Secondhand Jewllery. Where's The Value?

When I had money to burn and shopping for designer luxury was my only purpose, dropping a few grand on a Tiffany watch was never a problem but when I was starving, a few years later, I discovered something that became a massive problem. " What do you mean my Tiffany watch is only worth £100 quid" I said to the greedy secondhand dealer, ready to offer me a fraction of what I paid for it new, only one year earlier.
When I found myself starving and broke in LA, I had to sell all my collected designer trinkets, in order to keep afloat and was horrified by the inequity in selling my stuff, when my back was up against the wall.

So where is the value in that?

You cannot eat a Tiffany watch when you are starving, so buying something expensive when you cannot afford it, just to look like someone, is not only stupid but also a shock when you find out what it is really worth. You never know when the tide will change and sweep you out to sea, in other words, losing your job, sudden illness or unexpected financial problems, so saving your money, even if you think your comfortable, is critical for a rainy day.

A budget lifestyle is all about living within your means, debt free with a nest egg, just in case things change and little desire to buy stuff you might want but don't need. What is the point in buying clothes that don't fit and never will or a flash fast car, you cannot afford to put on the road or a lavish ballgown when you have no ball to go to, leaving you stuck with stuff that has not changed your actual life.

I still love clothes and still love shopping, who doesn't but these days I follow the mantra, buy new and the jokes on you because I got savvy, cured my self of status anxiety and now buy secondhand or recycled clothes, given up to charity by shopaholic women.

Who cares and who in reality knows whether what you are wearing is new or secondhand because style is unique and how you wear it with confidence is the key to pulling it off, as well as saving you a tidy fortune in the process. One mans trash is another mans treasure, so no matter how broke you are, there is always a way to get the look you desire for less and if you get into swapping clothes with friends and family, you get a brand new look without spending a single penny.

Stop shopping and start swapping if you are struggling and don't just swap clothes, try DVDs, household goods like cookers, hoovers, TV's, even books and CD's, making use of stuff you don't want anymore but someone else might need.

How Do I Stay Young

How do I stay young, is the most asked question by Women suffering with Status Anxiety, forever looking outward for the instant fix, the miracle cream, the magic lotion, powerful potion or plastic surgeon but in reality, we are what we eat, so beauty comes from within. If you spend your life obsessed with how you look, you will never be happy because the more you fret about what is wrong with you, the less time you have to nurture what is amazing about you.

When I had it all and could buy myself anything I desired in order to get noticed because in reality that's why we do it, always caring too much about what others think, I was still miserable, regardless of how many Chanel suits I owned and yes I did get attention but it was always the wrong attention. These days I still love to look younger but I prefer to feel younger and that comes from designing the perfect healthy lifestyle, you can afford and easily stick to.
You don't need to be a Millionaire to pamper yourself, you just need to understand what you need to eat in order to get amazing results on the outside and the great thing about this lifestyle plan, it comes cheap because what is from the earth, as I have said before, is the greatest of worth. What we put in our bodies as our fuel, is what we become on the outside, so if you truly desire fabulous skin, shiny hair and a slim firm figure, all you have to do is eat the right food. Just because you are living a budget lifestyle does not mean you are poor or have to eat poorly.

Fresh fruit, vegetables, pulses, nuts, avocado, fish, soya, the colorful food group, all can be purchased from the local market in abundance for cheap, so there are NO excuses. Anything you put in your body that is white, like bread, rice, potatoes will not give you the fresh faced and fabulous firm slim body you desire, so cutting them out is essential if you long to look healthy, fresh and younger.
Dry skin is never going to make you look younger because you will appear dull and lifeless, so you must always everyday use a moisturizer on your face and this does not need to be expensive or a brand, try nivea or dove, they both work just as well. Keeping your eyebrows plucked and tidy can also take years off the way you look, so have a go yourself and see how you get on.

Walking everyday is the perfect way to keep fit, young and healthy and if you can slot in a yoga session twice a week, something you can do at home and is free, you will not only look 10 years younger but you will feel it too because when we work on ourselves, we get results. Drinking lots of tap water and little, if no alcohol, is also another very good way to clear out any unwanted toxins you have, keeping your kidneys functioning properly, helping your body work in the way it should in order to be the best you can be.

Learning to truly love yourself is the key to staying young, so get rid of the past and begin to recognize you are fabulous, fun and passionate because unless you believe it, how can anyone else! I had 10 years without any money and in this time I was forced to find really cheap ways to keep on top of my personal maintenance, which in reality is quite easy when you are broke because you cannot afford to do all the bad things like smoking and drinking, so end up by default looking and feeling fantastic on a shoestring budget.

 

A Question For Our Leader David Cameron.

Dear David,

I have been trying to catch your attention for over a year now, to tell you about my free on-line life coaching course, Venus Cow  written to inspire  anyone with addiction, weight, debt and lifestyle problems, encouraging them to take back control of their lives. This important work is part of a social enterprise and was developed by collaborating with big financial business and university students who believed in its benefits enough to offer their skills for free and services.

I put together the free Common Sense life coaching course content to help anyone,  for free, work with a personal life coach, at home, on-line, in order to gain life skills, face the brutal truth reality about the state of their health and misery. As well as motivate them to change. The Venus Cow personal journal is a perfect tool to create a private place where behaviour, mistakes and achievements can be tracked and monitored by the user.

The reason I am passionate about offering free help to the Nation is simple and my purpose now, after a life changing experience that forced me to study my own behaviour, addictions and misery, resulting in valuable insight, I am compelled to share because it works.

I have studied human behaviour and status anxiety across the UK and my conclusions are alarming and must be addressed in order to save the Country from slowly sliding into unsustainable debt, out of control obesity, alcoholism, addictions and early death.  My research reveals questionable morals and business practices of consumer driven businesses, like the media, TV and retail, all responsible for irresponsibly creating a treadmill template  directing us how we should live our lives, in order to be happy. Christmas is a perfect example of how these businesses drive unsustainable, irresponsible and subliminal mixed messages to the Nation, two months before December 25th, to shop, eat, spend, consume, go in to debt for , with no escape or balance. In December this year it was reported 60% of British families had to take out pay day loans to pay for it and more than half the Country pilled on extra pounds, on already unhealthy, sick bodies.

Once the frenzy fizzles ends and January the 1^st rolls up, the whole mood and message changes and instead of spend, eat, drink, shop till you drop, we are plunged in to despair and told to diet, eat healthily, save money, give up drinking, smoking, until it’s time to book another holiday. This kind of Yo Yo behaviour is why the UK is not getting better, constantly creating a society of miserable, sick people, forever fat and in debt. The pattern behaviour has to change in order for the pattern to change. To cure the problem, you have to understand the cause. Where was the balance, the governments “change for life” message, when people needed it the most this Christmas? Why did no one remind the Nation, when one in four is severely overweight and more than half drowning in unmanageable debt, to eat healthy and live within their means? It is criminal in my opinion that big businesses, like supermarkets, television companies, retail brands who lie, don’t pay taxes and unethical print media, are getting obscenely richer by destroying and exploiting skill-less, aspiration hungry, lost sheep.

I think it’s time to take a serious look at our “ want it now” without doing the work culture and recognise if we don’t keep the messages consistent and responsible, the truth,  things can only get worse for you as our leader.

Free life coaching on a mass level is so needed right now, so please get on board and help me get Venus Cow out there for everyone to benefit from.

Feed Your Mind Not Your Addiction

As a Nation we are constantly bombarded with subliminal messages encouraging us to shop till we drop because this is what we believe will make us all happy, be accepted by others and help keep the economy boosted and moving. As consumerism becomes a measure of our social worth, we need to face it, we have all been lead up the wrong garden path because living your life riddle with constant debt worries, is just not sustainable or healthy for happiness. Happiness is not getting what you want but still wanting it after you have got it.

Compulsive shopping is a way of escaping your deep rooted negative feelings, like depression, anxiety, boredom, self-critical thoughts, and anger but unfortunately the escape is always short-lived. The purchases are often simply hoarded unused, and compulsive shoppers like I used to be, will immediately begin to plan the next spending spree in order to get the instant fix, just like a drug addict.

A budget lifestyle is not something to be ashamed of or even be depressed about because living within your means in reality, is your truth. Anything you purchase on credit, buy now pay later, is never going to make you happy because you will be constantly broke and resentful at having to pay for something you are over, dislike and never needed in the first place. If you think shopping is the best feeling in the world you have to face the fact you are a shopaholic and being a shopaholic can have serious consequences, especially if you are living beyond your means.

I remember when I was very rich and could buy anything I desired, I would often completely forget an important purchase made for someone else when checking my credit card statement, thinking my credit card must have been stolen. This kind of selective memory loss is common among people with addictions because we do not connect ourselves with the person who is often out of control. Anyone who considers material possessions to be central to their life and their identity, especially if you cannot afford it, is brainwashed and sadly delusional. We have to stop looking outward for the answer to our changing moods and instead take a peek inward to discover who we really are and why we feel the need to buy stuff we just don't need or will never be satisfied with.

So how do you do this? I can tell you from my own personal history of a serious shopping addiction, money, shoes, exotic travel etc may seem to be the answer in the moment but is never the key to self worth, that only comes when you have nothing but your behaviour and values to go on. A budget lifestyle allows you to work out what you can and cannot afford to survive, in other words pay the bills and trust me there is nothing more satisfying and rewarding than saving up for something you truly love and desire. We don't always get what we want but we must always strive for what we need.

If you spend your life worrying about what others think of you based on what you have, you are never going to be happy but if you save your hard earned cash and budget your lifestyle, when you do have some spare cash to splash, you will find, you make much better choices when it comes to spending it.

We Are What We Eat.

Its hard to imagine the UK is in a recession when so many people are over eating, over weight and over spending. Poverty and obesity is an oxymoron, surly. So what has happened and why are we spending money we don,t have, on food we don't need, that makes us sick?

When I was rich and successful I would eat out all the time in the some of best restaurants in the World, never batting an eyelid at the cost because it was usually worth every penny, or so I thought at the time. The portions were always very small and well balanced, a blessing when it came to keeping my figure trim but in reality looking back, it made me useless when thinking about cooking for myself. Freshly prepared food made from scratch with the best ingredients and cooked by a genius chef, is of course the ideal but not everyone can afford such luxury, as I soon discovered when I lost all my money and found myself at the mercy of a supermarket price war.

Living on a weekly budget for food shopping is not easy so I was tempted at the start of my budget lifestyle journey to take myself off to my local supermarket and stock up on cheap, over processed bargains, like 12 iced donuts for a pound. Of course this was really stupid because not only did I put on weight quickly, I also recognised I was not feeling so great, sluggish and often very tired. Having spent my whole life taking care of the way I looked because I was suffering from Status Anxiety, caring far to much about what others thought, it was really disturbing to be not only broke but also getting fat. After my near death experience which lead me to enlightenment, I made the choice to become a vegetarian and never really being interested in cooking myself, found coming up with new food ideas quite hard, even for a knowledgeable bright person like me.

I began looking into what I was actually eating to discover if convenient cheap food was a false economy when it came to my health and I was seriously shocked and very disturbed at my findings. First I made a trip to my GP to have some blood tests done to check the general state of my health before I began my research and was surprised to be told although I was generally very healthy, my cholesterol levels had shot up dramatically. The British Heart Foundation estimates that seven in ten adults are affected by high cholesterol and are at risk of stroke or heart attacks.

This was enough of a kick up the bottom to get me really thinking about using my limited budget to get the maximum essential vitamins and nutrients my body clearly needed to get back in top form. Being poor did not mean I had to be unhealthy. I had about £20 a week for my weekly food budget which is not very much so I had to really get creative and think for myself. I found my local market was the best place to buy fresh fruit and vegetables, late in the day, at rock bottom prices and would come home loaded with avocados, spinach, broccoli, courgettes, nuts, seeds, potatoes, apricots, bananas and oranges. I gave up salt and sugar, chocolate and cakes, crisps and alcohol and began making amazing home made dishes from a cook book I found in a Charity shop. I would then freeze daily portions of this great food and I was set for the week, leaving me plenty of free time to go for long country walks in the fresh air.

I noticed I was less likely to make a compulsive junk food purchase if I had a grocery list with me when I did visit the supermarket for other household necessities.

Within 6 weeks I was back to my fabulous healthy thin self and the doctor after another blood test confirmed my cholesterol levels were back down to normal, proving we are what we eat.

Prepare For The Worst And Hope For The Best

None of us ever imagine we will lose our jobs, homes, spouses or everything we own but for me it happened for real pretty much over night, leaving me completely unprepared for survival without money. Although my humble beginnings all those years ago had taught me many skills for survival, back then I was not suffering from status anxiety.
(The fear that being or having been financially poor makes you less of a person in other people’s eyes, or even in your own.)

Even though I was born into poverty, when I lost all my money it was hard to reconcile those feelings of my past with the world of money I had become accustomed to, for fear of being judged. I found to get beyond poverty I had to start to value myself and stop measuring my worth by the standards of others around me. In effect I had to step off the treadmill and stand still for a while. Without the possibility of another well paid job in the pipeline, I was forced to find out what my purpose in this life was in order to be really happy going forward. I had to go back to the start and decide what my core values and goals were. Did I want to be materially rich again and miserable or could I imagine my life materially poor but rich in spirit.

The truth is, as soon as I became rich I was never humble about my roots or where I came from, how hard I had worked to get there or how difficult my life was at the beginning for fear of being judged by others, instead I just made up a second life to keep up with the Jones. Having humility is about being kind to yourself and to others and I practise it everyday now which why I am happy with my real life. When we compare ourselves to others who have more than we do, we feel small and insignificant and when we compare ourselves to those who have little, we don't always feel grateful, something so important for your journey to true happiness, regardless of financial status. The more you have, the more you spend and the less you care about security because you think you are invincible.

One great top tip for those who just cannot bring themselves right now to face life on a budget for fear of being judged by friends, is take your old empty bottle of designer shampoo and fill it up with a cheap supermarket brand because in reality its the expensive packaging you pay over the odds for in the first place.

It is vital to be prepared for the worst just in case you take a financial tumble, by knowing how much you have and how much you spend each month. If you spend more than you earn, you cannot afford your lifestyle and need to start a budget lifestyle plan today. Don,t focus on having no money, focus on all the positive things you do have, like your health, your family and your real friends. All the important things that matter in this life.

Your situation may seem difficult to change but it is possible so always hope for the best and leave your status anxiety to the rest!

Venus Cow is a free brutal truth, common sense life coaching course with a free on-line journal for you to work on yourself and learn how to make better choices in your search for happiness without money based on my own riches to rags experience.