Tuesday 21 May 2013

Money, money, money


Don’t you just love it when you get an e-mail telling you that your finances are less precarious than you thought?  I had two such e-mails the other day. 

Firstly there was one from Zazzle –

My first sale – hooray.  That means I have about 15p towards the £30 I need before I can receive a Paypal payment from Zazzle.  Only another £29.85 worth of sales to go …

In the meantime I got this e-mail from the National Lottery. 


News about my ticket - oh goody. This indicated I had won somewhere between a couple of pounds and £55m. Imagione the tingle in my fingers as I open my account page...

Ah well….  I’ll have to put that cottage in the country back on the dream shelf for a while. 

Do you have a dream shelf?  It’s the place where you put all those things that you would like to own but for one reason or another (usually related to finances or the dislikes of partners) are unable to do so.

My dream shelf includes a wide variety of things from Desert Chameleon and Bearded Dragon to thatched cottage with woodland and stream.  Every time one of those little catalogues drops through the door I add new things go my shelf.  You see a new object that suddenly fulfils a need you never knew you had.  “Wow, look, they have a thingy which does that.”   Some are great little inventions and so reasonably priced that you end up buying them.  But for every one of those there are ten that go on the dream shelf.  Fortunately the brain cannot cope with putting too many things on the dream shelf and as you push another item on at the front something from a while ago falls off down the back.

I should point out at this stage that the same thing does not apply to the kitchen drawer in which you keep all those useful objects.   That simply gets more and more full until it reaches the stage where the jam jar opener becomes a jam drawer half-opener.

15 comments:

  1. Wow...a lottery winner...Don't spend it all at once.

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  2. Wow I know a lottery winner! Congratulations! here's hoping that that win will purchase a winning ticket of a much higher denomination!

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  3. I feel your frustration with the £30 payment threshold. I have the same problem on Shapeways, although I'm a little closer to being paid. What's really annoying is that you lose out on interest as well.

    I'm annoyed with Amazon at the moment for a similar reason. I sold something at the beginning of May but I don't get paid until the end of the month, even though there is no payment threshold. Having had the camera and a vacuum cleaner die this month as well as a holiday I could do with being paid sooner rather than later!

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  4. Gosh! What are you going to do with all that money? I really should start playing the lottery myself :-)

    There is no dream shelf for me, just a few books, DVDs and the odd CD I have on a mental list. Some of them I am going to get when I'm in England in July, and some are going to be ordered from Amazon once I really, really want them.

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  5. I like the idea of a dream shelf.
    At least your emails consist of real finances, and not the garbage that ends up in my Inbox like BigWillyAllNight, sole heir of an inheritance, jackpot winner, and the proverbial $2,500.00 in my account in one hour.
    Remember that cents become dollars, so you may still get the cottage in the country someday.
    In my opinion, you are filthy rich in so many other ways.

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    1. Yes, Virginia, I have you for a friend for one thing. If one is rich in friends what else does one need?

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  6. I have a shelf of of dream things in my head. Big things, little things, useful things, fun things, practical things, frivolous things, all kinds of things. Among them is a log cabin in the mountains, a house by a lake, a wardrobe fit for the stars.......you get the idea. Mostly though, I've been trying to lessen the items I all ready have stored in real life.

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    1. At first I thought you were being greedy, JarieLyn. Two dwellings? Why not just settle for a house by a lake in the mountains? But on second thoughts this is a Dream Shelf, after all. We can have as many dwellings as we want on it so Good for You!

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  7. I love the idea of a 'dream shelf'!

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  8. My questions: What are Desert Chameleon and Bearded Dragon? Plants? Animals? Vehicles?

    My answers: To be able to afford to live in the house that we have to rent out in order to make the mortgage, and restore it to its original glory. To go back to Scotland.

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    1. Chameleons and Dragons are reptiles. Chameleons are slow but fascinating. Dragons move faster (slightly) and are gorgeous (in my view). If you've never seen a Chameleon or a Dragon shoot out its tongue and down a cricket you've never lived. It's the sort of thing one dreams about getting a photo of but unless you have the reactions of a Usain Bolt you're not likely to to do it. And even he would have difficulty!

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  9. Here in the States we had a 600 million lottery drawing...so everyone had a "Dream Shelf"! Many of us at work put in our $2 and hoped we wouldn't have to show up on Monday! Ha! We were all there and found out one person in a tiny town (where my Mother-in-law grew up) in Florida won it all. But dreaming is fun and I have visions of taking all my kids and their kids to Disney and then helping out as many in my family and friends as I can. I might even dream of visiting some blog friends too! Anyway, dream on John and never give up that hope of a cottage in the woods!

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  10. A dream shelf. Hmm. Let's see. I'm pretty lucky and most of the stuff I want(ed) to do, I've actually done.

    But if I won the lottery, I would pay off my granddaughters' student loans. Then I would buy a new car - my "new" car is 9 years old. It still runs, but it would be nice to have something newer. Pay off my daughter's house mortgage and her cars.

    Then, when everyone was squared away, I would travel. Hawaii. England. Japan. Maybe Norway.
    But whether or not I get to do these things isn't the most important thing. What's important is having the ability to dream, and to look forward to things! xoxox

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  11. I have found a very strange thing about money in my life. On the rare occasions I have ever had it, or had more than usual, I feel absolutely thrilled for about a week. Then, I realise that I have the same amount as before - i.e. not quite enough to get what I really want. OK it's enough to buy what I used to really want. But now I can get it, I don't want it. I want that thing that is just a bit more expensive than what I can afford.

    Absolutely astonishing. I don't know how I do it. (Along with many other odd things)

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