Money Saving

Hey Everyone,

So I wanted to do a little post about how we are managing to move into a new house and get all of the furniture within a very tight budget,

Right now we have a house with a whole bunch of stuff for a few weeks before we have to get our own bits and bobs so we are lucky in terms of having a house that has everything we need at the moment but we are eventually going to need everything of our own and i've never actually noticed how expensive things are so here are my tips on how to make your house your own on a tiny budget.

1. Shop around,

Me and David looked at a whole load of stuff in IKEA and Argos and to be honest the stuff is nice but the prices are still pretty high and we thought that they would be cheap as well. we had to come up with a plan B and on Valentines Day after our nice meal we went to Sainsburys to pick up some nibbles and found that their Home section is actually really good, they have some really good deals and we found a huge amount of little odds and ends that we really needed we ended up not buying anything yet because we have everything we need at the moment but it's somewhere we will go back to (David also has his eye on a really nice canvas for the hallway). Then we come to the best place that we have found thus far and that B&M Home Stores, this is a really great shop, not only is it super affordable but the stuff is of a really nice quality too and we have already managed to get ourselves a few nice furniture pieces for really good prices.

2. Need vs Want

Now I haven't actually done this myself yet but I am going to write out a list of things I NEED vs the things that I WANT, now right now I don't NEED a brand spanking new kitchen made to measure with 4 ovens but I would like it! I feel like I keep going around the house saying I need this, I need that and to be honest I don't actually. I need a new washing machine because this one is being taken away so it's definitely on the need list but i'm finding myself looking at pictures and decorations at the shop and having to say to myself that I most certainly do NOT need it even though I know it would make me feel better.

3. Making it Home

Now I know I just said that you shouldn't buy the things that you don't need but if there is something that's justifiable and will make you feel like the house really is yours then go ahead and treat yourself, something as simple as a plant or a new light might make you feel like you are starting to put your own stamp on the place and may make you more motivated, personally the first room in our house that I cleaned and tidied all of the previous owners stuff away is the bathroom and for me it still didn't feel like my own, I really wanted something to put in there that would give it my own little stamp and for me that was a cactus. I know it sounds so silly but I feel like plants are really nice in the bathroom, they remind me of outdoors and fresh air and a little bit of colour to brighten up a plain white bathroom does the world of good.

4. Move Things Around

Don't be afraid to experiment with placement of the furniture in a room, if you have a small room then play about with it and see what works best, it may take time but eventually you'll find a way to fit things in a way that makes you feel happy when you walk into the room. If you have the problem that I do with a really big room and the struggle to make it feel cosy then try to turn it into areas rather than one big room, for us, we have a huge living/dining area and to make it more cosy David managed to make a living area with the chairs around the TV where we can sit and socialise with guests while the other part of the livingroom next to the kitchen is more separate and feels like a very different part of the house, I've only had it like this for 1 day and it's made me much happier that we are making the house our own.

5. Painting

In terms of painting we are also relatively lucky, we can't decide on colour to use so we have decided to keep the house fairly neutral using the decor to bring in the pops of colour. Right now the livingroom is white and we plan on keeping it that way using nice canvases and lamps etc to bring in a bit of colour, I had also planned to bring colour in with the curtains but in the livingroom at the moment I am actually really enjoying having it light and open. We are planning on painting a few rooms in the house, one being the bedroom but again the walls will be white and the bed linen and decorations will be blue themed.

All in all we are still working out how is best to organise our stuff and manage to fit things in but it will just take time until I manage to get the house exactly the way I want it.

The Future

Hi everyone,

I am so sorry that this blog has been so neglected over the past year, there has been so many new things going on in my life that blogging and reading was the very last thing on my mind. However I really want to keep blogging and really provide something for people to read becuase to me I like to help people out by providing tips whether it be what to read as I have always posted or what to watch as with my other more recent posts. The problem is that I have changed so much in the past year and have so many good things in my life going on that reading and watching TV is simply out of the question so below I am going to detail the stuff going on and the changes I plan to make.

I will start at the beginning when my blogging really started to slip. Last March someone entered my life and really changed me for the better, things were changing and even in myself I was feeling very different, this person is still in my life today and we are looking forward to celebrating our first year together, that person is David who I will probably refer to numerous times when blogging. In August of last year I realised that I really wasn't happy working where I was and I found myself in tears on the way to work just dreading going there, if it wasn't for David I probably wouldn't have made the decision to start looking for jobs again but he really encouraged me and helped me through the bad times. In early October after numerous interviews that never went anywhere I got one for a place very near to where David stays, not only did the job fit me perfectly but i'd also be near to him. I got the job and started working on October the 20th and it was amazing, soon after at the beginning of November I started to get ill. I had suffered from Chronic Migraines for a number of years but medication was keeping them at bay and I would only have one or two every year so it wasn't that bad however this time I had one at David's and it was pretty terrifying, if anyone suffers from these they will know about the paralysis and I had never experienced paralysis on both sides of my body but that's exactly what happened, after this migraine subsided we assumed that everything would go back to normal however a few days later I had another attack in work, and then again a few days later. The migraines kept coming every night between 2am and 6am and were lasting well into the next day, I spoke to the doctor a number of times until she refered me to the hospital, they took bloods (my first time and I nearly fainted and this also triggered another migraine) when the bloods came back all clear the doctor told me that he would like to keep me in over night, I was devastated, I HATE hospitals and being in one over night made me panic. I was told that the next day I would have a CT scan and perhaps a Lumbar Puncture, luckily enough the scan came back fine and the hospital decided against the Lumbar Puncture, they put me on a different set of tablets but said that they might take a while to take effect. After a few more weeks of attack after attack they finally began to subside and after one last big one (where I was violently sick for hours and hours and had to get an ambulance to hospital to put me on a drip) the migraines were finally gone. I was over the moon when I could go back to work and luckily they were so understanding and welcomed me back with open arms. Now I have been clear of migraines since the end of November and am finally back to full health I have another huge thing happening in my life and that's moving into my own place!

Now this brings me to blogging again, I am hoping to have a blog that is more focused on life and everything in it, the good times and the bad times as well as the fun times and the ones where you want to sit on the floor and cry. I really want this blog to grow with me and change as I do, whether that means making it a home related blog and document all of the things going on in the house just now and then maybe in a few years time it could be a wedding or a pregnancy and motherhood blog. Either way I really hope to start back up again and I really hope that no matter what i'm writing about someone, somewhere can get something out of it.

If anyone reading this has any requests for what I should blog about whether my idea above is a good one or if you want to see something in particular, even if it's more about Chronic Migraines or something to do with a new house please let me know in the comments below and I will see what I can do.

Speak soon,

Leigh