Portion up!

I am tempted to cross stitch this commandment onto my tea towels, because so often I don't bother and regret it later. Nearly all of the financial and health related woes cooked up in the kitchen have food waste and over consumption as main ingredients. We are wired to like sweet, fatty foods and so I suspect that these are rarely wasted, but they are over consumed. How many people realize that a single portion of cheese is the size of a small matchbox, not a box of firelighters?  This is not to say there is no room for being exuberant with the meat and dairy, but it pays to realize a little can go a long way and still make for a tasty, nourishing meal.

One of the best ways we overcome the waste (or gluttony!), when we remember, is to portion up high value food the moment it comes into the house. An intact 400g block of cheese in the fridge will be demolished within a day or two in this house;  a little cheese makes a meal out of so many store cupboard basics, it is infuriating to find it has all been grazed.  If you meal plan you can portion up individual ingredients for each meal, ensuring that you can stretch them comfortably through the week; or you can split things up into optimum healthy portions and make use of them as you see fit. If the excess portions are put in the freezer it means that they can't just be pulled out and used up on a whim, but even a stack of portions stored in the fridge seems to offer some psychological block to me that means I don't reach for the next one unless absolutely necessary.

There are other advantages. Smaller portions tetris nicely into a smaller space, which means we can make the most of our small fridge and freezer; which in turn means we can take advantage of offers or batch cook more meals; which in turn means we are less likely to reach for the takeaway menu when we get home late and have no energy. If we know what use we will be putting our bacon to, we slice it up before storing it, which saves a little space and prep time later on.

We normally buy our meat from the butcher, but recently our local Co-op seems to have lost all concept of stock control and are offering vast quantities of meat and dairy at cut price at the end of the day. Evening shop visits were something I used to do with my mum; but as an adult I have never bothered much, until now. The deals have been stupendous and over the last few weeks we have stocked the freezer with enough meat to last us a good few months. Meat is for the most part a flavoring ingredient in this house unless we have a roast. I have just portioned up a couple of packs of frying steaks for the freezer into two-steak portions, doubling the number of meals that we will be able to make from them. A couple of blocks of cheese have been halved and frozen and smoked back bacon was split into pairs of rashers.

The final bacon pack is hanging around in the fridge ready to hook up with some slices of bread and fried eggs come Sunday morning...a feast day indeed.

Thrift Thursday: the penny jar and the fraction

This week I have been up to financial mischief. New ISA opened, new budget in progress, cashback signed up for - and the penny jar emptied and counted out. It feels good to be on top of things, especially looking back on where we were financially five years ago. Making the most of our money and managing our finances on a day to day basis requires us to find ways of thinking about it that make sense to us. This just happens to be one of mine - it might seem a little bizarre, but bear with me.

An experiment for you:

Take any of your financial goals - whether that be clearing your debts or saving for a rainy day. What fraction of your total goal does £1 represent?

Now take your original figure and multiply it by 100, to find the total in pennies. What fraction of your total does 1p represent? A ridiculously small fraction?

For all those long years of paying down the debts, I kept a piece of paper with those fractions on in my purse, so that I would see it every time I spent money. I seem to remember I actually had fractions written down  for all coin denominations. I know that it sounds bonkers, but it brings intangible figures down to earth.  A penny seems so small - hell, a pound seems inconsequential. Yet every extra pound we paid off each month wiped months off of our repayment plan and pounds off of the total interest paid. And now the debts are gone? Every £1 we spend or save represents 1/20,000^th of our next financial goal. Every penny, 1/2,000000^th.

Many potential impulse buys don't round up or down neatly to a pound, or even reach the pound mark. Many of the financial decisions you make may boil down to 'its only the difference of a few pence/pounds'. Everyone will do their own cost benefit analysis in the moment to decide whether it is worth them worrying about a 7 pence difference in flour prices, but The Demotivator at MSE is eye opening if you struggle to see how the pennies add up over a year. My personal weakness of buying chocolate at work as often as twice a week adds up to £70 a year, for example. Ouch. Buying the middle of the road tinned tomatoes over the premium saves around £20 a year - a few hours wages right there, saved from going into a bolognese that doesn't care for pretty labels much anyway.

The penny jar is an essential financial tool in our house. All of the loose change generated by our day to day transactions goes into the jar. It is mostly pennies, tuppences and five pence pieces, with a few larger denominations thrown in. When the jar reaches the half full mark, we empty it out, bag up as many full coin bags as possible; and take them to the bank. I also think that it is wise in this age of banking insecurity to have some hard currency to hand, however little. I counted out our coins once again this week. 2958 pence in total, or £29.58. Not that much? Actually, that's almost 1/676^th of our goal, through passive loose change management.

Strong inflation and low interest rates over the last few years has hammered savers - but then it really depends what you are saving towards. A devalued penny in an emergency fund is better than no penny at all. If you are paying down debt, especially at record low interest rates, then every penny saved and put towards that counts for much more than if you put it in a savings account. Every penny and every pound extra you put towards your debts will reduce the final interest rate you pay and your final debt free date. Incidentally, if your debt interest is calculated daily, don't wait until your jar is half full - pay down small amounts as often as you can, even if that means taking £2 in loose change into the bank once or twice a week. It will save you money and it feels good. Every penny does count.

How do you manage your loose change?

The seeds of thrift

This is a musing on all the things I learned the hard, expensive way over the last few years, about that most frugal garden ingredient - seed. Tubers, bulbs, roots are a whole different animal and I am not confident my pocket is tamed enough in regard to those creatures to offer any solid advice. But seeds...seeds are simple. Once you have several years of mistakes behind you, of course.

It begins long before the first sowing. Gardening catalogues are promises of luminous shiny wonder (that you can buy! Heaven!) - and the promise of purchasable shiny wonder is ruinous to the pocket. They usually arrive during the gardening lull of winter, which makes them even more potent. So, take a step back and breathe. Think about the things you actually like to eat or look at; and then narrow it down further to things you will actually be able to grow in the space, soil and climate you have available. Even better, before you buy, see what seeds you can scavenge from gardening friends. Later on, when you have seed of your own, you can participate in seed swaps in your community or even online.

Where to buy seed is an interesting question. I have had excellent germination rates from cheap value ranges  and I have had very poor rates from some of the large seed merchants. I am not convinced that branding and price indicates good viability and so I would suggest starting with a few of the cheaper ranges if you are not particularly concerned by variety.  I wonder if anyone has ever tried to cash in on money back guarantees when they have a particularly poor show? There are also ethical considerations such as organic accreditation and heirloom rescue that the are only taken into consideration by a a handful of smaller niche companies; as always there is a balance to be struck between personal resources and personal ethics.

Once you have your seeds, before you even open the packets - you need to know how to look after your seed. I really didn't realise that even mild but frequent temperature fluctuations were ruinous to seed viability. With the exception of a handful of species, seed can be kept for more than one season if properly stored. There are several handy tables online if you Google 'seed viabilty table', many of which contradict each other and will eventually be contradicted by your own personal experience. The basics of seed storage are as follows:

Cool - In the fridge (not freezer!), or cool spot of the house. Too high a heat will dry seeds out too much, requiring special coddling to get them to germinate. 

Dry - I save those little silicon sachets from parcel deliveries and keep one or two in my tin. Fridges especially encourage condensation.

Dark - The fridge once again, or a cupboard, or an opaque tin.

Organised - Securely stored and labelled with variety, production/collection and sowing dates.

Consistent - All of the above conditions need to remain constant.

Unless space is really at a premium, don't be afraid of sowing 'expired' seed, but sow them more generously than you otherwise would to increase the chances of some seedlings developing. I have Tomatillo 'Violet' seeds that expired 3 years ago and 2 out of 16 seeds I planted this year have germinated. Hopefully I will be able to save more seed if those two seedlings survive. Which they should, because this gardener's shadow is cast across them at least 10 times a day, checking in on them like an anxious new parent.

Saving seed is advanced horticultural magic. The book Back Garden Seed Saving by Sue Stickland is a very good introduction to the pleasures and problems of this topic. I am halfway through and recommend it if you want to save your own seed. Whilst for most varieties it is isn't difficult, some easily cross pollinate or need to be encouraged to set seed. We save the easy ones on a small scale - a sunflower head, a couple of lettuce plants and rainbow chard, a few tomatoes left on the vine and a handful of bean pods. This will save money in the long run and obviously has many other benefits in terms of genetic diversity and species resilience.

I know all of this sounds very simple, but these are all mistakes I made. We grew 4 different courgette varieties just because they were productive - and neither of us really like courgettes. I took the seed tin out in the rain for a few minutes and the resulting condensation turned several packets to mouldy spores. I left unlabelled, open packets in the bottom of our seed tin and came back to a mess of unidentifiable seeds. All expensive, frustrating mistakes when you add them up that I have learnt my lesson from. So, whilst I hope I have all this seed stuff down, is there something I am yet to learn?

Frugal breakfast - homemade instant oats

I have noticed at lot of people in my office bringing in sachets of ready oats and tubs of instant porridge - expensive sachets and tubs. Even the own brand ones are extortion over a bowl of homemade porridge. I do understand though that even if you have access to a microwave at work, it is quicker and easier to use the instant oats. I made the mistake of using the microwave during my 15 minute break to make regular porridge and ended up wolfing down a bowl of scalding hot porridge with two minutes to go.

Having said that, instant oats are far cheaper than my recent habit of buying food from the canteen or express shop. Buying food at work to eat at work so that you can earn money is one of those habits that I know is really really really dumb and yet I still do it far too often.

So I have made my own instant oats. Half a cup of oats, 1 level desert spoon of sugar (soft brown would have been preferable for that golden syrup taste) and 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon per portion. Simply pulse blend the oats until they are somewhere between cous cous and pudding rice in grain size. Put them in your lidded container with the sugar and spice and give them a good shake. That's it, until you get to breakfast time.

So, enough boiling water to cover, a quick stir, and a splash of milk to cool things down. Breakfast is served, at less than 15p a serving using good quality oats not bought on special offer. If you leave out the sugar and spice, it's less than 10p and still perfectly delicious. The leading brand sachets work out at about double that, which doesn't sound much until you work out that that is an extra £36 you are spending on porridge over a full time working year. Not to mention the 240 carboard tubs or foiled sachets and numerous carboard boxes that are going straight in the bin. I could do a lot with £36.

As it is so heartwarmingly cheap I might try and bling it up a little with some chopped fruit or nuts. Perhaps even cocoa occasionally. I have made enough for three weeks worth, each week is packed in a takeaway container, small enough to stay in my desk drawer; after that its crazy flavour open  season on porridge at my office.

Busy busy...

The great pumpkin/haribofest of 2012 has been and gone, birthdays, anniversaries, bonfires, barbeques (yes, you can get away with that sort of thing down here in October), fireworks, playdates, commitee meetings and more overtime than I ever care to do again.

Most of these things are good things. I literally look forward to halloween all year. Electronic zombie door chimes on sale in August? Well there's a form of gratuitous consumption everyone should get on board with! I like bonfires and fireworks too. But good god did it all get a bit much these past few months. I feel like I have lurched from event to housekeeping crisis to event to work crisis, day in and day out since September. The clocks going back just after a run of night shifts brought things to a head and I still haven't quite recovered my rhythm. The ridiculous thing about all this? It was partly by design.

Money is time for most people, me included. For every hour of overtime I do, the wispy threads of my daily routine snag and break. The rest of life falls apart. I have written entire posts over at The Simple Green Frugal Co-op encouraging others to manage their time wisely and to see that paid work can actually cost money not only  in terms of transport and other overheads, but how much you spend trying to catch up on all the cooking, cleaning and domestic productivity. 10 days straight and I am spinning, and not in a nice producing yarn sort of way. £40 in taxi fares where I failed to wake up at 5am and get my rear into gear on time for the bus. £15 in nice comforting food for my shifts, beacuse I sure as hell couldn't turn my bodyclock around enough to prepare anything from scratch.

Still, I can do better; and in the light of all of these fails, I am grateful. I have  job to go to, many others don't. I have a job where I can take on a few extra hours as needed, again many people would dearly love that opportunity. I have family and friends still with me whose birthdays and anniversaries are to be celebrated whilst we are all still together on this earth and for that I am truly grateful. This past halloween, I lit candles for the few who have left us during this past year; and those who vanished long before whose influence reverberates down the years as is they have merely stepped out of the room for a moment - and once again my habit of losing touch and not quite getting round to sending that email has left me smarting. A lesson for this year.

For those of you across the pond who are celebrating  Thanksgiving, I wish you a lovely day and hope you have much to be grateful for. I hope the same for all of you home here too.

Restocking the pantry - and the food bank.

One of the most popular posts I ever wrote at The Simple Green Frugal Co-op, or at least one that generated the most discussion, was this one about the reasons I keep a well stocked pantry. My definition of well stocked changes with circumstance - I had about six months worth of stores when I went on maternity leave in late 2008 and it saved us a fortune as food prices rose. It also made me feel nicely nested and meant that I didn't have to trawl around shops with a small baby.

The Guardian recently ran a series about 'Breadline Britain'. Food banks are on the rise in the UK after 4 years of rising unemployment and benefit cuts. As well as 'the working poor', the professional classes - teachers, nurses, middle management - are finding themselves with no cash flow and bare cupboards.
Now, I doubt that both of us would lose our jobs at the same time and at the moment we have modest savings to fall back on - but never say never. Nobody can say for sure where things are headed in the next few years; and so it is better to prepare as well as you can with the resources you have. So, it is time to stock up for autumn and winter and anything that might come our way. And as we buy food for our own cupboards, we will begin to buy a little extra for our food bank too. The Trussel Trust is one of the biggest food bank charities in the UK and there website will list your local bank, as well as ways to get involved.

But I think the best way we can support those support systems is to do everything we can not to have to fall back on them. Put as much distance between us and the need for a food bank voucher as possible. I know that there are people for whom this is too late, or who were never in a position to live anything other than hand to mouth.  There are also lots of people in a position now to cushion themselves who think that that kind of thing doesn't happen to people like them. I have a suspicion that during this long recession, a lot of folk are going to surprised at just what can happen to folk like them.

I think the best cushion is actual food in the cupboard, because it is then also a cushion against food chain disruption and other causes of barren pantries. Our stocking up strategy follows a several pronged approach:

• Every few months, using a £10-£15 money off voucher that the supermarkets send out to lure us in, we do an online shop costing around £60 - £90 after deducting the voucher. This buys us cat food, coffee and tea, flour, pasta, pulses, grains,oils and fats and sometimes frozen fruit and veg. A well stocked cupboard to me is now about three months worth. That money creeps up, or stretches a shorter distance with every month that passes. Higher food prices might well be here to stay. 

• In addition to this we frequent our local Chinese and Asian supermarkets for more unusual grains and pulses, tofu, spices and condiments. Most small cities and large towns now have such shops and they provide better value than the big four.

• If I see something on offer that I know we use frequently - say tinned tomatoes - we will buy a few months worth. I will take money from the savings account to do this, although technically £20 of our monthly food budget goes to restocking the pantry anyway.

• Finally, of course, we make sure we actually eat the food we buy and cook from the pantry and try to minimise our kitchen waste as much as possible. There is always a good meal to be made even if there is no fresh produce in the house, which really is better than money in the bank.

This week I will finally be getting to grips with meal planning. It is something I have never done, but cooking for a fussy preschooler on top of shift work is taking it out of us. Our kitchen waste has crept up. Planning isn't something I really like to do, being happy go lucky most of the time about most things, but this is something I am actually looking forward to, given the pay off in peace come supper time. 

Preparing for winter part 2

Whilst we don't regularly suffer extreme weather conditions in the UK (last year being an 'extreme' winter for us), we do have four 'proper' seasons. I like winter weather, as long as I am prepared for it. I like the cosy feeling of being wrapped up and impervious to the gales and to the drenching rain. I like being swathed in layers of fabric and hats and gloves and scarves, big chunky boots and socks.

I am shockingly under prepared in the clothing department for winter this year. The dull winter coat that I have sported for the last two years, that I bought out of desperation just as cold weather set in, was never really that warm and never fitted my long top heavy frame properly. Last year's snow and slush was a miserable experience as the icy winds went straight through me - one of the reasons that I couldn't wait for spring to arrive this year. My lovely winter boots that have seen me through the last few years fell completely apart this spring - zip and soles - and the quoted cost of repairing them was astronomical. This year I need to replace almost everything and don't want to succumb to desperation and part with more cash for less value than I have too. 

Whilst Operation Preparing for Winter Part 1 isn't going so well (as you can see from all that still naked glazing and wispy curtains), clothing us is going rather better. I rediscovered the joys of eBay this week and for the princely sum of £21.78 (inclusive of P&P) I have bought my own and the kids' winter coats.

I didn't expect to find a full length wool coat, in my size and in mint condition, within 5 minutes of beginning to look - a coat I actually lusted after brand new a couple of years ago but that was way out of my budget, so this was obviously (obviously) meant to be. It certainly made the frustrating hour I spent recovering my long abandoned eBay and Paypal accounts worthwhile. The Boy is delighted with his faux-sheepskin hooded coat and has been parading around the house in it for much of the day. The Girl's coat is in the post and I am just hoping that she likes purple.  Buying second-hand clothing makes some people squeamish, but when it comes to expensive garments like outerwear that you want to last a few years, it makes perfect sense. It is also the way to go for children - The Boy's first coat cost an arm and a leg new, for just four months of wear. This coat should see me through several years - at least four or five, hopefully more - if I look after it. It is warmer, longer and more attractive than anything I could buy on the high street for the same price, if I could buy anything for the same price. It is definitely worth the time and effort of searching regularly (out of season) for whatever you need.

There is still plenty to be done. I need to dig out and launder the winter accessories. Gloves need to be strung together so that when they are inevitably lost, they are lost in pairs and won't feel lonely. The Girl won't be old enough for shoes and I feel a woolly-bootie craft project coming on. The adults in this house could probably do with some nice warm woolly socks too, though I have never actually finished any of the knitted pairs that I have started and there is no reason to suspect that this year will be any different. I am even considering giving primitive crocheted socks a go as I imagine that they grow faster and less complainingly than their knitted counterparts. Pyjamas and slippers and robes need to be sourced too as we are determined to keep the heating off as much as possible this year. The to-do lists are getting ever longer, but actually this one is much more manageable than the house prep - and the thought of being wrapped up in swathes of warm fabric when this lovely warm weather fades makes me almost excited about the prospect of a cold winter.

And yes, I understand that Sod's law dictates that this will be the mildest winter on record. Better to make hay whilst the sun shines, however, just in case.

Carrots

As in metaphorical carrots - and sticks. Delicious orange crunchy carrots are also good and we should talk about them someday - but today I want to talk about metaphorical carrots.

Sticks are all well and good. The big stick in our case was a fear that we wouldn't be able to provide for our baby son during what we thought would be hard times, labouring as we were under a pile of debt. As a result we began to budget, live a lot more frugally and organized our finances to pay off the debt as quickly and cheaply as possible. In time it was possible to re frame that initial impetus into something resembling a carrot - living within our means has bought us a much more interesting, productive life in many ways. Home cooked food, brewing, DIY, thrifting, handicrafts, gardening and the knowledge that there is cash left in our accounts come the week before payday all make for a much more satisfying life than one lived on the never-never. The fruits of our labours became goals in themselves. We had made the transition from living frugally out of sheer necessity, to making it an enjoyable way to live.

The initial motivating  fear remains and resurfaces every so often - when we have overstretched ourselves, or forgotten a bill payment was due, or know we have to find money for a big purchase. It rises irrationally when we still have money to spare but can't afford to make an overpayment on debt - a completely irrational fear for someone who two years ago didn't even have a budget for debt overpayment, or anything else for that matter. Still, I tend to go a little berserk at these times and start devising ways that we can live on stale bread crusts and sell our remaining possessions to make ends meet, until someone (usually the person having their ear bent at the time) lends me a little perspective on matters.

Since we decided on a vague plan of action for the future that I could feel enthusiastic about - moving to Norfolk - the carrots have multiplied. I have had to rewrite the budget this week having missed out a glaringly obvious expense on the original; and my first reaction was not fear of financial doom, or recourse to my stale crust recipe collection, but sheer annoyance that we would have less money to put aside towards our move in a few years. Then came the fear of doom, but that was fleeting and besides the point. Now that I have a long term goal to work towards, an alternative to just plodding on as I am forever, I have a renewed enthusiasm for all things frugal.

This has been a week of tracking all of our spending down to the last penny. We have baked and eaten bread almost every day with gusto, soaked pulses and dug out half used packets from the back of the cupboard for frugal meals, religiously switched off appliances at the wall and I have earmarked large swathes of my remaining craft stash for various money saving baby projects for The Girl (even going so far as to break out needle and thread once again, which is never my natural inclination). Every little money saving action feels like a gallop in the right direction; and I am making the most of it whilst my energy levels and enthusiasm hold up. At the same time, I have to remind myself not to go to far with the all austerity - the goal is to get to Norfolk in five years and continue to live a good life in a new setting with new activities, not to put off living until we get there.

So, I would be interested to know, what motivates you to live frugally and manage your resources - carrots, sticks or something in between? Do you ever take it too far?

A new budget

Maternity leave is rapidly approaching; July is shaping up to be the last month I will receive my full salary. Our joint income is due to shrink by slightly over one fifth - incidentally, the amount that we have begun to put aside in savings. The aim is to continue to put money aside each month, though I doubt we will be able to afford such a proportion. Depleting our meager savings over a relatively trivial reduction in income is not something I want to contemplate in Austerity Britain 2011, at the very least I want to be living comfortably within our monthly earnings. Needless to say, I have had a few sleepless nights worrying about our finances.

The first step to calming financial jitters is to sit down with a pen and paper and rationally assess the situation. So yesterday we sat down to go over our budget. There are two versions, one for the four paydays up to the end of July; and one for the following nine months when our income will be reduced. Every non-discretionary expenditure is listed - rent, council tax, utilities, contract repayments - and the monthly payments tallied. Where payments are annual (for example our water supply bill) the figure is divided by 12 and highlighted - this is an amount that needs to be put into savings ready to pay the bill when it finally arrives. We have got out of the habit of saving monthly for these one off expenses and have suffered a few uncomfortably lean months as a result of large bills arriving.

The next section of the budget is discretionary spending. Some essentials, such as food, are included here, because there is a great deal of flexibility in how much we can spend. The food section is broken down further - there is the monthly expenditure for fresh goods; and as we plan to return to bulk shopping, a store cupboard fund, which is put aside ready to do a bulk shop every few months. Fuel and transport costs are now part of our discretionary spending - though we will budget for a tank of fuel a month - as neither of us will need to make regular 'essential' journeys once I have finished work. Many of the items on the lists will take the form of monthly savings set aside to be dipped into as needed throughout the year - payments to a holiday/fun fund, gifts, clothing, household and gardening expenses.

We will keep a copy of the budget on the wall above the computer. Last time I got creative with colouring pens and star stickers - anything to make sobering financial restrictions more appealing to look at. It makes a big difference to keep the budget prominent, as opposed to tucked away in a notebook, as it is the cornerstone of financial (and therefore household) well being. Last time we placed our debt repayment tally next to it - ticking off payments as we made them was very satisfying; and we could directly relate that to the effectiveness of our budget. Anything that motivates you to keep to your budget, whether that be a picture of your one-day desert island retreat, or a decreasing mortgage balance sheet, will have the same effect.

Now the budget is in place, we have to decide how to organize the practicalities of it. We plan to set up standing orders to our savings accounts for both our long term savings and irregular expenses, to go out at the beginning of the month. We will continue to use direct debits for our regular monthly payments. For all day to day expenditure except fuel, we will use an envelope/jar system and pay cash (if I am feeling particularly virtuous, or time rich, I will make some hard wearing, beautiful pouches such as these ones over at the Co-op). The bulk shop, which is usually done online, will be paid via debit card, as will fuel. Any small change left over from the envelopes will be put into our change jar and eventually paid into our savings accounts.

Just having written it all down has calmed my jitters and made me realize we are not screwed, as I had previously thought. Any tips would be very much appreciated by the way, especially if anyone has experience using the envelope system. It all sounds so simple on paper, but no doubt there will be a few false starts over the next few months. A plan, combined with a continuing quest to trim down budgeted for expenses in any way possible, makes us a little more resilient to whatever life, or a new baby human, can throw our way.

As it turned out...

to do lists are a great idea! Almost everything on the list is complete, I substituted a few tasks for some other jobs that have been bugging me for a while. Today I was flicking back through my notebook to some older, bolder to-do lists written a few months ago. I can tick most of the items off the list - sell at carboot sales, purchase new sofa, start making wine, clear out the garden, plant some tree seeds, paint the living room, throw a halloween bash, pay down debts, return that two year overdue library book, plan a food budget and pantry, declutter the house, get a dining table.... We have managed to get them all done in the past few months, plus a few more. There are still lots of things to be doing, but it was satisfying to tick off all the little things that we had managed and also a few that were no longer important for us to do.


This month we have managed to pay off over half of our outstanding debts. That means that our debt free day has been brought forward from 'indefinite', to the end of February 2011. I can't say how relieved I am about this, that in a few months we will be using our wages to build our finances and to fund the things that we want in life, rather than funding the interest payments on loans taken out before we were wise enough to realise the rules of the game.

So all in all it has been a productive week and a productive year. Which is progress, because most years of my adult life have been years of consumption, debt and dissatisafction.  I imagine that this is a process that is going on up and down the land, and across the world. People are finding joy in doing things for themselves, in crafts and home cooking and making themselves more secure and resilient and happy, all the things we have strived for for millenia. It is very tough and I know that there is for most people no romance in it, but it is comforting to know that we are making a start.

Back to basics - budgeting links

I have known for a few months that our income would be dropping when OH started university. I knew that he would be starting university in September. Unfortunately, us being us, we were a little hazy on the details of just how a drop in income of a few hundred pounds a month would effect us. Now here we are, finding out just what it means. We are not in dire straits, but the budget will certainly be leaner over the next few months. It is a little daunting to return to budgeting after a few months of belt loosening. Which was all good fun whilst it lasted. However, all that hard work and frugality will have been for nothing if we end up right back where we started.

I am trying to recapture that feeling of excitement I had at the end of last year when began to make serious inroads into our debts.  Luckily in my mind, autumn and winter are a time for retiring a little from the world; and despite the gift giving frenzy that is December, plus a few birthdays, I don't tend to have as many hedonistic money splurging urges as I do in the warmer months.

Still, to get myself in the mood for belt tightening, I have been looking over some of the resources I found so useful the first time around:

Rhonda Jean at Down to Earth has written many inspiring posts about managing the household budget and making more from less.

Money Saving Expert, both the main site and the forums, are a treasure trove of budgeting, debt busting and consumer advice.

The Simple Dollar is a beautifully simple personal finance blog that focuses on the basics - 'Trent's money rules' and '31 days to fix your finances' ofter practical advice and a financial carrot (and sometimes stick) to keep you on the straight and narrow. It was here that I first learnt to think about my money in terms of hours worked; which put me on the road (eventually, after working through my stubborness...) to simpler living.

As it doesn't always come naturally, what inspires you to manage your finances? Do you need a carrot, or a stick? Do you budget, or do you just go with the flow every month? I need some inspiration, please!

Time to reflect on how far we have come

A few of my activities today have put me in reflective mood. Our little baby boy is no longer a baby, but a talkative and independent twenty-two month old! Time has flown and much has changed since he was born, in the last year especially.

Some of the important things that we have done in the past twelve months:

Finances - We have paid off £2000 debt. This is perhaps the most exciting thing to reflect on. I know that we could have done even better than this, but we afforded ourselves a few luxuries along the way. Even so, two credit cards are now gone, and we no longer have overdraft facilities. Every month we have a little money put aside spare, which is a position I never imagined we would be in for the next decade! We have also transferred the majority of the remainder of the debt to 0% interest rates, which means that we will be able to pay it off faster every month.

Home - We have been on a massive decluttering mission this year. We have charity bagged, chucked out and car booted possessions that I had deep emotional (read 'hoarding instinct') attachments to just a few years ago. the house is clearer (though by no means complete) and our lives are lighter. Hopefully other people benefited from our stuff too. We also invested in some solid furniture as ours wore out; I think we finally grasped the importance of quality and beauty and functionality over quantity.

Practical skills - Over the last few years we have been knuckling down and learning the skills for true self reliance. So new found money management skills aside:

• This year I have put much more effort into the garden and developing my food growing skills; and from just a few containers our harvest over the next few months is looking promising. I am branching out into winter crops this year too. Unfortunately I haven't learnt the art of war against caterpillars. There's always next year...

•  Our home brewing (OH's) and wine making (mine) enterprise is going well and is very satisfying work . OH is about to start his first non-kit, from mash brew. I have plans for lots of foraged fruit wines and perhaps some cider in the months ahead. As well as the finished product (which has an uncanny ability to win you friends and influence people!), I find the whole process fascinating. 

•  I have developed my knitting and crochet beyond basic stitches and simple shaping. Now I wonder every time I need a soft furnishing or item of clothing, 'can I knit that?'. Being able to make basic items like socks, hats and gloves to keep us warm comforts me deeply.

• I can finally bake a loaf of good bread, along with lots of other baked/skillet staples.

Parenting - we have had to learn patience, tolerance and a  good dose of selflessness. But thankfully our little boy teaches us as painlessly as possible, with the most fun and smiles he can muster (which is a LOT). Oh, and when handed a pooey baby, I can close off my smell receptors and have that baby cleaned and pinned in a terry cloth before others have stopped retching - which is good progress for an only child that was never entirely sold on being a parent.

I realise now that we are closer to living our dreams than I usually give credit for. It is so easy to focus on what we don't have, what we want to be doing and what we don't feel we are doing well enough. I know now that goals and dreams are built one and every moment at a time, until you arrive at the place where you want to be. If the goals are the right ones for you, then the journey will be as enjoyable as the destination.

Tracking spending

When you first go looking for information on simple living or household financial management, the suggestion that you should track all of your spending (usually for a minimum of one month) will always come up. However, the anti-planner in me always balked at the thought of such organisation and the idea was always dismissed.

The carrot of sound finances to pay for that eventual homestead/cycling holiday/banjo means I have finally been summoned by my inner-accountant, and have begun to track my spending. Ironically I bought a notebook to do it in, but it was 75% off and it is very pretty (which obviously absolves me). I have drawn a date column, followed by an 'amount spent' column, a 'payment method' column and finally a space to record the brief details of where and what I spent the money on. Some people choose to itemise every purchase, I write a general description (for example 'Corner shop - baked goods') and instead am keeping all of my receipts. I also don't list automatic payments/direct debits as these appear on monthly bank statements. At the end of every day, I tot up the amounts (and weep...).

This exercise, after only a few days, has been revealing and my inner anti-planner has been banished by my inner-accountant until I require her services for spontaneous fun. As it turns out, long term financial planning does not require the same mindset as throwing spur of the moment picnics, coffee shop stops and last minute jollies to the beach, which might be where I was going wrong for all those years.

I realise now that most of my small spending is done with cash; most of it is spent on snacks from the corner shop. In the past when I have read my bank statements and seen cash withdrawals, I have always explained them away to myself as cash for bus fares, pints of milk and other last minute essentials, which actually represent a minority of my cash outgoings. I also noticed that we end up buying essentials at uncompetitive prices because we have run out of something or I have forgotten them in the bulk shop.

Keeping the diary has made me reluctant to spend, because I do not want to accrue receipts or see the actual numbers tallied up every day. When I forgot to pick up my packed lunch, instead of going to the shop and buying a sandwich, drink and treat, I bought a carton of milk and used up the last of the cereal I keep at work. Just the disincentive of having to note down a figure saved me the best part of £4. So whilst the spending diary is an exercise in observation, I realise it is also motivating me to spend my money more wisely. I will use the information to tweak our monthly budget, our shopping lists and also my daily routines.

So now I am evangelical about the ways of the spending book, here are my tips for tracking spending:

• Start a diary - a notebook small enough to carry around everywhere. I have found a rows and columns format easiest, but some people may like to write out sentences. The minimum information you need to record is the date, the amount, the payment method and the where/what on. Some people use a spreadsheet instead or as well as a notebook. Do whichever you find easiest.

• Ask for and keep all receipts. Highlight any gratuitous spending to help you recognise your pitfalls.

• Actually open and read bank statements. Together with your diary, they will help you build up a complete picture of where the money goes each month.

• Get your partner on board to build a complete picture of household spending. I have finally convinced my OH that telling me about every penny that has left his pocket during the day is a scintillating use of his time.

• Record EVERYTHING you spend, no matter how small the amount. 

• If you are using the book to motivate you to spend less, place a reminder of a juicy financial goal on the front cover or inside. It could be a picture of a holiday destination. Mine is the total number of pennies I need to save for a deposit on our some-day homestead. Yes, I did say pennies.

A bid for freedom

Last month we managed to pay off over £500 off debt. This included a couple of hundred pounds to close a credit card, a regular loan payment and dribs and drabs to various other accounts. To get to the stage where we could pay off so much in one month and not be totally deprived is wonderful.

A few years ago, before the credit crunch, we were bobbing along paying off just the minimum payments and going into our overdrafts every month. Around 2006, I remember seeing the front page of The Economist magazine. I knew nothing of finance and economics back then, but I remember the title splashed across a row of foreclosed cartoon McMansions was something along the lines of 'Time's up for the American housing bubble'. I remember it gave me an uneasy feeling, not least because we as a nation tend to follow where the US leads on just about everything, bonkers financial models included.

At around the same time I came across the concept of peak oil, in National Geographic of all places. The more I read, the more I realised that we were heading into a period of huge financial instability. I began to take debts more seriously; but whilst a step in the right direction, our efforts were half hearted.  Falling pregnant with Gus, whilst a shock, was actually our saving grace. We ploughed our efforts into paying off debts, moving them around to zero interest deals and paying a small amount into savings each month. We are aiming to have cleared the remaining credit card and overdraft by the end of 2010, and perhaps pay off the loan early if it is cost effective to do so.

To get to this point, our mindset has had to drastically change:

• I think the most valuable thing that we have done is to write a realistic budget. We have been doing this seriously since february and it is in this period that we have paid off the most debt, which can't be coincidental.

• We pay extra debt repayments at the beginning of the month, before we have a chance to fritter away the money.

•  We generally withdraw cash to pay for everyday things instead of using a card. This makes it easier to shop in our local grocers and we do spend smaller amounts at a time. I still have the bizarre idea that it isn't fair on the shop to spend less than a fiver on my card, which as the big chains don't charge for small amounts, is absolute madness on my part.

• We do an online shop every 2-3 months for our bulk goods. I started doing this in the run up to giving birth, we stocked up on dry goods and 200 tins of cat food (I kid not) so that we didn't have to do much shopping in those first few months with a new baby. It worked out brilliantly. I hate supermarkets, I hate spending money on petrol to travel to supermarkets and I like having everything on hand that I need to prepare a meal and get me through a few lean weeks if need be (and  look at the panic buying that ensured following the snow last winter). I also don't impulse buy when I shop online.

• We now buy the best quality we can afford, or we buy second hand, we freecycle and most importantly...

• ...we ask ourselves whether we need the thing in the first place. Less stuff = less stuff to maintain and less clutter.

• We eat very little meat and lots of pulses and eggs and things. Vegetarian is definitely cheaper.  I have also started to work out what constitutes a healthy portion of something so that we waste less and still get everything we need from our food. 

Scones I made for Father's day

• We cook a lot from scratch.

• We save our pennies, literally, in a glass flagon on the mantelpiece. As a result of usually withdrawing cash to pay for things, there is always change left over; and it is amazing how quickly it tots ups. In the aftermath of the bank run on Northern Rock I think it is a good idea to always have some cash in the house.

• I read forums, such as the Old Style Money Saving board over at MSE, which are invaluable for support and ideas. Blogs such as Down To Earth and Tipnut are full of good ideas too. Having a few flesh and bone friends around you who are interested in a more frugal and sustainable way of life is a bonus if you can find them (or convert them!).

There are many things we can improve on and we still have a way to go. So my money saving goals to the end of 2010 are:

• I will take a packed lunch into work. This brilliant tool has told me that not only would I save about £450 pounds a year, but that that £450 represents 1.5 weeks of my working life.  I will also make sure I have sweet treats and baked goods around the house so that we do not go out and impulse buy.

• I will start making my own laundry powder again. I used to do it to wash Gus's nappies and saved a pretty penny, then just got out of the habit. I am actually pretty good on the green cleaning front though. Admittedly it only saves a few pounds a year, but that is better than nothing and I find it fun in a geeky way.

• I will work through the craft stash that I have before I buy any more. I will also start creatively recycling as much as I can so that I have craft materials to work with. 

Salvaging seed beads from my favourite, but unfortunately worn out, bag.

• I will look carefully at our energy usage and try to cut back. I particularly want to make sure that we use less heating in winter, which means a bit of DIY and sewing over the next few months.

I have many things that I want to achieve and these money saving ones overlap with many of my other goals. But ultimately, having no debts means that we are in effect, free human beings - which is a good place to begin a new life from.

Now the nights are drawing in...

It must be a week now since the solstice? I can feel a nip in the air, I swear...

This is the jumper I have been planning to make for my darling OH for the last 12 months and today I managed to find the perfect yarn. I am not unfortunately of unlimited funds when it comes to yarn and aran can be pricey, but this was 40% off and so I jumped at it. It has brightly coloured 'nebs' spun into the charcoal grey yarn and is a beautifully soft wool/alpaca/synthetic mix.

Today I visited my local yarn shop. This weekend it closes its doors for the last time and my local community becomes a little less complete. I am sad, not least because an independent shop has closed, but also because in those early lonely months with a new baby, the odd visit to that shop kept me sane. I think it can only be a good sign that it is closing for personal reasons and not due to the recession that is killing off so many other retailers. It must mean that people are relearning old skills and spending their money accordingly, which can only be a good thing. In an age of passive consumption, the sense of satisfaction and security that being able to make something for yourself gives is priceless.

This month I have visited the shop a couple of times to stock up and take advantage of some of the clearance offers. In  addition to the aran, I purchased ten balls of Sublime extra fine merino DK in various colours (so soft and richly coloured, it is wonderful to knit with) and some 4-ply cotton to crochet and knit some more dishcloths, which are unfortunately far too addictive.

I now regret buying some purely synthetic yarn to make a jumper for my son. Whilst its quite good quality as synthetics go, I know that when knitted into a garment it will pill and stretch too readily. I read an interesting article (whilst chopping up my magazines) about 'Precycling', which basically means to avoid waste altogether by thinking long and hard about what you consume before you even consume it; and making wise choices (along the lines of reduce, reuse, recycle) after you take possession of it. In future I will make sure that I buy as hard wearing and classic a yarn as I can afford so that when the original garment is worn out after many years of use I can frog it or felt it and turn it into something else. The gift of yarn that just keeps on giving!

The joy of not spending.

The birth of our son meant that we have had to economise over the last few years. Lots of charity shop shopping, painting of second hand furniture, container veg growing, crafting, freecycling, home brewing and home cooking. It has actually made for a more fulfilling life – we are constantly learning, being more creative and becoming more confident and self reliant. We have saved money, which has allowed us to pay off debts accrued in the dumb years (as I shall now fondly refer to them) much faster.

I still struggle with buying stuff. A few weeks ago I was lusting after some glass storage jars. I have a few Le Parfait jars I bought a few years back. They are beautiful, functional and sturdy - but I have better things to spend a fiver on at the moment.

So instead of buying the jars, I asked the lady at the local chip shop to save me her pickle jars. She only gets through a jar every few weeks these days as pickles have fallen out of favour to mushy peas and curry sauce. But she saved me these two. They hold about 2.5 litres each, are robust and quite attractive sitting in the cupboard filled with barley and pasta. They have saved me about £4.50 a pop for the equivalent sized Le Parfait jars. Thats about 45 minutes worth of real hourly wages for one jar. It also kept them from the recycling plant for another few years.

One day I may have free reign to spend money on stuff that brings me joy, earned through paid work that brings me joy. When I get there, I suspect that I still won't want to buy so much - instead I will want to buy life experiences - travel, learning, a home of our own, a business. The mindset I am developing now will hopefully get us to that point a little faster - and stand us in good stead for a future that is looking rather more austere (if this week's emergency budget is anything to go by) than the last few years of excess.