Frugal Living from Scratch 2

 

Part 2 of 2: Getting right back to basics - Each step forward can be seen as another step back towards the starting line. Each tiny achievement marks the successful completion of part of your lifelong challenge, your quest for freedom. Along the way you will meet many sceptics, cynics and even a few cheats and liars whose only ploys are to get your money. As long as you have your 'get out of jail free' card then you know you'll be back in the game soon.

So here I am, sat in my latest home, looking out the window at a pretty grey and wet day with 'pretty' being the most important word in that sentence. The curtains are quite awful, but that's an easily remedied problem once I get around to making some new ones. Perhaps I'll add a pelmet or even some nets, who knows? I haven't decided yet. For now, the curtains serve the purpose of shutting out some of the cold at night.

Most of my days will now be spent between here and Frugaldom, planting and sowing, clearing and cleaning, plotting and planning and wading through all the meetings that these projects seem to involve. The site where we have the caravan is quite busy with fishermen, so I'm managing to hog the satellite wifi connection very easily from my makeshift office corner. It has great views and has all the facilities I could possibly need.

Buying a bigger caravan and siting in on a holiday park may seem like a major luxury to some - indeed, it has already been commented upon! However, this suits our needs and was within a strict budget. Now my new neighbours will know who and where I am, as this lot's sitting outside the caravan waiting to be built into the new decking. I can't wait to see it completed and then I'll be ready for welcoming visitors. I'm using this week as a trial run to work out what is needed, having come here on Friday with only the barest essentials. There's hot water and a heated towel rail, hand washing items of clothing isn't a problem. (Neighbours, if you happen to be reading this, come and introduce yourselves. Just make sure you get the right caravan, as I see several had decking delivered this week.)

This is frugal living! The little fridge is rather bare but I've cooked up some pasta salad, made some fruit jelly and strawberrry whip for desserts and will waste nothing - anything else is from a packet and most of it is vegetarian until I get the groceries brought over from the house. Meals are interesting! I had a box of individual milk portions at the office caravan that came free with an Approved Food order some time ago, so I decanted all of their contents into a jug and used it to bake some rice pudding with sultanas. Had some for lunch today and can have the rest as breakfast, snacks or pudding tomorrow.

Each of the tiny milk cartons has been washed and will be used to plant a single pea, so I can have some home produce. No point wasting good cartons when they can be put to good use. This is frugal living - waste not, want not. We'll grow what we can wherever we can and hope to have enough produce to swap and share. It's just a little chilly out to expect miracles at the moment.

This is my frugal life! The view of our barn dwarfed by the snowy Galloway Hills on the horizon is an awesome reminder of how small we all are in the grand scale of life. Only we can choose how we live and if we choose to live in a simple way then so be it. We don't own the land even when we buy it, the land ultimately owns us and will dictate what grows where, no matter what. Frugaldom is very much about watching the lie of the land and working out what might do best where and when in the future. Some people choose to spend their money on a big house, expensive jewellery, a luxury car, designer labels or visiting foreign and exotic places - we choose this.

Tree planting on a chilly but sunny day, overlooked by hills and snow, with the sheer joy of this being no more than a short walk from home - for some it is a nightmare they would never want to have but for others, it's their lives' work, investing in a better future.

Just to make sure we truly appreciated these days of walking, fetching, carrying, digging and tree planting, we were honoured by the presence of this beautiful bird in flight as it soared above us on our walk between field and caravan - the Red Kite has reached Frugaldom.

Believe it or not, in the beginning it is quite difficult to stop spending money when you're on a roll - no matter what you buy, it becomes a habit, just like smoking, drinking, gambling, even clothes, shoes, handbags or hobby stuff. We each justify our spending but any manner of excuses but we are wise to remember that the ends justify the means - and I'd rather end up with the freedom to soar wherever frugal life takes me. I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that, but taking your first flight of fancy into your own future of freedom is like starting from scratch over and over again. You just need to quit spending on stuff that weighs you down, then spread your wings and work like crazy to reach each goal.

Join us in Frugaldom, give up spending on what you don't need and shape yourself a new and affordable lifestyle while you invest in your future.

Frugal Living from Scratch 2

Frugaldom Project April 2015 Part 2

Easter weekend and the weather is finer than it's been all week, This morning, the sun shone and work continued at Frugaldom. I was absolutely delighted when the phone rang to say that the fencing of corral #1 had been completed and was eager to pour over the resulting photos, so here goes... the culmination of a lifelong ambition to have a post and rail paddock!

Not much to say about this as the pictures speak louder than words, so I hope you enjoy seeing the progress being made at the Frugaldom project, here in southwest Scotland. I have published a separate post here detailing our unusual fund-raising event, whereby individuals or businesses can 'Tag a post at Frugaldom for £10' by as an additional way of pledging support.

To the left of this line of fencing we are in the process of planting a new willow bed and strip of woodland comprising birch, hazel and rowan, which can all tolerate the boggy ground during wet weather. Beyond that is the second corral, which we hope to fence sometime in the not too distant future.

This is looking towards the yard and what will become the start of our planned willow walk, which was being pegged out last month when planting the willow cuttings.

Now we need to finish painting the barn and getting all of these front posts tagged before the next phase of work can begin. It shouldn't be long before the grass starts growing, so I'm going to try to flatten out the tractor ruts next week.

This is looking straight across at the second corral, which will eventually be separated from this one by a new willow bed that will be coppiced for crafting materials. Beyond corral #2 is bog myrtle or sweet gale and to the right, you can just see the tree protectors from all the new crab apples we planted around the little quarry in November.

I don't think I will ever get tired of the view from here, it is just amazing. I've now seen it at dawn, at dusk, in sunshine and with snow on the Galloway Hills. I've also seen it disappear in torrential rain, but this is Scotland, all of the above could have occurred within the same day.

Final view of corral #1 at Frugaldom, looking towards what we call bracken hill and the future willow walk. Once things begin to grow, you may soon see traces of the willow hide I planted late last year. I hope it takes root and begins to grow soon.

That about wraps it up for this evening. To find out more about what's happening on a day to day basis, register free to join the forum and look for the dedicated 'Frugaldom Project' section.

Aside from this, I am still pursuing my challenge to slash the grocery budget to £5 per person per week and have managed, so far, to get it down to less than £1 per person per day. You can find more about that in the 2015 Challenge section of www.frugalforums.co.uk

See you all there!

NYK Media in Frugaldom.

Frugaldom Project April 2015 Part 2

50 is the New 30

What are you doing to prepare for retirement when 50 has been deemed the new 30?

Not so long ago, the old age pension began at 55 for women but has gradually been pushed back to 67 for our age group – fast approaching 50 – but do you feel old?

50 is the New 30 … read more

Inside a Tiny House

Inside a Tiny House

Have you ever wondered what the inside of a tiny house looks like?

Wonder no more!

NYK has managed to meet up with Mark and Jen from TinyHouseUK and fully investigate what tiny houses are really like…

I love them!

Read all about it and see the photos here

Growing Willow

PART 1

One of my long-term goals has been to cultivate willow (Salix). There are hundreds of different types with many colour variations, so I refer to them all as just willows. I have successfully grown cuttings and planted small rows of willow in each of my previous three gardens, always to be foiled by the need to move on so, when we finally bought Thrift Cottage, I set about, once again, planting my willow.

Being of the frugal ilk and in developing this as a frugal project, you’ll understand my need to create my willow plantation from scratch and on a very strict budget, so all cuttings are appreciated.  

Read more here

I’m hoping to develop it far enough to make the willow growing self-funding and productive enough to help support the entire Frugaldom project

Are ISAs the Best Solution for Saving Money?

Are ISAs the Best Solution for Saving Money?

However it’s done, saving up is a very smart thing to do. Even setting aside as little as, say, £50 a month can add up over time, leaving you a sizeable pot of money to enjoy once you’re ready to call it a day at work. Saving alone is smart, but it’s even smarter to find the right account to maximise what you have decided to leave until later on in life.

The right savings account could mean that you make a sizeable amount in interest, which means yet more money to play with once you’re ready to use your money. However, as most savings accounts are pegged to the base rate from the Bank of England (which is just 0.5% at the moment), it’s hard to find some that offer genuine value for money… read more

Back on the Trail of the Frugal Microholding (Part 3)

Making Decisions Affecting the Creation of our Microholding

Part 3 of 3

FILLING IN THE GAPS! This is the concluding part of my 3-part blog for the weekend, bringing you up to date with progress (or lack of) and arriving at a decision that wouldn't have been made but for the events over the past few days. I'll start with our patio area, as I was hoping to make it very productive by way of the fact that it gets plenty of sunshine and is particularly well sheltered on three sides.

On the left, you can see the vacant gap in the top half of our developing garden. It is fairly flat, stony and has very little soil. It also sits in line with the pipework for the septic tank, so any digging and backfilling would need to accommodate that.


Looking from my kitchen window, I can see all of what we refer to as the patio. It's basically a concreted area where the old outbuildings once stood, along with what we were told was some sort of lean to greenhouse or old-style tomato house. The main outbuilding has been renovated - this will, one day, become the eco arts studio - and the big hole in the centre filled in to create another garden feature. The colourful flexi-trugs along the wall contain a variety of plants, from fuchsias to beetroot, cabbage and courgettes. So far, the slugs have left these alone!

On the opposite side of this concrete square, I have a row of all my
plastic tubs that have been accrued over the years, each planted up with seeds of one description or another. Next to these are the strawberry tubs that haven't really produced as well as they could have.

They need thinning out and feeding up to ensure they continue to crop in years to come. It is from these tubs that all the runners get potted, so I do tend to have strawberry plants popping up all over the place and am constantly trying to think of where best they can go to ensure they grow, get sunshine and don't get attacked by birds or beasties.

This year, I am clearing out the raised bed where I planted all my Saffron crocus bulbs - the bulbs are still looking OK and the plants do grow, but I have never had a single flower from them. This leads me to believe that they don't like where they are at all! The raised bed can just be seen at right hand side of this photo.

This is how the hole in the concrete 'patio' area is looking now. Last year I
scraped it all out and made a mini-pond, lining it with bubble wrap and feed sacks, surrounding it with rocks and planting it up with cuttings taken from the bottom of the garden by the edge of the stream. I call it the critter garden, as it seems to attract visitors of all description, from toads to lizards and frogs. This is who was in it yesterday.

I added the bird table at the narrowest part and then turned the other half of the crumbling mess into a circular bed, where I planted many of the strawberry runners and then surrounded them with spinach beet to use for feeding the rabbit. Sadly, the rabbit is no more.

Beyond this, off the end of the concreted area, is where I made my blueberry bed for the three little bushes I got last year. This was constructed from the logs cut from a neighbour's conifer and I employed a little bit of eco-artistic licence to the final piece, which I call my log man bird table.

Blueberries like an ericaceous or acidic environment, as do heathers, so I add whatever tea leaves, pine needles and bark chippings I have to help these along. So far, so good - the only thing the slugs and snails have got are the sunflowers, which grew from falling bird seed that must have been there from winter. Behind this lies two old fish crates covered with my half price sun-tunnels. Each crate contains two cucumber plants.

So what is all this really about? We are doing our best to cultivate the wild garden, making the most of whatever can be salvaged and recycled, trying to grow plants from other plants and fighting what often feels like a losing battle against the elements, the insects, the slugs and the snails. What more can we do?

ANSWER - SPOT A BARGAIN AND JUST GO FOR IT!
This is my fantastic bargain that I have been spurred into buying now rather than putting off any longer. It is approximately 15' long (4.5m) and just over 6' with and high (2m), comes complete with a fixing kit and delivery is FREE. Yes, folks, I have finally taken the plunge and bought myself the long awaited frugal poly tunnel! The vacant space in the middle of the garden is ABOUT 8' x 18' once fully cleared and this is what is going to fill that space. Now I know that some folks who may happen to read this post will wonder what the great excitement is all about but, for those of you who know me, you know how much I try to prioritise my spends while living in the middle of a renovation project but this purchase, which was on offer with £100 OFF the price, is something that I will put to great use during my battle with the elements and the critturs that foil my growing plans at every opportunity.

In memory of Jayjay - this will become the hub of my future growing enterprise of microholding and fundraising.

Frugaldom.

Teaching Money Matters in School - WHY?

Home Economics + Basic Arithmetic = Good Kousekeeping!


Shona Prophett gets into her stride on the state of the nation.

I've been watching the recent news and developments with regards to the petitions that are floating around the place. They are plying us with reasons to pledge our support to their cause, asking us to help bring money matters into schools as part of our basic education system. To be frank, I just don't get it!

School is a place for children learning the basics needed for their future adult lives, isn't it? These lessons are simple, they establish an elementary understanding of subjects that are important to everyone during future careers, regardless of what that career may or may not be. We can choose to listen and learn or we can tolerate these 'lessons' up until the point we have the freedom of choice to leave school and learn in another capacity - through life itself.

Some may see school simply as a place where children get sent during the day so they aren't wandering the streets with nothing better to do, biding their time until they are old enough to earn. School, like nursery, could even be seen as a place where children go so their parents can carry out activities other than childcare, like earning an income or anything else they see fit to do in the absence of their offspring.

Whatever any of us thinks of school, it is our right to have a basic education and our duty to provide similar for future generations. But it is not our duty to accept responsibility for the bad spending habits of others. We each receive a basic understanding of reading, writing and arithmetic, along with the simple concept of economics, be they home or otherwise, so common sense should prevail. But it doesn't!

Those who should know more than us have burdened this society with false beliefs that we should all be classed as equals, that we should all be able to partake of a decent meal, own designer labels, buy the most up to date gadgetry and possess all manner of luxury items. We should all be able to afford hobbies, pastimes and holidays, convenience and luxury should be readily available, en masse.

They led us to believe that we could all own our own homes and have the basic skills necessary to turn us into entrepreneurs or even just start our own businesses. But they overlooked one fundamental flaw in the plan - the fact that money is not a living entity. It cannot grow naturally, it cannot adapt to its surroundings and it cannot learn right from wrong. It is nothing more than paper, plastic and metal developed, manufactured and controlled by the chosen few who, to their disgrace, have been unable to balance the nations' books.

The concept is simple - take one pile of money, divide it be any number to whom you see fit to lend, then sit back and watch them pay dividends, by way of interest. If those payments fail, charge even more, add on penalties and drive the borrowers further into debt. Offer an array of incentives and promises of a better future, more security, better choices and the potential to feel good and then sit back, watch the borrowers borrow more and spend more, lining the pockets of the chosen few or those who chose to become one of them by sheer grit and determination. They all seem to have one thing in common - a total disregard for others when things, not surprisigly, go wrong. But there are always the 'get out' clauses of insolvency and bankruptcy!

This continual building of debt has now escalated to such a height that even they cannot fathom out an agreeable method to stopping it, let alone putting it right. Their solutions are to print more money, cut back on what they think is 'unneccessary' spending and make it even more difficult for 'normal' people to build real, reputable businesses that can grow to prosper and employ others.

They price ordinary people out of the market with legislation governing maternity pay, paternity pay, pension schemes, insurances, restricted working hours and minimum wage thresholds, then sit back and await the next emergency move.

But where do they go when all the previous options fail? They need to cast blame further and wider, so now we see the blame being laid on the children... If the youth of today and the common people had learned more, this may never have happened.

Well that is bullshit!

Those who dragged this nation to its proverbial knees were the very people who allegedly benefited from extra education. All their accumulated wealth of wisdom and expertise led us to where we are now, watching and waiting for the next global catastrophe that can quickly be assigned a few billion that adds to the amassed debt. They need huge tragedies, wars and disasters, so future generations can look back on history and point the finger of blame in any direction except that which is true. Nobody appears to have shoulders broad enough to support the burden of controlling what really cannot be controlled, so let's start again - educate the young.

To whom should we look for this teaching?

How and why are the current teaching methods allegedly failing us so badly?

Controlling a company, household or personal budget is nothing more than a combination of basic arithmetic and home economics, so why are so many people so bad at it?

Why isn't a closer look being taken at the education system itself?

Why are teachers failing to teach the basic principles of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division?

Why are parents failing to teach their children the basic skills necessary for survival in a capitalist society?

Is it not possible that some form of brainwashing has swept through our entire Western civilisation, engulfing an entire generation, and that generation is not the youth of today! Nor even is it their parents' nor their grand parents' generations.

There has always been poverty, unrest, unfair division and class differences. YES! I dare to suggest that we still live within a 'Class' system and I dare to deny the existence of this so-called 'classless society' or equality that was dreamt up by some 'numpty' who thought the only way to cast off blame from those who should have known better, would be to invite society's minions into their lifestyle of wanton greed and waste - offer them more credit, hold them down by debt, if they come out fighting, let them take the blame when it all goes wrong.

So, I guess what I am trying to say here is that, in my humble opinion, people won't learn lessons that they don't want to learn, even if it is taught in schools. Brainwashing is everywhere - it's called advertising! Unless we ignore all of that and accept that debt is caused by spending more than we have, then what gets taught in our schools matters not one jot.

It is up to us, as individuals, to challenge ourselves to live within our means and if speculative investments need to be made, have a back up plan in the event you don't quite pull it off in time.

Shona Prophett
www.shonaprophett.co.uk

Property, Portfolios, Microholdings and Fine Wines.

Prot€cting ¥our Fruga£ Investment$

It's a bit of a 'non-day' here, today. No new work arrived in my email in-box, no interesting post dropped through the letterbox and, so far, there have been no visitors. The coalman did deliver a half tonne of coal early this morning, mind you, and it was the brief chat with him that prompted this post.

The topic of discussion was property and assetts, mainly about what happens to them when an elderly person ends up moving out of their home and into residential care. With a family member in this situation right now, I understand the trauma and upheaval it causes. I'm failing in my attempts to convince family members that their life's work of striving for a lovely home with savings in the bank is pointless unless they plan for the entire future.

Frugaldom is about frugal living, finding the most cost-effectve ways of creating own little microholding of self-sustainability, working from home to earn what we need to cover the costs of living, while investing anything left over into our future, whatever that might be.

Buying the property outright was our only option - no bank would offer a mortgage to the likes of us, we are self-employed and debt free with no fixed, regular income... banks and building societies hate that! It seems that the more debt you take on, the more it becomes available to you, which is great, IF you can service those debts regardless of the outcome of any unforeseen changes. Anyhow, debt free is how I intend to stay, even if it means renovations take many years. Whatever way we look at it, if it all went pear-shaped, we do have a (currently leaking) roof over our heads and a big enough garden to grow food, rear poultry and generally keep us busy. Home can be anything you make it as long as you feel secure. In my book, that means no unreliable landlords.
One of today's 'junk' emails arrived announcing that, "The fine wine market has outperformed oil, gold and international equities for the past two years." It went on to invite me, the "Dear Investor", to register my details and claim my free copy of their 'Wine Investment Guide'. I didn't, of course, because I have absolutely no intentions of 'investing' in fermented sugar and fruit pulp that I can't drink. Let's face it, a bottle of store's own 'Lambrusco' is about as close to a fine wine as we get these days. Even then, it's only if someone brings a bottle as a gift! The frugal version of longterm investment in fine wine is looking after your rhubarb patch, bulk buying sugar when it's on offer and, if you're really 'up market', tending your grape vines in your makeshift lean-to greenhouse.

I should add that if anyone receives the above email, look at the date of the Bloomerg statistics they are using to 'sell' us their brilliant idea... April 2010! I'd check for more recent trends before pursuing anything any further, or else simply hit 'delete'.

Bricks and mortar, now that's a sound investment! Nothing beats owning your own house! It can drain you of every penny while trying to keep it wind and watertight, leak money from every corner while trying to heat it during winter and swallow up every bit of your savings in one fell swoop if you buy it for cash. On the other hand, it can equally do all of these things, but cost you three or four times as much if you choose to spread the payments over the duration of a mortgage, accompanied by whatever other insurances they deem necessary.

Why do I think bricks and mortar investments are far superior to any other longterm investments?

In my humble and frugal opinion, it's more a case of valuing a home and the land upon which it sits. Land should be the longterm investment, for whatever reason you can imagine. Think about it... society can offer us everything we need. We can make our own wines, sew our own clothes, build our own homes, manufacture practically anything, grow our own food, rear our own livestock, create any manner of fantastic, technological device, heal the sick, offer financial support to the needy... but we cannot make more space on this planet!

No amount of wheeling and dealing, investing, trading, developing, exploring, researching or data analysis will ever create land. Let the sheiks build their paradise islands, let the 'high heid yins' spend vast fortunes in making fortunes that need fortunes spent on them to avoid paying fortunes in taxes, let the designer-clad city folks pamper and spoil themselves, let the rich property tycoons and landowners lord it over their tenants, but never let it be said that life is their way or no way. We have a choice - to be indebted or not. Frugaldom means freedom.

So, frugal readers and those of you who are just being nosey while having nothing better to do, be prepared. Think long and hard about your portfolios, holdings and longterm investments. They're worth nothing if there's no room at the inn.