De-clutter Date

I had a day off today so the old chap and I could get rid of a few things. He is totally getting into this now. We started off with the builders rubbish being collected by the hippo man. He was a lovey man and didn't mind helping us to pull the bag out with the car first because we had left it too far from the road. We had a cup of tea togther before he set off on his next pick up. They sent me an email saying that 80% of it was being recycled, I assume it was a generic email but all the same, not too bad I suppose.

As I was in the flinging mood I had fished three t shorts and some jeans out of my drawer as I was getting dressed. Next came the attic. We had to brace ourselves with coffee before facing it, There was barely enough room up there to get off the ladder. We were up there just a half hour as it was so hot but in that time we found and donated five jackets, three of which were leather, three boxed steering wheel controllers for play stations or x box, a massive floor cushion, 2 hand bags. I found a box of swim school badges and certificates from when we had our own swim school, planning to give them to Fahed's boss where he teaches now. A box of certificate files which Fahed is going to give to the kids in his classes when they get their next certificate. A huge bag of maybe thirty pairs of swimming goggles. Still in need of sorting. A lot of controllers and power supplies for various game consoles. Basically it was enough to fill a reasonable sized car pretty much tot he brim for our trip to the Sallie Ann's.
We found some things which should be in the sitting room, the bedroom and the shed.

I am really please that Fahed is working with me. Our junk costs us money as we cant find anything and are always re-buying things we already own. Fahed also donated five PSones for me to eBay. There were also two PS2 to be fixed and hopefully I get to eBay them afterwards.

Tomorrow is another day of work. I would have preferred to be off tomorrow but it is the first of July so I would have lost my flexi day. Saturday is my housework day this week but I have actual plans for Sunday. I am taking my parents to a birthday party on the Island. My friends mum will be 90 so it is time to celebrate. My parents were a little worried about going because my dad can't walk for more than 10 metres at the moment and my mum has some form of RSI in her right arm. My dad cheered right up after the hospital consultant told him he needs a new knee. I think he was worrying that he was making a fuss about nothing but the consultant said it definitely needs to be done so now he knows there may be an end to his pain. I am looking forward to a lovely day out and a catch up with my mate

Stuff and things

Still on track with meal planning except that I seem to cook for 8 and we are only 4, so everything lasts at least two days. Tomorrow is stir fry day. My son taking char grilled turkey pasta for lunches. I think that pasta gives him more energy than sandwiches. Obviously tons cheaper than buying lunch out. Especially when the pasta comes from Approved Foods (recommended). I love that they prefer home cooked food to mass produced junk. Obviously at their age they love actual junk too but they at least draw the line at frozen junk for re-heating.

My dad saw his knee specialist at the hospital today. The guy said he needs a new kneee. The good thing is that he was so definite that Dad doesn't really need to make any decisions. It will be within 6 months but Dad has asked to wait until after our holiday as he wants to be as mobile as possible for this. The surgeon was fine with this. Reading up on the BUPA website I see that is possible to have the operation using an epidural instead of being totally knocked out. Dad has epidurals for the check up and surgery relating to his cancer and he finds it much easier to cope with than anesthetic. Hopefully this will be a possibility for him.

Counting down the days to our holiday. 55 more sleeps until holiday. Whoop.

He is quite cute

Last month was our first attempt at proper budgeting and Fahed got £150 to last him. he bought himself a new power tool to take to the Crete house for work. He spent the rest, along with other cash he had saved, on my birthday present. Bless his little cotton socks.

On Friday I gave him his money for this month. Today he bought me a luxury memory foam topped mattress. Claims to be £800 on the packing. £150. We have wanted a new mattress for ages, our is minimum ten years old and feels like it is stuffed with coal. It was just delivered by two guys from the mattress shop. Its perfect. Amazing bargain. End of line or some such. I am waiting to go to bed tonight but its only nine o c'clock. It is twice as thick as the old one. Just can;t wait for bed tonight!

I telephoned to my car insurance provider tonight to ask how much it was to add both of my sons to the policy. Not good. it goes from £225 annually to £1600 annually. I found an online quote for £800. Tomorrow I will call to see how much to cancel the current policy to make the move over. I stupidly just committed to another year with my current provider without thinking about my boys at all. Sometimes i could have better timing with the 'great ideas'.

Lastly, I was just reading Laura's five year plan. I am going to take a leaf from her book and work on something similar for us. I am going to make mine more of a fifteen year plan but otherwise just keeping it simple in the same way, but becase I am who I am, also very flexible.

Catch up Sunday

Yesterday was very much a day of sloth. I am not used to late night anymore and indeed that will do me until the Christmas party. I did manage to go food shopping yesterday and completely re-stocked everything, except for potatoes, for £121. This leaves us £279 for the rest of the month. I took Jamal shopping with me and he is great at finding the offers and bargains. He also spotted some reduction in the meat aisle which we can adapt to fit our menu plan this week (yes, still sticking to it!!). Jamal always insists on packing the bags and carrying everything in doors for me. Its just great. I am thinking of renting him out.

Aside from big shopping I just made a vat of chilli and swept the hard floors. Today I need to finish the laundry and hopefully line dry it. Vacuum right through. Scrub up the kitchen and bathroom. Cut the grass and prune some of the wild growth in the garden. I also have a few plants to put in including some lavender from my other son. They were being thrown away at work so they are allowed to bring them home.

I took one of his plants down to my mum last night. We had a lovely evening sitting together and chatting. My mum was very pleased with herself that she found her cousins house for sale on the internet and showed me all the details. Bearing in my she was 80 when she got her laptop I am well impressed. She always enters her quiz answers online now instead of posting them. My dad does all his banking and investments online but using my hands. He reads the financial pages to decide what he wants to do and then on Saturday nights we make the moves, open the accounts or whatever. He didn't trust it to start with but he had to pay his bank £25 to move some money on time, a couple of weeks later I did the same form his online account for free and he was hooked.

My dad has an appointment this week to see the specialist about his problems with his knee & whether it must be replaced. He damaged it in a motorbike accident in 1949 and for 60 years it didn't bother him but for the last couple of years its very bad. he also had to have a check up on his bladder and prostate to make sure the cancer is under control. He had some quite major surgery for skin cancer on his face last year and the surgeon took a load of skin from his neck and sort of re-build half of his cheek. If you look at him now you wouldn't know it. Amazing work. My mum,. who is a tough little cookie generally, is not good this week either. I believe she has RSI from scrubbing the carpets by hand but I am sure she didn't tell the doctor she had been doing that. It is too sudden and too severe to be the arthritis that the doctors suggests. She is in huge amounts of pain whenever she moves it. It is best if in a sling but then that pulls on her neck. time seems to be to be very cruel sometimes but I know that really they are in pretty good shape for their ages. Thank goodnesss for the wonderful NHS. i cant imagine life without They swim every day and make an effort to get out and about each day to. They are always the oldest people on the plane when we go on holiday! Yesterday their neighbour had a bouncy castle in his garden for a kids party. Most old folks would be moaning about the noise but mine said how lovely it was to hear the kids enjoying themselves and how it was the best use that garden had been put to for years. Couldn't you just hug them???

I should maybe go get on with some of my outstanding taks instead of babbling on!

All out tonight

First time for a long time we are all out tonight. The kids have gone out together for the evening and for some reason that always makes me happy. Despite the 2.5 year age difference they like to go out together sometimes. I am going out with the folks from work and Fahed will go to his monthly poker night after work.

I am quite quite overwhelmed with love for my boys, on a regular basis. They are adorable, cute, caring, friendly, thoughtful. Incredibly, breath breathtakingly untidy. I just got home from as they were getting ready to leave to meet Ahdel's girlfriend before their evening out. The house looks like they had a rummage sale before leaving. In my defense I would just say that I always thought it was more important to teach them to be honest, kind and thoughtful but sometimes I do wish I had drummed tidy into them just a bit more. I strongly suspect it is too late now.

No worries, I don't mind drying myself in a flannel after my shower.

End of the month

Tomorrow is pay day. So today is summing up day.

I believe that having a strict(ish) budget has focused us to spend less. We were under spent on my personal spending budget despite buying a load of new, to me, clothes. Fahed spent all of his pocket money but bless him, he spent it on me. We were just under on fuel and about £20 over on food. We do have an expensive meal, steak and lots of it, for my birthday. My men are all carnivores, well and truly. I also bought snacky foods which I wouldn't normally buy for Jamal's hiking expeditions.

Today is also when i submit my gas and electricity readings. I checked the estimate and we are starting to turn it around, I can't be sure until the actual bill arrives but being more deliberate makes a difference. Maybe I can live with the Chinese laundry look in my conservatory after all.

I have bought myself this book on the advice (kind of) of Moyra. I have so much to do at work and at home, I really need some help. However I seem to be ablet o stick to the budget, to the energy cutting back and to the low level menu planning. She can be taught.

Drying laundry

So my decision to give up the tumble dryer, and reduce the electric bill, because it is officially summer and therefore dry enough to line dry. Well that worked well. It hasn't actually stopped raining since I made the decision. However I have stayed away from the dryer. I have a clothes airer in the conservatory which is fully stack, all of the short, tops and dresses are on coat hangers hanging from the curtain rail. The undies and socks are on my octopus multi hanging thing.

The place looks like an old laundry. My washer take about an hour to thoroughly wash a load of clothing. It then takes about three days to dry that some load. I am not going to use the tumble dryer if I can help it but this is trying my patience a bit. I suppose that we all knew that summer would be wet and windy after we have glorious days at 27 degrees

in April. Bloody English Weather indeed.

New style menu planning

Every now and then I give the whole menu planning thing a go. Lasts a couple of days and then we have a day of leftovers or everyone is out and about. or an 'on otast' day and it all falls to bits. We dont suffer because of my inability to decide until approximately dinner time what we are having for dinner. I de-frost some kind of protein and make it into a meal, usually by about 7pm. We don't get takeaway or eat gross frozen meals

, we just get our dinner a bit late if I forget to de-frost.

What about this. Flexi meal planner. I have a list of meals that everyone fancies. I have them in an order on my pad. I will make sure we have what is needed for each but i won't set a day. If there are lots of leftovers then we will have it over again. If no-one is about then we will have beans on toast. Theory is that this is structured enough to stop waste but simple and flexible enough for a numpty like me to manage it. Normally I forget all about meal planning once it has gone wrong once. We aren't proper wasteful, only the real disasters go in the bin, but we could do better I guess. Anyways I like to try new things so there we go.

Being frugal for what?

I am not materialistic. I really don't need a load of stuff. in fact I am happier with less so being frugal kind of suits me. Of course I am doing it for future security. I want to know that my family will always have a home and food to eat. Thats the real centre of the universe. But I have been thinking that we don't do enough compared with a few years ago. We used to go more to theme parks, weekends to Europe, comedy and music gigs. Now one or more of us is always working. We go on holiday together every summer, we are always together at Christmas and we make sure that we ar always together for birthdays, mothers and fathers day. In fact we are very often together but not together and doing something. I know there is more chance of plans coming to fruition than non plans coming to fruition. So:

Theme park - between end of summer annual leave and Christmas.
Music or comedy gig - between summer annual leave and Christmas.
Long weekend - maybe to Rhineland. Spring 2012.

Going forward:
One theme park a year.
At least one but hopefully two gigs or theatre.
Two cinema trips - the big family blockbusters like a new Indian Jones film.
One or two mini breaks. We always did this and we talk at family events about the stuff we did and fun we had.
At least two big family barbecues.
At least two big family meals.

I made a general decision to have more fun a while back but I wasn't specific enough and it didn't really happen. Lets just try a little bit harder.

Fathers Day

Apparently it is today. I was so sure it was next Sunday but I googled and I am wrong. I am glad the shops open on Sunday. We don't do big gifts in our family, my dad would tell me off if I spent too much, but I like to get something which he appreciates. Last year I bought him an Olive tree but mum seems to have adopted it instead. This years thoughts are in the chocolate/drink/DVD area.

After looking forward to going to the book shop yesterday it was a complete wash out. The sale must have already been on for several days and the leftovers were Mother Day cards and banners, poor quality Christmas decorations and books by unknown 'celebrities'. The shop was at an Outlet Village, a sort of fake village of shops set up to sell everything excess stock and unpopular times (judging by the tripe on sale). The whole place appeared to be shutting down, a ictim of shoppers losing interest in shopping for the sake of it, or maybe just moving to shopping online. Jamal did ferret about in a clothes shop long enough to find two expensive, or claiming to be expensive, pairs of jeans for ten pounds. Ahdel bought some hi-tops for £15 down from £45. I guess it was a success overall but very dreary and not pleasurable.

I spent an hour or so yesterday sorting out Fahed community college options for September. He always attended college a couple of times a week at least until he had his heart attack and now is realising it was good brain stimulation. He is planning to re-take his GCSE maths at Higher to get a higher grade as last time he took foundation. He is also taking an English class to prepare for GCSE English class next year. He is pretty smart and is fluent in three languages but has little academic skills, and is dyslexic which has good and bad points,but was sent out to work at age seven, so he really appreciates opportunities to learn now. All of these lessons are free. Sometimes we, or at least I, forget how amazing this country is. Oh, and plus we have the wonderful NHS. I didn't like having an increase in Natinoal Insurance this year as it wiped out my entire pay rise, which was still better than last year when my pension contribution increase wiped out £1200 a year of existing salary, but it is worth it really. It helps to take my mind off paying £1.39 a litre for petrol.

Today I am actually going shopping - voluntarily

Last Saturday Jamal & I popped into the discount book store 'The Works' to pick up a writing pad for me. I spotted a couple of books by authors he likes and treated him to a couple of books. The label price was £18.99, which is at the high end of normal for a hard back, but the sale price was around £1.99. We stocked up pretty well. At the till the assistant said we have some more books by the same author,if you are interested. Sure, why not. Lets get the shelves filled up for the whole year ahead. She couldn't find the books she thought she had seen but then remembered that she had been working at another branch. She told us where to go but also said to wait until today because there was a at least half price closing down sale. So when Jamal gets back from his friends house we are off to the book shop. We will stick to our budget. Then to the Asian supermarket to stock up on chillies, at about 1/8th the price of the local supermarkets, and some olives. I like to have a day out with my youngest son sometimes, he is very entertaining company.

I have woken up to the sun shining so hopefully I can get my laundry dry without bumping up my electric bill.

I have a few plants to go into pots today too. My eldest son works for a landscape gardening company and any plants that are a bit scraggy and not perfect get disposed of, but actually they are allowed to keep them. I have four lovely luscious, but i assume a bit weedy compared with their mates, specimens to improve my garden with today. Of course I like that they are free but best of all I like that he thought of his mum when he saw them going to waste. I am very mucky with my lovely boys.

So what shall we do this weekend?

Yes, its all about the de-cluttering, frugality and a bit of exercise thrown in.

Tomorrow I am going with disposal of junk relating to knocking down a wall in the kitchen. There are two huge baskets of electrical bits. Power cables, controllers scart cables. Neither have been opened in over twelve months so I am pretty sure that their contents must be more useful to others than to us.

It has rained all week and shows no signs of stopping. I have piles of washing but I really don't want to use the tumble dryer. Tomorrow I am going to start try to hang the washing on my old clothes horse and stand it out in the conservatory. I am trying to reduce the electricity bill as much as is reasonable without impacting too much on family life (i.e. TV isn't banned but we never leave it on unless we are watching it). Since Fahed fixed the washing machine and made it hot fill instead of cold fill, which coincidently made my clothes a lot cleaner on a far quicker pro gramme, the electricity bill has decreased but the gas has gone up. Doh!

My re-capture the fitness quest moved on a little this week. i walked into work one morning. I am only doing this when it is sunny because it takes nearly an hour and an hour in the rain will make me damp and grumpy all day. On Thursday I joined a Zoomba class. Quite fun in a completely knackering way and my first exercise class in over 20 years. I have worked out at the gym and various other things in between but this is the first actual class since the kids were born. I will do my best to keep going. If there is no rain tomorrow then I will walk to my parents house, around the same distance as my work. Next on the list I am thinking that swimming should be introduced into the equation. Check out Zumba if you haven't already.

Bad side effect from de-cluttering

I need a new word for de-cluttering. I like the paring down of all possessions but the actual phrase is starting to irritate me. I also uncovered an un-expected side effect. The more that goes, the more I notice we have way way too much stuff still here. I just cant wait for weekends to arrive to start on another area. I much prefer freecycle and charity shop contributions to other methods. Ebay stresses me out in case the items breaks on route or the buyer doesn't think it is what they were expecting. Throwing stuff away is sad and pointless and only suitable for actual junk. Freecycle is the best because someone actually wants my junk!!

My next side effect is more predictable. My inclination is to constantly clear out my mailboxes, get rid of unwanted files, prune my reader feeds, prune my favourites (and then find that I actually did need to know where to buy organic vanilla pods or whatever).

Seems like I had 50 (well 49) years of acquisition and now I have another 50, hopefully, of disposing of it all again. Still can;t face the attic but I will, eventually, I will.

I think it might have started to finally rub off on the kids. Jamal, easily the slobbiest of the two, tells me he is mucking his room out when he gets his last course work handed in at college. I have given up with his room but I think, and I might be wrong, that the inconvenience is actually starting to get to him. If that is true he is about 30 years ahead of me.

Finance lessons for young people

My son just started a new job around 6 weeks ago. He didn't use his bank account for 5 or 6 weeks so he didn't check the balance or look at his statements. Big mistake. He was overdrawn by £1.27. He incurred bank charges of fifty pounds. He didn't notice and incurred another £70. Ouch.

Today he said that he has learnt a lot from this. He will check his balance daily, he will always open his statements when they arrive. If he really does learn from this then it is actually £120 well spent. He added a couple more rules of his own. No credit card ever. No loans except for appreciating assets or higher education. If you cant afford then you can't have it.

I told him to add a couple of extras; pension planning and investments.

I am delighted with this result.

Eek 49

My birthday was Wednesday. 49. I can't even begin to imagine where all that time went. The kids are now 19 and 21. Actual grown ups. Fahed cooked our special birthday meal on Wednesday evening. My gifts were the kind of weird stuff you would expect me to receive.

A mini garden shed from Fahed. He bought it himself by squirreling away odds and ends of money so that I didn't see the joint account go down. He has also made me a jewelery box but it is quite ready yet, apparently because Jamal keeps thinking of new ideas and they change things.

Ahdel took us out for a reasonably priced meal for his & Bonnies present to me.

Jamal bought me a bottle of Gin & one of Tonic. That should last a good long time. My parents, who are definitely as odd as I am, bought me a set of four German limited addition wall plates, circa 1986, I would guess from the charity shop. Mt sister bought me a wall clock for the new house. It is pleasantly quirky. From everyone else I had cards and e-wishes. I love being spoilt. I am not mad about the getting older bit but as I don't feel any older then I guess it isn't so bad.

As well as managing to get a year older, doing all the usual stuff, three days of training and a day of interviews at work, I also worked,with Fahed, through the plan for Crete this year. We have 21 days out there but we have enough work planned to last us for about 6 months. We do what we can but we must also have some fun.

Plans for this week are:
More de-cluttering - pretty sure the foundations are sighing with relief as I empty the house. I sorted my desk out a few weeks back but since then I have raised me game. I sorted it again yesterday and now it is useful storage for the early Christmas shopping I did and the citizens of freecycle are richer.
Stick to the healthy eating - seeing the kilos decrease on the scales is a good incentive.
More exercise - walk to work once this week and try to do it is 50 minutes instead of 55. Go along to Zumba class on Thursday. I have been invited by co-workers.

49, not out.

I actually stuck to something!

This morning I walked to work. Took me 55 minutes. I aim to do this at least once a week. I need a new battery for my ipod and I took the top of my toe off on a wire lasso that was hidden in the grass, Yaowwwh.

The first 20 minutes is a country lane between fields. I pass a farm which I covet as a family home, room for all our bright ideas in their derelict out buildings. It is only 5 minutes from home but there is no vehicular access from here so I only pass it when I walk that way.

My mega de-cluttering is really going well. I have daily ads on freecycle. I cant believe that so far the house doesn't actually look even slightly emptier.

Tonight Fahed and I are digging out the planning books for this house and the Crete house. These books contain measurements, plans, guidance, contacts and instructions. They are the ultimate resource on our houses. Its time for an update.

fat update

I forgot to mention. I have now lost 25lb. Weight loss has slowed down but importantly for me, it is still happening.

My back is feeling the benefit of carrying less of me around. I am walking more but haven't started bike riding yet. I wanted to start dancing once a week and then the lessons got cancelled Grrr.

Minus De-cluttering

Well no quite but I did have to actually buy a few things this week which were not just food or petrol.

Yesterday we planned to mend a fence panel which has broken in the back garden, After taking it out and laying it down in the garden we found that it was far more broken than we thought. It was cheaper to replace than to fork out for wood to fix it. It does make the other panels look old but they are all in good condition so they will be staying for a few years yet.


Our local DIY shop have section where power tools which are no longer to be stocked, are reduced to a more affordable price. Fahed has been keeping an eye on a reciprocating saw which he wants for the old dead trees and roots around the Crete House. This week he decided they are not going to reduce it further and that he is going to miss his chance soon, so he caved in and bought it. Bless him, he bought it form his pocket money even though it is something the household needs and it is certainly cheaper than getting someone in to the work.

I bought a skirt, some jeans and a dress from eBay. Total spend £22 including postage. Twice in the last couple of weeks i have discovered little invisible holes in my clothes. near the seems. Not yet visible but also not very mend able, as the material is just giving up. So a few items are being replaced.

Budgets are still working

Petrol - monthly budget £250. Remaining £96 (one LPG file up for Fahed and one tank of petrol for me). We both have around about a 100 miles of fuel in the cars at the moment.

Shopping - monthly budget £400 . Remaining £141 plus freezer is full of meat. Veg, potatoes and bread required this week. This includes extra food for my sons 30km hike and indulgent steaks all around for my birthday this week.

My pocket money - Monthly budget £150 - remaining £109. I will save any which is left at the end of the month.

Fahed pocket money -Monthly budget £150 - remaining, no idea as i gave it to him in cash, however it cant be more than £50 after buying his saw from the cash.

I am happy with this. When we tried a complicated system, saving for car tax etc all separately but it really wasn't a success. This means we save everything except these expenses and our bills but car repairs etc come out of that pool.

This is the house that we will be renovating with what we manage to save.

365 less things-part 2

I didn't mention my desire to empty the house to anyone yesterday but I sorted few a few more bits and pieces, advertised a few things on freecycle. Then then magic began.

I checked a drawer in the bathroom and found an unused, indeed unopened, box containing an electric razor. I asked Fahed if it was his (as opposed to one of the kids, I mean, not meaning it belonged to a stranger). Answer:I think so. But I have never used it and doubt I ever will as I like a wet shave. Put it in the eBay basket'. What?? Nothing if his ever goes in the eBay box or anywhere else. Not ever. Later on he fitted a tap to the front of the house for car cleaning etc. As he was putting his tools back he noticed a new letterbox which he bought as the flap was broken on the old one. He drilled the slot out more and fitted it. And then through the old one out. Not kept it 'just in case'.Today I came home from work and found a pair of ancient Birkenstocks in the bin. I think this could snow ball.

I am fairly understanding about his stuff. When he was a kid he literally had nothing. Not a single toy, not even a bike. He went out to work in a factory as a kid. I understand why he is like he is but it is good to know that he is now finally starting to relax.

I am going to work on some small areas, like drawers, and encourage him to join in. I really think there is more to this than just tidying up. Wish me luck!

365 less things

Just reading this post and seeing how Cindy has emptied her house over the last 12 months. Interestingly she has got a taste for it and is carrying on for another 6 months.

I can do this! Surely I can. I have the clutter and I have the desire for an emptier house. I hope that blogging about it will give me the enthusiasm to maintain the effort. I aim to update my blog every Sunday with a list of whatever has gone.

This week

Surround sound dvd system
DVD recorder
Sky box
Massive foot stool
Small rug
6 articles of clothing
2 dead plants

I am aiming for 10 things per week at first but i might go for more if that is very attainable. Things that I like/want/find useful/find beautiful can stay for ever or at least until they break and can't be fixed.

Maybe I can even start to ebay again. It is shear sloth that stops me.

I will start with my corner of the shed and my study. I don't feel as though I can start on every one elses stuff with a clear conscience until i have done my own. My drawer of beautifuk handbags is calling to me.