Posts

Do you know where all your money goes?

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Written 12th July 2025 Do you know where all your money goes? I do. Not off the top of my head, but it's all logged in my budget spreadsheet. So here are my costs for 2024 Total spend on running my life : £24689.00 Of that, here's a breakdown of the main spends :- Transportation (including buying a second hand vehicle) : £7700.00 Food (for 2.5 people) : £2296.00 Pub / meals out : £1121.00 Holidays (cost of holiday plus money spent while away) : £1548.00 House & garden maintenance and improvement : £3300.00 Household bills : £4587.00 Clothing : £52.00 My vice : £1400.00 Gym : £367.00 Personal bits (hairdressers, dentist, toiletries, medicines etc) : £321.00 Birthday / xmas presents : £425.00 Interest / Bank charges on anything : £0 Other (everything else) : £1572.00 Is that a lot? Or is that quite a small amount compared to most people's expenditure? One thing can be said, every penny I spent was only for the actual thing I bought, no bank charges, no...
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Hope for a brighter financial future for yourself and your loved ones

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Written 30th July 2025 I still haven't fully posted all my posts on this blog yet. I keep seeing programs on Netflix or links online to websites with information about managing your budget, saving, cutting down expenses etc. It makes me feel that there's no point me posting because my blurb won't be as good or interesting as anything professionally created. But as I sit here thinking 'I still haven't finished posting all my posts' it has occurred to me that I have one thing those shows and articles don't have. And that's first hand proof that the things we're all talking about can and do work because I'm living proof. And the only thing I hope to achieve from my waffling is to have helped even just one person realise that it is possible to make a difference to your wealth and financial situation just by making some simple changes to your lifestyle and that you don't have to earn lots of money to do so. That's why there are no comments...
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Using your passion for change

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Written 13th July 2025 I hate change. I really do. I think it stems from being uprooted at 11 years old and moved to a new town 75 miles away. I still find new things scary. However I try to be flexible and roll with the times because everything is always changing and you can't stop it. We live in a world moving and changing so rapidly it's scary and intoxicatingly exciting at the same time. During covid, my county council introduced a booking system for using the dump. It's actually really good.  I mean we all humpfed about it a bit at the start as we'd been used to just going whenever we needed to. But for completing a 2 minute booking form online, you can guarantee no queues and therefore can be in and out in no time at all. It's so much better than it used to be as a user of the service. The county next to me are planning to introduce a dump booking system there now, and people are up in arms about it. It's a regular feature in their local news. Obvio...
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A little bit of nature does you good

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Written  2nd July 2025 I'm still on jury duty and have been going for a 20 minutes walk around the block at lunchtime most days but today I just walked up to a bench nearby and sat there for a while. It's been 29 degrees the last few days but its only around 24 today so much nicer to be outside. As I sat on the bench, a rat ran past me. Then a butterfly buzzed around me for a few seconds.  As I walked back to court a robin landed a few feet from me and stood there for a few seconds before he / she pecked something off of the ground then flew off. Yesterday a dunnock bird flew into my garden room which I had to help out because it just kept flying into the windows, the same with a blue tit last year and a huge dragonfly in my conservatory a couple of weeks ago. It's such an amazing feeling when a wild animal allows you to help them. I've also seen lots of bees and flies and worms and snails this past few days.  I've also had deer, foxes, hedgehogs, mice and rats in...
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Don't believe everything you see!

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Written  27th June 2025 I'm thinking about checking my credit score.  I'm a bit nervous because back in 2020, the last time I checked it, it was 999.... and I don't want to check it again and see its gone down. I know since then there have been a couple of occasions where money was debited unexpectedly which made me go overdrawn, but immediately I was notified (thank goodness for those texts) I transferred money in to cover it and bring my account back into credit.  I've spoken to the bank both times and they've assured me that it wouldn't affect my credit score. Which actually just proves that even the most conscientious and diligent of people can still have accidents with their monies and go overdrawn by mistake. So it got me to thinking 'what is the average credit score in the UK?'. According to Experian its 797 out of 999. I'm not going to talk in depth about what each category of credit score means as there is an excellent article here Wha...
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How much is your addiction costing you?

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Written  26th June 2025 What is your vice? Your guilty pleasure? Your fix? The thing you can't resist? Whether it's a physical addiction or emotional, or material, I think I'm not alone in having one, actually more than one, over the years. What was the thing or things that popped in your head when you read the 1st line of this post? See, you already know what it is and know you're hooked on it! If it's costing you money, try curbing or stopping altogether. I know it's not easy. I have a 38 year one under my belt which I'm still trying to kick. But I've given up caffeine, which was strange at first, but I found healthier alternative drinks so it didn't kill me and wasn't that hard looking back. I can't think of anything else I've ever been all consumed by and am not going to make something up just to add to this post. So whether it's drugs or drink or cigarettes or lottery tickets or gambling or sex or chocolate or bingo or t...
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Running the 'Business of Me'

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Written 24th June 2025 I'm on jury service for the next 2 weeks. My first time. There were about 40 of us in the jury waiting room, we'd all taken time away from our normal job or study or day to day life to be there and do our duty for King and Country. We can all claim for loss of earnings if that's applicable to our circumstances and we can all have our travel costs reimbursed and get a lunch allowance each day.  If you add all that up it's quite a sum of money per day just on juror costs, before you factor in the court staff and building costs and everything else that goes into prosecuting someone for a crime. It got me thinking about our individual operating costs and overheads in running our 'business of me'. Yes, we all need to eat and a roof over our heads and transport but what about the other costs we are spending each month that perhaps aren't essential running costs they are extras that we are paying for that we don't use and get no benef...
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