Beads, Boilers & Budgets (6 months on)

Wow it's July already!!

Butterfly in flight by Mars (Greece 2014)

As we've just tipped the half way point of 2014 it seemed like a good time to revisit my New Years Bead Resolution No. 6.

This is what I wrote at the start of January 2014...

6.  To spend less on jewellery than I did in 2013 so I can finally get my boilers replaced

"...I think this one is fairly self explanatory and obvious to regular readers of Curling Stones.  I've had a bumper year for jewellery buying and I've added up what I spent in 2013 then compared that figure to the one that represents what I've been saving up for generally (not just my boilers) and I didn't like the way the scales tipped - although I do love all the lovely new jewellery! No regrets for last year, just a change for 2014; I've set myself some personal financial goals and the result of this is the scales need to tip back to a more manageable level on the jewellery spending... well let's just leave it at that for now and see how this year pans out shall we?"

I expanded on this further when I wrote my A to Z series in April, 3 months later...

"My latest method is to say that "I won't spend more on jewellery than I save in any given 6 month period" - essentially hoping to promote a win win situation, if I spend more on Jewellery then I need to save more money for practical stuff.  So far it's looking good, but then again we're only in April... a lot can happen in 3 months!"

So, it's 3 months later and what did happen in April, May and June?!

Carved Amber Bracelet: Rose, Turtle & Ladybug

I thought I had a chance of recovering this resolution after I indulged heavily in the Liquidation Sales at the start of 2014, and then, a'hem, carved ambers appeared, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 carved ambers later - say no more!

Carved Amber Fantasy Necklace: Fat Fish, Thin Fish & Scarab

My resolution has evolved into 3 broad goals over the course of the last 6 months:

1. Spend less on Jewellery overall than I did in 2013
2. Increase my savings (preferably to the point where they exceed my jewellery spend, or at least match it)
3. Replace my ancient boilers (I have been seriously saving up to do this for 3 years now)

Well if I take the optimistic view and don't get into too many details; to quote Meatloaf 2 out of 3 ain't bad, although in case you think he's developed a secret Trollbeads obsession, the song isn't about my battle with beads, boilers and budgets (sorry, although you gotta admit that would have been rather awesome).

So what's the verdict in July?

1. I've just about (by the skin of my teeth) spent less on jewellery than the equivalent 6 months of 2013
2. I've increased the amount I've been able to save by being uber strict, and probably a bit too hermit like, but this means I've almost doubled the amount saved for practical stuff by this time last year.  Despite all this I've not been able to match my jewellery spend yet, let alone exceed it
3. My ancient boilers are no more, and a big shiny beast of a boiler has replaced them with a huge magnetic hat to keep it all going

All in all it's been a pretty good 6 months!  I've achieved the third goal completely, which is pretty major in itself... but as I enjoy a toasty warm and hopefully cheaper winter, I will continue to attempt to also complete the first and second goals by the end of the year.  Fingers crossed!

How do you all manage your spending/collecting/obsessions??

I'm always looking for new ideas to help me budget, as willpower by itself doesn't work for me;

I'm far too impulsive and magpie like!!

Hit the comments and share your tips, trips & slips!

A Surprise Smoky Quartz

Sales - I love them, especially when there's a bargain to be had!  I love Labradorite so I was delighted to find a lone Trollbeads Labradorite listed in a sale; order duly placed and a package arrived the next day... great service!

Here it is next to my other three... can you spot the difference?  

Yep they'd sent me a Smoky Quartz instead!

Smoky Quartz has never been on my radar, it's not a bead I've ever gone "Ooh I must have one of those!" but given it's rather marvellous sale price I thought it was worth trying on some bracelets to see what happened.

Armed with my trusty mobile camera and some other beads new and unused (or old and not used as much) along with a sprinkling of silvers I made a start.

Firstly I ignored the silvers completely and tried a glass, stone and leather bracelet.  I thought the leather would pick up the colour in the Quartz and I chose the other beads for their blue/grey and brown tones.

The flash on my mobile camera has made the white elements look a bit overpowering but in natural daylight this bracelet has some lovely muted shades - unfortunately by the time it came to take photos I'd lost most of the natural daylight.  Note to self - blog earlier!!

I also had a play using a full silver bracelet and this is the one I'm currently wearing.  Smoky Quartz is not the most obvious stone I'd pick out for myself despite my love of stones generally but on balance I think I'm going to keep it.  The price was excellent, I've thrown a few combos together and think it will get use on my bracelets and it goes well with a lot of beads that don't always get an outing from the bead box so hopefully it may give new life to some of my white and brown/grey beads.

Not forgetting my original order - if anyone does see any Trollbeads Labradorite beads in the sales - do let me know; I'm always looking for more of these!

Beads, budgeting (revisited) and bangles

It was the start of a new month, one that should have seen me both step onto that Bead Wagon & try out a new skill (more on that later)... well that Bead Wagon must have been going way too fast to stop to allow me to step on it, as I succumbed before breakfast with a big purchase (but great bargain naturally - see photos below) and I finished the day with Goldmine's Critter Crawl... oops!

1 bangle!

2 bangles!!

3 bangles!!!

A'hem... my only saving grace and escape from eating beans on toast for the rest of July is I also scored a bargain on my car insurance renewal, so my beads & bargain have at least been paid for without resorting to raiding my boiler fund - my favourite back of the sofa place for unexpected bead indulgences!

So given I've had a narrow escape on a month of eating beans... how is it all going on the budgeting front?

It all started with this post and as I blogged the progress of the May bead embargo I set myself some very challenging goals.  Given a bit of reflection, and a bit of spending, I've figured out that those goals were a bit too challenging... time for a rethink!

As comic timing would have it - Victoria over at Endangered Trolls just alerted us all to a UK retailer sale as I was writing this... go here for details!

So for the next 6 months, including all the unplanned/unexpected spending I've done for the "didn't get back on the wagon" in June and the "the wagon didn't stop long enough for me to get on it" in July I'm aiming for a total spend of around 5% of my net income, from my originally rather harsh target of 1.5% per month!

Although as I've spent a lot of that already, ironically what's left is about 1.5% per month - it's going to be a tough year!!!

Good things come in 3's - Silver Beads

As you've no doubt gathered by now I've not broken my self-imposed bead embargo - this series of beads are all pre-embargo and I'm just catching up with the blog!  I'd been buying a lot of glass beads and it was definitely time to pick up some more silver ones for contrast.

L-R: Lotus, Van Gogh, Chinese Snake

My first bead was preloved and one from my wish lists, I particularly like Lotus when it's on the end of a bracelet facing outwards, it gives a really cute effect.  On the smaller end it almost swallows up the link where it attaches itself to the lock and on the larger end it beautifully tapers the bracelet.

Next was another favourite from my wish lists, Netherlands World Tour Van Gogh silver bead, also preloved and just as gorgeous in real life as it is from the stock photos.  This is quite a chunk of a bead considering it was in price band II, it has some tiny gaps between some of the sunflowers (the flowers themselves are solid silver) and I think this would look great on one of the brightly coloured leather bracelets.

I still have quite a lot of beads left on my wish list from the World Tour Series, but then again I had a lot to start with when they were released briefly in the UK market, ah back then when I had some restraint, I only bought 4 out of the 14 I wanted from that collection! As I have also picked up Runes as part of my Amber bracelet collection I figure I still have another 8 to collect.

Finally I took advantage of a lovely sale from SWAG to pick up Chinese Snake - a bead I saw a non-stock photo of back when it was released last August but I missed out on the chance of it new at a bargain price then, not so this time and I bagged my bead new with a staggering 60% discount!

As you'd expect from a Price IV silver bead, this is quite a large one.  My only criticism of this bead is that as it's heavier on the front facing side I suspect it will have a tendency to slide upside down on a bracelet if it's loose on the chain, I will however keep you posted once I've road tested this one!

Such beautiful detailing all over this bead

I'm really pleased with this set of 3 silver beads, they are all very detailed and quite striking - and they are all longtime wish list beads.  I'm delighted to have finally picked these up, especially at some of the sale prices I was lucky enough to bag, it really can be financially worth waiting for beads that are a bit pricier in a new release.

So what next?  Well there is one more in my mini-series of Good Things come in 3's to publish tomorrow, then my long awaited Troll date with friends on Friday!

How having a plan doesn't always work (quite the way you intended)

Looking back at January from the safety of February I think I can say for certain I went a bit mad.

It started off innocently enough as my New Year's Bead Resolutions were my attempt to focus my bead collecting, and equally importantly my spending, into a streamlined method of acquiring and buying that would be more cost effective and would let me achieve certain goals, such as having an amber bracelet, without getting too sidetracked or having multiple bracelet ideas on the go and having to buy even more beads just to get one finished.

I should have known that as logical as I can be in my working life, that the bead collecting part of my brain wouldn't respond in such a sensible manner.  What actually happened was I bought more beads than I've ever bought in 1 month before, and I went so over budget that the budget line couldn't even be seen with The Hubble Telescope.

To be fair to myself, I did stick within my New Year's Bead Resolutions, I, er, just hadn't thought it through enough to put a definite limit on quantity - the quality I think I have down to a tee.  From this point of view I think you'll enjoy the beads to come.

One of my resolutions was to focus on the buying of bargain beads off my wish list.  The first sale opportunity was offered by SWAG with a whacking great big discount on beads; this saw me secure Silver Jugend (a bead I have been after for a long time), Lavender Prism, Light Turquoise Prism and Labradorite.

My original list was a lot longer and indeed for several days it looked like I was going to secure my first ever gold and silver bead, Daisy, along with the silver snow bead (which I am still looking for) and a multiple of turquoise prism.  Unfortunately the Sale was plagued with a lot of problems and was very oversubscribed so that left quite a few orders that couldn't be completed, and even with the best efforts by staff to locate beads and deal with the orders there were still some disappointments.  A month further along and those have passed and we are all left with some great beads at what were some of the lowest prices I've ever seen for new trollbeads!

Buying Labradorite online sight unseen was a huge risk, the photos of the bead look as if it has some "flash" in the bead but these are only ever picked up by the camera, in reality this is a lovely green faceted bead which will work well with natural colours on a bracelet, it goes very nicely with my Limited Edition green jasper bead and I imagine it would work well with a lot of my brown beads, but no flash.

Silver Jugend on the other hand is every bit as lovely as it looks, it really is a beautiful silver bead and if you were going to get just one of the chunkier silvers this would be my No.1 recommendation.  It works well with Transformation and I currently have these sat on a... oh sorry I'm getting ahead of myself there.  That will all come later as I have a few more, a'hem, a lot more beads to blog about before I can tell that particular story!

Finally I was able to add to my prism collection with light turquoise prism and lavender prism.  Some of you may remember I came close to having light turquoise prism earlier but was foiled by some flimsy packaging!

I had started (in earnest) following my resolutions and was very pleased with the progress I'd made by early January.  At the time I naively thought this was a head start, not the continued pace of what was to come!

What is in your pocketises?

My Birthday, a day off work, The Hobbit and a bit of shopping planned courtesy of Beaverbrooks. 

(The "spend £50 get at least £20 off" Christmas gift card promotion)

Unfortunately I was cutting it a bit fine when I swung by on the way to see The Hobbit.  I chose a brown leather bracelet, which had to be ordered (as I take the smallest size which a lot of stores don't carry in stock judging by when I bought my blue leather bracelet) and a bead off my wish list that caught my eye on the day... Pink Desert.  

Being in a rush I left all the packaging and bags, bar the pouch, on the counter, as I just stuffed the bead in my purse as I was running out of the shop to make the film in time, I did attempt to explain why I was in a rush...  I was probably their weirdest customer that day?!

Thinking of the blog I duly took a photo of the Pink Desert... in the pub!!

Yesterday morning I received an email to say my bracelet had arrived, so off I went to pick it up - oh no, they had a sale... another bead off my wish list was acquired, this time IN the packaging and I wasn't in such a rush.  

What was even cuter, well apart from picking up Silver Trace, Green - Turquoise for £20, was that as my bracelet was now in the sale, they sold it to me at sale price, which meant I had a further £12 discount on the bracelet too.  

The shop have the new boxes in so I have more of my favourite design of box (first seen by me when I ordered my Lock with Buds from the Christmas Collection), with even smaller boxes for little beads.  Cute!

Yesterday was a very good day all round; as you might have noticed there are THREE boxes in the photo.  The sharp eyed amongst you might even have noticed the middle sized box is a slightly different design, this box came all the way from the US and contained my second retired pink prism.  Keeping the discount theme in mind, I had had a $25 discount voucher I had actually forgotten about from the lovely people at Trollbeads Studio from my last order with them, I used this and got my second retired pink prism for $6! Bargain.

So that was what was in my pocketises!