I am NO GOOD at Decluttering!
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| Handwritten notes from 1998 |
Having just finished reading about the price of central heating oil in 2004 (it looks like 18.5p + 5% vat per litre) I set aside one folder and moved onto another folder... to find this!
This is my handwritten notes from 1998 when we were preparing to put all the challenges for our group of writers, artists, crafters, money-savers and debt-busters into print for the first time.
The notes are a little faded so I will retype some of them here, as I feel they are as relevant now as they were then.
Now You Know
- What does a reader know after reading NYK that they didn't possibly know before...?
- What makes you keep buying the same products and reading material?
- What matters most to ordinary people now?
- Growing families and setting up home
- Finances
- Household running costs
- Car running costs
- The benefits of the Internet
- Entertainment
- Health
- Bargains to buy
- Sports? (or sensationalism)
- Humour and satire
- Budget charts
- Price comparisons
- Earning potentials
- How to...
- Investments and savings
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There you have it - a glimpse into the past origins of NYK and what the aims were. The basic premise was simple: if you cannot afford to do something then,
- Do it anyway and accept the consequences
- Don't do it
- Find a way of making it affordable
My bank manager always saw a major flaw in my plan - it didn't involve profit, it simply involved making things affordable. This is still my way of thinking and this is probably also why I don't have a business, I'm merely self-employed.
Original is not always best?
Investments and savings
How we invest in our own, our families, our friends and even our acquaintances' lives is what is important. Savings should be pennies as well as information needed to make life good within our own budgets. I can't afford to employ anyone but I can afford to give people the chance to learn from my experiences and, in the process, find their own opportunity to fulfil their own potential.
To round off this impromptu post, the postman has just delivered me a bank letter informing me that my ISA cash savings interest rate is being reduced to 0.96%
Woopity-doo-dah-dae! That'll make my Interest Beater Challenge even easier!
Edited in: Just found the print contract - £435 per 5,000 copies and £60 per 1,000 thereafter. Haulage cost £50 back then. :)
Edited in: Just found the print contract - £435 per 5,000 copies and £60 per 1,000 thereafter. Haulage cost £50 back then. :)
NYK, Frugaldom
No wonder I never became a bank manager!
ReplyDeleteTo my mind, making something more affordable is showing a profit.
Make more money, work more hours, have more stress and pay more taxes....yeah, right.
If I can get what I need and a bit of what I want for less money, time and anxiety I feel I have made HUGE profit. I presently live well on approximately the same salary that I made more than 30 years ago, and I was lower middle class at the time. There was a learning curve and much re-evaluation and thought along the way.
I continue along with adaptations here and there while people around me are crashing and burning on gigantic incomes.
To my mind it is about priorities, thinking outside the commercial box and trusting in my own self worth and instincts....besides it's a great mental challenge.
We all need a challenge in life, eh? 30 years ago I was clearing £32 a week, had a horse to keep, a car to run, living and night school to attend, so there's no way I could do all of that nowadays for £32 (40 hours @ 80p per hour). If I scale that up to working the same hours in employment for minimum wage now, I reckon I'd still manage it all, including the horse.
DeleteI didn't have a car back then...or a horse!
DeleteCar is somewhat recent concession to heath issues and the sky rocketing cost and extreme unreliability of public transport.
Priorities and adjustments had to be made....but then, even a bank manager makes only so much profit and confronts limits.
I think the difference is our reactions to our liits and ability to be creative that sets us apart from them.
I can definitely get creative when it comes to making money transform into something much more worthwhile and I have seen countless others with similar passions. :)
DeleteI am currently reading your blog cover to cover, as it were.i am so addicted to it. You are definitely inspirational.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, I really appreciate that. :) You'll probably need to hold onto your hat, it has been a bumpy ride with all the house moves, plus the posts are spread all over the place because of my crazy addiction to challenges and my need for company while doing them but you'll get the gist of the story between here and frugalforums.co.uk :)
DeleteBut it makes for a fascinating read, keep at Tasmanian Minimalist :-)
ReplyDeleteI love finding little snippets of my own history tucked away in files.
Today's find was pretty awesome! Hundreds of pages of old research notes, synopsis and other ground work for my best sellers I had planned to write and have published by 2008! LOL I may just need to blog about that now, too.
Delete