More of What Matters spending review, month 8

The making of Christmas cake #2

Today marks the end of month 8, and it’s been the most expensive month so far. We have done more shopping than during the rest of the year, but every item was justifiable. It was a high-spending month on food and drink, because we had a week off (which we tend to celebrate in an edible way) and we bought the ingredients for two Christmas cakes. We’ve also had a couple of take-aways and treats out, which we’ve thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated.

The little things add up too: this month required extra coal, new hoover bags, a watch battery and a dentist check-up. We also paid our quarterly phone & internet bill and annual bicycle insurance, and had a few sick days deducted, and all of this together has made it our lowest-saving month yet – but all for good reasons and we’ve still saved 30% of our income.

Here’s the full round-up of our spending:

Transport: 2 fills of petrol, some bus trips, cycle insurance renewal, and bicycle wheel lights for extra visibility
Domestic: Hoover bags, watch battery, tin foil, loo rolls, washing up liquid, 4 bags of coal
Health: Dentist appointment, and general supplies
Toiletries: moisturiser, haircare, deodorant, soaps
Clothing: 2 merino tops on special offer, t-shirts, tights and pants!
Gifts: We bought our first few Christmas gifts

Decluttering
In terms of additional stuff or clutter brought into the house, it would be no change this month, because we have de-cluttered about the same amount as we have acquired, including: CDs and discs of photos (carefully broken), a big water filter jug, tights with un-mendable holes in, craft materials (dried up glue sticks, scraps of fabric etc), and books.

Now we go into month 9, a month when in the past we would assume we could not put a single penny into savings, because it’s Christmas. We get tempted to overspend on food, trimmings, and sparkly things at this time of year. But we’ve learned a lot since starting this blog, and there’s no need to have excess or waste in order to enjoy the season.

There’s going to be more stopping – to listen to one another, to be creative, to relax, to enjoy festive music, appreciate decorations, feel the warmth of fires and fruit punch, savour delicious food – and less shopping!

 

Knitting projects so far

By Lucy

I learned to knit when I was about 7 years old and got very excited about it. My total output was two crazy striped scarves, one very wide and one very long! Then I stopped and forgot how to do it.

In 2011, when we first started to focus our lives in on simplifying and slowing down, I started to daydream about being able to knit again, and my aunt and uncle got me started with a gift of a beginner’s chunky scarf kit. Since then I’ve made quite a few things, although I’m still very much a beginner.

Here are my first two projects. At the top is the scarf I made with the chunky scarf kit. I added some silver thread to the white sections to make it sparkly. This has been my cycling scarf for the last 3 years and now looks a bit worse for wear!

Underneath is my second scarf, where I learned to purl. This was a scarf for Brian, and is made with cotton yarn. However, the finished scarf ended up being as long as Brian is tall (6ft), too wide, and too heavy to wear! Its so big though that it can be used for other things such as wrapping round yourself to keep warm on the sofa.

Then I moved onto hats. Top left is my cycling hat with ear flaps, I learned circular knitting and moss stitch to make this. This is a perfect under-helmet hat for keeping ears out of the wind, and the pattern is in the Stitch and Bitch book. Next to it is a ribbed hat I made for at work, which I was very impressed with, but the yarn changed colour mid-way though.

Next came another scarf, a ribbed cashmerino yarn scarf with pompoms which is my favourite thing I have made so far. You can’t not be cheerful with pompoms!

My last completed project is the pair of strange woolly boots on the bottom right, which used up all my leftover yarn, and are incredibly warm even if they do look daft. They have quite good grip and I have worm them to do yoga on cold nights!

So, that’s where I’m up to. Nothing too difficult – no blocking, or intarsia, or things that need to fit properly like jumpers, socks or gloves! I may attempt something more challenging in the future. At the moment I’ve got two projects still on needles, both scarves, which I’ll be finishing off and sharing on here soon!

I’ve found knitting a really restful and mindful hobby. I don’t get much done per session though, as I also find it very soporific and start nodding off before I get very far! But slow is good.