Ideas Please

Its my daughters 10th birthday soon and we are thinking about how to celebrate. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions please ? Things to consider are : small budget, small garden and its on a weekday.

My five year plan, from ten years ago.

When my daughter was born nearly ten years ago I felt very motivated and naturally was looking forward to the future and making plans. I made a five year plan and had various goals written down. I have the plan somewhere so will dig it out , but one of the goals was to move house. We have been in our house for 16 years and never imagined that we would still be here now. Emotionally we were ready to move on ten years ago but with having a baby and loss of income we decided to stay put. Then we pondered for a few years but never really made a decision. Then we finally decided to put the house on the market, we did this in September 2007 , just a few days before Northern Rock ran into trouble. Subsequently we had the house on the market and no viewers. We tried again about eighteen months ago but same again, no viewers and the estate agents were worse than useless. They tried to get us to reduce the house drastically to sell but the margins were so tight that we weren't going to jeopardise our financial future just to give them a quick sale to get their ( fixed price ) commission. So here we are ten years on from making the five year plan. We have taken decisive action this time around. We have almost paid the credit card debt that we had hanging round our necks, when we do move we will no longer have the debt or the associated monthly costs. We are going to do a few jobs to spruce the place up but we are not investing serious money on a new kitchen or bathrooms, just a general de clutter, clean the carpets and lick of paint. Our aim is to put it up for sale in spring next year, its sounds a long way off but it will be here before we know it. Hopefully by then the market may have picked up a little. Either way we will be ready physically, mentally and more important , financially , to make the move.

Do you like my drawers ?

Picked up another bargain from eBay, this time a matching pair of bedside drawers. The seller lived a few miles from us so it was really easy to get to and collect them. We won the bid at £21, which pleased us as these are from a well known Swedish store priced at £39 each. They are in excellent condition and were being sold due to a house move. Years ago if we needed anything we would head straight off into town and buy from the big stores. Now I always check out eBay as there are hidden gems at a fraction of the cost and at least the cash is going to a person instead of a faceless corporation.

Happy 4th July

Just a quick entry to wish my American readers a 'Happy Holiday' for American Independence Day. All across America there will be lots of festivities today and I wish I was there to celebrate with you. I have been in America a few times on Thanksgiving and have always enjoyed the celebrations. Have a great day.

eBay bargain

Just a quick one to share with you. This week I picked up these framed pictures from eBay. I won the bid at £5.50 for the two. Now these pictures retail at a local outlet store for £20 each so I was very pleased with my bargain. I must admit they do look better in real life than in the photo. In the New Year we hope to put our little pigsty up for sale and I want to spruce the place up a little before hand, maximum effect for minimum cost. Do you like them ?

Free Family Day Out- Cars in the Park

Another glorious day and we decided to head off to the park to enjoy the sunshine. We went to Lichfield park, a family favourite with plenty of space and a nice children's play area. We hadn't realised that this weekend was ''Cars in the Park'' , a car show held annually each year. Since last year they have made it free admission. The park was packed. We had a walk round, watched some of the old cars from the 1920's , had a peek at a tank and the children had fun sitting in a fire engine and trying on the fireman's helmet. It was a real blast from the past, so many cars there. I saw my first car there ( the same model) a Ford Fiesta, as well as our family car from the 1970's , a Ford Cortina. There were lots of sports cars with groups of men huddled around admiring the turbos and the paint work. Afterwards the children went to play on the play park and were there a few hours making friends and having lots of fun. We took our own drinks and snacks in the cool bag,just as well as I overheard someone saying that a bottle of water cost £1.80!! It was a really good afternoon, and apart from an ice cream each , didn't cost us anything. I will have to make a diary note to check it out again next year.

One year later

This time last year we had just found out that my husband was being made redundant. The company announced that the workers would be made redundant in December, just before Christmas. We immediately started to cut back with all manner of shopping and any unnecessary spending. It really changed our outlook. Prior to this we had never been in this situation and until you experience it for yourself , you really have no idea as to the worry and anxiety that it causes. It was a very dark time but luckily for us , my husband got another job just two weeks before he was due to finish. The job was lower paid but we were just so thankful to be in paid employment. However it made us realise how very close we came to losing everything. The bills seemed so high with the prospect of earning very little and at that time we had the frightening realisation of  having to repay credit cards on top of everything else. Once my husband started his new job, it was then we decided that we didn't want to be in that situation again. The redundancy , was out of our control , but being in debt was. We began to make plans to get rid of the debt. We both worked as many extra hours as we would and with cutting back and other ways, we began to make serious indentations into the credit card balance. We have really done well. We have now paid about 80% of the balance off and the remaining 20% should be paid off around August time. We don't spend at all now on the cards, mine have been cut up and my husband keeps his purely should he need it for work purposes. So here we are on 1.7.2011 and the year has flown by. This week we found out that he will get a small pay rise this year. Although the amount is derisory , we are so glad that we are in employment. Its easy to focus on the disappointment of a small rise but we have stayed positive and reminded ourselves that we are in a much better situation than last year, and once the credit card has gone, the pay rise however small , is real money that will be ours and not handed straight over to a bank repaying debt. Its a really exciting feeling to be almost out of debt and we will be back where we started years go, with just a mortgage.