As it turned out...

to do lists are a great idea! Almost everything on the list is complete, I substituted a few tasks for some other jobs that have been bugging me for a while. Today I was flicking back through my notebook to some older, bolder to-do lists written a few months ago. I can tick most of the items off the list - sell at carboot sales, purchase new sofa, start making wine, clear out the garden, plant some tree seeds, paint the living room, throw a halloween bash, pay down debts, return that two year overdue library book, plan a food budget and pantry, declutter the house, get a dining table.... We have managed to get them all done in the past few months, plus a few more. There are still lots of things to be doing, but it was satisfying to tick off all the little things that we had managed and also a few that were no longer important for us to do.


This month we have managed to pay off over half of our outstanding debts. That means that our debt free day has been brought forward from 'indefinite', to the end of February 2011. I can't say how relieved I am about this, that in a few months we will be using our wages to build our finances and to fund the things that we want in life, rather than funding the interest payments on loans taken out before we were wise enough to realise the rules of the game.

So all in all it has been a productive week and a productive year. Which is progress, because most years of my adult life have been years of consumption, debt and dissatisafction.  I imagine that this is a process that is going on up and down the land, and across the world. People are finding joy in doing things for themselves, in crafts and home cooking and making themselves more secure and resilient and happy, all the things we have strived for for millenia. It is very tough and I know that there is for most people no romance in it, but it is comforting to know that we are making a start.