To Remember For Next Christmas

Yes I really am looking that far ahead!

I usually make a few notes in the start of my new diary to remind me of what's what, this year I will share them with you.... you lucky people!

• Look out for wrapping paper at car boot sales
• No need to buy any Christmas cards  as I have got enough for next year
• But I want to make some special cards for the family ( Need to search for ideas - cross stitch?)
• 12 people fit round the dining table but a bit too many for the living room
• Having everyone here on one day was good, but left no time to chat much
• The chocolate meringue gateau is delicious but we've had it 2 years running so find something different for next year.
• I don't need to make Christmas puddings next year - two in the cupboard
• Might do hampers for sisters and Bros in L? Write down ideas
• Maybe find another cheap Christmas tree at a car boot as we have so many tree decorations that never get used.
• Remember to use Scout Post for Ipswich relatives, need to be in Ipswich during first 2 weeks of Dec.
• Look for small gifts at car boot sales for "tree presents" and maybe cracker fillers

And  I spent a while yesterday evening cutting out some 3D decoupage sheets for making  Christmas cards.
Yep, it's official..........I'm mad!

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One of the last things Col did before the Hardly-a-Heart Attack was to bring home 8 big IBC containers from the factory in Leiston.

He got them cheap as they had so many there with no one wanting them. They are all ones that can't be used again officially because either the frames are too rusty or the taps leak a bit. They've been advertised in the Suffolk Smallholders Newsletter ever since but we've had no phone calls.  Odd really as this is the ideal time for arranging a water catching/storage system before the summer. So today on our way to get a load of chicken feed we dropped 2 off at the sale-yard where they will go in next Mondays Auction. We will see what happens.

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 Just seen a trailer for a new series of Call the midwife, I'm looking forward to that as I didn't think they were doing anymore. I missed the Christmas one, probably a good thing as I would have cried my way through the whole programme!

Welcome to Jan, following by Google friends. Hope you enjoy my ramblings from Suffolk.

Back Tomorrow
 Sue 

The Day of More......

More bike riding,  more wood moving, more knitting and more reading.

That's what I've done today.

The bike riding was to Leiston again to pick up some tablets for Col. Taking several tablets, that have different numbers in the packets, makes ordering (online-thank goodness) and collecting a regular occurrence. Head wind up hill home but I got back without puffing. Good, I must be back to full fitness again.

Wood moving was shifting more dry stuff into the shed for cutting next week.

Knitting was more of a dishcloth

Reading was finishing this

This is a small book of short stories.
I don't usually read short stories, I don't really like short stories, I'm not sure why I got this from the library van. Did someone joining in the Year of Books thing mention it? or did I just spot it on the mobile and borrowed it out of curiosity? I also don't know why I bothered to finish reading as the stories are slightly weird. All in all I have wasted an hour or two of my life!

Col has been number crunching with regard to changing the Jeep to something smaller. He reckons based on the number of miles we do we would save around £1,000 a year. BUT if we spend out on a Berlingo or something similar that's say, 4 years old, without thousands of miles on the clock, it will deplete our savings about £7,000  and  depreciates by...........£1000 a year! We've had the Jeep long enough for us to have got our moneys worth out of it already. OK... Right ... another thing to consider.
 
Now I must welcome Wean and Lynn over in the Google pictures and Cheryl, Jean and Joanne who have clicked the Bloglovin' button.
Thank you for comments yesterday about the budget. 2 points were raised. First, our land is not suitable for horses as it is too wet in winter and grows to be quite lush in summer and we have no proper fencing and I'm not keen on horses anyway. So doing a livery is definite NO! Plus the idea of running courses, - been there, done that with the Smallholders Society. Too much like hard work!
We will carry on how we are and see what happens. No rush to change plans.
 

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Planning the budget for 2015

Due to Cols heart attack and him having to take things a bit easier we think our income in 2015 will drop  by about  £300 a month, maybe more in the second half of the year. No more hedge cutting for our neighbour for a start. We have already halved the number of chickens we keep and plan to drop down to just a couple of dozen to enable us to have a short break and also get to our daughters wedding, we may increase numbers again later in the year. We will also not be hay-making on the two fields that we used to rent.

Here is an updated version of the post ( see it here) I did around this time last year

How we organise our budget

1. Council Tax. Because  we have lived here for 21 years our Council Tax is based on the tax bands when they were first set in  1991. I believe tax bands are re-calculated when houses are sold. We are also in a very rural area, so our Council Tax is a lot less than that paid in towns. We pay by direct debit over 10 months.  I'm not expecting the cost to go up very much as County, District and Parish councils have pledged to keep costs down.

2. Water Bill. We have a meter for the Campsite and farm buildings. The house is not metered. We have no mains sewer here, so septic tank drainage. The water bill for the house is direct debit over 10 months and is also based on the 1991 Council tax band. We pay the metered bill twice a year, this varies - the more campers we get the higher the bill. But the more campers the bigger the income anyway.The usage for farm/garden is low as we have huge rainfall collection tanks ( 8000 litres total!) on the farm buildings  and move the water around to water tanks in the garden.

3. Electric Bill. This varies a lot, again depending on how many campers come to the site. We pay quarterly for both.

4. TV Licence. I budget £15 a month, for 12 months. This allows for price increase and a bit left each year to add to anything with a shortage.
Total needed for those 4 things is approx £290 per month ( less for 2 months with no council tax)

The Campsite and smallholding businesses

1. Public Liability and Business insurance. We have to send a copy of this to The Camping and Caravanning Club. Without it we would be unable to run the site. We also need it because of selling eggs etc.  This seems to go up by a few pounds every year. Direct Debit £53 a month for 12 months at the moment.
2. Campsite electric inspection and test. Every year we have to have an electric test on the hook-ups and a certificate to say it's been done. A copy of this goes to the Camping and Caravanning Club. Without this we wouldn't be able to operate the campsite. It's around £75 each year.
3. Chicken feed. Range Layers pellets direct from the Mill. They changed from 25kg to 20 kg bags last year and  now  we collect 20 bags at a time. With the number of hens  we have at present this lasts a couple of months. When we drop down to 2 dozen hens for a while  one load will last us longer.We also need to buy grit and oyster shell. Even though they are free range they need these as our soil is heavy clay.
4. Buying new point-of -lay  hens. To keep a steady egg supply for our customers, we replace the very old hens with new young hens each year. About 60 each year at £6.50 each. We plan to restock in summer so need to save for then.
5.Egg Boxes, Egg wash and cleaning cloths. We use plain grey boxes as they are the cheapest  and we buy them in big packs of 300 collecting 1500 once a year direct from a farm supplier. I use a sanitizing egg wash for cleaning muddy eggs and a clean cloth ( J cloth type) every day which then goes in the wash.
6. Diesel for the tractor. We are allowed to use Red diesel for the tractor BUT nowhere locally sells it. We could have 1000 Litres delivered! except a tank costs a fortune and that amount would last us for ever. So we get a can full whenever possible from Morrisons in Ipswich as they are the only garage that we know of that sells it.
7.Petrol for the mower and chainsaw. Neither uses a huge amount. We need both, one for cutting the campsite and the other for cutting our free heating wood.
8.Campsite requisites. That's Loo rolls, paper towels, cleaning stuff. I usually buy these out of the housekeeping except for the paper towels which I stock up on when Viking mail order office supplies have a sale.
9. Multi purpose and seed compost plus seeds and plants for vegetables. I always check through several seed companies catalogues comparing prices. I have spent a lot less this year, cutting down in several places - £63 so far and seed potatoes still to buy. We sell probably 70 - 80% of what we grow so easily get our money back and earn a good income from June through to October. We are not sure what we will manage this year, it depends on how much Col can do.
10. Smallholding repairs and maintenance. There are always expenses when you own land and want to earn an income from it .Machinery repairs and replacements and maintenance and even small things like sticky labels for selling things at the gate, the list is endless. BUT as we will be doing less I shouldn't need to save so much each month.

Approx £240 a month needed  for the above

 The ( B*****) Jeep!

1. Diesel for the jeep. We try not to waste journeys and  do lots of  errands  when we are out. Luckily for most of our daily requirements we only need a 5 mile round trip. I cycle whenever I can. Our nearest petrol station is the local one in Leiston, who have now started giving Tesco Club Card points. They are often no more expensive than the supermarket filling stations and the nearest one of those is  over 20 miles away. We plan to change to something MUCH more economical later in the year as we won't need to haul large trailers about anymore.
2. Jeep Insurance. This is the almost the cheapest bit of running our gas-guzzling 4WD that we couldn't do without (in the past) on the smallholding. As we are over 50 we get it via Saga and they will match any quote we can find elsewhere. Col checked out insurance for something smaller and it would be about £30 -£40 less each year.
3.Jeep MOT. Col is able to do most of the servicing so checks the jeep out before taking it to the garage.
4. Jeep Tax = Too Much but unavoidable! £285 this year. This will be much less when we swap to something smaller.
5.Bits for servicing, tires, oil  etc

Approx £200 a month in total at the moment but hopefully half that later in the year.

The things we need for everyday life

1.All  Food and drink ( including Christmas)
2. Clothes and shoes ( Urgently need to save for something for our daughters wedding.)
3 Personal Hygiene (  Loo rolls,Toothpaste, soap, shampoo etc etc)
4.Cleaning and Laundry stuff
5.Pre-payment prescription cards, opticians and dentist. ( I get free prescriptions after April)
6. Phone and computer.
7.Bottled gas for the hob  and coal to keep the Rayburn alight overnight when it's very cold    
8. Birthday and Christmas gifts for family and friends ( I MUST cut this for 2015)
9. House and contents insurance
10. Smaller Things for the house
11. Postage

Approx £475 per month for all above but a bit less after April


We have money in savings for replacing household appliances, the expected expenses like pumping out the septic tank and the unexpected. These need to be added to if possible as there are always unexpected expenses!

So we will save whatever we can in the good months of summer

Then we want to have some money for the things that make life interesting
Books
Christmas treats
Days out
Craft materials
Feeding the birds

Whatever we can spare from not spending so much in any of the above categories.

 Can we earn more than £1205 a month averaged out over the year?

Hopefully we can but I'm not as sure as I was last year because our income comes from several sources and the list below is shorter than it was in 2014.

• The campsite between April and October.....Praying for good weather!
• Egg sales every day ( a lot less than last year and less again when we drop down to enable us to get on holiday).
• Sale of hay after haymaking and throughout year ( only our 2 acres here will be cut for hay in 2015)
• Sale of fruit, vegetables and a few flowers mainly from June until November
• Income from Cs odd jobs. ( We don't know what he will be able to manage).
• Occasional income - Election duty, I opted out last year but will probably do it this year ( approx £100)
• Car boot sale? - I swore last year not to do another for a few years but we have some STUFF! Goodness knows where it has come from and there's bound to be more if we search around.
•  Income from investments. This will decrease mid-year when our 5 year Bonds come to an end. Interest rates have dropped dramatically since we invested the money left to us by my Dad in 2010.
• Repayments from money we loaned to someone in the family last year to help them out of bother.

(Lots of people still think we have a pension but No, not yet. There might be a possibility of Cols work pension in 2017, otherwise we will have to wait until 2021 and 2023)

 So that's our budget for 2015. If things go as planned we will be OK, if not we will have to use some of the savings. I will hate to see savings used  for everyday so will try to avoid if possible.

We will try and stay here for another year and see how things go. We might have to move in 2016.

Back Tomorrow

PS Just noticed new followers, will do a proper welcome tomorrow
Sue

That Jeep has got to go!

The Car Tax form came for the Jeep on Friday, its gone up £15 so now £285. As soon as we've taken the machinery that we won't need anymore, to the sale yard for their collective sale in May we are definitely getting something smaller and cheaper. When I took the money to pay for the tax from the Jeep virtual 'envelope' it only left £15 for any diesel we'll need in the rest of the month. Luckily we filled up on the way home from hospital last week at Tesco - getting 4p a litre off so we may not need anymore anyway.

A beautiful blue sky sunny day today and we had a choice, either get the jeep out of the shed and drive to Aldeburgh for a walk along the prom, get the jeep out of the shed and drive out Snape way for a walk in the forest to pick up fir cones or just walk  from here along the local footpaths. Having read the first paragraph you will know which we choose! We changed plans on where to walk after finding how icy our road was and when we came home and looked on mapometer  ( thank you to whoever posted about this website - it's great fun) we had walked just over 2 miles, not much I know, but after the hardly-a-heart-attack and the pneumonia we are building up slowly!

A Ditch full of running water - the nearest thing we have to a river!

The footpath goes along a private lane to one of the second homes near us.

Years ago we put this sleeper across our ditch so we could get onto our land without going along the road and in the front gateway - just for fun!

Another book finished already and another with a religious background.
The Author lives on the Suffolk/Essex border and has written short pieces for the Church Times for years and years. His friends are often writers and artists and he travels widely. Ronald Blythe is now 92 years old and still preaching and writing.

I've read several of his books, probably the most well known is Akenfield, which was turned into a film using some local people as actors, including a girl who was in the same year as me at school. Ronald Blythe is influenced by John Clare ,a poet who also wrote about the countryside including a long poem called The Shepherds Calender which describes the country people of the time. The last part of the poem - 'December - Christmas' -  has a good description of Christmas in the 1820s.

Talking about Christmas, - today the Christmas cards were turned into tags and shopping list card, with the remainder going in the recycling bin.

Welcome to new followers - Lovely Grey on Google friends and Emily Lockett on Bloglovin'.
Thank you for lots of comments about our wood cutting on yesterdays post. Trishwish asked if we take the nails out of the scrap wood. I said " Good Grief - NO!" it would take forever and a day to remove nails from everything we cut up. Col just fishes the nails out of the Rayburn and woodburner before he lights them in the morning ( we don't keep the Rayburn in overnight unless its really freezing). Sometimes, when we are cutting, he hits a nail with the chainsaw which chucks the chain off and blunts it, so we try to avoid that if possible!

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Talking About Free Heat - Again

I often mention that we are cutting wood and there we were out there again this morning working our way through scrap wood brought in from the cart shed, old pallets collected from a local industrial estate and well seasoned  logs, mostly dead elm from the field hedge and old leylandii from our front boundary.

 During the winter we get through a lot of wood, it has to be the biggest money saver ever! If we move and have to pay heating costs, like the majority of folk, it will come as a terrible shock.

 We've found ways to make moving wood easier.Using the mower trailer is a great help then in the past cut wood was loaded in to a wheelbarrow, brought down to the house, loaded into the two log baskets and carried through to the wood burner and the Rayburn. Now Col perches on a box in the shed, loads it into old feed sacks, which can be brought down two at a time in the wheelbarrow and then carried through to the log baskets and tipped in. Less back bending, less lifting heavy things, just as much dust and wood shavings!

Yesterday Col fixed up his Christmas gifts of rain gauge and sundial, they are not far from the back door in the point of the triangle herb garden. With a lot of rain over night and all day today the rain gauge is already in use, perhaps we will see how the sundial works tomorrow.

I've got back to my winter knitting of dishcloths - which is all I can manage. My F in L told me he used to know an elderly BLIND lady who could knit dishcloths. Thanks for that Dad!

Another person has clicked the Google Friends button so welcome Jill Kloosterman and also Irene following by Bloglovin'

Back Tomorrow
Sue

On my bike to town

Two things broke on the last day of the year. One was the rubber ring on my Kenwood liquidiser, that left a lot of celery soup on the top of the mixer rather than in the liquidiser jug - a bit messy. The second was the washing line, luckily the washing was dry and quickly rescued. A new rubber ring was ordered off ebay for £2.50 and today I got a new washing line from Leiston hardware shop, it was £5.49 which seemed quite a lot more than last time. I hope it lasts us out.

As we only needed milk and the washing line and a couple of other bits I decided to bike to town, only a 5 mile round trip but further than I'd cycled for several weeks.
 The nice thing about going to Leiston by bike is taking a short cut through a narrow lane that we rarely drive through.


 The village that we now call Knodishall is a mile away from the The Church of St Lawrence and should really be called Coldfair Green. There are only 4 large houses and a Gardeners cottage along this little road which was the original village of Knodishall. Our road of houses is half a mile further from the village and there is also a hamlet of a few houses called Knodishall Green another half mile further away. It's very confusing for visitors to find that Knodishall is spread       over a wide area.
 




Opposite the largest  house in Church Road - Knodishall Place       ( up for sale a while back at 2.5 Million Pounds!) is this big pond. There are all sorts of stories about maids who drowned themselves or carriages that turned over into the pond with ghosts haunting the lane. I've never seen anything except squirrels along here - thankfully.






My first book of the year is finished, it was one of my Christmas gifts and took me a few evenings to read.

This is the memoir, covering a year or so, of Jane Christmas (Canadian Travel writer now living in London) she wants to find out why she has sometimes felt she should be a nun. She stays in various convents testing and questioning her faith. The reviews on Amazon range from "Boring" to                " Brilliant"  but I enjoyed it. An earlier book by the same author -  The Pelee Project - has now been added to my wishlist.

While I was out, Col was shifting wood from where it's been laying for 2 years in a heap outside into the open fronted cart shed. It will dry off in here ready for cutting when we get to the end of the scrap wood heap.
 This afternoon we got some compost on the row of raspberries in the garden. Another job ticked off the gardening list.

Thanks for the many comments yesterday and welcome to Winters End Rambler and Claire Jessica who have clicked the Google Button and Mrs L Hughes on Bloglovin'.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

New Year with a New Header but ...........

it's still the same old Simple Suffolk Smallholder tapping the keyboard. ☺

I thought it would be good to find a new pile of books to put on the header,  but because I have no idea how I customised the original layout I ended up having to change all sorts of things to make everything fit, it's still not exactly right but it will have to do.

First, before anything else I must say a HUGE  thank you to lovely comments after the post about what being debt free and frugal means to us. Plus another BIG thank you for all the Happy New Year wishes. Also a welcome to Saffron and Coriander and Frisby4 new followers on Google. Also a Frugal wench on Bloglovin'.

I've a few new ideas for this years posts but nothing drastic. I have no intention of being sponsored or having ads all down the side and have in fact stopped reading people who do decide to earn money through their blog after gathering a few hundred followers.
I'm fed up with just putting C or Him Outside so he is now given his proper name - Col.
I'm not joining in with the Year In Books but will continue to post pictures of my Library book haul and  will also write about any good books  read.
The review of the month is quite repetitive so that might be dropped and I may  just list the frugal things that have been done each month.
I would like to do something originally started last January ( and then not continued) which is to mention any Country weather sayings or traditions that happen each month.
Other than that it will just be my normal diary.

So, rummaging through the relevant books,
 
 I've found this

The weather on the first three days of January foretells the first three months.

Today is mild, grey and windy with forecast of chillier but brighter tomorrow - i.e. changeable, which is what we often get, which means the prediction is correct! 

The first day of 2015 and things are much the same here, we don't bother to stay up to see the New Year in because for years we had to get up early for goat milking and now the chickens still need letting out so we'd rather stick to normal bedtime. New Year arrives just the same.

Today I've made 3 loaves of bread - hooray for my Christmas present of a new bread tin so that 3 can be done at once - plus  tackled a rather large pile of ironing which included the Christmas tablecloths, napkins and extra tea towels.

Col moved some compost from the bins to the gooseberry bushes that are not in the fruit cage. He used the mower trailer rather than a wheelbarrow , doing one load before lunch and another one later. That leaves everything inside the fruit cage and the row of raspberries in the garden to be done.

 We've had a couple of short walks in the last two days but today was  gloomy and windy, neither of us fancied walking anywhere, instead we both had an hour or two reading.

Back Tomorrow
Sue