Keeping things simple.

I've been thinking about the PayPal thing, after some of you suggested that I register and get signed up so I can receive £30 for my money saving tips. Something was bugging me, if I do this, how do I get my £30 from them. Everything is done electronically now, so they would need my bank or card details to transfer the money across. Hmmm, I'm not too keen on that idea. To me that sounds like it could lead to a lot of complications, things do go wrong, people do lose money and get ripped off through fraud, so to lessen the chances of that happening I prefer not to give my details out willynilly.

I had a look at the PayPal web site, read everything on it, and still was not happy. I haven't needed it up to now, have managed perfectly well without it, so why bother joining now? Ok, I forfeit the £30, but to me that's a small price to pay for peace of mind.

A simple life to me means cutting down on complications, not adding to them. I don't buy online because that puts more temptation in my way, and I can live without that. I don't need to trawl the internet for stuff to buy, I can think of better ways to spend my time. I admit it can be a good tool to do research, but even then I get sick of going from site to site getting totally confused. When I bought the pans, I read up about what was available, but at the end of the day, I went with my gut instinct, went in a shop, and decided in ten minutes what I was going to buy, job done, forget about it and move on. No worrying about whether the parcel would arrive, would I be in to take delivery, will the contents be damaged and will I have to send them back. I went to town and brought the pans home with me.

For me buying at the right price, and getting a bargain, has to be balanced with how much time and effort I am willing to give up to achieve those aims. Yes it's important to get the best for my money, but it's also important that I organise my time efficiently. I will not spend hours on the computer tapping away, going round in circles, just to shave a couple of quid off a purchase.

The only contradiction to this is I will spend a couple of hours in Tesco late at night, to get the cheapest food. That's because I can save mega pounds over a period of a year. I go there, hand over the cash, and come away with the goods. I don't order food shopping on line because that would give me a complication I don't need. I don't want to pay online, I don't want to sort out a delivery time and be at home when it arrives, I don't want to bother with substitutions if they haven't got what I ordered, and I don't want to bother with complaing when they make a mistake. Give me a shelf full to peruse, and I'm happy. Simple, pick up what you want, pay and leave the store.      

I suppose in a way, I am still a little bit old fashioned regarding personal finance, and the way I pay for things. For instance, utilities. I will not go onto a monthly direct debit for water, gas, and electricity, because these involve the companies calculating how much you are expected to use at any given time. People say, oh, it's easy, the money leaves your account monthly and you don't have to think about it. Well, I personally like to get a bill quarterly, or half yearly in the case of water, and pay that bill. Pay for how much I have used, after I have used it. To me, that is simple, not having to contact the company to complain that my direct debit is too high.

I think of my house as a pile of bricks and mortar, somewhere to sit down and eat my food, to lay my head, do my washing, and keep myself clean. It's my private bit of space where I can just be me. I can do without the disruption of decorating, and the cost and mess of upgrading. That's simple living, it doesn't have to be fashionable.

Another thing I don't bother with is the sites where you can get stuff free. Freecycle and Freegle come to mind. I've had a look at them, there is never anything which takes my fancy, never anything I need, and I don't have anything to give away. I give my unwanted stuff to charity shops, it's much easier to bag it up and drop it off, than register on the site, advertise something, then get pestered by people who may or may not turn up to collect it. Besides, I don't want people coming to my house. It's all too complicated to me. I had a shovel once that I no longer needed, I left it at the gate with a note on saying free to good home. It went in a couple of hours. Simple.

Another complication I can do without is earning money. I could get a job, make a few bob here and there by selling my crafts, selling on ebay, or selling on here, but I don't want or need to. Up until last year I was paying income tax on my pension, now that the personal threshold has been increased I no longer have to pay. I have had a couple of small business in the past, and all the accounting that entails, I don't want to go back to that situation where I have to start filling out tax returns again. No, I want a simple life. The ladies group last night donated £20 to our cat rescue, that's fine by me.

While I'm on about simple living, I'll sing the praises of being single. There are no complications to making your own decisions and doing exactly what you like. I've been in stressful relationships, I don't want to go there again. Compatability is very difficult to achieve, I've had plenty of goes at it, and it hasn't worked.

I'm off on another walkabout soon, with my rucksack on my back. I shall be tramping the highways and byeways, and all I will have to think about is putting one foot in front of the other, and where I'm going to find a bed. Simple, just ask someone, ha ha.

Just a quick note about the home made ice cream mularky. The rice pud and peaches one was also frozen solid like a brick. It tasted fine, but would have benefitted from useing all of the peaches, it needed a bit more fruity flavour. While eating them both, they were more like a sorbet than ice cream because of the shards of ice in them.  I think when I make my next batch I will transfer it into a big bowl and stir several times while the freezing process takes place. There will be more experiments.
Toodle pip.