Happy New Year

It's here!!

 

Wishing a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year to all my lovely readers.

 

 

 

Sue xx

Out with the Old and In with the New

 

This is is my final Blog post of 2012.

 

Usually I do a review of some kind, summing up the Blog and events over the previous 52 weeks but this year the words escape me completely, there is nothing I can say on here that sums up this year in the way that my heart will let me express.  So I will keep quiet and let this year slip by, trickle away unnoticed, end with a fizzle and pop not a whoosh and a bang.

 

I am looking forward so much to 2013, a brand New Year. 

 

One that holds hope and freshness, one that beckons me with arms flung wide, that we will begin and end it together is all that I ask, and that it will be gentler with us than the last one is my heartfelt prayer.  We walk forward into this new year with hope, with strength and with determination, that we walk into it together is the only thing that is holding me up at the moment.

 

Thank you to all my Blog readers for your words of support over this past year, you have been as good a bunch of true friends as I could ever have asked for.  You have been there when I needed you, you have sent your prayers for me and my family, you have contacted me through the Blog and privately with helpful advice, with words of encouragement and with your very presence when I have needed you most - THANK YOU.

 

*** *** ***

 

Two of the pages at the top of this Blog will vanish tomorrow to make room for new Challenges for the coming year.  If you would like to have a last read of them please do.  The ones going are £2012 in 2012 and Live Below the Line. 

 

I have already put up two of the newer Challenges, The £2 Housekeeping Challenge and I Love Saving Money - 2013, these will be joined by another complimentary Challenge that I will be working towards in the New Year.

 

The main push for us in this coming year is to save money, we have found what we would like to be our 'forever home', now we just have to have the finances to make it ours.  An offer is going in towards the end of January and we have our fingers firmly crossed that it will indeed be ours.  It would be a wonderful way to start a brand new year, with a brand new home to call our very own and to make this a reality we have to save like mad, we have a large deposit, but we will be pushing from day one of ownership to pay off the mortgage as soon as we possibly can, for only then can Lovely Hubby take partial retirement from work and we will both be truly living Our New Life in the Country.

 

So this Blog for coming year will be full of our many and varied ways of saving money and making money, of making what we have last and jettisoning all that was part of our old lives that we no longer feel the need to hold onto.  We are intending to simplify our lives as much as we possibly can in every way we can think of. 

 

It truly will be our 'Year of Less'.

 

Streamlining the Blog is my first little step, so read the pages (if you want to) before they vanish, if you haven't already  voted in the Dorset Cereal Blog Awards I would love it if you could nip over and vote today as that too will be deleted later on tomorrow.   A huge thank you to those of you who have already voted, I am truly grateful.

 

 

 

Thank you to everyone for reading over the course of the last year and in the years before that, and a huge welcome to those of you who have just found 'Our New Life in the Country', you are along for an interesting journey with us over the next 12 months, fasten your seatbelts.

 

Sue xx

 

Our Once Yearly Special Shopping Expedition

 

 

Once a year we set off for our nearest Asda because Lovely Hubby loves George!! 

 

The 'George' clothes label that is, for anyone unfamiliar with Asda's own brand label in clothing.  We always do it at this time of year while he is off and everyone else is out there grabbing sale bargains, although most of what we get is stuff not actually in the sales.

 

It never costs much to kit out my man, see last years post HERE, but this year it was even cheaper.  The suit he bought last year has worn so well he didn't need to replace it this year, so the haul was merely undies, socks, t shirts and shirts and that's it his entire shopping done for the year for the princely sum of £96.  He's already sorted through his wardrobes and drawers and got rid of all tatty stuff, now washed and dried it will go in the charity bin to make up rag weight, a couple of t shirts were good enough to pop in the car boot sale box ready for Spring, and now he's set for the year ahead.

 

I did splash out too and bought myself an A4 diary ready for the brand new year that is fast creeping up on us, and I will spend some of tomorrow filling in those pages that always need information adding, something I enjoy doing with a brand new Biro that will live with the diary.  I treat a diary a bit like my Blog, with recipes written down, things stuck in, photos, tickets etc and anything that I need to remember or look forward to jotted down in plenty of time.

 

And that's it - our shopping done, there is nothing else either of us need, I wonder when we will be back at the shops again, maybe I should make a note in my diary or on here of every shop free day we manage.

 

How are your preparations and plans going for the New Year?

 

Sue xx

 

Ending the Year - My Way

 

 

 

 

 

....and I intend to do just that.

 

 Our New Life in the Country .... The Year of Less

 

Sue xx

Happy Holidays

 

 

 

 

 

Sue xx



Alcohol

 

 

 

 

 

You know I'm on a road to minimalism ......well I'm trying to get rid of all these wine bottles and before they can go into the recycling box they have to be emptied.

 

Ten down ..... six to go !!

 

Hic, Hic.

 

Sue xx

Merry Christmas

 

 

Merry Christmas to all our lovely readers.

 

Wishing you all a simple, peaceful and safe Christmas.

 

With All Our Love

 

Sue and Alan

 

xxx