This post is bought to you by Nuffnang and VicSuper
Have you ever felt as if finance was a game for maths wizards and genius “grown ups” – like an exclusive club you’ll never be invited to join?
That’s how I felt for years, until just recently. I finally realised how dysfunctional my relationship was with money.
I’m not talking about over spending or shopaholic behaviours. The real problem was believing that I didn’t control my financial future.
For years, I felt as if my money wasn’t “mine” and that, as someone with a dubious grasp of mathematics, I’d never be able to win at finance. Instead, my financial future would always reside in someone else’s hands.
From the outside this sounds ridiculous. How could a 38-year-old entrepreneur who’s launched and grown two businesses believe finance was beyond her skill set? And yet I did.
There’s been a seismic shift in my life this year. One that has given me an immeasurable sense of control, both of my own destiny and to make smart decisions along the way. How I will live in the future is a direct result of the choices I make right now.
In my early twenties I read “Rich Dad Poor Dad” with stars in my eyes and mental images of myself aboard a yacht counting my stacks of money. Then I went out and bought more shoes.
Numbers on paper can seem so unreal. The $1 million I wanted to make was an abstract concept, but the $100 in my wallet was real (and so were the killer heels I bought with it). I could feel it and use it right away.
Every time I got a pay cheque and saw the deductions for super, I’d cringe, feeling my pockets empty. Why couldn’t I get my head around what that money really was? It was the savings I wasn’t doing every time I reached for my purse and a shiny pair of shoes.
Over the years I largely forgot about my super, the neglected child of my financial family. I thought about my property and my bank balance, and even joked about my vintage collection being my real super.
Even when I started my own business, I kept telling myself I had to take charge of my super, but it still seemed rather ‘beige’ at the time. It didn’t have the instant gratification appeal of going to the ATM and getting that High Roller thrill on payday.
Have you ever held a million dollars?
No? How about $800,000?
I did.
In cash.
And it’s all mine. (Or at least it will be.)
As I stood there weighing the heavily stacked piles of notes in my hands, I had one thought: I want more.
That $800,000 was the reality of the cash I could have in superannuation by my retirement. I just need to care about it.
And there are no shoes, no fancy dinners and no bargains I want more than that pile of cash.
I’ll be honest with you. I’ve let my super become something quite off putting in my head. Something that’s for grown ups, and there’s this weird feeling that if I somehow started to give a damn about it, then I must be old, boring and I’d need to know a heck of a lot more about finance.
It’s amazing where your mind goes when you have that much cash in your hands. How intensely my inner Monopoly competitor arises and wants to win.
In a simple game of “How many pairs of shoes I don’t need”, I realised I could transform life for future me with one simple act. Saving a few extra bucks here and there, not losing fees to multiple funds because it was “too hard” to find all the paper work, will mean the difference between living on cat food or caviar. (I joke… maybe?)
How crazy does it sound that the biggest pile of cash I have right now, the biggest investment next to my property, is one that I’ve been ignoring?
I don’t even have a handbag big enough to carry that much cash.
What’s next? I’m selling most of the shoes that would have left me a hobbled old lady anyway and adding that cash to the pile. I’m proving to myself and my daughters that winning at the finance game isn’t nearly as hard as we’re often led to believe.
…….
From today, VicSuper are giving YOU the chance to physically hold you superannuation balance in your hands – head to www.getsuperactive.com.au to see your super as cash and for more info
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and we kicked off with a High Tea for the McGrath Foundation.
You might wonder why I am at a BP station? Not the first place you would think of for a glamorous High Tea, I know… But BP is using its Australia-wide network of 1400 stores to help raise money for the McGrath Foundation.
Until October 7th, every time you pick up a BP pump, anywhere in Australia, they will make a donation to McGrath. Plus selected stores are selling delicious PINK lamingtons! Then for the whole month of October, you can choose to make a donation directly to the McGrath Foundation at the checkout. A simple and easy way to help support this cause that touches us all.
My friends and I spent the morning catching up, eating ice cream and talking about the important initiative that is Curve Lurve.
Curve Lurve is the McGrath Foundation’s education initiative, aimed at increasing breast awareness in young Australians, with a particular emphasis on young women.
Being breast aware means regularly checking your breasts so you know what’s normal for you – and seeking advice from your GP if you notice changes. We all have them and it’s incredibly important to get to know them – intimately!
Catching up with the girls was simply brilliant too. I know I have a great community out there and having the support of these ladies is quite an privilege. We talked vintage, cake, and the all important issue of personal health.
Share your own #BelieveInPink moment and help spread the word about Curve Lurve!
I had grand plans of becoming a superhero/adventurer, part Wonder Woman and part Indiana Jones, tromping through the desert sands uncovering treasures and dusting off the next great thing for mankind. I loved the challenge, the mystery, the sheer romance of it.
But what I never expected was how this desire would later emerge in my real life.
Let me rewind for a moment ….
Here at the new salon location we’ve moved to, we now have a garden to play with! Yes, our little 1950’s house sits on a small block with an unruly garden. I’ve learnt that shortly before we moved in, it was overrun, unloved and untended. There was a little chainsaw action before we arrived, but that’s about it.
Challenge accepted.
A Vision Takes Root, Blossoms Into A Plan
When I stand at the front gate, I picture the house and garden in its heyday. I can see the small holes in the concrete fence where the little iron gate would have been, the rounded troughs in the earth where a tree once rose. She is beautiful but neglected; her life isn’t over, just dormant.
As the spring sun gave us reasons to smile last weekend, I hastily gathered as many small flowering plants as my wallet could handle. I’d planned to fill the gateway garden bed with colour, alleviating the dullness of an empty space covered in pine needles.
Standing back from the lawn, I let my imagination overlay reality with images of neatly edged beds, filled with blooms and welcoming friends. There were old bricks scattered about the backyard, under trees and shrouded in thorny weeds. As I plucked the bricks from amongst the roots, I avoided the spiders’ nests, scraped off years of encrusted dirt, and stacked them up in preparation for my vision.
The house had provided the bricks, a small broken shovel and an idea. All I had to do was make it happen.
A Surprising Discovery
My first strike into the soil was sharp. The loam gave way easily, but beneath it I hit an unexpected resistance. Down on my hands and knees, denim soaked in mud, my fingers curiously pushed back the earth.
What I found, in the very spot I’d chosen to slice my shovel, was the original concrete garden edging, roughly 10cm below the soil. Whether this had been deliberately grown over or was the work of years of debris and neglect was unclear.
But the sheer joy of finding this small piece of history overwhelmed me as, thrilled, I dug away more and more to reveal the extent of the original design.
Sure, it’s a small thing and certainly no ancient discovery, yet it provided an even stronger sense of connectedness to this place. I revelled in how my vision for this space dovetailed with the original plans, and that I could be a catalyst for bringing them back to life.
An Unexpected Life Lesson Emerges
I could have stayed in that cold dirt for hours, chipping away at the layers, with my mind so full of parallels: How deeply we bury our original plans for ourselves, letting them become neglected in the debris of daily life. How expediency and convenience so often become weeds that strangle our intentions of beauty enjoyed at a gentle pace. How we settle for the lot we are given rather than digging deeper to find another way, getting our hands dirty in the process. I found myself waxing unexpectedly philosophical.
I may only be her keeper as a tenant, but I cannot help but take a sense of ownership.
I need to rescue, to strip back the layers and let the original beauty shine. It’s a kind of therapy for me, in much the same way that I love taking moth-eaten, beaded cardigans and darning them back into worthy service. In our throwaway society, this gives me a sense of connectedness, of greater meaning and purpose.
This type of mindfulness carries over into my consumption habits and helps me see the end game — to slow down and appreciate what lies beneath, and to leave things better than we found them.
Have you ever had a similar experience, where the mundane starts your mind racing philosophically? Did it transport you back to your childhood dreams? Are you seeing things differently as a result? I’d love to hear your experiences in the comments below …
Thanks to the proliferation of information on the internet, it is getting harder and harder to find the answers you’re looking for.
When you ask Google, “what is a wet set” I’m pretty sure you don’t want to see some of the images I’ve just had to burn from my eyes. (No don’t do it.)
In short hand terms, a “wet set” is any kind of shape, usually a curl, you set into your hair while it is wet and wait for it to dry into place. This could be big bouncy curls, or it could even be traditional finger waves. This setting method fell out of fashion as it is time consuming and honestly, not the best option for all hair types. It is very rare that I do a full wet set on my own hair due to both time restrictions and my naturally wavy hair type.
The options for drying your wet set are two fold; you either wait until it dries naturally (like overnight) or you’ll be using a dryer. I do have a vintage bonnet dryer, both the upright and portable hood kind, but neither of these are hot enough to dry my hair quickly. Even two hours under these is not enough fully dry my set.
As someone with wavy hair, prone to fizziness, an overnight wet set also causes me problems. Because I haven’t smoothed and dried my hair first, it hasn’t smoothed and sealed the cuticle. So while the initial result might look fabulous, any hint of rain or humidity turns the set into an absolute nightmare.
My own version of a wet set is more of a “damp set”, in that I have dried my hair off completely before employing rollers or pin curls to move my hair into the desired shape. Sleeping in wet hair is also a health risk and after a time can cause fungal infections on your scalp (ick!) because of the warmth and very high humidity as it dries. By having dry hair to begin with, then dampening it with setting lotion or even just a little lavender water, I get a much better finished set and avoid having a wet scalp all night.
Wet sets need to be planned in advance and can actually help you cut your morning routine in half. They last longer than a hot set (from rollers or an iron), and are particularly good for super straight hair that is stubborn to curl. Choosing a setting pattern and method is where the fun begins with this process, and the results are only limited by your skill level and hair type.
DO NOT use velcro rollers. Ever.
DO NOT wet your hair with hair spray or mousse unless you want crunchy curls you can do nothing with.
DO use a silicone free conditioner to keep your hair bouncy and without weighing it down. Conditioners that use silicone for shine make it harder fort he hair to hold the curl.
DO use a vintage chiffon scarf of with a similar grip (not silk) to cover your hair while drying. It helps prevent fly-aways from the rollers and keeps the curls in neatly while you sleep.
This video is an old from back in our archives (but still a good one), and will show you just how to tie a headscarf to help keep your curls in overnight.
If you’d like to see how to do your own wet sets, or would like instructions on how to create particular hairstyles using the wet set method, just leave me a comment!
I’ve been a keen op-shopper for so long I can’t even remember when I first started.
I have clear recollections of an original pair of Winkle Picker shoes in all their pointy, polished glory, making their way home with me and into regular rotation until their seams gave out.
There was a 1960’s leather trench coat with pencil pleating I scored for the grand sum of $10 and the multitude of tweed skirts I’d buy to emulate what I imagined was the feeling of a girl going of to boarding school. (I was obsessed with Girl’s Own Annuals at the time.)
When the money I had was only a tiny bit of pocket change, I’d unknowingly begun to develop my own fast money tips.
It has been a life time’s habit, one that did not always make me popular and certainly well before the term “vintage” ever entered our vernacular. It was just how I did things.
Fast forward more than thirty years later and I’m still at it. A habit which I attribute many of my keen shopping skills to, to say nothing of my money saving ways.
I realised recently just how much cash I save every year by choosing to make the op-shop my first port of call for many of my regular buys, things I would rarely, if ever, pay retail for.
Op shops are an absolute gold mine. Even now that many have put their prices up to much higher amounts in certain areas, there are still bargains to be had.
If you want to save cash quickly and regularly, these top 5 buys might just be the baby steps you need to set you on the right path.
Solid, stable frames with no fractures at the joints
Frames with matting still intact
No cracks in the glass
How to fancy them up:
Spray paint
Gold or silver foiling
Glitter glue bath
*Hint: Check out this stunning transformation and DIY instructional from DreamGreenDIY. I’m in love![/dt_vc_list][dt_gap height=”10″][vc_single_image image=”15821″ alignment=”center” border_color=”grey” img_link_target=”_self” img_size=”large”][dt_gap height=”30″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][dt_vc_list style=”1″ dividers=”true”]
Tupperware and other storage containers
What to look for:
Matching lids with no warp and a tight seal
Plastic that hasn’t suffered any melting or microwave burn
How to fancy them up:
Vinyl stickers or labels as DIY decals
*HINT: search for Meyercord Decals to find original vintage decals![/dt_vc_list][dt_gap height=”10″][vc_single_image image=”15818″ alignment=”center” border_color=”grey” img_link_target=”_self” img_size=”full”][dt_gap height=”30″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][dt_vc_list style=”1″ dividers=”true”]
Serving ware
Pyrex, casserole dishes, silverware (plated or otherwise)
What to look for:
No pitting in the plating as this will quickly lift or corrode
No cracks or major chips
Matching lids
Matching sets or complimentary colours
How to fancy them up:
Silver or metal polish – easy to use and makes a big difference to the overall appearance.
Glass or china wear decals
*Hint: Check out this fantastic post by Dans leTownhouse on restoring and cleaning pyrex[/dt_vc_list][vc_single_image image=”15815″ border_color=”grey” img_link_target=”_self” img_size=”large” alignment=”center”][dt_gap height=”30″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][dt_vc_list style=”1″ dividers=”true”]
Timber Furniture
What to look for:
Sturdy legs – no cracks or loose joins
Well running drawers (these can also be fixed with a good sanding and a bit of baby powder if they stick)
How to fancy them up:
Spray paint – enamel auto spray paint is a cheap buy and gives a great finish. Just make sure to sand properly in between coats
Re-upholster – often very simple of timber furniture with upholstered seats.
Add moulding panels
*Hint: This impressive timber stool makeover from The Red Thread blog has total DIY instructions.[/dt_vc_list][dt_gap height=”10″][vc_single_image image=”15817″ alignment=”center” border_color=”grey” img_link_target=”_self” img_size=”full”][dt_gap height=”30″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][dt_vc_list style=”1″ dividers=”true”]
Cushions & Throw Pillows
What to look for:
Size – does it fit the purpose you have in mind
Overall condition – cleanliness
Don’t worry about the cover or pattern, you can make you own later
How to fancy them up:
Make your own cushion covers
Add fancy trim, like fringing or braiding to the existing cushion cover
Add buttoning for a more expensive look
*Hint: This Spotlight tutorial has the instructions on how to make DIY cameo or silhouette cushions[/dt_vc_list][dt_gap height=”10″][vc_single_image image=”15820″ alignment=”center” border_color=”grey” img_link_target=”_self” img_size=”full”][dt_gap height=”30″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]These are some of our most shopped for decorator items and sometimes the dollars add up very quickly.
If like me, you prefer to save your money and invest it elsewhere (like paying off bills or supporting local artisans and buying handmade shoes), these tips will set you on the right path.
It’s a healthy habit to get into both for your wallet, the environment and for the creative part of your brain that gets a chance to flex its muscle.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_single_image image=”15808″ border_color=”grey” img_link_target=”_self” img_size=”large” alignment=”center”][/vc_column][/vc_row]
