Category Archives: Organising

No Excuses

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I enjoy sewing and for the first time in my life I have an (almost) dedicated sewing room.  However, despite my grand plans I have done very little sewing in recent times.

There always seems to be something more pressing to do – cooking meals, washing, ironing, gardening and so on.  When I sew, I like to do it to the exclusion of the everything else so I have tended not to do it.  The ironing always takes precedence over sewing, especially since I have the ironing board set up in the same room.

Anyway, there can be no more excuses as I have finally got the space pretty much as I want it.

The bed is completely free from any piles of clothes waiting to be folded or ironed.

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The wardrobe is cleaned and tidied.

 

All of my sewing stuff is sufficiently ordered that I can locate what I need.  The iron and ironing board are ready to use.

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The sewing table looks untidy but much of it is projects waiting for some action.

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My first priority is mending (socks) and some alterations.  I need to take up the hem of trousers I bought in Canada as well as shorten a top I bought there, too.  Next, I will complete 6 pairs of boys shorts which are partly made and are destined to be donated to those who need them.  There is plenty more after that, including, finishing a long sleeved blouse for my daughter, the cover for the mattress on the day bed and dresses and tops for myself.

I will make time to sew.

Four Fabulous Days

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I have had the most glorious 4 days at home.  Friday was a well-earned day off followed by a long weekend.  Most weekends I am left with the feeling of wanting a couple more days to try to catch my tail.  I would not say I have done everything but I do have a degree of satisfaction that I have made some progress beyond the basics of washing and meal preparation.  The best part is that I have worked steadily but not frantically for some of the time as well as simply doing nothing at other times.

Here is a snapshot of what I achieved:

Washing and ironing – the first 3 days were brilliantly sunny with a breeze so all of the washing was done and dried which left me with a pile of ironing.  I tackled this with enthusiasm since I was armed with a new iron as well as the ironing board cover that I made on Friday.

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Shopping – most weekends I buy enough fruit and vegetables for the week as well as a few things from Aldi and Saturday was no exception.  However, I also drove a bit further to go to Morayfield so that I could stock up at Simply Good, where I buy all of the flours, dried fruit, seeds, nuts and legumes that I use.  I do this every 4months or so.  Spotlight is nearby so I took the opportunity to have a look and found the fabric to recover the mattress for the day bed.

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Decluttering/recycling – as we change and re-arrange furniture there is often some to move along to someone else who can use it.  This weekend I listed 4 outdoor chairs and a large pine chest of drawers on our local Buy, Swap, Sell Facebook page and they have now gone to new homes.  I also tidied and sorted the shelves in the wardrobe in the sewing/spare room and put a few things in a bag to go to the op shop.

Gardening – when I was at the market buying fruit and vegetables, I noticed a neighbouring stall selling seedlings.  I bought and planted out basil, beetroot and capsicum seedlings.  GMan mulched the shrub we cut down a few weeks ago and planted out several native trees and shrubs.

Outdoors – we have taken a few more steps towards finishing our outdoor living area on the verandah.  The newly painted table is back in position as is the day bed, albeit without the mattress yet.  I spent a good portion of today cleaning up the large concreted area under the house.  This is a lovely cool area in summer and I am trying to make it more useable.  I sorted and stacked various building materials so that they are in a logical order and easily accessible.

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What a shame that I have to go to work tomorrow – there is so much more that I could do here at home.

I will some more details of some of the things I have mentioned tonight in upcoming posts this week.

Time to Plan

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Even though we have been home for 3 weeks since our holiday the legacy lives on.

We returned fresh and invigorated with lots of ideas and plans.

I don’t know about contempt from the phrase, “Familiarity breeds contempt” but I do know that being away from your normal environment allows you to consider things with fresh eyes.  We had time to really ponder and discuss all sorts of possibilities including what we want to do in the garden, future holiday plans and retirement activities as well as some of the smaller things we hope to achieve around the house before the end of the year.

There seemed to be so many times in conversation that GMan would comment, “We need to do/get/make……….” that I would simply respond with, “Add it to the list”.  Although we did not have a physical list, we certainly remembered plenty of things and have actioned several since we have been home.

  • 3 new chickens bought
  • Clear at least one vegetable garden and plant seedlings
  • Empty compost from compost tumbler
  • Ordered and installed a new modem for the computer
  • Taken the computer to be repaired/replaced
  • Painted the outdoor table (a work in progress)
  • Repaired the washing basket
  • Taken a bag of bits and pieces to the op shop

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I know there have been others but this gives you an idea.

Then there are others which are earmarked to be done this week.

  • Gather tax info to send to tax agent
  • Buy a new DVD player – DONE today
  • Buy a new batter charger – DONE today
  • Remove dead shrub from front garden – DONE today
  • Advertise some furniture which is no longer required
  • Follow up on a rejected refund claim
  • Contact electricity provider re solar refund

By planning very specific small projects/goals it is very satisfying to work through the list.

I wrote this post last night and today we managed to cross 3 more items off the list.  I am sure there will be more to add by tomorrow.

 

 

 

Keeping it Clean

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While I do not have huge areas to declutter or sort out there are always ongoing jobs to do.  Some are so small that they are barely noticeable but 5 minutes can literally make the difference.

My clothesline is 5 parallel lines under the verandah.  Every few months I wipe down 4 of the lines with a damp cloth to remove any dust and grime.  The last line does not get done because I have 12 hanger holders positioned along the line.

Yesterday I took the hooks off because I was washing a couple of sets of sheets and needed the extra hanging space.  I realised the hooks were very grubby and the line was filthy.  I wiped the line thoroughly before I hung the white sheet on it and then washed the hooks.  A quick soak in some warm, soapy water then scrubbed with an old nail brush before I spread them out to dry.

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Once the sheet was dry I replaced them on the line and hung out the next load which included plenty of items to dry on hangers.

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A few minutes well spent to keep everything in working order.

A Frugal Mindset – 2

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Today I will address the second point in the article which you can read in full here.

2. Frugal people know where their money goes, down to the penny. If you get to the end of the month and wonder where your money went, you are not tracking it as well as you could. While it may seem like a hassle to keep track of where your money is going frugal people know that this information is vital to keeping money in your pocket and from being frittered away on things that aren’t important, in the grand scheme of things.

To keep track frugal people use the dreaded “B” word — Budget. A frugal person’s budget has two parts — it has a plan for how they’ll spend their money for the time period of the budget (see mindset #1 above), but it also has another part, to track what actually happened to the money. They want to know, were they able to follow their plan?

Question to ask yourself: How well am I following the plans I’ve made for my money?

We all know life happens, and sometimes we can’t follow our plans completely, but when you know what the plan is, and make mindful corrections and deviations when life throws you a curveball, you’ll be much better off.

For many years I kept a fairly close eye on our spending but did not track every cent.  It was always a bit of a revelation at tax time to see what our net income was, deduct the total we had paid on the mortgage and shake our heads as to where the rest of the money had gone.  It is a sobering thought.

However, over the past 18 months we have kept track of everything we have spent in a spreadsheet which we complete every couple of days.  I am not sure that it has changed our spending greatly but we do know exactly where it has gone.  It will be interesting to compare things like groceries year on year.  Because I have it set up in categories we can easily identify costs that will disappear when we retire – transport is the big one as we spend several thousand dollars each year in train fares to get to work.

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I would definitely recommend tracking your spending to really understand where the money goes.

Tomorrow we will delve into the little purchases that can sabotage your savings.

A Frugal Mindset – 1

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As promised yesterday, I plan to address the points from the link I posted one by one.

The first point is:

1. Frugal people plan ahead. Planning ahead may not, at first, seem like it has anything to do with money, but it really does. Frugal people plan ahead in many ways. They do things like plan out their meals for the week to save money at the grocery store, or more long term planning like knowing that they’ll need a new roof on the house in several years, and to begin saving for this expense now.

Frugal people live by the mantra that failure to plan is planning to fail. They’ve learned that taking steps now for anticipated future events helps make those future events easier to deal with. And typically those plans make it both easier in both time spent, and in money saved.

Question to ask yourself: What can I do today to make tomorrow and the future easier to deal with?

If you really want use this strategy to its fullest potential don’t just make those plans in your mind. Write them down!

I regard planning as one of my strengths and there is no doubt in my mind that it saves money.  It also saves time and my sanity which are equally important to me.

I plan our meals, plan to combine errands in a single trip, plan what I will wear to work, plan what to pack for a holiday, plan future projects at home – there is no end to what we plan.

An example of long-term planning was when we began looking for our current home.  This was over 10 years ago and I was still in my forties but one of the things that we considered was that it would have to have at least one point of ground-level access or be able to be relatively easily adapted to meet this requirement.  Although we have numerous stairs to reach the verandah we know that this can be altered if required – we have a plan.

We are also changing and adapting our large garden to reduce the level of maintenance which will be required as we age.  Putting in the effort now will reap rewards in years to come.

As a result of ensuring that we have sufficient rainwater storage as well as the installation of solar panels means that we are pretty well self-sufficient for water and electricity which minimises the ongoing costs of running our home.

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As GMan regularly quotes from Baldrick in Blackadder, “I have a cunning plan”.  The difference between Baldrick’s plans and ours is that ours are realistic and generally achievable.  Even if things do not go quite according to plan you have a framework with which to start again.

 

Patience Pays Off

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A few weeks ago I wrote this post about cleaning up the workshop area downstairs.  One of the photos showed the old kitchen cupboards which we had been using as storage in this area for the last 7 years.  We decided that it was time for them to go as the chipboard was all breaking up and we had eliminated enough stuff to longer require them as storage.

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GMan cut the shelving into smaller pieces and broke down the cupboard shells and drawers.  We only have a half size (120 litre) wheelie bin so we filled it with the cut pieces each week for 4 weeks.

Now it is completely gone.

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The alternative was to pack it into the ute, drive 20kms to the nearest rubbish dump and pay about $15 to dump it.  The end result is the same – it goes to landfill, which is not ideal but there is really no alternative for this sort of thing.  However, we managed it at zero cost to us because we chose to take our time and dispose of it bit by bit.

What I Wear – 6 Month Update

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It is now 6 months since I began tracking what I wear.  June signals the beginning of winter in the southern hemisphere and we finally have some weather that can be regarded as appropriate for the season in our area.  Therefore, some of the clothes I wore in the past month are ones that had barely been touched since I began recording what I wear at the beginning of December.

I have had a net increase to my wardrobe as I added 4 new items and discarded 2.  One is not actually new, just new to the list.  I can’t believe that I completely forgot to list my turquoise cardigan.  Anyway, it is now on the list.

New additions:

The dress was actually bought in April but I had not added it to the tally since I was not sure that it would be a long-term addition.  I have now decided that I will keep it.  You can read more about it here.  The trousers are slim-fitting pull-on tailored trousers that will be the mainstay of my work wardrobe during the cooler months.  I like the fact that there are nor buttons, zips or other fastenings to spoil the line of tops worn with them.

Discarded:

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I have now worn 79 of the 93 pieces in my wardrobe.  I expect that there will be less than 5 unworn ones by the end of the month.

This is the selection that have yet to be worn during this experiment.  They are mostly winter clothes with the exception of the cocktail dress and the formal dress.

I will miss half of the southern hemisphere winter this year as we will be in the USA and Canada for the latter part of July and almost all of August.  By the time we return spring will be just around the corner and my small selection of winter clothes will not see the light of day for another 9 months.

What I have discovered is that I can probably streamline my wardrobe further to around 80 items to cover all weather and all occasions and activities.  I also know that it is dynamic – an ever-changing process as pieces are worn, discarded and updated.

Until next month………

Behind the Scenes

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Just because I have not posted very much recently does not mean there is nothing going on here at ‘The Castle’.

We have had 2 phone calls in the past 48 hours to confirm that some of our plans are coming to fruition.  The first was from a tree lopper to confirm that he will be here early next week to remove a couple of very large trees and mulch them as well as the smaller ones that GMan cleared recently.

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Once this is done we will be able to consider the next step in some of our long-term landscaping plans.

Yesterday we received a quote from the builder for the next major renovations.  This will include replacement of some of the verandah floorboards, new railings, cafe blinds and screening and gate to provide added security to the verandah area.  Some more concreting to finish the path near the steps and provide a base for an additional water tank will also be done.  We will discuss the finer details with him this weekend and hope that the work will be completed with the next couple of months.

It is great to feel that some of our planning to beginning to come to fruition.

Appointments

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Part of being organised is making and keeping track of appointments.  This week I have appointments for a dental check up, haircut and mammogram on 3 consecutive days.

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I am lucky because Breastscreen and my dentist both send reminders when an appointment is due.  I simply make the appointment and make a note in my electronic calendar at work.

My hair appointments are generally 7 weeks apart and I make the following appointment when I am at the salon.

The dentist and hairdresser both send an SMS reminder the day before the appointment.

My haircut on Thursday was one of 3 that I planned and booked back in February.  I did this as I was calculating the intervals so that I could make sure I had my hair cut just before we leave to go on holidays in July.  I will have it cut 2 days before we leave so that it will last for the whole holiday.

What regular appointments do you make and how do you manage them?  Diary?  Electronic notes?  Some other method?