De la dette.

25th February 2011 -

Had a good day yesterday :) it was quite warm and so I decided to go to the park with my mum and my nephues for a while, I then walked to my friend Laurens house and spent some time with her and her boyfriend. We then got a lift with her mum where me and Lauren  met our other two friends Carley and Lauren and we went to Pizza Hut for a meal which was only a fiver! Bargain man! And then we walked around the Lakeside shopping center where we went to visit Laurens sister at the bedding shop where she works, there we found some very lovely smelling candles and so I got two of them :) a lavander one and a vanilla one, my dad tried eating them when I got home =/.

Well, I've finished my english essay and so I thought that I would post it on here to see what everyone thinks? It's kinda crap right now so I'm not really happy with it, same as my other piece of coursework I did :( but please let me know what you think..

It was such a memorable moment, standing there staring at it’s glistening beauty. I couldn’t believe how lucky I had become to find something as spectacular as this.. Now I know what your thinking “this must be the moment she fell in love” but your wrong! This is actually the moment I walked into Topshop and saw the pair of earrings I’d been wanting for months, and they were on the sale rack! Don’t pretend like you haven’t done it too! In fact us Brits go to extreme lengths to be able to keep ourselves in flashy clothes and extravagant lifestyles with over six million households in debt every year.

Although it’s not just families that have problems, teenagers are also getting sucked into debt at early ages, usually starting out with student loans, which leads to taking out other loans to pay it off. They then apply for credit cards to be able to pay for luxuries and so they’re seeing a future full of debt. The media has put this idea into peoples head that designer labels and huge houses are a must have at a young age, giving out the message that we should be living for today and not worrying until tomorrow. Now don’t get me wrong, I find shopping just as addictive as trying not to eat a bar of Galaxy chocolate, but there comes a time when you’ve managed to spend £200 between three shops when you have to say to yourself “I think that’s enough for one day”. This doesn’t mean that young people should lock themselves away in their rooms searching online for things they wish they could buy but can’t afford, it just means that it wouldn’t hurt to learn how to budget money from a young age.

Shops make offers so that people get sucked into thinking they are getting a bargain, and in some cases they are, but offers like ‘20% off’ usually happen in clothes shops when the clothes have recently been released into the shops, meaning that they are usually priced 20% higher than the normal selling price, so that when it comes in the sale, it’s actually the normal retail price, you’d be surprised at how many shops do this without us knowing. Although some sales are actually good, there’s been plenty of times that I’ve walked into a shop, seen a top that I’ve been after for months and realised that it’s on that beautiful rack with the sale sign above it. But then again this makes people think that something is worth buying just because it’s in the sale. If you look in your own wardrobe I’m sure you’d come across a top or a pair of jeans that still have the price tag on and has a sticker saying 50% off, but you’ve never worn it. This is because at the time you thought it was a great deal, but over time you’ve realised that the top isn’t really your style or the jeans don’t actually fit you properly. This is because most people walk into shops like Miss Selfridge or H&M and think that just because it’s from a rather high class and expensive shop, that the quality must be good. But actually, if you go into the shops and take a closer look, usually the clothes are old stock that they haven’t been able to sell because nobody wants it, or the products are damaged in some way.

Women are clichéd to be the shoppers of the family, but in fact that seems to be changing. It’s more commonly known for us women to be following our careers more now than ever before, therefore meaning that less men are able to get jobs, and are becoming the spenders, usually shopping for electricals, fancy ingredients and fashionable clothes, and even in some cases becoming the stay at home dad.

Although sometimes getting into debt can’t be helped, and so there are ways to fix this. These include being realistic and budgeting money by making a schedule for repaying debt or putting money aside each week for the future. Not borrowing money also helps, if there’s a party next weekend, instead of buying a new dress especially for the occasion, why not just look at the clothes collecting cobwebs in your own wardrobe, at least then when the electricity bill comes through the door you won’t have to borrow money to pay the bills. Another way to budget your money is if you really feel you need to go shopping, then take a set amount of money with you and leave any credit or bank cards at home, this way you can only spend the amount of money that you have on you.

So you see ladies, we may shop like there’s no tomorrow, we may queue up for hours to hit the January sales, we may also spend hours searching for the right pair of shoes, but at least when it comes to credit cards, loans and paying bills, we now know that the right thing to do is to budget money, be responsible for our payments and be sensible by putting money aside for the future. Well, it beats marrying old, rich guys right?

20 YEAR OLD CHLOE

21st February 2011 -

Well good afternoon, last night I didn't sleep too well and so when I was on Youtube watching Charlieissocoollike's videos, I saw that he made one as a sort of time capsual to the 30 year old him, in this video he talked about things he was doing at that moment and things he'd like to be doing when he is 30. Now I had the amazing idea of doing the same thing, only I'm kinda impatient, and so I thought, how about I do the same thing, only to a 20 year old me rather than 30? and so here it is..

Dear 20 year old Chloe,

Firstly I hope your not dead (something that Charlie noted in his video) else that would be kinda awkward =/. At the moment, I'm at sixth form doing Psychology, Media and English Language, although I find it kinda boring and so I'm thinking of going to college next year to do photography - I don't know if this will actually happen, but your from the future so I guess you already know? At the moment I work at the hairdressers down the road and I'm hoping by the time I'm 20 this will be a distant memory and I will have a more enjoyable job. I'm hoping to do something in journalism right now, and I kinda hope thats what I'll be doing when I'm 20, I guess I could still be trying to get to that place when I'm 20 in which case I hope I'm still doing the whole blogging thing.

I have wonderful friends and family which I'm hoping is still the same in four years time as these are the most important things to me EVER. I'm kinda wondering whether  you'll be in a relationship by the time your in your 20's? No kids though obviously! But about a month ago you ended a serious relationship which was really hard, so I'm thinking you might still be single and not really looking to settle down just yet? But hey you never know ;)

I'm not sure what else to really put and so I'm going to do a big list of things that I like right now :).

family, friends, zayn malik, jumpers, fashion, coffee, laptops, holidays, fingerless gloves, dogs, fairy lights, make-up, summer, jewellery, cats, misfits, tees, monster, paris, books, hats, dimples, blackberry, photographs, christmas, music, laughing, bags, perfume, dancing, nail varnish, pasta, scarves, blogs, shorts, kisses, running, penguins, roses, chocolate, hugs, films, fanta, new york, baths, cardigans, head bands, tights, socks, sleep, jeggings, IPods <3

..And  I'm also going to post some pictures that are fairly new to me right now but which I like :) I kinda hope you've actually taken the time and money to buy a big photo album to put AAAALL your pictures in by now :)..

 

Saint Valentin.

14th February 2010 -

Weeeell, todays been interesting, had a pretty crappy day at school (n) but then had a good time in town with my friend Carley after school :) we went to Greggs and got something to eat and then went to Costa for a hot chocolate, a bun and a chat :) it was really nice! :D.

I finished my english coursework #no.1 and so I thought I'd put it on here for you all to read (by 'all' I mean the one person who actually looks at my blog) seen as though I can't think of anything exciting to put :( so here you go.. - btw its a bit rubbish as its just a draft -

People who smoke think that all the health risks are just to scare you into quitting, and people who don't smoke know that the health risks are facts. I for one know this because I've seen it happen twice, to my grandma and my dad. My grandma started smoking when she was young and my dad has smoked for as long as I can remember, but due to their lack of willpower to quit, they now both have Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) this is caused by damage to the lungs, usually caused by smoking - just one of the many things caused by smoking. COPD usually effects people aged 35 or over and approximately 835, 000 people have been diagnosed with it in the UK alone, although it's been known for people to actually be living with COPD because they usually think the symptoms are due to an ordinary cough, but once COPD has arrived, there's no getting rid of it, and this usually leads to the use of an inhaler.

The signs of COPD are similar to a normal 'smokers' cough, as the symptoms are coughing, being short of breath, coughing up phlegm on a regular basis and the chest infections, although other areas of the body can also be infected including weight loss, tiredness and swelling. And so as you can expect, this makes it very difficult to notice when somebody actually has COPD, so it's usually better. If you notice yourself or somebody else who has a bad cough and it isn't budging, then it may be worth going to the doctors to get it checked - like they say, better safe than sorry.

From my own experiences, I know what it's like to live with somebody who has COPD, and so I know how difficult it is to restrain from hitting them over the head with your laptop, but believe it or not it's illegal, plus the laptop could get damaged. So you may have to find other ways to get your point across, for me this included moaning to my dad at every opportunity I could find. It also included hiding lighters and throwing packets of cigarettes in the bin without telling him.

Although my dad still smokes even though it's bad for him, I tried to understand why he smokes, usually people smoke due to stress - although it has been proven to increase stress levels rather than reduce them - another reason is peer pressure, and I have come to the conclusion that this is why my dad cannot stop smoking. He had two weeks off from work last Christmas to spend with me and the rest of my family, in this time he managed to stop smoking, but once he started going back to work after the holidays, he suddenly started smoking again. I have a theory that this is because he gets picked up and taken to work by his work friends, and when they are in the van, they tend to smoke a lot, and so I don't know for sure, but an ex-smoker being with a gang of current smokers must be hard to resist temptation, and so although I do get annoyed with why my dad cannot manage to quit smoking for the sake of his health, at least I can try and understand why he feels this way.

If your parents or any member of your family smoke and your worried about their health, then it may help just to sit down with them and talk to them about how you feel, it is an upsetting thing to know that somebody you care about is purposely damaging their body, but sometimes they don't realise just how much of an impact it has on other people. If you feel for whatever reason you cannot talk to this person face to face, then try hinting to them, or even write them a letter and leave it in a place that they will find it, at least then they know how you feel and so they can either choose to acknowledge it and try to quit, or they can ignore it and carry on smoking, either way you shouldn't give up on them and you shouldn't just ignore the fact that it's upsetting you.