If you had £1000 to spend to improve your life, wwyd?

[Fr3d]

Assuming you had enough for day to day stuff and long term savings etc (I know, lucky right), and had an extra £1000 to spend to improve your life/reduce the stress/craziness, what would you spend it on? (Kids, working parents here)

Here's my shortlist but looking for suggestions/feedback

Roomba (any feedback on them?)
Deep clean of the house...maybe quarterly?
Handy-person to finish all those diy jobs left unfinished for years and annoying me!
More date nights (these can be more hassle than anything with work, kids, babysitters etc)
Lawn cutting service
Landscaping to finish garden (might just create more work)
More childcare just to have me time/time for a hobby
Further education for me, always wanted to do more study (Not going to reduce stress really but feeling my brain is turning to mush is a worry too!)
Declutter expert

Well, if it was from my Grandparents, I would want to do something special with it. I would buy a piece of jewellery, but the jewellery I like is very plain and not at all expensive, so there would be plenty left. I’d need to really think about it, but I personally wouldn’t spend it on cleaning, mini break, gym membership type things. I’d want it to be something really special. But that’s just me, one of my good friends would probably call it her flowers & chocolate fund and another would have a massive night out in town 🤷🏻‍♀️

I have a roomba and I have to be honest, it’s not all that! It gets stuck under furniture constantly. 😳. I had it set for 3pm weekdays so it went off whilst we were at work/school but always came home to it trapped, so now we rarely use it, unless we are in. I would use £1K for garden makeover /paving.

Shark cordless hoover
Spa day
‘Family day out fund’

Spent it!

I recently bought a robot hoover. OMG! The best investment ever! I haven't looked back. I've sold the upright hoover and don't miss it.

What one did you get, Flobalob/BBTHREE? What floors and furniture do you have?

New garage door

A new boiler and kitchen.

I have a Neato Botvac (roomba type thing). It’s so handy, I just pop it in one room while I’m making a cup of tea and then it’s done by the time my tea is made! You do have to pick up first so it doesn’t get tangled up, and I also put the dining chairs up on the table to give it some help, but I’d do that anyway if I were hoovering. It might not save a huge amount of time but it saves effort and that’s good enough for me!

Best money I ever spent was on IPL treatment to get rid of facial fuzz. Changed my life. Don’t know if that’s something that might be relevant but if so, it’s in budget!

I’d also buy a load of new bras (just ordered some in the sale, as they’re so expensive but they make all the difference when you get well fitting ones!)

One thing I’d love to do if I had a grand+ spare is get a water softener. We all have really dry skin and my kettle is full of scale. I’m sure the other appliances are also suffering with our very hard water. Had a quote for £1600 for one, plus salt to run it, so not cheap, but I know it would make such a difference to mine and my DCs’ skin. Never going to be he priority though

Either tweak my kitchen so I could fit in a dishwasher or get French doors put in between by lounge and dining areas so I could separate the areas (all the better for DD having mates round, and for me trying to do art/craft projects without the bloody cats joining in!).

Other possibility would be to spend it on just getting out re-engaging with people/hobbies/self-care, which has all bee a bit of a struggle for the last few years due to divorce and ageing parents.

I'm liking the idea of a new wardrobe; I'm quite miserly/thrifty when it comes to spending on clothes but it might be nice to chuck out all the ancient garments that aren't completely wrecked, and the things I don't actually like very much, and get some lovely new stuff. OTOH remembering how much I loathe clothes shopping, maybe not!

New sofas and a weekend away.

Hi Fr3d, re my rooms. I have the older 780 one. It only gets stuck on one chair leg that spalls out and not all the time. We have hard floors, carpets and rugs with 4” tassels and it manages fine.

It can do our Laos get hall way, dining room, offie and kitchenon one go. Unless it gets full, also four beds upstairs plus large landing.

Emptying is very easy. Replacing the brushes and so on is also easy and cheap, you don’t get throug that many. Think I have had it for about 5 years now. Would replace it in an instant.