Happy New Year ... Plans, Non Plans and 50p's

Usually with me now is the time that I buckle down to a New Year New Challenge, and I guess in a way it could be called that this year. 

 But there is a big difference this year, I am not challenging myself to see how little I can spend and how long I can make things last, instead I am simply monitoring how long the money that I managed to save through table-top sales and Facebook Marketplace sales, and the bits and bobs of money that I have popped into my little box and my pottery drawer will last me over the coming weeks and hopefully months.

 

There are so many people on social media doing No Spend or Low Spend years that it has become a bit same old, same old.  It seems that us long time bloggers have influenced the influencers to take up the baton and run with it ... making money for themselves in the process.  Good luck to them!

Well I am happy to be out of the limelight, living slowly and simply in my little home and using my savings from the past year to fund this brand new year for as long as they can.

I don't want to buy any clothes, shoes or books in the year ahead as I really do feel that I have enough ... but if I need to I can and I will.  I have food, toiletries and cleaning products that could easily last me a few months and although I wouldn't run my larder down to silly levels it would be nice to run it down to a level that means I don't have to catch flying jars of salad dressing as they fall out of the cupboard ... I actually missed that one and it landed with a crash and my Caesar dressing was no more.

I added up the money from my two little pots and emptied all the cash out of my handbag, and this is what it came to.  I was surprised, pleasantly surprised, I had sort of expected it to be in the three hundreds or thereabouts.

Now usually I would be seeing how much this gives me per day, per week and per month ... and yes you know me so well I did have to work it out:

£1.62 per day

£11.38 per week

and 

£49.35 per month.

Not a shabby amount at all and one that I don't doubt for a moment that I could manage on if I was just to use it for food.  I've done it in the past, I once managed for almost a full year on one pound a day, before I ran out of steam, but not money!!  Even with the rising prices that we are currently contending with here in the UK and in many countries of the world, I feel that I could just about do this, and if truth were told I am almost tempted to give it a go. 

 But I don't need to prove that I can to anyone, not even myself!

I also have a couple of coupons that I will be using to bolster out my cash, and I've just checked and I have Nectar points available too.  I'm not adding them to my cash total as hopefully I will get a couple more over the course of the year, they will just be used up as and when they arrive and should help my money last a bit longer.

I found a couple of unusual 50p's in my little stash of coins.  

I did check online as I've heard that some can be quite valuable

But mine are of no great value ...

... and I would rather pass them on in my spending and let someone else have the thrill of seeing an more unusual coin in their change.

So as it's no great challenge this year I have just put some of my cash into my handbag along with the coupons and I will spend as and when I need to, in any amount that I need to.  All I will do, is perhaps  count my money at the end of each month, monitor how it's going and write it in my diary ... just out of interest of course.  😉

Good luck to anyone that is Challenging themselves over the coming year and I wish you well with whatever you are doing.  Leave a comment if you are blogging about a Challenge and I've no doubt whatsoever that me and my readers will come over and cheer you on.

New Years Resolutions - None

New Year Goals - to read more books, lose some weight ... and have fun.

Sue xx

Blogmas Day Twenty Three - China, Hampers and George

Day twenty three already, today I got another jam and a packet of Dwarf French Beans.  They are an unusual pinkish-colour heirloom seed, so they should look really pretty if I can get them to grow up the fence on some netting.  In a garden as small as mine, vertical growing is always a good idea.

From the decorations calendar I got the little china bell that my Aunt Barbara painted many years ago.  She also painted the Robin plaque that you can see in this photo, she did this for my Mum but for some reason my Mum was throwing it out a long time ago so I claimed it for myself.  Barbara used to do a mixture of transfer work and hand-painted and sometimes gilded china.  Over the years her work got better and better but it was an expensive hobby so she started to sell her wares through my shop, with me making a small commission on each piece sold and her getting enough to cover the cost of all her materials to keep her hobby going.

Talking of selling, our hamper from the agency that Alan works through came last week, we used to get a large Fortnum & Mason one, but over the years they downgraded to other not quite so posh hampers.  As usual virtually all of the items in the hamper contained dairy so no good for me to eat, although of course the alcohol will not be a problem 😉

Because of this Alan said that once again I could have the basket.  So I immediately listed last years basket the one you can see in the photo on Facebook marketplace and within twenty four hours it was gone and some more money was added to my sales for 2022 stash.

This years basket is slightly different as it has rope handles.  Once Christmas is over all my decorations will be going into it and it will take it's place on top of my wardrobe in place of the now sold one.

Here's George wishing you a Merry Christmas.

Officially his name is Edward, it says so on his tag, but I always think of him as George for some reason.  Maybe it's because Alan bought him for me many years ago and Alan's middle name is George ... or maybe it's just because he looks like a George. 🧸

Sue xx

Less Books, More Space, More Pots

 

Happily, I have now sold, donated and passed on enough of my books to completely free up the bookcase from the bedroom.  You have no idea how happy my new more streamlined bedroom makes me.

I put the bookcase onto Facebook Marketplace for £10 and it was snapped up in two days.  It was only when the lady came to collect it and handed me the crisp new tenner that I realised that the bookcase had only cost me £8 about three years ago at a local car boot sale.  So pretty good value, three years of use and then a two pounds profit. 😀

I finished sorting out the bottom cupboard of my living room bookcase the other day, and the books that I did decide to keep from the bedroom bookcase have ended up in there.  It very satisfying to have all the non-kitchen books in one place, well virtually in one place there are a few decoratively dotted around still ... but you'll never cure me of that!!

I think I mentioned last week that Alan had bought me my Christmas presents while we were at Dunelm, he was determined to get them nice and early this year ... and they are already in use.  He bought me a microwave, a new electric kettle and a few pieces of green tableware.  

I saw and fell in love with some handmade green bowls, so I chose the minimum that I thought I could get away with ... and then Alan persuaded me to get the larger plate too.  Which I guess with Christmas in mind, and perhaps needing a plate of sharing nibbles, was quite a good idea.

They are quite a bit greener than this photo shows them, but the light in my little kitchen corridor is terrible today. The rain has not stopped since last night, and I have had to have the light switched on just to be able to see to type.

What are you getting for Christmas this year, a want or a need?

 Mine ... unusually for me ... is definitely a want, as I already had my white crockery, plus some of my retro pretty plates that luckily match in beautifully with my new purchases.

Sue xx

Splurging, Decluttering ... and First Christmas Presents

I discovered ZENB pasta while watching a YouTube channel, so I decided to check out the website for myself.  When I was offered a 40% discount on a first order just for signing up for the newsletter, I thought to myself why not try it.

The pasta is made with yellow peas instead of wheat so I thought it might be tasty, and it really is!!

I may have gone a little bit mad with my order, but already my purchases are proving to be very useful.  The Agile Bowls are like a healthier Pot Noodle and come with an additional sachet of olive oil to pour over the cooked pasta once it's ready to eat ... a revelation in flavour for sure.  

I've sort of gotten fed up with bread this week, so I took one to Mum's yesterday for my lunch instead of the sandwiches I usually have ... I still made sandwiches for Mum and Alan, and after a horrendous journey in torrential rain for the first half before arriving in a surprisingly sunny Manchester, a hot lunch was just what I needed.

If you fancy learning a bit more about Yellow Pea Pasta, the website is HERE.

Meanwhile the decluttering is ongoing. 

I took all the coursework, recipe folders and the box full of more recipe folders out of the bookcase cupboard and went through them all carefully.  I chose to do it the day before the paper recycling bin was due to be emptied so I would be ruthless and have no chance to change my mind ... and it worked a treat.

Now all the recipes that I want to keep and that might actually get made up again, are in the one black folder, and there is lots of space for me to continue doing the same thing with another stash of recipes that I have.

I am going to use the bottom of the bookcase cupboard to house all the books that are currently left on the bedroom bookcase, and then that bookcase is going.  So, I will have more space in two rooms out of my three-room small home, it's starting to feel very liberating.

Although I have just acquired a few new things from Dunelm for the kitchen as my Christmas present off Alan.  Some things in and somethings out, it's pretty balanced I guess.

Premiered today ...  the John Lewis Christmas Advert 2022.

https://youtu.be/1z0jfP2gCIs

Yes, it made me cry.

My best friend went into care on Christmas Day many, many years ago ... so it was bound to.  💝

Sue xx

Less Books, Behind Closed Doors and Shopping Lists

 I'm loving my streamlined bookcase so much.

Sorting through the books and selling so many of them over the weekend has made a huge difference.  To you it may not look that much different, but I know what was there, what has gone for good and how it is making me feel.

I guess I need to go around the books I still have and have one final count of them, just to see how many have left the lodge.  I am seriously thinking of having a non-book buying year next year, or maybe allowing myself a set number so that I choose wisely and only buy the most important ones. 

 Yes, there are important books to me and there always will be. 😀 

Next on the agenda is checking once again behind closed doors.

 I did most of this before the table-top sale on Sunday and added things from under the bed and from the cupboards to the boxes of things that we took with us.  But still hidden away in there are the things that wouldn't have been saleable, and I really don't need all of them anymore.  My coursework for example for my nutrition courses and recipe files from the Happy Pear courses that I did.  I am going to go through all the recipes printouts and only keep the ones that I know I will use again and again.

I did the first folder this morning, this one was full of all the information that you are asked to leave for the house sitters when you leave them in charge of your home and pets.  We have decided that we won't be leaving the dogs with other people again now that they are older, instead next year's holidays will include them in our travels.  Ginger will be happy to go to Jason's house, or Jason will be happy to come to ours now that he's discovered that our Thursday market has a brilliant and very large bookstall ... and my son is as into books as I am.

I didn't waste any of the paper and recycled it for my own use as shopping lists or just scrap paper.  I'm going to have a lot more of these by the time I have gone through the other folders.  I may never need to buy note paper again.

Sue xx

Going, Going, Gone ... I Blame the House

 

By the time I managed to get to the front of the table to get a quick photo, some of the best bits had already gone to other stall holders.  We didn't mind at all of course, after all money is money, the general public and traders weren't allowed in until we had all set up our stalls and been able to relax with a free cup of coffee.  Then it was sell, sell, sell for the next few hours.

Virtually everything sold, and even at the very end when the village hall went quiet and virtually all the customers had gone home, we were still selling to the other stall holders once again.  We reduced our prices right down and others who did regular car boot sales and tabletop sales were buying off us ready for their next events.  

We came home with one box of books and one of assorted bits and bobs.  It made for a quick unloading of the car at home, which was good as Alan needed an afternoon nap before hitting the road for Berkshire and a day in the office yesterday.

My little place is looking much neater now, the top of the bookshelves no longer has a basket and bowl to catch my eye, and my lovely Welsh Bread and Cheese cupboard larder is minus its Spider plant and trug ... and I especially like the look of the bookshelves now that the books are all stood neatly instead of being stacked here, there and everywhere.  

Will it last?  For a while at least ... but you know me, I am always acquiring new books ... I do think slowly decluttering is most definintely the way for me and living with what you have and then realising that you can live with less and less and yet somehow get happier and happier for it, is even better.

I like that blogging about my home makes me more mindful of it and what I have in it.  Looking back over the years when we had so much more makes me realise just how much we have gotten rid of.  I blame most of it on moving into a big four bed farmhouse and the need we felt to fill it with stuff ... well blaming a house is better than blaming me for buying the bloody stuff. 😁

I'm off now, I need to see if I can turn two teeny, tiny pumpkins into a bowl of soup ... that waste not want not wartime rationing mentality is and always has been deep in my soul.

Sue xx

Pumpkins, Cleaners and Being Ruthless

 

I thought I better do another post to get all those photos of me off your sidebars, and I couldn't resist sharing my cute little pumpkins with you.  A silly little 59p purchase but they make me smile every time I see them ... which is worth every penny. 

Autumn, it came in windy and wet, it quickly turned too warm for jumpers and then just sunny enough to make us want to make plans and then reverted this morning to cold, windy and wet.  My first job this morning was to follow Alan to the garage as his car is being serviced, just so that I could give him a lift home.  On a fair day he doesn't mind the walk back, but today is definitely not a fine day.

I've missed this blog while I've been over on my other one, so it's a happy relief to be back ... although not a lot apart from rationing has been going on.  Well, I suppose really quite a lot has gone on but it's like when you ask your children on that walk home from school 'What did you do today?' and they just say 'nothing' ... at first my mind just goes blank.

Last week we helped Mum with lots of little jobs that needed doing after the deep clean of her bungalow, then we had Alan's sister and her partner who live in Scotland, to stay for the weekend and had a lovely catch up with them.  Yesterday we started the process for Mum of her ongoing Care Package.  Her NHS funded four visits a day which have been needed less and less are instead to be replaced with one paid for visit a day.  She chose teatime as the best time for someone to call on her, they will check her tablets etc and perhaps do the washing up for the day and any other little medical or non-medical things that Mum needs help with.  It works for her and sounds sensible, oh and she has now got a cleaner who will call every Monday for a couple of hours.

On top of this I have been busy sorting out my things.

 I keep thinking it will be for the last time but does sorting out and decluttering ever end?  I keep realising that there are still things that I don't need so I'm sticking a price sticker on them and putting them into the large plastic boxes we bought many years ago and used to move house with.  

We are booked into a table-top sale for this Sunday.  We did one at the same village venue earlier this year and the girl who runs it asked if we would be interested in doing another one in October as they are raising money for charity.  At the time we said that we would think about it as we didn't have much stuff left really, and what we did have we sold as a job lot on Facebook Marketplace the day after the sale.  When she rang out of the blue while Mum was in hospital and said they had planned one for this coming weekend I couldn't picture what I had left to sell, but something made me accept the table.  I just knew it would push me to be super ruthless.

So that's what I am being at the moment, super ruthless.  Even with things bought quite recently, I have had another of my must live more minimally mindsets going on ... and you would be super surprised if you saw how many books I have decided to jettison.

So now I'm off to be brave, lift the storage bed up and see what is hiding under there that simply will not be there next week.

Sue xx

Statistics, Desert Islands, Decluttering and Euros

 

Somehow I ended up looking at my blogging statistics yesterday and it was quite fascinating.  I don't do it too often as it's too much like the day job but this was interesting and not work ... hence enjoyable!!

At exactly 2.52pm there were 27 people reading yesterday's post and one person typing a comment on it, 198 people reading other posts ... the oldest post of which at that time was one back in September 2020 ... hands up if this was you.  😀

The nearest reader to me was just outside Lancaster, and while my geography is not brilliant, one of the furthest away was in Russia.  We had 28 countries being represented one of which for some reason was described as 'Unknown country' ... which made me think of a little desert island somewhere with a palm tree in it's centre.

As I said it's fascinating stuff, and while I was entertaining you with my photos and weird ramblings you were entertaining me with your reading choices and home towns.

I did manage to set to and sort through another cupboard yesterday, this time it was the turn of the boiler cupboard.  My kitchen looks like there's lots of storage until you open a cupboard door and come across something like this.  😄

But I do make good use of all available space.

There's not a huge amount of difference, but what makes me really pleased is that I am now getting to the stage of only having things that I truly do need and use.  The few things that I got rid of went straight into the recycling bins. (Not the bottle though, I reuse them for as long as I can for car journeys, so that was filled from the tap and popped into the fridge.)

Note to self - take the euros to the Post Office and get them changed back to spendable money!!

(Or go on holiday to where I can spend them 😃)

Sue xx

Homegrown Food ... and Giving Food Away

 

We dug up our homegrown potatoes last week, well I say 'dug up' but what I really mean is tipped them from the Aldi bags for life that they were growing in.  I emptied the bags out straight into the new raised planter that you can see at the back of the photo, and it made it really easy to rummage around and find all the potatoes.

It was quite a good little haul really.

Splitting them into half for each of us meant this is what we got.  

Was it worth growing them?

Yes, is the resounding answer.  They didn't take much watering with all the rain we've had recently, they were tucked away out of sight of either of our houses just in front of the shed and most importantly of all ...  they taste delicious.

So much so that I am just about to put in some more potatoes that should be ready in time for Christmas.  This time I have got some posh new potato buckets to grow them in courtesy of a special offer from the gardening magazine that I posted about HERE.

I've been missing from my blog for a couple of days as I have been busy Olio-ing.

Sharing things that I no longer want with people who do want them or who can make use of them in any way that they choose.  I started with a bag of food that I just knew I would never get around to eating, and then because you can also give away non-food items I carried on by giving away all the things that I have been sorting out from my kitchen cupboards.

 I even had a good sort through of my stationery stash and gave lots of notebooks, pens and pencils to a young single Mum with two boys that needed some for now to keep them occupied during the school holidays and some more for going back to school with.

I still have other things listed and it's a good feeling to know that items I no longer need are going to a really good home.  And of course it immediately gives me more space in my small home instead of having items that I've recently sorted out just sitting around.

Have you ever used Olio?

Sue xx

Cat Shelf, Pigeon Friends and Unwanted Tongs

 

Ginger is making good use of his new shelf ladder combo.

No longer do we hear the thud of paws as he re-enters the garden from the back, instead he creeps up on us or just sits there and surveys all that he can see.  He's having a twice daily face-off with a pair of very fat pigeons just recently.  He sits on his little ledge or under the bench outside my door and stares at them as they parade very noisily up and down the fence opposite ... it honestly sounds as though they are wearing tiny hobnail boots.  Each glares at the other, but there's no attempt to chase them on Ginger's part and no attempt to fly off or do anything other than stare at him on theirs, it's very strange.

It's too hot for much decluttering at the moment, but I did manage to do this drawer while I was waiting for the kettle to boil and the sink to fill yesterday.

As spot the difference's go there's not that much to see!!

A bit tidier, a bit cleaner and that's about it.

Only two items went in the box of things that I'm getting rid of.  The rolling pin although beautiful and tactile just doesn't roll 'right' and if you roll a lot of pastry you'll know what I mean.  Perhaps it's a specialist one for something that I don't actually do ... does anyone know?

I picked it up a long time ago at an antiques fair along with a very old basket and some other kitchenalia.  The tongs ... well I just don't use them, they've been at the very back of the drawer for over a year and have not been fished out once.

I will be giving Alan first refusal of anything that I am getting rid of, it's going to be a very random box of stuff by the time I've  finished!!

A final word from Ginger ... "Where are my pigeon friends, they are due just about now?"

Elizabethd ... he hasn't rang the bell ... yet!!   😄

Sue xx

Not Long Now ...

 

I was on the Government website the other day, gritting my teeth and paying my half-yearly Self Assessment tax bill, while I was there I decided to nip over to the Pension page to double check on the date of my retirement.  Somebody had said that things had changed yet again for those of us of a certain age, but no ... I'm still due to retire a month after my 66th birthday.

And GOSH isn't that creeping up fast!!

Alan is just over a year older than me and will be retiring first if he decides that he actually will retire this time so that made us sit and have a really good conversation, working out exactly what we have coming in and what our retirement might look like.  It's not too bad really as we will both be getting an individual full state pension and of course Alan has a Navy pension, but as two self-employed people we have had to set up other provisions to keep us afloat for the future and that is something that we will always have to keep an eye on.

To take my mind off the future and bring myself back down to earth I tackled another kitchen cupboard.  

There's not a lot in this one as the pipes and drains of the sink are obviously all down there, but I had gotten the kitchen fitter to put me a shelf that was cut around for the pipes in there to give me as much storage space as possible.  He did a really good job.

I found a few things that were no longer needed and they have gone now.

I decided to take an after photo ...

... and no matter what I did I just could not get it straight.

Just one of the downsides to a kitchen that is just six foot wide with cupboards on one side and a breakfast bar on the other.  😄😆  

The after photo is slightly deceptive as the two glass storage containers from the top shelf are currently in the fridge full of leftovers!

Sue xx

A Re-Jig and a Re-fresh But Nothing Left the House

 

These shelves had been bugging me for quite a while, I couldn't put my finger on what was wrong for a long time ... I figured it out after I did this little re-arranging and tidying. 😃

I had books here on the top shelf and pulled forward to the edge so that I could actually reach them while my back was so bad I could barely stretch my arms above my head.

I also had books on this little set of drawers, handy for every day use but somehow annoying to have them split into two 'camps'.

I took all the books off, gave everything a good wipe and clean and replaced the books with the red flour bin from the top shelf.  Making a very happy discovery in the process ...

... ooh I had forgotten all about these crunchie type bars.

Tidying and sorting does have some huge and very tasty plusses  😋

All these cookbooks fit neatly onto the top shelf with room to slide one more in very easily, which is handy as I have a signed, half price copy of Ella Mills new book on pre-order from Waterstones that should be arriving next month.

The jars were all wiped down, and the pussy cat salt cellar and the pasta jar were re-filled from the cupboard stock and then everything went back onto the lower shelves too.

So what had been bugging me then?  Well it turned out that as soon as I pushed all the books to the back of the shelf it just seemed much, much better, as well as neater and more spacious looking.

And the good news is that I can now just about reach them without having to resort to my little step ladders, so signs of improvement all round, both me and in my kitchen.

So although there was nothing to get rid of on the shelves or the drawers, I have ended up with a cleaned and more organised space ... and chocolate bars that I had no idea that I had.

Winner, winner crunchie dinner 😁

Sue xx