September in a nutshell!

It seems I keep dropping the ball on my monthly sum ups, here we are already more than half way into the month of October before you get an update from me 😦

But you know what they say, better late than never… right? So here goes!

Activities and exercise
Having been ill for a long time, and me now being on a 100% sick leave from my company, I ran into a major bump late august (company related), that unfortunately have taken a toll on my health.

So my happy average of 6 times a week (that I had during summer) took a crashing nosedive during the month of September, to where I think I just about squeaked by to an average of about 1,5 a week 😦

Declutter
My decluttering is slowly… sloooooowly picking up again, not quite as much as I hoped, but still, there are a few things that have gone out the door.

I cleaned up some of my medication, and said goodbye to my old vacuum machine. In addition there are a couple of other things that went out the door, that I completely forgot to take take pictures of or even write about. Not really anything big, just some junk, a flowerpot or two, some pieces of clothing ++

Together with the medication and vacuum cleaner, it racked up to about 23 items out-the-door.

Not a lot, but hey.. I’m on my way again 😉

Only buying necessities

I think I’ll change this up a little. Earlier I used to list all my allowance categories, regardless if I bought anything or not. The next months I’m changing that to just mention the categories I’ve spend money in.

Eating out – As most of you know, we seem to struggle with this category month in and month out, so I’m sure it will come as a big surprise (it sure surprised me) that we did “fairly” well during the month of September. we “only” ate out 5 times 🙂 Big shocker, I know!

Now if we can only keep this up for October, we might still have a shot at the overall yearly goal (when it comes to money spent, not the amount of times eaten out.. because that one, we have already failed miserably at).

Buying non essentials – as most years, Christmas sure came early this year too! I think it’s crazy how the businesses start Christmas three months before the real thing. I mean, no wonder people are sick of christmas by the time Christmas actually rolls by.

IKEA tends to be one of the first ones out, and they started to roll out their wrapping papers, ribbons and tree decorations late September. All their good stuff seems to disappear in no time, so if you actually want some, you have to hustle. So guess what 😉

Yep, I got some. I got wrapping paper, ribbons, and a couple of really cool tags (picture below). This time around I went for paper that wasn’t all that typical christmassy. Which means I can use most of it, all year round, for anything that needs to be wrapped. How very “frugal” of me 😉

Financial goals
Interest rates are going down like crazy, which is wonderful for my mortgage, but suck even worse for any money I have in the bank.

I’m thinking, that it’s probably time to “do something”, as the money I have in the bank, won’t be generating much interest after they reduce the rate again, December 1’st.

I haven’t decided yet, between making another extra down payment (like I did in March), or maybe stocks or mutual funds. Hmm, maybe a little of both is the smart way to go. I’ll let you know, when I figure it out 😉

Projects
Well… projects, just like activity, kinda went out the window, except as always I did get to enjoy my garden a little.

Oh yeah, and my stepmom got a small Cinderella Classic Incineration toilet for her allotment cabin. If I ever make or buy an tiny house, this is the system for me, as they have an RV version that doesn’t take a lot of space. Now to the exciting part! Guess who had to install it? Yep, you’ve guessed it 😉

B and me spent a few hours one afternoon. It involved a hole in the roof, some pipes and a few new composite shingles, and then we were done.

There are still a few of bits and bobs left to do at my friends house (the one that recently moved), but we had to put some of that on hold in September. But hey, there are still a few days left of October, so we might have a shot at getting it done this month 😉

Well, I guess that’s it, not much else to tell ya. Better get this out, while there is still a few days left of this month, because before you know it, it will be time for the October update… which, by the way, I promise to be a bit more timely with 🙂

August (and July) in a nutshell!

I’ve done it again! I fumbled the month of July, and here we are, at August’s sum-up. So, once again you will get two months in one post 😉

We’ve had some great days here lately, and as always I’ve been enjoying the heck out of my garden. I’ve also been spending a few days here and there helping a couple of friends with a few things.

So let’s get to it, how am I doing with my goals!

Activities and exercise
My focus is still just being out and about, more than exercise on it’s own. And between picking currants, and other berries. Spending time on my step-mums allotment, planting some plants, tinkering around in my own garden, helping a friend in her new house, walking the streets of London and the streets of my own town, I’m sticking to my average of 6 days a week.

I’m sure I’ll get into some proper workouts at some stage, it’s just not my focus right now as I’m having enough on my plate with me leaving work, and I’ve had a need to do fun things to keep my mind off it all.

Declutter
I’m still pretty much doing nothing about my declutter tasks. As far as I remember, nothing went out during July, and August only wielded 3 pots leaving the house, when I potted my neighbor’s plants. Items out-the-door = 3

So what will September bring? It looks like things might be picking up, I’m slowly but surely getting into decluttering again. Not a lot yet.. but I think I might finally be on the roll again (maybe) 😉

Only buying necessities

Books – nope, none – which is great for my wallet, and I’m not filling my bookshelves either.
Eating out – July we had our trip to England, so we did a bit of eating out during the trip. The rest of that month we didn’t do to bad as we spent a bit of time with a friend of mine, grilling and cooking at her place. The later part of August we are back to really bad, but I’m hoping September will be a better month, as we need to get back into cocking for ourselves.
Flowers and plants – 6, 3 tiny small orchids, 3 outdoor plants, two for me and one for my neighbour
Buying non essentials – I have to admit I did spend a few pounds in London. So what damage did I do?
– 1 pair of ecco shoes, 2 bra’s and a couple of Eagle creek packing cubes.
So why are they non essentials? Well.. I do have plenty of shoes, but I wanted a pair that are good travel shoes and at the same time looks good enough, with nice clothing, so that when I travel, I can get away with this one pair only. My old travel pair, are so worn out that they no longer look good. The bra’s I get at Victoria Secret, and since they don’t have a shop in Norway, and since I’m not traveling to US this year, I figured I should grab a couple, even though I strictly don’t need them… yet! And the packing cubes? I definitely didn’t’ need as I have a bunch from before. It’s just that the new ones are the super, super light type and use next to no space in my luggage.. so I went ahead and got some…

Financial goals
Nothing new really, except, I have been able to save a little extra towards my next mortgage down payment, as I received some stock dividends in August. The money went straight to my saving account 😉 And my interest reduction finally came into play, saving me another few dollars a month on my monthly interest payments… Every little thing counts towards getting that mortgage paid off, and interest saved, is just more money towards that yearly lump sum. How am I doing on that particular goal? Pretty Ok I must say, as I’m a couple of months ahead of schedule 🙂

Projects
As I mention at the top, I’ve been enjoying the garden (as always)!

And I have been working on fixing a couple of areas on my outer garden wall, that had some loose stone. It’s a fiddly process, removing the loose stone, removing the gravel behind, put concrete in the hole and stuff the stone back in. It’s not big stone, so it’s not heavy work, but I have to sit wrapped up as a pretzel doing it (it’s a low garden wall) and my hip only want’s to sit in this position for a very short time. So.. you might say it’s a project in progress… I’m hoping I will get it done this year, but if it spills over to next summer, that’s ok.. the garden wall isn’t going anywhere 😉

What else… hmmm.. I have a friend that moved into a new house a few weeks back, and we (B and me) have been helping her out with a few things, like hanging up stuff on the wall, changing handles on the doors, cutting a piece of molding to fit a cabinet she wanted put in, putting new feet on a piece of furniture.. you know the drill.. all the little things, that is part of moving to a new place 🙂

Guess that is it for August and June!

PS. Tonight is my friends move in party… so if you don’t hear from me for a couple of days.. you know why 😉

Movie collection!

My movie collection is a mess!

I have loads of movies (about 200), and even more series collections (bunch of Star Trek’s and Stargate’s + a “zillion” more)

I’m not sure if you remember, but last year I told you I had started up going through my movie collection. Just like I’m working my way reading myself out of my bookshelves, I started a watching myself out of my movie collection task.

The intention was to go through my movies one after another, watch it one more time, then decide which one of these categories it falls into:

keep – great movie will watch it again – worth being kept as a physical disk
copy – good movie will/might watch it again – worth copying it to a PC hard drive
toss – good to crappy movie probably won’t watch it again (or know I won’t) – get rid of it

For the time being I’ve been working my way through the individual movies collection, as the series are a whole different ballgame.

And, I just had a big instalment of movies leaving the house 🙂 All counted up, they amounted to 50 movies out-the-door!

Now, you are wondering, did I actually watch all those 50 movies? I can answer that with a resounding NO, I did not 🙂

After having watched a few pretty bad movies, I started to get more selective on who would make the cut, even just to watch, and a lot did not pass that little test. Then during my living room packing party, I had one day where I got into a bit of a ruthless tossing mode, and out a few more went.

Since my intention is to half my original collection, I still have a few more to go through. But I thought 50 out-the-door, was worth celebrating 😉

My pseudo packing party!

I mentioned a few days ago that I’m doing a pseudo packing party. Mostly inspired by the realisation, after having participated in my step-mums house move, that I most likely still have a lot of stuff hiding in nooks and crannies, even after my decluttering effort the last year(s).

I decided there are a couple of questions I need to add to my regular decluttering rules, questions like;

If I was to move to a different country or a smaller house, would this item be worth paying good money to have it moved, or would it fit in a smaller lifestyle?
Would I keep this item if I myself had to physical carry/haul this over to the new place, with no help from anyone…

I don’t want to do a real packing party, like The Minimalists did, as I don’t want to cover up everything I own, and live in boxes (especially after the last few days), but I decided I want to do a smaller version, where I “pretend” I’m moving and therefore have to go through my stuff as if I was packing up for a move. And while I go through my stuff I will evaluate the items according to my regular declutter routine and add the questions above to the mix!

All round better me – one of our fellow bloggers – quickly asked me what it involves, joining my “packing party”!

My original plan was to just “pretend (in my mind)” that I packed up room by room, and while I was going through my stuff I would use the questions above, hoping that that would make a few more things go out the door.

But, All round better me’s question made me stop up and think, that maybe I should do a “proper” job 🙂

So I have made a plan for my pretend packing party. Now! If there are anyone out there that wants to join me, you choose yourself what it is you want to join this “party” with. You can do a room, or a closet, or the cupboards (Therese?), or an area of your house or the whole house. Whatever area you feel you would like/need to give a once over 🙂

The key is – you need to empty the space you have chosen!

Since I’m doing most of the house, I’ve decided I need a plan, to keep it from becoming to overwhelming:

I will do one room at the time
I will not touch any of the furniture (the original packing party covered them all up, but I’m not going there)
As with the furniture I will not touch the TV, cable, stereo ++ as it’s way to many cables to mess with…
I’m not touching my books, as I’m doing those separately as part of my read a book program
I’m not touching my photo collection as this is a whole project on its own
I’m not buying any moving boxes or packing items. The idea is to get rid of thing, not have to buy anything to get that done. I will use boxes, bags, suitcases I already have, and I have “borrowed” some of my step-mums moving boxes. If I have no boxes to use, I will stack the stuff in piles, use plastic bags or whatever I have. The key is, if you are joining me, use whatever stuff you have to pack in 🙂
I will store my “packed” items in a different room than the one I’m packing – if possible!

Packing:

I will pull things out of my cabinets and drawers and pack away everything that is not going to be used the first 48 hours.
While I’m packing I will use my declutter system and ask the questions mentioned above
I will only keep out the items I know I will use the next 48 hour (e.g toothbrush, clothing, cups and plates and so on)
Then I will “sit back and relax” and enjoy my clear space for the next 48 hours. Why 48 hours? I’m thinking that that will give me just enough time to enjoy my empty space, and also contemplate on what I really want to put back in, when I unpack!
Since the space is empty, I figured this is as good a time as ever, to do a proper spring clean! So maybe not so much relaxing after all 😉

Unpacking:

I will only put back the items I really want or absolutely need in that cleared space.
Since I’m only putting back the things I really want or need, I’m sure I will have leftover items. These I sort through again
Items I know I’m keeping that belong somewhere else, I will put where they belong. If that is in a room that is next on the list, I will still put it there, for me to go though again, together with that rooms stuff.
Items I’m getting rid off, I will dispose of either as donate, sell or toss (recycle off course).
Items I’m not sure about, I will keep packed up, put a future date on them, and store out of the way until that date and then get rid of anything I have not taken back out by then.

When?

I’m lucky to have some long weekends I can use for this task, and I was planing on packing Fridays and unpacking Mondays!

Saturdays and Sundays will most likely be used in the garden as spring is finally on it’s way, and there are plenty, and I mean plenty of things to do outdoors 🙂

I thought the month of April would be a great time for this job! But, since I have a whole house to do, I will start as early as next weekend, and I’m starting in the bathroom!

Jump on in, any time, from now through April 🙂 And why not blog about it? Let me know, I’ll add your links to my posts 🙂

And remember! A great rule when you are trying to decide what stays and what goes:

Choose what to KEEP, not what to get rid of!

A lump sum – 14% worth

In Norway, as with a lot of countries, the interest rates are down. Now this is great news for mortgages (my mortgage interest rate is at an all time low), but is sucks for any money you might possible have in your bank accounts.

I’ve been mulling this over and I have made a decision to pay a lump sum on my mortgage rather than keep that money in the bank.

Now, I have to explain my mortgage conditions to you, so that you see that how this makes sense.

I have a very flexible type of mortgage that you can get if you stay within 70% of the value of your property.

The flexibility is as follows;

you decide yourself when, and if, you want to pay on the principal. You can pay nothing one month, and a bunch next month, you can pay monthly, quarterly, every second month, once a year.. whatever floats you boat
you do however pay interest monthly, on your outstanding balance
you can treat it almost like any other “bank account”, if you need some extra money for a project, you can withdraw funds from your mortgage account, without reapplying and without additional fees, as long as you are staying within your approved credit limit

Now there is one thing abut having this type of loan, one has to be pretty disciplined about it. It is such an easy thing to “use” from the approved credit line, that you need to have your finances under reasonable control, or you can suddenly find yourself “using” more than you planned! And you do have to pay down that mortgage at some time!

Now, me, I’m probably way more disciplined than my bank wishes me to be 😉 as I work really hard on paying down my mortgage much faster than I really need to.

And I just made another dent in it! As my savings don’t generate much interest, sitting in the bank, I just took a bit of a portion of them, and paid a lump sum into my mortgage account. It brings my mortgage down another 14% out of my original loaned amount.

Now I might feel a little more “broke” (well,no, not really, as I still have my emergency fund firmly intact), but it’s the right thing to do. I “lose” money (if you factor in inflation) keeping them in the bank. Putting them into the mortgage instead, saves me one hundred dollars in interest a month, and I’ll take that 😉

So here I am, down to one third of my original mortgage… and it’s only been 8 years. Not too bad if you ask me 😉

Oh no, here we go again :-)

I told you last year about this photo project I was starting up on… well late November I packed everything away (I desperately needed a tidy house), and it’s been out of sight since 😉

I was thinking that now is as good a time as ever, to start back up again…

Yesterday I pulled everything out, and stacked it nicely on and around my dining room table. As you can see, from the picture below, it’s quite a load… “tons and tons” of albums, negatives and loose photos.

The goal is to sort out the keepers and scan them, as I want them digitized. Then after that “little” deed is done – OK maybe not so little, as I have a few thousand photos, and I’m sure, that even after I ruthlessly go through them, I will end up with another few thousand to scan – I will sort out the ones I would like to put into albums.

I’m hoping to get down to about a couple of thousand photos to scan, and less than a thousand to put into the albums. Wish me luck, because from the pile you see, it’s not going to be an easy task! Guess I’ll just have to eat this particular “elephant”, one album at a time… 😉

January in a nutshell!

Ha, bet you thought I had fallen of the face of the earth now, didn’t you?

Well that’s OK, you are forgiven for thinking so 😉 I am after all the the one who has been a bit on the quiet side!

I’m not sure why, but it’s been a slow start this year with the things I have on my agenda, which is why you haven’t heard much from me lately! Thankfully it seems like I’m finally getting my butt back into gear, and I’m sure I’ll pick up speed going forward…

So what have I been up to in January?

The most important thing is that I’m back at work, ever so slowly, half a day a week – yeah I know, stupid really, all I get done in those few hours is pretty much show up for lunch, have a meeting, chat with people and then I go home 😉 Hopefully I get more done when I start up with two half days a week, mid February. And I’m hoping I’ll step up more, after I see my neurologist in March, but we’ll just have to wait and see what she says first.

I gave you a list of goals a couple of weeks back? This year around, I think I’ll give you guys a monthly sum-up, of how I’m doing with those goals, and not just a tally of my decluttering, like I did last year.

So here it is – my January in a nutshell!

Declutter
Have I decluttered anything in January? Well, yes I’ve been working away at it the last couple of days (finally got my act together) and a post is on its way 😉 It will have to count as a February shed though!

Activity and exercise
I have a plan to be more active this year, and so far this month I have been out on an average 2,5 times a week… Not a lot I know, but the weather have been really shitty, and I took a spill on the ice a few weeks back, which kept me out of the walking loop for a few days 😦

Only buying necessities
I’m on schedule, so far so good. But what about my allowances?

Books – bought 5 dollars worth of e-books (3 I think it was)
Eating out – we’ve done pretty shitty in January, as we have eaten out 10 times. There have been a few reasons for why. Like, we have been working at someone’s house and I just needed food “now”, and a few times we have been meeting people helping them look at stuff and ending up eating in the process. And one of the days I was hanging out with someone at the hospital all day, and just needed a quick bite… So it racks up! Regardless, we will have to do better in February.
Flowers and plants – no purchases, quite the opposite, I gave away a couple of my plants to the neighbour instead 🙂
Buying a non essentials – yes, one purchase, but it was really a replacement purchase of sorts.. I’ll tell you about it later!

Other financial goals
Mortgage: I paid my yearly down payment, 10 days ago, and I’m now finally under half left of my original mortgage, phew 🙂

Other activities/projects this year
We finally got the job done at my sisters place, installing the heaviest ceiling lamp on earth, over her dining table (it’s still hanging.. I think…), installed a ceiling lamp in her hallway, and we got her very long TV network cable hidden away (she has the TV at the opposite side of the room from where the plug is), I have to say.. her place is coming along really nice and she seems happy with the job we did…

Other stuff? Well, there are still a few things on the agenda at my step mums new place, but that is going to have to be a February thing!

That’s it for now.. see you in February 😉

Plans for 2015?

We are halfway into January, and you’re wondering, do I have any plans for 2015?

Yes, off course 🙂

I have plans within the areas of decluttering, finance, exercise and life in general! Why don’t you let me tell you all about it 😉

Declutter
In 2014, the focus was mostly on decluttering, and I’m afraid I still have ways to go 😦 Seems like decluttering and getting less stuff, inspires me to want less and less. So I will continue this in 2015. Last years goal was to declutter one item a day (365 items) and I far succeeded that, so I thought maybe I should try that one, one more time.. I think it will be harder this year to find the 365 items, but I’m sure gonna try 😉

I don’t know if you remember! Just like I’m reading myself out of my bookshelf, I’ve decided to watch myself out of my movie collection, and I also have this big, actually huge, photo project which I mentioned for you guys in November, that I will be spending time on this year.

My declutter goals for 2015;

365 items
100 Movies – that’s half of my collection
Cut my physical DVD series collection by 30% (yeah, that’s a lot, I have a lot, a lot of series)
34 books – I did 82 or something like that, out-the-door last year, but now I’m getting into more of the books I love…
Photo collection – oh lord… I can’t even tell you what my goal is for this year! Half maybe?
My overall goal is to keep key photos as physical photos, scan the other ones I’d like to have access to, and get rid of the rest. Now having several thousand photos, this is a task that will take time, and most likely spill over into 2016…

Only buying necessities
My focus last year on only buying necessities ( I want, I want – I want it now!!!) served me very well, as I had to spend quite a bit on medical treatments instead. It served me so well, I think I’d like to continue the focus this year. But with a small change compared to last years – I will add an allowance;

Books – I can still buy up to 10 books/magazines – preferable as e-books
Eating out – We did pretty good last year – we will try to squeeze even more this year, by reducing another 25% on last years results.
Flowers and plants – stay at the same level of last years result
New allowance: I can buy up to 10 non essentials throughout the year 🙂

Other financial goals
Last year I managed to pay off my car (a few months early) and I’m pretty happy with that 🙂 My ultimate goal on the other hand, is to have my house mortgage paid off, in 16 years or less, compared to the 25 it was originally. I’m 7 years in and have almost halved the mortgage so far, which is phenomenal! But it’s getting harder now that I’m on a severely reduced pay due to not working so much. Every January I pay a lump sum towards the mortgage, so my goal for 2015 is to save up 60 000 NOK for my lump sum in January 2016. If I manage that on my reduced pay, I’m doing very well.

Activity and exercise
Due to illness I have not been the most active person the last few years, every time I think I’m ready to start exercising, I’ve managed to screw that up somehow, and I’ve gotten worse again. Now on the other hand, I’m feeling better than ever and I think it’s time to give it another shot. But this time around I’m going to be careful about it and take my time!!!

The goal for this year is to build up to, by the end of the year: 7 days of activity a week, with 3 of these as real workouts.

By activity I mean something that gets me up and going and preferable out of the house, like a walk in the neighbour hood, work in the yard, run around playing with kids… just about anything that gets me out of that couch, gives me some fresh air, and brings me into a moving state 😉
With real workout I mean an activity like for example going to the gym, yoga, biking, running, Rollerblade … you get the drift.

Other activities/projects this year
I have a few other things on my agenda 🙂 Like; travel, projects in my yard, other projects, throw a garden party, ++
But these, I think I’ll tell you more about, as we move into the year 😉

So that’s it for my 2015 goals… enough don’t you think?

Another kitchen run!

The first group of workers are done at my step-mums place (only the bathroom left to do), and there is a massive change from how it was before they started. Even though most of the major work is done, there are still a few tasks left, so I guess it’s my time to get to work 😉

We are trying to get the kitchen done, and Fridays work was the kitchen ventilator. As always, it took much longer than I thought. A quick couple of hours job turned into a few hours more! Hmmm, isn’t that always the way…?

Anyhow, it’s done (phew)! Now…did I manage to remember to take a before photo? Off course not… 😦 Could I at least take a photo of the discarded parts? Yes, off course! And the after photo? Absolutely 🙂

Today was the day to put the the kitchen cabinet doors and drawers back together. Remember I told you about taking them down to have them professionally painted? We picked them up before Christmas, but decided to wait until after the holidays to put them back up. Well, there is no more excuse, it is well after the holidays, and time 🙂

So here we are, one kitchen almost done…

Not very exciting… I know… but it is what I’ve been up to the last few days… 😉

A busy bee…

I take my hat off to my step-mum these days.

We are moving into that time of year where it seems like there is not enough time to get everything done. Now add a renovation project to that…

Things are moving along at my step-mums new place, and I’m sure they will be done shortly. To get there we’ve had a few days filled with looking at some of the materials that are going in, and now the tiles, paint and wooden floor should be in place. We’ve done some measurements, and I think we are ready to order the kitchen counter, whenever my step-mum finds one she likes 🙂 A new closet for the guest bedroom has been ordered, and sometime this week, I believe we will be picking up the newly painted kitchen fronts. I have to say, she is a trooper. I’m totally impressed with how much she have managed to get done, is such a short time.

Part of buying a new place, is the selling of the old. The first showing is on Sunday, and I’m hoping it will sell quickly and at a price she will be happy with. There are always some stuff that needs to be done, to make sure a place make a good impression, and my step-mums been a busy bee. Even so, there are still some stuff she needs help with, and yesterday a friend of mine and me, went over there and did some work on her closets (drawers removed, hanging rods added), so that it presents correctly during the showings.

It’s incredible how much work there is every time one decides to buy and sell property. There a a zillion thing to think about, and the moving itself is just part of it all, which I’m sure most you know everything about. I’m just glad it’s not me! This time around, I only have to help out a little 😉

You can see how December this year will be a little busier than normal! So stay tuned and I’ll keep you posted 😉

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