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Sorry, I didn't come back before Christmas as I was flat out on work deadlines up to the last minute and then cooking for two days. I finally feel a bit more human today so came back to blog. 

 I gave in on the whole journal planner thing...I'm sure you knew I would...and put it on my Christmas list 😀 (somehow, the Daily Stoic Journal also slipped onto my list. I've been eyeing it up for a while). I've been sat here working on the annual forecast part of it, deciding how I want this year to pan out, what I want to focus on and want I want to spend less time focusing on. Things have gone off track for me a bit over the last six months, and I'm not making decisions based on things that are important to me. 

I like the layout of each page because it is based on the Eisenhower decision matrix that I have used and I know works for me. There are weekly, monthly, six-monthly and yearly reviews of the most important self, relationship, passion and work goals.

 The Daily Stoic Journal is a bit different. I've wanted to learn about Stoicism for a while but it is difficult to get a good idea of something this complex by just reading a big book. When it comes to learning, I favour learning-by-doing. 


Stoicism was practised by the ancient Greeks and Romans (Marcus Aurelius was the most famous Roman practising its tenets) and developed a philosophy of personal ethics based on using self-control and fortitude as a means of overcoming destructive emotions. This journal is a learning tool, looking at a Stoic idea every week and encouraging self-reflection each day using guided questions. 


I thought it sounded an interesting way to keep those things that are most important in life top of mind, and help me become a bit more centred and grounded. Stress has really been getting to me lately and I need to take a step back and consider whether some things are worth the aggravation. 

 There's an interesting article about the benefits of Stoicism here.

 So, with less than three hours to go before midnight, it's almost time to out the old and welcome the new. 

 Happy New Year!
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For years I always thought the 12 days of Christmas started on 21st December and ended on 1st January. It seemed quite a natural time period for it to happen, 20/21st being the Solstice and the official start of Winter and 31st/1st January being the end of the year and the start of the new. 

 Then as I grew up I realised that it was the Pagan 12 days of Christmas, and the Christian version started on 25th December (Christ's birth) and ends January 5th (Epiphany; when the three kings/wise men visited Jesus with gifts). 

 Somewhere along the way I decided I like the idea of both and so my period of reflection and plans for the future start on 21st and go right through January 5th.

 Today I kicked off proceedings by unexpectedly waking up at 4:30am, wide awake for no particular reason but knowing I was not going to be able to sleep again. I didn't purposefully do it to see the dawn but maybe it was in the back of my mind. To be honest I've been very busy at work and stressed about it, so this isn't the first morning I've woken horribly early and got up, but this is the first one where I've got up and not started work. I just sat downstairs at the dinner table with a few cups of tea, reflecting on my job, health, inner and outer life, spirituality and purpose. I then I watched the dawn come up through the mist and rain.

“Our environment, the world in which we live and work, is a mirror of our attitudes and expectations.” — Earl Nightingale

 I think this year is going to be a very different one for me because my attitude and expectations are changing by the week. 
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So, a big thing is happening in January. Huge. We're going on holiday. Yes, I know. Doesn't sound big really does it? But for us a holiday is always a big thing as it has happened so rarely and this one is huge. Australia. Yep, we're going to Australia in January for three weeks! For the most part we'll be staying in Cairns as we both want to do a lot of adventure stuff and then we have a few days with a friend in Melbourne.

We very rarely take holidays so for this to come about, and so quickly in the last month, is nothing short of a miracle. A few things came together all in one go and we made the decision to throw caution to the wind and go for it.

1. We've thought about visiting Australia for years but there's always been something stopping us. Normally Martin's work. His last office refused all leave for longer than two weeks and anything longer than a week had to be granted special permission by a not-so-nice office manager, who rarely, if ever granted it. We'd given up the idea years ago but never thought to ask after he moved to this new office. The idea came up again, he checked and the new office said "no problem, enjoy yourself". Woohoo!

2. MIL will be 85 next Spring and is relatively healthy, but she will not fly anywhere and cannot sit in a car for longer than a couple of hours. When she starts to decline, decent holidays may not be able to happen for a long time if she needs nursing care.

3. My BIL has temporarily moved to the area, so he can keep an eye on MIL if we go away. She doesn't need a lot of looking after but doesn't like to be left alone at night so BIL can stay and make sure she is ok. The cats won't take to catteries for the first time at the advanced age of 14 so this means they can stay in the house. Come next March BIL may be moving elsewhere and it gets that much harder to achieve a holiday at all.

4. Brexit has had an odd effect on me lately. It occurred to me that if Brexit prompts a recession then my instinct to batten down the hatches may mean we will end up not taking a holiday for a few years to ensure we achieve our retirement goals instead. Therefore ideally we need to do this sooner rather than later.

5. Affording it. We achieved our savings goal for the year, made the last payment into the accounts for 2018 on 1st December ( I make sure we pay ourselves first every month and make do on the rest). Our saving account is healthy and can stand the expense.

However,  all my intentions to pay for it flew out of the window when it actually came to getting the money out of the savings account. I cannot bring myself to see that wad of cash disappear yet. I've scoured the market for a credit card that offered 0% interest for 18 months and put the cost of the holiday onto there for now.



Until the moment when I had to pay for it, I had been delighted to have the money saved and made all preparations to transfer it across, but I suddenly turned into Fraser from Dad's Army in The Miser's Hoard (s9 ep4), where he counts out his gold sovereigns and rubs his hands. I just couldn't do it. I'd rather spread the cost interest-free than see a large chunk of cash disappear in one go. It hurts less!

I'm not sure whether that is a good instinct or a bad one. I suppose it would be a bad one if I was incurring interest payments but no interest for 18 months just seems like a bit of a gift really so we can keep that liquid cash for emergencies and pay off the holiday in regular chunks.

So, I'm finding it a bit difficult to concentrate on Christmas at the moment. I want it to be over so I can go on holiday!

Photo Credits: Reef, Fraser
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If you've commented on my blog recently and haven't had a response I'm not ignoring you. It appears that blogger has decided my replies are not blog worthy and hasn't bothered to publish them. I only realised this morning that my responses over the last month have not been published and have disappeared from my account entirely. I shall go back and redo them all.
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So, work is nuts and I've been scarce around here. This time of year my firm does 25-30% of its business so that works out at about three times my usual workload. And I can guarantee one thing that will simultaneously happen at this time of year; I will go mad for planners and organisational journals. Because everything is happening in a whirlwind and I'm lurching madly from one crisis to the next my brain convinces me that if I had some hideously complex life planner it wouldn't happen.

Every year like clockwork I end up buying a journal or diary that I abandon mid-march, pick up again in July, lose track off in August and then November it starts again.

I have tried so many different ways of organising myself and none of them have worked well.

I've done an A4 diary with a day to a page with time slots. Not a chance. Tried it in A5 size. Another nope. Normal diary with a day to a page and no times, both A4 and A5. Nope. Sometimes filled it in, sometimes not. Tried a small pocket diary. Never kept it in my pocket or bag, and kept putting it down. So small I couldn't find it if I put it down because I move a tsunami of stuff around the house every day.

I've done David Allen's Getting Things Done, which involves always getting everything out of your head, onto paper and filed appropriately. I fell at the first hurdle. I couldn't get everything out of my head. I think I have an abnormal amount of thoughts, ideas, imaginings. As fast as I was getting them out they were going in/popping up. Losing battle.

I didn't get on with bullet journals - mainly because I didn't realise they are actually a hobby not a work tool. It took me a ridiculous length of time to put together the structure of it. I want a planner to already have all that stuff. I also couldn't get along with the wasabi tape and sticker business. I haven't got time to colour.

I've had a daily greatness journal, and while that has been the most successful to date I still only kept that up for 90 days because I had been putting off getting started with the smallholding stuff when I got here and that got me going. But the second 90 days? Nope, never happened. I actually found the questions a bit monotonous and I rarely, if ever, went back in the evening to reflect on my day. The only saving grace with that one is that as there are no dates, the next time I want to do a 90 day challenge I can pick it up and fill up the next quarter.

Gratitude journal? Ok when you're in a good mood, disastrous when you're in a bad mood. Once that bile is down on paper there's no going back. My hormone hate can be directed against even sunshine at the wrong time of the month :)

On a week-to-week basis I'm more of a do-er, not a planner. I don't have time really to sit and plan my day, week, month. I get up in the morning and just get on. In my mind I have periods of time when I know I must work and not do anything else, where I want to read and not do anything else, and the rest of the time I fit in what needs to be done. I look around and think "sink needs a clean" "there's a load of washing to be done" "what's the next thing in the inbox" and I just do it.

I have a list on my phone of things to buy and or do in town and I keep a relatively good appointments calendar on there too. I have a work notebook to keep track of work stuff and a personal journal where I focus on my emotional intelligence, self-esteem and mental health. I have a third book where I track my personal development through the films and plays I see, books I read, and programmes I listen to. That last one started because I sometimes beat myself up for not reading/watching enough good stuff so it was quite a surprise when I started writing it down and realised I did.

So, why this post?

Because, of course, I have been suckered in by the promise of another planner. I'm not going to say which one because I don't want to provide free advertising. I don't think I need it, I don't think it will add anything to my already over-pressurised life, but my goodness do I want it. I just can't shake the feeling that I haven't yet found the right planner, THE planner that will somehow be so absorbing and engaging that I will keep using it. And that THIS one could be it!

Then Martin said the fatal "do you want it for Christmas?" and that's where I am tonight.

Struggling over the decision on whether to have another life planner. Hmmm....

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Well, another thought experiment has landed courtesy of Saving Ninja. 

 What would you do if you knew with absolute certainty that you would die in exactly 10 years time. It doesn’t matter how you know this or what you will die of; in 3652 days you will drop dead.

Hmmm...what I would immediately do is eerily similar to what I would do if I won £1 million. 

I would tell no-one...husband...hotel...scream…swear to secrecy…

Why the secrecy? I've no problem with Dh's feelings and opinions, but other people's? No. I don't want to know. Once people find out I have a terminal illness, from then on every comment or opinion on my life choices would be couched in terms of the illness, and they will be mostly negative. I would get 'The Look', the 'Poor You' pitying look that I absolutely despise. And of course there are those who could only focus on the terrible impact my news has on them. I have one of 'those' people in the family. You know the ones I mean, I'm sure. 

So, what I would do would depend on whether I was dropping dead at a specific hour in 10 years or winding down in health until incapacitated and dribbling.

Dropping dead at a specific hour
Really, 10 years to live is too long to contemplate stopping work. I would carry on working for five years to secure DH's financial future, but I would change the destination from where I would do this. I would persuade my DH with everything I could muster to live abroad in the sun with me. I only need a laptop to work and I only pop into work once a month now, which is doable. I'm sure DH could pick up some work to bring in a few pounds here and there. There is a great deal of difference doing an eight hour day in, say, Spain than doing the same hours in England. I would invite BIL to come and live in the house for a low rent to look after MIL and keep an eye on the place. He’s currently renting and would probably appreciate the security.

In five years, I would look at cutting down work to 2-3 days per week. Still saving though.

With two-years to go I would give up work completely and go travelling on the savings with DH.

Before the appointed hour, we would return to the UK so I can drop dead here and be cremated. We already have life insurance policies so that would pay off the house, leaving DH with various pensions and the cars as assets after I die.

Health winding down

Ditto for the first five years except I would make sure that I would live in the most advantageous climate for the management of my health problem. After five years I would look at either cutting down to part-time or give it up completely to do some travelling for a year or two. When it was obvious it was becoming too difficult to manage any more, I would then be presented with the most appalling decision.

I want to toddle off to Dignitas in Switzerland to ensure a painless death. I do not want to die in this country as the welfare services for the chronically ill and/or incapacitated are not good. We have the Liverpool Care Pathway, which is inhumane and nothing more than legalised torture. We treat animals better than we treat the terminally ill. We’re not terribly logical or civilised in this country.

However, if I take my own life our insurance policies would, unfortunately, be null and void. There is no payout for suicide. DH would be left with a mortgage.

So if I want DH to have a secure financial future, I have to endure a horrendous long and drawn out painful death unless I can figure out a way to discreetly top myself. Difficult to be discreet about these things if you are incapacitated and need care. And what if they mistakenly think DH has done me in? It doesn’t bear thinking about. 

 This has been an interesting exercise for me so thank you to Saving Ninja for that. As much as I think I am in control, life has a habit of showing me I'm not. I had never considered what would happen if I had a long drawn-out illness. In my mind, I have always just died suddenly and so my preparations have been based on that. 

 I guess I have some more planning to do. 
Here are a few other bloggers' views on this thought experiment:

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As a bit of a treat, Martin and I went on Saturday morning to a nearby local town and had a good snuffle through the charity shops. We do this every now and then. It's a nice morning out, gives us a bit of exercise and we mooch around somewhere we haven't been before.

I'd sorted out some clothes to donate - there was a titanic amount of jumpers in the cupboard that were too warm to wear anywhere but an Antarctic expedition plus a few smart office blouses and shirts made redundant after my firm brought in a casual dress code.

The first stop was Oxfam, which runs a scheme offering a £5 off M&S voucher in exchange for donated clothes as long as at least one item is M&S (I had three). You have to spend £35 on clothes, beauty or homewares in M&S to get the money off, but Christmas guarantees at least one relative will want something from there and we still frequent M&S for our smalls so the voucher will get used.

Because it was a wealthy market town, the quality of the goods in the shops was high and I managed to find some bargains:

1) a pair of new suede Hush Puppies £15.99 (see photo above) Instant love for me, and they are super comfortable. These retail between £40-£65 so this is a snip for a good pair of shoes.

You can tell from the sole they are unworn.


A new Country Rose (EWM) waterfall cardigan £8.99. Original price tag £28.



Martin removed these from my grasp to wrap up for Christmas so I have to wait for a while longer to get my hands on them! We often do this just to help keep the cost of Christmas down. Also, it feels wrong to buy something pristine new when there are excellent versions available for a fraction of the price secondhand. I'm pretty militant about books in this respect. No excuse new chopping down trees.

I also found this top from Apricot for £4, which I loved and was in exceptional condition.



Finally two films (£1.00 each) and a book (£1.50)


It wasn't all just me though.

Martin bought a 8 or 9 £1 horror DVDs so I shall be having those inflicted upon me this week in honour of Halloween.

I'll be a nervous wreck come the weekend.
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As the light has faded and the temperature dipped over the last couple of weeks, I've found myself preparing to nest. Autumn is always a complex time for me, as I get Seasonal Affective Disorder and it starts to kick in around the clocks changing.

 I've found myself yawning and craving naps during the day, dragging myself to bed earlier, and sleeping much later in the mornings. I've been craving caffeine and sugar (and unfortunately indulging in it too) which in turn has been giving me stonking blood sugar highs and lows and exacerbated the napping issue. My energy levels have plummeted. 

 Over the years I've tried different things to fight off the winter but have come to accept it as a necessary time to rest and recharge. Don't get me wrong, I don't slump for months into a chocolate-fuelled fug of despair. Rather,  I decided to improve what I can within limits and accept what I can't. 

 1) I've cut right back on the caffeine, from around 7-10 cups of tea with milk and two sugars, to two small cups of black coffee with no sugar, one early morning and one late afternoon. Monday and Tuesday I had shocking withdrawal symptoms, including migraines and nausea. I'm over the worst of it now but am very shocked at how bad I felt, so much so it is enough that I don't really want to drink tea anymore! Nothing like negative conditioning to put you off something.

 2) Talking of negative conditioning, I've cut out the majority of sugar from my diet to try and prevent the highs and lows, and I did it with the help of an Allen Carr book called Good Sugar, Bad Sugar. Allen Carr is the guy that wrote THE book on giving up smoking easily and I hoped this book would be just as good. While I can't agree with some of his science, it has had the extraordinary effect of crushing my white sugar craving. I simply don't want it any more. I think the book uses Neuro-Linguistic Programming to reset your thinking. I'm pleased with how that has worked. 

 3) I've upped my level of B and D vitamins, opting to use a mouth spray rather pills, and opened the bedroom curtains at night to let more light in the next morning. I'm aiming to walk 40-45 minutes three times a week, and when I feel fit enough perhaps go back to jogging. I've also ordered some daylight bulbs for my hobby room lights, as I work in there during the day. What I've decided not to do is get a light box. While that would no doubt help, I don't want to force my body to believe it is still summer. Winter is a natural time of rest and I want to embrace that, but I just don't want my body to slow to an agonising crawl. 

 4) I have scheduled a few interesting things to see at the cinema. As we're saving for a break away together in January, going out to see plays and shows is a little beyond our budget, especially the ones in London, however, some big productions of the National Theatre are often broadcast through live satellite links to some cinema chains. 

 After a good trawl through the listings, we've settled on seeing these between now and the New Year:

 Allelujah!(National Theatre Live play)
A Christmas Carol (Simon Callow) 
Flashback: Die Hard, 30th Anniversary
Madness of King George (National Theatre Live play)

These next ones are my treats only for me, as they are 3.5 hours of Shakespeare each and Martin doesn't do Ye Olde English. 

Antony and Cleopatra, (National Theatre Live play)
King Lear (National Theatre Live play)

I wanted to see Ian McKellen as King Lear in London but at £250 a ticket it was out of the question. This ticket is a more affordable £19.60 and paid for courtesy of my next Ziffit order!

By the way, these are all on at a local Showcase cinema, of which Martin and I are loyalty card holders, so we can get a 10% discount. 


5) Learn something new. Rather than just vegetating in front of the fire surfing the net, I have decided to find some online courses to do. If you've never come across them before, many universities and colleges offer free courses in all manner of subjects. They are called MOOCs - Massive Online Open Courses - and the following are a list of providers that bring together a vast number of both professional and personal interest courses. 

Futurelearn
OpenLearn
Coursera
edX
Khan Academy

Some courses are available to access at any time, some are only available on certain dates. So far, I've found the following that appeal to me, although I don't really want to do too many at once. I've signed up for the first one

 Literature of the English Country House
England in the Time of Richard III
Jane Austen: Myth, Reality and Global Celebrity
Hadrian's Wall: Life on the Roman Frontier
Introduction to Philosophy
Know thyself: the value and limits of self-knowledge

 It is truly staggering how many free courses are out there. If you've never done one before, go and have a look at what is available.  

I think this is the first time I've ever put together a plan to keep active in mind, body and spirit during the autumn and winter, and I'm more than a little bit excited about it!
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I haven't done a post about snuffles lately, but over the last 2-3 months I've found some lovely bargains.  I check out the charity shops in my local town (approximately 10) every 1-2 weeks. Once a week I also work from a hotel in a market town about 30 minutes away. It only has two charity shops but the quality of goods in one of them is excellent. They often are in wealthy rural market towns.

Anyway, I thought I'd show you some of the clothes I've found.

A new Morrison's dressing gown £4. My old black dressing gown was on its last legs and I had asked my mother for new one for either Christmas or my birthday, but black ones are not that easy to find. I wear black because Martin often talks about the dirty tea-stained dressing gowns he sees on his delivery when he knocks on doors with mail, so this way he can't see anything on me! It's very thick and warm. Super chuffed.

A bangle bracelet. This was a lovely addition to the summer wardrobe - for 50p.


A new Nine West Handbag £4.50. I know how much these cost so was gobsmacked to see this for such a low price.



A new Per Una Denim skirt £3. This replaces another denim skirt I had which has just given up on me. I will relegate the old one to the garden when I've patched the hole up.



A new Per Una skirt £3. Was delighted to come across this one. I had this skirt and wore it to pieces so I outed it a year ago. Yay, I have one of my favourite skirts back!



New Next kitten heels £3. I've been searching for a pair of low heels for a few months, as my others are high heels and not always suitable.


Clarks ankle boots £5. Not new but hardly worn judging from the soles


New John Partridge 80/20 Lambswool sweater £7.99 - for Martin.


Two scarves £2 the pair. Love the one with storks on!


There's been other things too but I forgot to photograph them before using them.

A new pair of Sainsbury's deck shoes £3
A new pair of Cotton Trader wedge mules £6.99
A new pair of Lee Cooper jeans £1- stunning find.
An immaculate black padded riding jacket £10
A Per Una rain jacket £6

I never cease to be surprised by the things people buy and never use.

But if it wasn't for people who unconsciously consume, where would us frugal types get our stuff? How would charities derive an important source of donations through selling used goods and services?


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That's the thought question posed by SavingNinja in the first of a series of Thought Experiments. 

 A few other bloggers have taken part so far, including:


"What would you do if right at this very instant you got given 1 million great British pounds? This could be from a lottery win, an IPO, a scratch card, you name it. No tax needs to be paid, it’s just been plopped directly into your run of the mill bank account."

 I can't resist a bit of impromptu scenario modelling so I went to fire up the spreadsheets. Then I saw this!

 "No pre-planning or major editing allowed and blabbering is definitely encouraged! It should read like an internal monologue."
Oh no. Fresh off the brain and onto the page. I need my spreadsheets. 

Hell's bells. 

[unclenches] Ok, here goes. 

What would I do with 1 million?

Keep quiet. Like deathly quiet. I've heard about so many people losing friends and family, being inundated by begging requests, and arousing such anger and jealousy that they've been forced out of their homes. 

 I’d never admit to anything. As soon as I found out, I would suggest to DH an impromptu overnight stay somewhere so I could tell him in the hotel room and no-one would hear his screams. Then he would hopefully have calmed down by the following day to have a reasonable conversation about keeping schtum on pain of death for, say, the rest of his life.

Then in the first year: 
  • Keep back a float of £100k in readily available cash 
  • Stick £900k straight into a global fund for six months or so until I have a workable plan
  • Martin can give his one week's notice and retire straight away to work on rebuilding our collection of barn-find classic cars
  • I would carry on working for the first year at least, although would drop to part-time
  • Not pay off the mortgage but overpay the maximum


Years 2-5

  • I give up employed work and seek some interesting charity/volunteer ops around smallholding/gardens/horticulture. ("I would tell people I've changed jobs to something more fulfilling. DH retiring early? Not such a push for people to believe. Me retiring early? Pull the other one. Where has the money come from???") 
  • Do an upholstery and restoration course and refurbish antiques
  • Read for hours every day
  • Continue overpaying the maximum amount on the mortgage
  • Put up solar panels and buy an electric car
  • Complete some jobs in the house: new master bedroom en-suite, new main bathroom, new flooring in kitchen and lobby, new kitchen.
  • Might look at giving a lump sum to nieces and nephew to help them get on the housing ladder/pay down some mortgage.
That's it. That's all my brain could come up with. 

We wouldn't sell the house because we love it here. 

We wouldn't spend a lot of time travelling as DH wants to do the cars and I want to keep animals. Also we don't want to put our cats into catteries or leave them for weeks at a time in the house being fed by visitors twice a day.

In fact, it is close to our list of what we want to do anyway, just compressed into a much shorter time-frame.

Interesting. I win £1 million and do the same things I was going to do anyway.

I suddenly feel very boring. 

😆

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There’s been a lot of kerfuffle in the press lately about FIRE (Financial Independence and Retire Early). It seems that some FIRE advocates have either been writing about or been sourced for comment about it and it's caused a big fuss. The newspapers, typically, have published articles based on the far extreme of FIRE and suggested that it is possible for us all to retire at 30/40 financially independent and never need money again if only we practice extreme frugality (or something like that). This is just click-bait ruse and to generate comments that keep the newspaper at the top of Google. The comments are as expected, depending on which newspaper you read, from the polite scepticism of Telegraph readers to the no-holds barred outrage and insults from Daily Mail readers.

The trouble is, the newspapers do no-one any favours but themselves by reporting in this way (perhaps reporting is too strong a word, story-telling may be more apt).

The consensus is the average Joe couldn’t possibly do this so why bother trying? To be honest, they’ve probably got the first bit right to a certain extent but it annoys me that it is seen as a binary choice. Either Financial Independence or bust! Suppose some of those people had a go, and the most they managed to accomplish was paying down all their debt and building up some savings so they feel more secure. Surely that’s better than throwing their hands up and not bothering?

A lot of the comments on the Daily Mail site were very telling. One man commented that “I might as well enjoy it as I could be dead tomorrow” because he earned £17,000 a year, his rent for a one-bed house cost him 40% of his salary so financial independence for someone in his position was ridiculous to aim for. No-one has said to him that if you earn £17,000 a year and spend 40% of your take home pay on your housing you should not be renting a one-bed house. This guy is renting so he has flexibility that homeowners don't have. Rent/mortgage should not be more than 30% of a take home salary. That’s what the banks work to when assessing mortgage affordability and it’s a good starting point for personal finances. If rental on a one-bedroom property is crucifying you, either downsize to a studio flat and save the difference or go up to a two-bed and share with a friend. Either way, the percentage of your take-home pay spent on housing comes down and you can breathe…and save.

I speak from experience. Years ago, before I met DH, I rented a two bedroom house on my own and my housing costs were 43% of my salary. Ouch! If this guy got his housing costs to 30% of his take home he could save 10%.

The attitude that “might as well enjoy the money, you could be dead tomorrow” is short-sighted and defeatist. Statistically you are NOT going to die tomorrow. I think averaged out across the entire population (taking into account age and health) it is something like 0.002% or 1 in 50,000 chance of dying tomorrow. If you spend everything you earn on consumer goods and services you will get to retirement age and have nothing but a state pension and a poorly performing private pension (if you didn’t opt out). If you’ve bought a house you might have that to fall back on and/or if you are very lucky you might have an inheritance from relatives. If you have neither and you opted out of a personal pension you’re going to endure a lot of financial pain at an age where it’s hard to ride that out. 

Anyway, it's no secret that DH and I want to retire early. I’ve explained my reasons why here.  I have a few FIRE advocates in my blogroll that I keep up with, HOWEVER, that does not mean I am going for Financial Independence. I realised some time ago that Financial Independence is not possible for us.

Financial Independence is defined as the point where the ‘income’ from savings and investments pay your monthly outgoings. You are considered to have reached Financial Independence when you have accumulated 30 x your annual expenses, which you can then take 4-6% a year of as your income. DH and I will not accumulate enough money to achieve those kind of numbers, which for us is around £600,000 without mortgage payments. Why?

  • We started late – I didn’t even think about retiring early until about 2009 at 36. 
  • We earn the UK average salary for a two-person household. We’re unlikely to ever earn megabucks because we’re not keen on the idea of the stress and responsibility that goes with it. We generate money on the side here and there when opportunities arise but generally we do not have the drive or energy to chase larger sums of money or climb ladders. That’s a conscious choice on our part.
  • We like the occasional meal out and want to have some interesting holidays over the next few years. I consciously cut some things to the bone to enjoy others.
  • We made the decision to take on another mortgage two years ago.  If we had stayed at the last place we would have been mortgage free in 2021. And miserable. I hated that house at the end. We moved to achieve a dream, albeit an expensive one.
  • We’ve benefited from rising property and financial markets over the last 10 years, which won’t last and we may be in for a bumpy ride during the next 10 years.
  • I only started a proper pension in 2010 and, due to probationary periods and redundancy, only have about 6-7 years contributions.


Taking into account all of that, what we can do is achieve financial comfort (and a nice chunk of FU money) earlier than 65, so that is our aim. We’re going to use whatever tips and tricks we can glean from every possible source, and combine that with solid budgeting, saving, tax and investing principles to secure a better financial future for ourselves. That better future is DH retiring at 62 and me at 55 and then carefully running down our money (we may work after this but the crucial point is it will be because we want to, not need to). 

This is different to true Financial Independence, in that we are not living off 4-6% of the total retirement pot every year. We’re living off a lot more than that every year so it will deplete over time. At some point we may have to do an equity release or downsize – we’re not living in penury when we own a house outright. We’ll use it if we have to and enjoy a comfortable retirement. 

I don’t believe the average Joe can achieve Financial Independence, but I do believe they can achieve financial comfort with no debt and a nest egg of FU money. That’s got to be worth going for.


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With so many things we want to do over the next four months I've realised I really have to knuckle down and focus on raising extra funds. Even though we have savings, I hate dipping into them. They're our security.

 I've been doing some thinking lately. There's a lot of stuff I'm hanging on to hoping to one day have the time to do something with them. The sad reality is that even if I did have the time my life has moved on and I no longer have the same tastes or desires that I once had. I've been buying things from car boot sales and charity shops for years, storing them away thinking "one day I'll get them out and do something with them" but nothing happens.

 Well, that day has now come, in a manner of speaking. I'm going to sell off the things I no longer have a strong affinity for, clear some space and raise some money at the same time. I need to separate what is important to me from the unrealistic little hoarder in me that wants to collect, and collect, and collect! My aim is raise £1000 selling off all of this stuff by the first week of January. That way I'll have the money to pay for the fleece to be processed into wool and put the rest towards spending money for a holiday in January.

 I didn't realise until earlier this evening that this stuff is really distracting as well. I feel unfocused, torn in separate directions by it all. It actually makes me feel guilty and negative, which I can well do without.

 For example, my knitting machine. I realised last week that knitting machines take a lot of sustained time to learn how to use. All I'm doing is sitting down every few months for a day or two, spending half the time trying to remember how to use it and then getting started on something and stopping part way because life or work takes off. A few months later I'll come back to it, feel guilty, unravel what I was working on and the negative cycle then repeats itself. I know I'm not going to be free to spend that sort of time in the future, and if I do have a sustained period of free time I'm slightly ashamed to admit using the machine is not something I will rush to do. I have too many other things I want to do.

 So tonight I pulled out my knitting machine and all of its accessories, cleaned it up, photographed it, wrote an ad and listed it. Hopefully, someone else out there will get a great deal on it and I'll be happy that it is going to a good home, not to mention dumping the guilt and getting my hobby room table back.
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I got a slightly anguished text from DH earlier:

"Nuts! It's wet out here!"

It has been howling a gale today but, as ever, the mail must be delivered and DH delivers it come rain or shine. My offer of setting up a 'soup station' upon his return was met by an enthusiastic reply:

"SOUP! SOUP! SOUP!"

Two hours later a very wet and bedraggled DH shuffled into the kitchen just as I put the finishing touches to a big pot of leek and potato soup. It's his favourite and luckily easy to make, but it wouldn't be as good without a decent base of stock. Soup is the main reason I always boil down meat bones to extract all of the goodness - gelatin, amino acids and minerals.

Stocks are surprisingly comforting when you are ill as well. When I first started trying to work out what foods I was intolerant to, mugs of stock and broth were my breakfast for quite a while. Basic broth was recommended as one of the few foods that people don't react to and would help the gut healing process. I would buy a bag of beef bones from the the butchers, which were the most enormous things you've ever seen in your life. Until I got close up to a beef rib bone I didn't really appreciate the actual size of a grown cow.


There's only one problem with the stuff: it stinks while it's cooking. I cook my bones down for 24-48 hours in the slow cooker and the stench when I wake up in the morning is almost nauseating. The pig trotter ones above have proved particularly pungent. At some point I want to have a spot in the barns to make stock that's protected from the mice but for now the kitchen with the door closed has to do.

My stock is usually based on onions, bay leaves or rosemary twigs, peppercorns, sometimes carrots or broccoli stalks (although lately I've been saving these for the soup itself) and a couple of large splashes of vinegar to encourage the minerals to leach out of the bones. I then add a couple of kettle-fulls of boiling water and put the slow cooker on low, usually 24 hours for small bones like chicken and 48 hours for big ones like beef rib bones.

The result is often thick and gelatinous which, when strained, decanted and cooled, is solid with a layer of fat on the top. I leave the fat to act as a kind of barrier to the air in the same way you top jam with paraffin.


I make at least one stock a week, which is usually enough for one huge pot of soup that does the three of us for lunch for a couple of days. Not always leek and potato, I like to skulk around the reduced veg section for interesting yellow sticker bargains. Last week it was two packs of whole chestnut mushrooms (for a whole 25p each!) that I added garlic and thyme to, before that three packs of prepared butternut squash for 20p each, which I roasted and cooked down with chilli.

Absolutely lush!

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Well, if I thought the previous week was busy I was in for a shock last week. I edited the same amount of reports in five days as I did in the previous three weeks collectively. I limped over the finish line last Friday evening, absolutely shattered. Holidays are over, kids are back at school and those lazy hazy days of summer are over. Everyone who had end of month targets woke up last week and realised they were not going to achieve them. Cue mass panic and last minute submissions, of which I was positioned downwind of and had to deal with. 

 Anyway, it's done now. Month over. Breathe.

 Despite being knackered and wanting to crawl back under the duvet, I presented at the gates of East of England Showground at 9am on Saturday morning for the second Festival of Antiques of the year. Martin and I have been looking forward to this since our first visit back in March. It's a massive antiques fair, the biggest in Europe, and heaving with every kind of vintage item in every genre. For a £5 entrance fee on Saturday it's a bargain day out, especially if you take your own food. 

 So, what did we find? I think I was very restrained. Two vintage stone 'tonic' pots, a leather cuff box (to add to the two collar boxes I have) and the butler tray in the first picture. 


I do like a good food or health-related jar and, in this case, the Virol bone marrow and Numol body builder jars. Originally made by The Bovril Company in the early 1900s, Virol contained bone marrow, whole eggs with the shells, malt extract and lemon syrup, and was recommended for children and invalids. Numol contained lecithin, malted carbohydrates, proteins and phosphites, even more powerful than cod liver oil according to this old ad in the BMJ!

 Anyway, we crawled back out of the gates at 4pm after covering everything inside and out but the main arena, which is full of the super expensive antiques anyway and we don't tend to bother looking at. Although it went on until 5pm we couldn't have carried on any longer, we were punch drunk, and only just narrowly avoided tripping over the red Bargain Hunt team and Eric Knowles doing a feature on Toby jugs on our way out. They'd positioned him on a picnic bench in front of the marquee tents - in the full blazing sun. Poor Mr Knowles looked quite sunburnt. I've told my parents to keep an eye out for the Bargain Hunt project in about 18 weeks and tell me if they've photoshopped out his red forehead!

By the way, Blogger is being a bit buggy at the moment. First, I have my comments set up so I get an email to tell me when one is pending moderation but for some reason it is a very hit and miss affair. I've only just seen there is a comment waiting for me that was left the same day I did my last post and yet nothing has arrived in my inbox to tell me it was there.

Second, Brisbane Susan is having an issue viewing comments, which I haven't come across before. I can see comments using both Mac and Windows on all my devices and so can DH so I've no idea why Sue can't. Has anyone come across that problem before and know how to solve it?


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It's been a beautiful quiet weekend so far. So far there's been pancakes for breakfast, homemade soup for lunch and dinner, and lots of lots of reading and dvd watching.

I'm really starting to enjoy the weekends far more than I ever used to. Just a few months ago, weekends were just two days I had to spend tidying, cleaning and preparing for the next week. Two days up early as normal and filled with knocking tasks off a to-do list, not to mention a touch of resentment. 

I have had a bit of a change of heart lately though. I seem to have entered a kind of relaxed state, which I think has been leftover from the summer when it was too hot to do much of anything. I had to work through tasks quite slowly and thoughtfully to avoid getting exhausted, making decisions on which ones were urgent and which were not and could be abandoned. 

Rather than springing up and cracking on with tasks, I now make a point of 'camping out' in bed with tea and breakfast on the weekend mornings, reading mostly blogs and financial articles, but sometimes a few chapters of whatever book I have on the go. Both Saturday and Sunday afternoons I might complete specific task, such as lawn-mowing or preserving, or go out to town to have a mooch around the charity shops and pick up some yellow sticker bargains from the supermarket on the way home. 

This weekend I didn't want to go anywhere. I've had a horribly busy week at work this week, including two days in the office staying over in a local hotel, and was sorely in need of rest. I needed to thoroughly recharge my batteries. 

So, I finally started Simon Schama's A History of Britain DVD series that I was given for Christmas. I haven't wanted to watch the series until I had the time to read the accompanying three books, and finally I decided I would start this weekend. I'm only watching the first two DVDs - 3000BC up to about 1600AD - so it lines up with the timeline of Volume 1 of the book when I read it - and it is very enjoyable.

 I'd forgotten how savage, scheming and bloodthirsty we all used to be!
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Cleaning up the fleeces from the two Whitefaced Woodland sheep has been an interesting experience. Who knew those two were so filthy!!


Even though I soaked both fleeces overnight in cold water both of them were heavily stained with sweat and minerals from the dirt. Still, by the time the wool is carded and spun it won't notice. 


However, what will notice is the terrible level of debris on the second fleece. Despite 90 minutes of skirting (picking out the big stuff) prior to soaking, and then a further two hours picking during cleaning, it is still heavy with debris. Processing this myself means I'm going to have to sit for a few evenings picking more of this out because while carding can remove a lot, it won't remove all of this. It could end up knitted in to whatever I make. 

Because of this, I've thought long and hard about what to do with the fleeces. I've had to admit that while I like giving things a go, the cost and time involved in carding kilos of fleece and then spinning it is too great. I already have too many hobbies that I struggle to find the time for so it is not realistic for me to try and fit more in, and i don't want to shove the clean fleece in a bag and leave them in a cupboard. Whitefaced Woodland sheep are rare breed and I want to use the wool.

So, I have contacted a small mill on the Scottish boarders who have offered to card and spin the clean fleece for me into 100g skeins of wool. It won't be cheap but these guys specialise in small batches and rare breed wool. Although they are booking fleeces in for September 2019, they've offered to try and fit me in sometime in January. 

I'm a bit torn - on the one hand I want to get it sorted so I can do something with it, on the other it's straight after Christmas and Martin and I are about to book a break away in January. 

Some serious penny-pinching and money-saving will have to happen between now and then to pay for all of this.

Just what I'm good at!
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