – all the ‘cheesy’ rolls had gone so we chose crusty baguettes instead and then found we couldn’t buy a small jar of mayonnaise other than in plastic – I prefer a glass jar and anything in a glass jar was the large size.  It can be difficult buying for two so must be virtually impossible for one.  None of the large hand cooked crisps were on offer either – so in the end being frugal we did without.

By tea time the weather had turned unexpectedly cooler with a little drizzle – so far this visit it has been good gardening weather, but that could all change overnight as I suspect it could easily become much colder.  I have noticed that over the last week the trees and hedges are all turning brown along the shore road where they face some quite strong winds.

We were glad to get back into the car to warm up and on the way back to the cottage we had a slight detour round to Portpatrick, a little harbour village that faces out into the Irish sea, just to sit and look out to sea for a while.  The wind had got a little stronger by now causing a big swell to the incoming tide; I love to see the frothy white waves rolling in and sending up a dramatic spray into the air as they crash against the rocks. Standing at this point to take a photo of the sea can be a bit treacherous – It is a really windy spot and the water on the floor is from the sea spray coming over the top of the large rocks on the left and at high tide can easily sweep you into the sea.  So I didn’t linger! Round the little harbour the Council have put a string of lights which are quite pretty – Portpatrick  is a well visited tourist place and a lot of money goes into its upkeep – much more than our little village where the council seem to only spend the bare minimum.

Yesterday (Wednesday) it was very overcast in the morning and we ached from too much gardening the day before (and old age of course) so feeling a bit rickety we allowed ourselves a day off to recover.  I quickly made some sandwiches with the crusty baguettes; filled with crumbly cheese and a dollop of chutney, added a small container of salad – no crisps or mayonnaise of course – a piece of sultana cake and a flask of hot chocolate.  Then we headed off round the bay to the Machars to the Wigtown Book Festival.

This is the best part of not having to go to work you get to decide what you want to do and when and you can make those snap decisions to just go out.

I will update you with photos from the event later. x