Lynda's Blog

  I have always been compassionate towards those who suffer terrible disasters. But I now realise that with the best of intentions, no-one can ever understand what it is actually like until they too experience one. Just over a week ago, we had a category 3 cyclone which devastated our region and other parts of our country. My husband and I were fortunate in that although our street was flooded we did not have to evacuate. Others were not so fortunate and there was huge loss of property and also loss of life. The stories were heart-breaking. We had no electricity for five days and limited gas for cooking, limited fuel for the Coleman lamp and limited cans of food—all of these had sold out very quickly and were not available even after the cyclone passed over. We lost food from the fridge and freezer. We were cut off with roads and bridges washed out so no goods got through. Although we had prepared in advance, we really had no idea of the actual damage that would happen and how di...

  My other half didn’t quite get the concept of budgeting when we retired. “I haven’t scraped and saved all my life so that I cannot buy what I want,” he said.  I try to explain that the savings should be used for the ‘big’ or ’important’ things – the car repairs, a new appliance, our frequent trips to see the grandchildren (and coffee)! He still doesn’t get it – so potentially the savings could disappear quite quickly. I didn’t worry about the scaremongers who told us how many hundreds of thousands we needed to save for our retirement – well we couldn’t have done it anyway unless we lived in a tent and cycled everywhere (which might have been good for the health). But we squirreled a bit away in our retirement fund, plus a bit more in savings and even some money for renovations. Seems like it wasn’t enough! The reno’s cost considerably more than we had saved. Maybe the cracks in the shower wall weren’t that bad. The holes in the linoleum could be disguised and the to...

  Well call me stupid if I was extremely naïve when we finally decided to do some home renovating, but I had never had a renovation experience until I retired (apart from some wall papering).   I was blessed to have a builder for a dad who did any work we needed, included building on a whole new room when he was around 79 years old. He was amazing! But alas, he is not with us any more, passing away at the grand old age of 92 years. He always said that if a job was worth doing, it was worth doing well. So after saving for many years until my retirement, we decided to renovate our old bathroom, toilet and laundry, untouched for 40 years! Here is what I learned along the way. ·          Get several quotes! ·          Make sure the builder writes instructions down! Yup, you would think that was a given. ·          Put towels or rags on the new bathroom ca...