English?

Why have so many words had 'ized' added to the end?
So casual workers are now casualized workers.....really?

And when did "gonna" become part of the language .......it's "Going to" "GOING TO"!

Feel better now :-)

Back Soon
Sue

Why I don't donate to The Red Cross

I'm sure The Red Cross do good work both here and around the world but I do so wish that they wouldn't keep sending out these bits that the postman delivers several times a year.

Last week there was a pen, a card and envelope, 2 coasters and a bookmark. Plus of course the begging letter and prepaid envelope to send back your donation. And if you donate £5 or more they will send you a cotton shopping bag or  a notebook. I'm sure bulk buying means these gifts don't cost much to produce but it must be between 50p and a £1. I've heard all the discussion about why they do this and it must be worthwhile for them but it would be good if they saved the 50p+ to get these to me and used it towards something useful.

Thank you to everyone for comments about the editorial in the newspaper. I reluctantly added a link so you can read the article (I hope you avoided looking at me in the baggy shorts in close up! Not a pretty sight)

Nearly forgot to say welcome to Dani and Patricia - new followers in the little pictures on the right

Back Soon
Sue

30 Ways to save £1 -- DAY 12 + getting your knickers in a twist over Christmas

Every year some people seem to  get themselves into a tizzy about the approach of Christmas. They are worrying about the commercialism, the never ending ads on TV. The over eating. The debt. But I can't see the point of getting all "het up" about it ( as we say in Suffolk).

You can preach all you like but there will always be some people who go completely OTT. This is the time that shops take the most money, so of course they are going to advertise. You don't HAVE to buy what they are trying to persuade you to spend on. However much money you give some people they would still spend it on things others consider unnecessary. However little money other people have they will still spend it all and borrow more.
You can be annoyed at the shops playing Christmas songs in November, but there's no point in raising your blood pressure over it. Just do your shopping and leave.
 You can be an all-the-year-round Christian or at only-at -Christmas-church visitor but you will be made welcome whoever you are. And if you are not - then find another church next year because if a church doesn't make a stranger feel welcome then they are not doing what they should be doing.
You can be Pagan or Atheist as long as no one is hurt by your beliefs of non beliefs.
You can stay at home, read a good book, watch TV  or go to huge family parties, in the whole great scheme of things as long as you are not hurting anyone then it doesn't matter.
You can spend a fortune on presents, make them or buy them secondhand. If the recipient doesn't like it then it's their problem not yours.
CHILL
It's just Christmas, it happens every year. Enjoy it or not.
BUT DON'T GO ON AND ON ABOUT IT!



Now to Number 12 of the 30 ways to save £1

12. Don't waste money on bottled water, just fill a plastic bottle with tap water and stand it in the fridge overnight then take it with you next day.
We are lucky here as we have delicious tap water. We try and remember to take a bottle of water whenever we go out. It's always handy.
It drives me mad in summer that so many of our campsite visitors buy bottled water.

Welcome to another follower, Catherine, that makes 94!

What if there wasn't a loo to run to?

Thank you to Attila, Sadie and Dc for comments yesterday. For some reason I couldn't leave a reply to Dc - don't know why but the computer won't let me - very strange.

Today has all been about visitors.
First it was getting some cooking and baking done ready for friends coming to see us tomorrow, then several caravanners came to the door for various things, then our elderly friend from the village stopped in for a coffee and just as he was getting up to go some other friends from the Suffolk Smallholders Society called in to find out how Him Outside was getting on. So we ended up having 3 cups of coffee before lunch time and running to the loo for the rest of the day!!

Which links up with the other thing I wanted to blog about today -

The other day Dc at Frugal in Norfolk mentioned the charity Water Aid
find out about them here and by one of those strange co-incidences, what should be in the post this morning but a copy of their newsletter  - Oasis.

 Dc was choosing to give a donation to them this month  and they are one of the charities I support with a small standing order each month. Like Dc I'm writing about this not to appear as a Goody Two Shoes but because they are one of the most worthwhile charities to give to ( In my opinion).
My late mum always said Charity begins at home and was never keen to donate to anything, yet on the other hand she always used to say there is always somebody worse off than yourself. So I'm not sure why she was a bit funny about giving. ( Maybe growing up in Wartime in a family of 6 children with a father who was often ill has something to do with it)
 I've got this feeling that what goes around comes around - is that what they say? - well something like that. So I think if anyone can spare a few quid a month( and with Water Aid even £2 a month can make a difference ) then we should try to help women ( it's almost always women) to be able to give clean water to their children. It's not just water, imagine having to walk for half a mile to find somewhere private to squat to go to the loo and dealing with menstruation with no water to wash with. We don't realise just how lucky we are to turn on the tap and know fresh water is there straight away and to have a loo to run to after three cups of coffee!
Easy access to clean water and hygienic latrines means mothers don't have to spend half their day fetching water, and finding somewhere to go to the loo, that gives them time to grow food for their families and to sell.  Children don't get ill, which means they can go to school. There they get an education which can move them out of poverty. All because of a tap and a latrine in their village.
Brilliant!
Water Aid are starting a big campaign to try to bring clean water to everyone by 2030, it would be better if it was even sooner.

Apologies for going on a bit.
I'll be back to normal(?) tomorrow!
PS You would NEVER believe how many empty shop-bought fancy water bottles I find in the campsite bin. OUR TAP WATER IS EXCELLENT QUALITY WHY ARE YOU BUYING BOTTLED?!!

A small step onto my soapbox due to our County town of Ipswich being featured on the BBC

Did you see that programme last night? It was called something like " We're the tax payers who pay your benefits" and paired up people on benefits with people working hard but not earning very much. It was a surprise when Nick Hewer, one of the presenters, said " we're off to Ipswich". Hardly ever featured in TV programmes but chosen apparently for it's averageness (is there such a word?). I was interested to watch as I like to know how it is that some people can or can't manage on benefits without looking for a job and others who want to work but can't find work so are forced into benefits. Having read lots of historical books about workhouses or even earlier when there was no help at all for people unable to work, I wouldn't like to see the country going back to that. What annoys me is that some folks receive more in handouts than others who work. One woman featured had a dog, cats and various other assorted pets and treated herself to nights out with vodka as a norm.  I expect many people watching thought " Hang on, something's not right there." The programme continues next week. I shall watch. Him Outside HATES programmes like this - full of whingers he says. Part of me agrees but the other bit thinks what would we have done if we hadn't been able to somehow manage on the very average council roadmans income.
How did we pay a mortgage and survive?
 Him Outside worked lots of overtime in summer ( surface dressing roads) and in winter ( on the gritting lorry). We grew our own stuff right from the start, meals were made from scratch, bought clothes and toys  from jumble sales, holidays were a week in a tent, cars were old. Going to the pub was definitely out and takeaways were a special treat. We had evenings out - volunteering as Cub and Scout leaders! We once qualified for free milk- for about 6 weeks until summer overtime started. I did small jobs when I could - dinner lady, child minding, cleaning. Outgoings HAD to be less than income and were pared to the bone.
When our eldest was about  9, she asked if we could pay for one of her friends to go on a school trip as her friends mum couldn't afford it. I asked her where had we seen her friend playing as we came back from Grandma's last Sunday? - In the garden of the local pub with her mum and dad drinking nearby. I explained we chose to do things differently. I don't think the children knew how little spare cash we had because we always found what they needed for school trips etc. Luckily all this was in the mid 1980s before the age of mobile phones, computers, designer clothes and other must-have gadgets. There were less outside pressures on families then I think.

Back to normal diary mode and

 HIP HIP HOORAY IT'S LIBRARY VAN DAY!

All this lovely reading for free, I'm glad that part of peoples taxes are spent on libraries. We earn so little that we don't even pay any taxes any more! So who am I to say what taxes should or shouldn't be spent on. Perhaps I should keep my thoughts to myself!!

On a Bank Holiday Monday Soapbox

I've just read something on a blog that made me raise my eyebrows. My idea of being frugal has always been to use my time to do things that other people pay for.  So the thought of giving away £6  which could have been saved  by spending about 15 minutes sitting at a table puzzles me. If anyone else is puzzled by this do let me know!
Another thing that  mystifies me is why people save money in tins or something similar. Most of our income arrives in cash - not many people pay for a dozen eggs by writing a cheque or organising a bank transfer! So I could save it all in little tins all around the house if I wanted to. But it would earn me NOTHING and would be risky. Instead of this we both have an ISA. A well known high street bank has an instant access ISA where you can put any odd bits of cash in, it pays interest monthly so that every month the interest earns more interest, and you don't pay tax on an ISA either. A win win situation.
 I know which way of saving I would always choose.
Well, each to his own I think the saying is!

I will get down off my soapbox and get back to normal. Today has been quite restful, not quite as much sitting around as planned as him outside saw next weeks depressing weather forecast and kept thinking of things that needed doing while the weather was fine, and I decided to tidy up a small bit of garden that was full of lemon balm. Before we did these jobs ( and the normal campsite cleaning and egg collecting) we nipped up the road to the car boot sale as usual. We lead SUCH eventful lives that car boot sales and local shopping are often the only times I go out!

Today's car boot was huge - by local standards - probably about 150+ boots we estimated. And at last I found someone selling craft stuff, (this time mostly crafting papers), which I search for all summer ready for winter card making. For £3.50 I got all this lot, which includes a big pack of oriental papers, peel offs, charms, and toppers.

Sorry about the fuzzy picture, I really should put my glasses on so I can see what I'm doing!

I also found 4 small Lavender plants for 60p each. I already have several lavenders in the garden and in pots, so these will be grown on, potted up and sold next year for £1.50! I know this is only a tiny profit but every little helps. One of the stalls at the car boot had some local  strawberries and they looked so delicious we treated ourselves to a punnet. These must have been grown in a greenhouse or tunnel as our strawberries here have only just produced flowers. I can confirm they were delicious, definitely not flown in from foreign climes.

We were able to spend some time with out feet up and I'm now reading the second book in the Cazelet series by Elizabeth Jane Howard that I  mentioned a week or so back. I decided not to read one straight after the other and have got through two modern crime books in between.

 Just remembered the French Open tennis and turned on to see The lovely Rafa winning his first round match.

I'm having a night off cooking this evening so we will probably just have scrambled eggs. We eat all the odd shaped eggs that can't be sold, but they taste just as good!

Back tomorrow with more riveting details of our eggsiting adventures here!

These are the things on which we spend nothing ( or very very little).

So that we can live here on a 5 acre smallholding and be self employed and so that Him Outside can work part time at age 56, and so we can eat nice food and be comfortable there are some things we spend NO MONEY ON.

Looking back at the first quarter of the year- we spent NOTHING on heating (except for a bit of electric for the chainsaw to cut wood). We spent NOTHING on CDs, DVDs, Entertainment systems, satellite TV subscriptions, electronic games and similar gadgety toys. ( unless you count the new digital camera for my Birthday- I'm not counting that - It's a necessity for blogging after all !!!) We spent NOTHING on haircuts ( we do it ourselves), make up, smelly 'products' and  similar   things         ( except for unscented  soap +shampoo and deodorant from Poundland). We spent NOTHING on Take-away meals or eating out. We spent NOTHING on newspapers. We spent NOTHING on things for the garden unless they were connected with growing food. We spent NOTHING on Days out or Holidays.We spent NOTHING on jewellery or watches. We spent NOTHING on gadgets for the kitchen. We spent NOTHING on new books ( although I've found several secondhand and borrowed dozens from the library) We spent NOTHING on keeping up with the Jones' ( or keeping up with anyone else for that matter.)

BUT on the other hand we spent a lot on doing the recreation room, shower and toilet on the campsite, Too much on things for the smallholding, quite a lot on new chickens, chicken feed and 1500 egg boxes. And Far  Too much on running the gas guzzling 4 wheel drive that we have to have for pulling a trailer to collect and deliver all the smallholding things that we do!

What are the things other frugalers out there spend nothing on, so that they can do the things they chose?

Now I'm down off my soapbox again, I will get back to normal and tell you about our Saturday here in Suffolk. I was busy in the kitchen doing these things in the picture. 6 boxes of pizza topping to go in the freezer. This is made with 3 tins of tomatoes - without their juice- 4 smallish onions (home grown) chopped fine, a good squirt of tomato puree, teaspoon sugar and pepper and oregano (home grown and dried). Total cost about £1.10p I reckon ( onions are free as we sold enough last autumn to cover the cost of the onion sets.)The onions are softened in a little oil then add the tomatoes and mash them up add the rest and cook until thick.

The juice from the tinned tomatoes was used along with a small onion, a grated carrot and some of the outside sticks from a head of celery plus squirt of tom.puree and a little flour to thicken, water and lots of seasoning to make a big saucepan of tomato soup. Which seemed like a good idea with the weather turning back to cold, grey and wet today.

 Finally I mixed up a good lot of crumble topping to put in the freezer ready to make Him Outside all the desserts he likes to eat, with all the lovely fruit we grow. An hour or so well spent I think.

Meanwhile Him Outside was busy weeding while it was dry and sorting out  the jeep and workshop when it rained.

We have one crop that was damaged by the high winds - the cougettes. Despite covering with fleece they look very sad with several broken leaves, not sure how many plants out of the 18 will survive. Will look again in a few days to see how they are doing. I still have 4 more plants in the greenhouse waiting in case we lost any and there are always plenty of plants for sale at carboot sales if we do need replacements. Courgettes are one of the things we grow to sell as they are so easy to pick and pack.

Car boot sale tomorrow - weather permitting!

On a Sunday Soapbox

I was browsing in blogland last night while watching that programme " Should British people without talent be on TV" when I came across a blog where somebody was saying how they didn't want to join in the £30 for 30 tips thing because the things they did were not what other people did and they didn't want to be seen following the crowd and "making up" tips just to get the money. ( I couldn't find the blog again and not sure where it was)
Surely the whole point of Frugal Living is that everyone is different, everyone has different reasons to live the way they do and different ways to do it. Probably one persons frugal tip is another persons extravagance and vice-versa. But that doesn't matter, it is up to individual choice.
Our reasons for being frugal are over on the sidebar and so is the way we do things. We've often been told we are lucky for owning a smallholding but we are old and started way back when houses were cheaper and we were able to buy cheap, do them up and sell a few years later. We did this 5 times including living in a caravan for a year with 2 children under 5 and working late every night on a house that had been declared uninhabitable by the council. But we made choices to do that, like buying childrens clothes at jumble sales and not Mothercare as was the norm at the time. Later when the children were older we choose not to holiday abroad, even though they said all their friends were, and camped in this country instead. We choose not to have new or even newish cars and we were lucky because Him Outside can turn his hand to most practical things. Yes, we were lucky as we didn't have debts and a big mortgage and we were able to pay it off early but we choose not to buy things that we couldn't afford. Our first new sofa was bought only a few years ago and we've been married for 34 years! but that was our choice. Yes, we were "lucky" that my Dad died a few years back and left us some money to build a kitchen extension and to modernize the house to make it more fuel efficient so it was cheaper to live here, but we choose to do that rather than go on a cruise or whatever. We are so lucky to have a choice and I know some people will say they have no choice to do what they do and I'm sure that's true and that's the sad thing about the world. But we can only do what we do and as far as I know  we don't upset anyone doing it. So I shall carry on being frugal in our own way and enjoying it.

On a much lighter note I had a reply to a blog last week mentioning The Penny Pincher Paper and I was so excited to find someone else who had heard of it. ( Apart from my 6 PPP friends - Hello Sandra, Alison, Mary,Janet,Jill and Gill !) It was a small privately published newsletter that ran for  around 5 years. Produced by John and Irma Mustoe who appeared in the VERY early series of Scrimpers in around 1992 or 3. They then did a book and followed that with The Penny Pincher Paper. I have no idea how many people subscribed to it, but as lot's of different people contributed their own ideas on living better on less, it must have been several dozen at least. So is there anyone else who subscribed out there? The Mustoes  were frugal because they loved travelling, so they choose to live simply in other ways to afford their world travels. Everyone is different. Which is  a good thing as it would be a pretty boring world if we were all the same.