Gratitude

Oh my giddy aunt, every time I say that I'm about to start posting again LIFE gets in the way.  Busy life, empty blog.  Unfortunately a lot of what kept us busy was loved ones with terrible ill health and then the passing away of my Mother in Law.  It was horrible and all the bad sorts of words you can throw at such sadness and what feels like injustice.  It was awful that family didn’t gather round and it was yet another point of stress.  It was hurtful when people didn’t act the way I'm sure I’d treat them in that situation. 

 

However, we saw that was the reason we were taken back from Singapore in the grand scheme of things.  I felt happy knowing that The Husband wasn’t having to deal with this with an 8 hour time difference.  I felt comfort knowing that he didn’t have to organise flights and as unpleasant as it all was driving up, it wasn’t a day of no contact and worry for him to deal with.  Most of all I felt overwhelming gratitude that the family that didn’t turn their backs were right there holding hands, turning up to things, welcoming us into their homes, offering help and just being all round good people.  It was a bad situation, it just was, however we were shown such love and compassion that it didn’t feel unbearable.  And when you wake up to the phone ringing in the middle of the night you have to take any comfort you can.

However, good times are undoubtedly ahead.  We have had some great news too.  TH’s health problems seem to have been a massive over reaction by the Singapore health system – it is amazing, but any would be that you pay for.  He’s been given the OK by our wonderful NHS after lots and lots and lots of tests and we feel really happy and confident that everything that can be done has been, and will continue to do so.

We’ve also just taken a major step into being grown ups….yup, we put an offer in on a house and it got accepted!  We’ve already done the home report and it came back right on the money!  It needs work, but its all things we already could see and we feel really, really happy.

So I think that’s us up to date for at least a little while. Well lets see how long between posts I leave it now?!!!

How we're Saving

I haven’t done a post about how the saving is going for quite a while so I thought I would do an update. The original plan was to fill all of the ISA’s we could between us which would take us to early Summer and we would hopefully be able to go to the bank and talk reasonably about getting a mortgage. This would give us a 10% deposit for a small cottage on the out-skirts of Aberdeen which we would pay off as quickly as possible. Because we have been saving up my salary as well as paying off rent we were hoping that this plan would be very achievable should nothing go awry.

Now that there is a plan to move abroad we aren’t saving to get our own house next year as we aren’t able to own property in the UK while living in a government house abroad. However we are still living with ‘Thrift’ as our watchword. There are great things happening because of this move – mainly that we are getting rid of all of our excess ‘stuff’ and car boot sales as well as selling things on eBay are really helping us top up the ISA’s.

I really enjoy being ‘in charge’ of the money and give The Husband an allowance every month which he can spend on whatever he likes. Out of housekeeping he still gets all work clothes and packed lunches if he wants them as well as his own phone contract paid, so that’s quite a large sum for just frittering away. The housekeeping gets spent on all of those bills that are set in stone and never change and then the bills and things that need to be paid that we can change by either getting rid of the services or cutting back. I take my allowance and then the rest gets saved. Below is a list of the things we spend money on with a percentage sign to show how much each month gets put on it.

Things we can’t change:

1. Rent (17.25%)
2. Council Tax (5.6%)
3. TV licence (0.51%)
4. Subscriptions (0.34%)
5. Contents and Car Insurance (1% each)
6. TH’s Phone Contract (0.69%)

Things we can change:

1. Sky TV (0.75%)
2. Petrol (5.52%)
3. Groceries (6.9%)
4. Gas (3.45%)
5. Electric (3.45%)
6. Allowances (5.17%)
7. Phone and Broadband (1.03%)

I had been saving my allowance for the Girls Trip I had been planning for Edinburgh, but seeing as that has had to be cancelled I am just putting more into savings until I see something I would like. We aren’t saving any money for the gas tank right now as we probably won’t use a full one before we go so we’ve decided we can get by using the wood burner until then. Also because of this great weather and late sunsets no lights have been going on for ages and ages.

Menu planning and shopping around has saved us quite a bit of money and we should be able to save a bit more as we have started to run down the pantry and freezers. I have better lunches that are cheaper than I ever bought in shops as I eat quite a lot of leftovers now. This doesn’t mean we eat fatty or cardboard-like food. It’s a bit easier now that it’s getting colder as we had make more stews, casseroles, or things like toad in the hole. More mince and tatties or Sunday dinners served with a plethora of veg, dumplings or pastry.

We find and cut all of our own wood and only bought a chainsaw when we saved enough PayPal money from selling things online-making it ‘spend neutral’ in my mind. This meant we could cut larger logs in a shorter amount of time so we have been stock piling for autumn for a while now. We cuddle into a soft hot water bottle to keep cosy, just like we did when we were little. Water cleans most tables and worktops and cheap homemade solutions clean most of the rest.

We don’t have a pot for emergencies, although when we do have a mortgage we’ll have to keep one. When we had to get the brakes on the car fixed last month we just had to not save as much that month, but because our money is hardly locked up in stocks and shares we can get to it if there was a big problem. Also, although we rent which can seem like dead money, we also know that if something breaks we can get it sorted without us parting with any money.

When you see it written out like that I think you’d be forgiven for imagining we could have always saved money, however it really was only recently we thought about it. I feel so ashamed. When I think of money that was just ‘blown’ it makes me crazy! Oh well, onwards and upwards! I just have to keep acting like those of my grandmothers generation and save every penny I can.

The Goal

In a way it is wonderful that I now have a goal that isn’t dictated by what my body does, it’s something 100% achievable, just like my education or career. Now I can’t promise I’m not someone who gets ahead of themselves, I most certainly am. I think most of the wedding was planned way before TH was The Fiancé or even The Boyfriend, so this ‘getting ahead of myself’ and finding out all of the house prices in all of the areas is just something I do.

I know how much the house types we like costs in all areas in Aberdeenshire, and have scouted out how quickly we can get into town from them. We already know that we’d much prefer a smaller house than a larger mortgage and have figured out roughly what we can borrow. Because we rent right now as well as save we know that the first month we have to just pay a mortgage and the buildings insurance we’ll feel like millionaires. So for a little while we’ll watch the pennies and then I really can let this dream loose. Poor TH won’t know what’s hit him when I finally get to nosey around houses.

This month marks the first of savings! I got out of the overdraft earlier this month and have put the rest of the savings into the savings jar along with some other money earned from ebay. The savings jar is then going along with the bit extra saved after paying off the overdraft into the ISA, and then from June onwards all money saved can go to live in the ISA instead of paying off some ridiculous debt from years ago! For someone who is incredibly bad at saving this is super exciting.

Ive been printing off mini statements and paying things in card-which goes totally against what most people say…but hear me out- so I can see where everything goes. I can see straight away that for our family of two, and a westie, we are spending too much on groceries. When I say groceries you know you can change that for cakes and such like as in one month we’ve spend £168 on food. This is so embarrassing. I cook everything from scratch, have a freezer that never empties and a good looking pantry. It’s just that the freezer food has lived there for ages, I forget to take it out or think up something good to cook with so we head to the shops after work and pick up some meat there.

One tiny saving grace is that I actually do the big shop at Lidl and last minute buys on the way home from co-op when they’ve reduced everything by half. I sometimes go to Asda too, but only if I’ve bought a voucher from their first which saves 5%, and I recently bought a couple of duvets from Tesco as it meant I’d get the 10p off a litre of fuel (which was over £5 of a saving).

So, there I am, a way ahead of myself but working very hard towards this goal of ours. It’s super exciting and I can’t wait to ‘show off’ our own home when we finally get there.

Every Penny Helps

I’ve been reading lots of blogs about saving money recently, hoping to find ideas I haven’t already had. I can’t really do a list, as I think so many of them really have ideas that we all know are good, we just sometimes can’t be bothered with them! There are a couple that I think I will do. For example one said to save as if it was a direct debit, which I do think is a good idea as I love direct debits as then I can never forget about bills and get a fright when a new bill comes through the door! One also said you should ‘bank’ any spare money like in The Weakest Link, I defintly think it is out of sight, out of mind for me too.


I’m already selling some things I never use on ebay, and my paypal account which was empty in January now has £64 in it! I was very proud, as I wasn’t doing anything with what we sold. The thing now is to only spend it on something we needed anyway. I certainly am guilty of finding these little piles of pennies and using them for a treat! Hopefully we can have a carboot sale soon. There is a big place close to us that has them on a Sunday morning, so it is when I already work. Last year we kept meaning to have one, but the weather was so awful I was glad I didn’t take a day off to help out. They normally last 9 hours (as you are pretty tightly locked into the selling area), so it would be TH and I together so one could at least nip to the loo if need be!

TH is a reiki practioner and is hoping to extend his client base (this is his site here). One day I hope he does it full time as it makes him so happy, but I think it would also be quite scary starting out a new business, and now isn’t really the time. He has been getting some training for using the hopi candles properly and all of the types of massage that should be done with them, so I think he’ll be able to start advertising his skills in that too. TH’s friend also sells salt lamps and we said we’d help out with that. I love them to bits anyway-and they were so helpful when we moved into the new house and it was a bit dampish and cold, so I know I could sell them with real passion!  I'll be sales person of the month in no time!

Extra in the Jar

We’ve been saving recently and have a strict budget where all money needs to be accounted for. When we paid our bills out of two accounts The Husband paid for the sky package as he was the one who wanted it. I obviously watched the TV too and now have a sky box full of reality TV shows which I can’t live without. Now that I am in charge of the budget I have been looking at every little outgoing and wanting it to be really worth it. I was just about to kill off sky when TH got me to look at some of the sky packages available. I guess I am one of the sheep like consumers who get a package and stick to it, “AHA” TH shouted when he thought he could keep his Discovery channel programmes, “these things change, you should only get and pay for what you will watch!”


I conceded and had a little look. Just like the phone bill or the quizzing up on bank accounts I could get the same thing for cheaper or certainly better value. It made sense to keep the sky as we live so far away from any cinema, we don’t buy DVD’s, and we eat out only for Birthday gatherings. Of all the things we could be extravagant on this was one, and we weren’t really being extravagant at all.

We are being savvy with how things were being spent, and if we think we’re having a grand night in by making our own popcorn and watching a good programme or film then I think we can just let it be!

We were able to compare packages and when Christmas rolls around I will take another look online to upgrade to include some more channels-I always need all the movies just in case I miss one that looks Christmassy! The blog on the site will also keep me updated with any deals I can switch to if they turn out to be better than the one I currently have….OK, that’s The Husband 1 and me 0.

Free Heat

I’d been in the grumpiest of grumpy moods recently. On Friday we found out that we had went through all of the gas in the tank which was a lot of money and only went in on the 21st of December. I had counted on it lasting quite a while and to say I was shocked doesn’t quite cover it. I’d been down and gloomy for a couple of days prior to that, but started to think of Thursday that a line had to be drawn under it and what will be, would be.

Fridays test was exactly that, but after my initial mini-meltdown on the train on the way home we sort of saw that we couldn’t linger on it. I am not putting more gas in the tank, we don’t need the radiators and we harldy use the hot water from the tap. If its not paid for it isn’t there, and if it isn’t there we can’t use it. We do use the multi-fuel stove and I’ve been out collecting sticks while on walks that always are good for kindling.

On Saturday night we had a night of ‘free heat’ with all of the sticks I had, so my new goal is to have more ‘free heat’ nights each month. We started to cut down some of the fencing in the back garden which we have piled up in the garage and apparently to find out if we can have the fallen sticks in one of the fields behind us we just have to contact the council. Hopefully they’ll say yes and I can start stock piling. The weather took a turn for the better the during the weekend so last night we didn’t even have to use the heater in the bedroom. Sooner or later I’m not going to have to pay out month after month and that can only be a good thing for the savings account.

Saving Savvy

TH and I will have our five year wedding anniversary in October and my plan for our six year anniversary is to have a deposit for a house. As we only moved house in December we are still settling into what needs paid out and how often we need to order things like logs. We buy gas for the tank in the garden and that needs to be done as one lump sum, which is a bit odd for someone who only had to pay a little bit every month. Handing over £800 in one go was a shock, but we shouldn’t have to do it again until late next Autumn hopefully!


My budgeting skills are being pushed into action and I will have them finely tuned by the time we have a deposit.

My plan so far is making a big batch of soup for supper once a week. TH is very old fashioned and doesn’t like it when there isn’t a ‘meat product’ on his plate at tea time. I will wean him off of this and have him chowing down soup and dessert in no time-its hardly porridge three times a day!

I also plan to go about the house checking if we really need that radiator on, or that fire to be built up when we’re heading to bed in ten minutes or so. There aren’t any direct debits we can cut off (although I’m sure we could live without the sky package), as although I’d be happy to go without a phone line and broadband TH sometimes works from home and really does need it. We live so far away from work that we really do need a car, and we rarely eat out or visit the cinema.

Things that I could be better at would include being more organised with the weekly shop and running down one of the freezers so that we didn’t have to run it or fill it (I hate having the freezer with even the teeniest space in it as it’s such a waste of money). We may even sell it when its empty! I really think I could easily have a months worth of suppers in the freezers so in the short term that will save a little bit.

There is a fence we are in the middle of taking down in the back garden which I will keep in the shed until winter when it should be dry enough to burn. We have so many beautiful views all around us, but the last people in the house erected a 9ft fence all around the back. Poor little Daisy can’t even dream of jumpting over the wall, let alone the fence, so we were going to be getting rid of that anyway as the garden was in such a state when we moved in we’d been told we can do what we like with it.

I went a bit mad at the end of March for TH’s Birthday and spent more than I should have-I know this by the amount of party food that Daisy ate in the following days-but it’s done now and I will have hopefully learned my frugal lessons before a splurge filled time such as Christmas rolls around.

I will be scouring blogs for good money saving and money making ideas, and can hopefully update you in a month or so as to what percentage of the goal we’ve put away so far. Fingers crossed I’m not distracted before then, I am attempting to be on the straight and narrow!

Saving Up

We’ve been having some ongoing problems with our new landlord which has made me really focus my mind and start saving up for a deposit on a house. Saving wouldn’t be so terribly bad, and I guess we are very lucky that we are even able to save a little, so I don’t know why I never did this before. I do actually, I like to shop and have pretty things and I enjoy holidays… However to save for a house and give yourself 18 months to do it is really quite ‘a big job’ in our neck of the woods. Aberdeen was always safe within the property bubble as its very rich because of the oil industry. Its just that not everyone is in the big industry in town and like anywhere costly house prices filter out of the city and into the country side. I guess everywhere has these problems so I had better quit complainin’ and start savin’!

As the person in charge of finances in our house I have set forth our budget and have decreed that there will be no holidays for two years. There will also be a cap on personal spending and I will stop throwing away food purely because I am not organised enough to meal plan. I would love to be one of these people that could live super frugally but I’m a baby at this and need to start slowly. I will be more organised with food and put on an extra jumper before turning the heating up. I’m looking for a part time job I can do nearby which will only take up a couple of hours in an evening or weekend and The Husband and I are going to have a carboot sale soon. We have some things looked out, but I think you really need to get organised for these things.

One of the most important things for me is to see the goal I have set and how I’m working towards it. I don’t know if I will make the old Blue Peter thermometer and colour it in depending on how much I’ve saved, but I will certainly have to set something aside!

Still in Time for the Pretty

I have always been obsessed with the light and fluffy, the jolly, silly, and nonesensicle. I love Home Making because I love making things pretty and happy and cosy looking. I am less interested in the dusting and sweeping although I will at a push if I am attired in some pretty CK aprons and floral gloves… I love decorating for the seasons, Holidays. events in general and times when a party is called for.
I love getting dressed up and I love make up. When I was younger whenever we went on holiday my Mother would have to take a hold of my purse as I would want to spend all that I had in duty free. I love to ooh and ah over the sparkley and girly. I love to pull out a pretty compact and swish a pretty lipstick.

I think that we all need something frivilous now and again. Right now we are saving like mad for a deposit for a house. We are keeping every penny a prisinor and I will certainly we on the lookout for money saving tips. However I also have lots and lots of varnishes and pretty things in the cupboards that I can still wear or use. So in this year and a half of NO FUN, I am able to still sneak a little fun out of life.

I hope to keep this blog up to date with my penny saving ways-although I could never be extreme at all, I think it will be good old fashioned money saving. It will be soup once a week and ‘do I really need that?’ way before it is turning off all lights and heating. Most of all, this blog will still be a place for the silly, the decorative, the bubbly and bright.

Wish me luck, in two years time we’ll be in our own home (just gotta keep saying that)!