How do people not pay any energy bills?

 

Most people know by now that there are all sorts of ways to reduce energy bills. Insulation, double glazing, smart appliances and simply knowing when to put on a jumper can all help. But how is it that some people manage to pay nothing at all? Is it really possible, in an ordinary home, to generate directly and sustainably all of the energy you need? You might be surprised.

A new generation of homes

Finding homes with this kind of potential is getting easier than ever as construction and development companies have cottoned on to the fact that there’s a big market for eco-friendly properties – and some, of course, share that wish to do the right thing as far as the environment is concerned. M1 Group, for instance, now routinely put eco-friendly systems in their new build properties, giving them added market appeal at the same time as standing by the principles of sustainability that have always influenced their way of doing business.

Solar power

Many people assume that there’s no point in fitting solar panels if they live in northern climes, but with the new generation of solar materials now available, that’s no longer the case. Even when the days are short and there’s a lot of cloud, a single solar panel is often sufficient to create all the hot water an average family needs. This new technology is also a lot cheaper than the old technology because economies of scale have come into operation as more and more people have concluded that solar energy is the right choice for them.

Wind power

You will need planning permission to install a wind turbine, but you can now buy good rooftop models for just a few hundred pounds, and if they’re well positioned – so as to get plenty of wind – they can generate impressive amounts of electricity. They’re ideal for remote locations where there are no neighbours to annoy and few other buildings blocking the flow of the wind. In places such as this, versions with masts can also be a practical option and are often more productive.

Water power

For people fortunate enough to live near a waterway, small-scale hydroelectricity generation can also be an option. People have been using waterwheels for thousands of years, but modern hydropower systems are highly efficient and can produce electricity for all your household needs. You will need to get a professional assessment to find out if it’s a practical solution for you.

Energy generation systems such as these can provide all the power that’s needed for some homes. They can also be used in combination. In some cases, the results are so impressive that householders can not only provide for their own needs but also sell electricity back to the grid. This means they make a bit of money, and a larger proportion of the overall energy used in the country comes from renewables, helping to reduce everybody’s carbon footprint. It’s a win-win situation.

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Following on from our discussion in the NYK chat room regarding frugal entrepreneurs and long term investments, making the right choices at anytime can reap real rewards, in both money and self-sustainability terms. Frugaldom has vast potential for development of more eco-friendly projects than you can shake a stick at - and let's face it, we have plenty of those lying around the place. So what would you choose for your ideal self-sustainable, eco-friendly home? I know Frugaldom isn't home, but with today's technology, almost anywhere in the world has the potential to become self-sustainable on or off the grid, even Scotland could balance the energy books with the right mix of solar, wind and hydro, although we do seem to get more wind and rain than sun most years.

You can discuss this subject and many others at www.frugalforums.co.uk

Frugaldom Project Developments

In search of the lonesome pine

A river runs through it

If you could, wood you…?

What else can I say?

We have some major Frugaldom Project Development news to share… read more here

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

Nature - The Greatest Artist of All Time.

If Mother Nature didn't inspire art, there would be no inspirational art. 'The Arts', as a term, always invokes visions of landed gentry, stately homes, museums, galleries, theatre and multi-million pound investments, but art is all around us and it is totally FREE! You just need to take a closer look.

Spring is taking its time in arriving here in Frugaldom but we are managing to inch our way along the list of garden jobs whenever the weather permits. As you know, we have already laid in most of the foot path through the garden, so it now extends to the bottom of the micro-orchard. Next, we need to sort out the remains of 'rubble mountain', which H reduced by around 6' in height. This year, it has been levelled enough to sow some potatoes to help break up the soil and prepare it for greater things in the future. Read more here

Nature - The Greatest Artist of All Time.

Potato Planting on the Frugaldom Microholding

Scottish Multimedia | Potato Planting

Absolutely no reason for the photo of the ducks other than that they looked funny waddling up and down while quacking at us in the hope of escaping out of the orchard and into the garden while we were potato planting.

Potatoes are quite important in Frugaldom as they bulk out meals, are fairly cheap to plant and the return on investment can be high IF you can grow them successfully. My favourite of all time are the heritage variety known as Salad Blue, which have already been planted, but I also invested in some Shetland Blacks, another heritage variety, plus my Charlottes. These have just gone into the ground today.

Read more of this photo blog here

Foraging for Free Food from the Garden

Frugal Blog - Foraging for Free Food from the Garden

Frugal living, as a lifestyle, comes as second nature to those of us who have followed the path for some time. The debt free good life was one I aspired to for many years and it took many more to achieve it, but we still are nowhere near self-sufficient. So this got me thinking seriously about 'what if we had absolutely no money?’

Could we rustle up a meal from the Frugaldom garden?

Don't panic! We don't eat any of our own livestock, they are kept more like pets! But we still need to feed them and they still need to contribute to the overall 'welfare' of the microholding project.

Octavius and Septimus help manure the fruit beds, dig holes and eat grass. They also love raspberry leaves! But that doesn't feed us!

Read more here

Frugaldom - Creating a self-sustainable microholding

Creating a self-sustainable microholding

A photo blog of the day's progress. Unpredictable weather should no longer be a problem now that the poly tunnel is reinstated but the sun shone this afternoon, so we were able to get outdoor jobs done. For me, that included sowing the new beds, transplanting the lavender cuttings and digging up more rooted strawberry runners from around the herb spirals to transplant into their recycled milk carton 'pods'.

See photos here

Tomorrow will be about the pets and livestock of our ever evolving, frugal microholding project.

Frugal Blog - Stir Frying, Recycling and Planting Onion Sets

Scottish Multimedia | Stir Frying, Recycling and Planting Onion Sets

The sun didn't exactly shine today, nor was it particularly warm, but the overcast, cloudy sky held back the rain for long enough to steal a few hours in the garden. Not before time, I might add!

H succeeded in completing the reroofing of the shed, so that should hopefully put an end to the leaks. While he was busy doing that, I decided to make the most of two small raised beds that were made nearly 3 years ago from the old kitchen units we ripped out when we first bought this place. Since then, these recycled wonders have been used to grow my leeks. They have served that purpose well; so well, in fact, that I am still picking leeks without having sown or planted any since 2012. I brought the three largest ones in to use and dug up another dozen smaller ones that have now been transplanted into the crocus bed… read more

Frugal Bytes - Garlic and Baby Beetroot

In the Frugaldom Winter Garden

With all the rain and wind we've had over the past couple of months, I'm amazed that anything is surviving in the garden but, as nature would have it, there's always something to see.

 

 

 

Last year's beetroot seed sowings are still surviving, so I'm going to thin these out and pickle the baby beets. I love beetroot, so I'm hoping that I might just about be able to stretch this lot throughout the year, if they don't mind being pickled in malt vinegar. I have two large tubs' worth of them.

 

 

 

My first lot of garlic cloves were planted a few weeks ago and these have been growing quite quickly, I hope not too quickly! They are from whole garlic meant for cooking - no need to buy specific cultivating varieties when you have your own in the kitchen.

 

 

 

I split mine up - half were planted outdoors into the small raised bed and the other half popped into a sealed polythene bag and kept in the fridge. (Garlic likes the cold to start it off, for some reason.) The above are the ones from the fridge, now about ready to be planted out into containers on the patio. If you cook with garlic, growing your own is great fun and very frugal (assuming you have a garden, trough or bucket in which to grow your own. One single garlic bulb can split into about 8 cloves and each of these cloves can produce a new bulb.

 

I'll update again after I've thinned out the beetroot. Looking forward to having a few leafy greens at mealtimes - don't forget the leaves are edible! I'm sure Septimus and Octavius, the new Frugaldom bunnies, will enjoy their share of this crop, too. Meanwhile, the wormery has been topped up with some peelings, brown cardboard and egg shells so the hundreds of baby worms have sufficient food to turn into lovely worm-juice as liquid fertiliser for this year's crops.

 

NYK, Frugaldom

Septimus Frugalus Competition Results!

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE WINNER OF OUR SEPTEMBER COMPETITION!

See the exciting draw for this fabulous Ventus ‘Twister’ pedal-powered, mini washing machine and spinner. It doesn’t just wash do your laundry, it makes a fabulous tombola!

Check out the Frugal Living Forums :: SEPTIMUS FRUGALUS CHALLENGE for results of tonight’s exciting draw, which was made from our 19 finalists after a full month of challenging themselves to frugal living on a whole new level. You can also find out where to get a Twister of your very own, with 50% OFF (now only £32.49), courtesy of our sponsor, www.ventusfreeenergy.com

What a fabulous month it has been, despite a few major highs and lows along the way. Let’s hope our winner enjoys saving even more with this foot pedal operated washer.

Doing the Monster Mash with Autumn Root Veg

Oh, Sweet Potato, you are HUGE!

Frugal food is in abundance at this time of year and my fresh egg supplies are, thankfully, still plentiful. Duck eggs, hen eggs, bantam eggs, quail eggs... not to mention the glut of cucumbers I'm still harvesting, plus apples, berries and plums. So much for so little and all there for the picking to help keep the grocery budget to a minimum.

 

Here in Frugaldom, we seldom sell eggs. It's more a case of giving them away and welcoming all sorts of gifts in return - home baking, greenhouse produce, garden produce, even furniture or DIY items that neighbours no longer require; I'll trade for anything useful!

 

Today's egg deliveries have been done: I set off with my supplies and came home with carrots, onion and sweet potatoes to add to the potatoes, squash, marrow, beans and lemon drizzle cake from last week's exchanges. I love this way of life, it's just so money savvy in a waste not, want not sort of way. Today's sweet potatoes are absolutely massive!

 

What does a frugal living person do with their root veg and squash? We do the monster mash!

 

Big pot of water on the hot plate and then let's start peeling... a few potatoes, a few carrots, a huge sweet potato and then, finally, the last of the squash. I don't salt the water to boil these and there's a very special reason why - chicken stock! My feathered livestock like this over their breakfast.

 

Once all the vegetables are cooked through, I simply drain off the water into a bucket and it gets kept for using in the garden, the poultry feed or else into the stock pot to make soup. Zero waste.

 

Brightly coloured monster mash can be made using most types of root vegetables, it's not just the preserve of potatoes, turnips and swede. I season them accordingly with salt and pepper, add a knob of butter or margarine, a splash of milk and then get mashing. Any surplus can be frozen, but I add some powdered milk to that before splitting it up into empty margarine tubs, it seems to help prevent the mash from going watery when it thaws.

 

This autumn coloured monster mash makes for a very orange dinner and I normally serve mine with vegetable-laden stew. The veggie mash is much more nutritious than simple mashed potatoes.

 

Not content with my autumnal coloured main meal, there's still the glut of apples to deal with, so crumbles galore! Add a bit of colour (and a few extra vitamins) by including a handful of stewed berries or a tablespoonful of homemade hedgerow jelly, which is what I did here. I do like my food to be colourful!

 

This crumble was made using wholemeal flour mixed with the sesame and sunflower seed bread flour.

 

We seem to have a real-life micro community here, based on a few neighbours who can see past the 'frugal living' eccentricities and see the lifestyle for what it really is - a caring and sharing one that doesn't like waste. Not only did I return home with my bag of vegetables, I was also given 2 small bolster cushions that I can recover and a bag of wool oddments. What a superb day's trading it has been in Frugaldom and not a penny spent.

 

Right, I'm off to finish making my free Velux blind so I can get part 2 of that blog post done. Hopefully, the blind will be completed tonight and hanging in the window by bedtime.

 

NYK, Frugaldom.

We Love Frugal Food! From 5p Soup to Mixed Fruit Crumble

It's Time for the Game to Begin!

Tomato and Pheasant Make a Good Game Soup

 

This is a homemade soup I first blogged about in 2011, so you may already have a similar recipe. However, it's getting to 'that' time of year again, so I thought I would make myself a big pot of this over the weekend; there's a pheasant in the freezer needing used up before the new game season is upon us. This also gives me the chance to compare prices between now and 2011.

 

I normally slow cook meat so all of the juices remain in the crock pot. Any oil, fat or grease can be skimmed off once it's cold. Everything remaining goes back into the slow cooker along with any leftover vegetables you may need to use up rather than send them to the compost or wormery. I like to simmer my stock on a low heat for a few hours overnight, so it's best to use a timer.

Rinse a 500g pack of broth mix and a cupful of butter beans, then you can also leave them soaking in cold water overnight. I notice that the broth mix has increased in price to 75p/500g but there are still offers around where you can stock up at £1 per kilo.
 

In the morning, the stock gets strained and then returned to the slow cooker, along with a couple of diced onions and carrots, the broth mix, butter beans and a tin of chopped tomatoes or equivalent - passata, home grown tomatoes or tomato paste. This time, I am using 100% tomato paste!

This is the 4.5kg tin of tomato paste I bought from Approved Food for just £1.99! It also works well as a base for turning the end slices of homemade bread into frugal, speedy pizzas and for making up the likes of Bolognese, lasagne or chilli. It can even be used to make tomato ketchup.

Season your soup with salt and pepper then leave to simmer until all the beans, peas, lentils and barley are tender. That's it, that's the frugal game soup of the day and it works equally well using a shin of beef, although this would add to your costs, as there's no main meal beforehand from a shin of beef.

• The pheasant cost me nothing, as I had traded other home produce for it, so any stock from leftovers is an extra bonus after having the roast dinner.
• Broth mix and pulses are always bought on special offer, when it's best to stock up on them for the winter months. I reckon they cost me no more than 50p in total. Butter beans, however can be swapped for something else, as these have gone over £3 per kilo. I'll be using a tin of kidney beans added in the later stages of cooking.
• Store's basic passata costing 23p in 2011 is now 29p, but you only need half a carton so you can use the other half for frugal pizzas.
• Onions, carrots and potatoes would normally be home-grown, but if you need to buy them then they'll probably cost less than 50p in total for what you'll use

At a rough estimate, 4.5 litres of soup will cost around £2.00 including the cooking time if you are buying all the ingredients, or around £1 if you are using home grown and bulk bought bargains. 

 

Regardless of how you choose to source your ingredients, 20 portions of soup for £2.00 makes for a fairly frugal and nutritious meal. 10p per portion can be halved to 5p if you are of the frugal living ilk. This soup freezes well and makes for ideal soup and pudding lunches.

 

Speaking of pudding, the blackcurrants are still going strong and I am still using up rhubarb, so I stewed these two together today and turned one lot into crumble and the rest went into the freezer.

 

Quite a bit of sugar gad to be added to this, so it will be much more frugal to stew once the apples are ready for picking - they add some natural sweetness to the mix.

 

Raspberries are growing in abundance now, so I have several tubs of those already frozen and we are gathering about 250g per day from the bushes in the garden. These are being frozen as they get picked, apart from the ones that get eaten as a cold dessert or else lightly stewed into sauce for having over ice cream.

 

It has definitely been a foody sort of a day today! 

 

The cooked mince with tomatoes got made into four lots of double-portion lasagnes. These will go into the freezer later tonight and they'll do for speedy meals or else for H having when I'm away on my next jaunt. More on that soon.

 

Finally, I may or may not have already mentioned that I have acquired a small ice-cream maker, so this is going to be experimented with over the weekend. I'm not sure where doing work on the bedroom makeover is going to fit into the equation but for now it's fairly presentable, so no need to worry about that. I want to make ice cream!

 

The results of the #BudgetBucketList blogging competition got announced this afternoon and, although Frugaldom didn't feature in the final line up, it was lovely reading the winner's blog post and her plans for how to spend the £2,000.00 she won. You can read the winning blog here.

 

The bucket list has spurred me on to complete my next affordable item this year, so I am now planning my trip and will, hopefully, walk across the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge before my next birthday. After that, I'm on my way to the big 50!

 

Still debt free and living this good life, so never give up on your dreams. Most things are achievable on a smaller budget than many would believe possible.

 

Frugaldom 

Spending on Plastic of a More Frugal Type.

Putting up the Poly Tunnel.

Creating the Frugaldom microholding is incurring some basic 'getting started' costs but we are doing our best not to go over the top whenever we have a small windfall. I mean, the compensation payment from Scottish Power after surviving for almost 4 days with no electricity should probably have been ploughed straight back into winter emergency supplies, but it didn't - it got spent on plastic, but not of the 'flexible friend' type. This was more of the physical, literal sense of spending on plastic - or polythene.

 

In order to be able to even start contemplating growing enough vegetables to last the household all year round, it takes time, preparation and, of course, some cash to get it all started. Some people are fortunate in that they have a huge bank balance, no debts and simply downsize to live the good life, but we didn't have that option. Ours was scrape by on the minimum while saving every other penny, then buy a fixy-up. Taming nearly quarter of an acre of wilderness before transforming it into a microholding without a proper budget is time consuming. Living in the fixy-up has been an experience, to say the least, but progress is slowly being made whilst we pursue all manner of frugal living routes.

 

In the garden, I am trying to be organic and follow the basic principles of permaculture, but it also takes time. The good old Scottish weather is usually against us when attempting to grow anything posher than a potato and the slugs, snails, birds and beasties do a fine job of demolishing everything in their path. The plants need protecting and the homemade plastic greenhouse is full to overflowing. This is the review of the putting together of the  recently acquired 'Palm Springs' poly tunnel, one of my frugal bargains that I decided to buy now rather than wait any longer. Make hay when the sun shines! It's also done in memory of our recently departed, frugal friend, Sandi, whose sudden death was another sharp reminder to us all that we need to live it while we can, even if it's on a frugal budget.

Here goes with the plastic age of Frugaldom...

Instructions
Why are these things always so sparse? They list the parts with a few numbers and then have a semi-accurate diagram showing you the structure without any indications of where to start. It was fairly straight forward, other than finding it impossible to line up the holes accurately to drop the bolt through the top of the arch, so we cheated - the neighbour came round and drilled them a millimetre wider. Then went home and ordered himself the exact same poly tunnel - that's a good recommendation for it right away, wouldn't you say?

Process of Construction






 I thought this would be the easiest way of explaining it and showing just how daft I was to think we could start at 9pm and be done in an hour. Oops! :) It now needs to be well secured so any high winds don't lift the full thing - it'll be rocks around the edges for now. The builders' bags were an ideal size for lining the ground, it took three of them opened out into strip to do this and there's still some left over for laying elsewhere. That's us gained nearly 15' of lovely undercover space, but it is extremely warm in there at the moment.

Likewise, the heat inside the little plastic tunnels is amazing. These were the ones costing £9.99 - not all that substantial but worth the money, I would say, as they are really easy to build and take apart, so can packed away for winter. They're none too small for the price, either, as each one measures a full 2 metres long and a metre wide. I haven't even thought about what will go in these but I suspect they'll be filled pretty quickly, none the less. The space where these will be used in future years is currently filled with potatoes, so they may end p being moved about the place until later in the year.

The mini potting greenhouses are great! I've already turned one of them into a cucumber house by
fitting it over the top of two fish crates containing 4 cucumber plants. Another two crates will be fitted alongside and these will be covered by the second little greenhouse. £12.99 bargains, in my opinion and again, these can easily be dismantled and stored during winter.

I realise that this may all sound a little bit extravagant and expensive, some may even say it doesn't sound frugal, but I have been saving for 10 years to get to the point of being mortgage free with a garden big enough to create my microholding. My entire life was spent wishing I could afford to buy a smallholding but it's just not going to happen and I don't see the point of wishing any more of my life away - this is it and we need to make the most of what we have and create a lifestyle we love. Being completely debt free is the reward for years of scrimping and saving and doing without any luxuries. It will be some time before the house is completed, so still years of frugaling and on top of that, no regular, guaranteed income other than what we can earn from home while developing the microholding. It has to become self-sustainable, especially as I'm going to be working at it fulltime! The spends are investments in my frugal micro-business in the hope that they will reap rewards in the future.

Frugaldom.

Back on the Trail of the Frugal Microholding (Part 2)

Getting to Grips with Permaculture

Part 2 of 3

 

Part one dealt with the bottom half of the Frugaldom garden, where there may one day be a productive little orchard and from where we are provided with our eggs from the hens and ducks. Part two is about how things are progressing and how well we can utilise the space we have that is both productive and in keeping with the principles of permaculture. This is my blackcurrant patch and the rhubarb is along the wall behind this.

 

For some reason, blackcurrants absolutely LOVE this garden and

are producing so much fruit that I may need to develop this into something a little more lucrative and self-sustaining than jam making. These bushes just haven't stopped growing, so I took hardwood cuttings (seen right of photo)and now these, too, are laden with ripening fruit. By the looks of things, there should be both blackcurrants and blackcurrant bushes available for sale later this year. To give you an idea of how productive these bushes are, I have sufficient jam to last me the next two years plus several kilos still in the freezer from last autumn's crop. Orders can be taken now if anyone would like any. With luck, I may even still have a record of what types they are - I know these earlier cropping ones all originate from my Ben Connans.

I have a shed where I house a few quail for eggs - a delicacy that we afford ourselves owing to the fact that the birds are relatively inexpensive to keep and that I, one day, would really like to develop that aspect of the microholding further, but other things have taken priority. Alongside the shed I have this 'spare' patch of ground, bordered by more raspberries and gooseberries. This is the patch that will feature in my next blog post, as a final decision has been made about what to do here to make it as productive as possible. There's no soil, as such, and last year's attempts to grow anything in it failed miserably. All we succeeded in doing was feeding the slugs, snails and sawflies, which have completely stripped my gooseberry bushes this year, again!

You all know how much I love my herb spirals and my circular gardens - they are all just so productive, easy to build and easy to maintain, so I now have four of them! I have two spirals and two circular beds of varying sizes and each is as productive as the next. Obviously, the first one built a year ago is ahead of the others, but they will soon catch up and become self-sustaining.

On the right, you can see the first one we built last May/June. The sage has been left to flower and last year's strawberry runners are filling up the gaps nicely!

Next I have the circular beds - one large one next to the first spiral and one smaller one linked to the patio area. Both are thriving in very different ways and both have been integrated with bird feeding stations.

This is the larger of the two, planted with assorted herbs, including one of my personal favourites, lemon balm - a type of mint. I also planted a cutting of lemon thyme in this bed, a gift from a fellow frugaler, so it's a place that the midges don't tend to frequent.

The lemon balm is great for its citrus scent and as the basis for a cup of lemon tea. Even daughter appreciates fresh lemon balm mint tea. Many cuttings will be propagated from this spiral bed so I have them available for trading at a later date. Indeed, all of the herbs growing in it at present have come from cuttings elsewhere. In the background, you can see my 'bug hotel' alongside two small square raised beds. The above photo shows the newest addition - the second spiral bed is now showing signs of coming to life with mint, basil and rosemary.

This is the bug hotel as it looks now. The main frame of the structure is built from an old wrought iron clothes rail, which has been built up with bits of concrete blocks, bricks, logs, pieces of pipe, plastic drinking straws, mesh and all manner of things found lying about the garden. An old piece of felt was used to cover a bit of board as a roof for it all and this now doubles as a shelf, where I can sit the pots of cuttings.

The honeysuckle has now wound its way around the top of the frame and is beginning to bloom. The little wooden box at top left is a butterfly box, a cheap bargain discounted item bought from an Aldi store. I don't think we have managed to attract any butterflies in there yet, though.

The two raised beds were purchased new while reduced in an online sale - bought via Topcashback to give me just that - cash back that converted into Amazon vouchers to give me a further 5% value. These were used in last year's Biochar experiment but I failed to see any difference between using the biochar and not. It's still in the box at the left, where you can see that my cabbages and sprouts are needing moved. The largest patch of greenery is a rogue Nasturtium and a sunflower that must have been dropped by a passing bird. The bracken fern behind it should really get pulled out but it seems to keep the slugs off the seedlings. I really need to get these seedlings thinned out as there are carrots in there, too. On the right, are my spring onions and a row of all year round cauliflowers that will also need transplanting very soon!

Despite me saying these were only going to be temporary, my plan being to improve the beds and get back to square foot gardening this year! Now look at it - two full beds of spuds that now need banking up with even more soil and compost, mixed with whatever else I can get my hands on, as soil isn't something we have much of about here. I am already regretting having potatoes in here taking up all this space. There are more potatoes sprouting in the micro-orchard among the edible hedging after we must have missed some of the potatoes there last year!

This is the polythene greenhouse that I was built last year. It's made from 2" x 2" and whatever bits and pieces of wood and board were left over from having the out-building renovated. I can easily walk in and out of it but anyone taller than me (most are) needs to duck down to get inside. Suits me just fine for pottering about, although it doesn't allow much growing space by the time the potting table is in it. The tomato seeds went straight into the ground but I don't know if they will grow quickly enough to produce fruit.

The green box alongside is my posh wormer, bought with my £2

 

coin savings pot last year. The worms have multiplied and I have hundreds of babies in there now, plus it is producing plenty of that wonderful worm juice fertiliser. My grand children think their granny is crazy for keeping pet worms, but that doesn't stop them from feeding said worms while here visiting!

Finally, to round off part 2 of this three-part post, this is the old aviary cage we got around 10 years ago. We no longer use it for finches, so it has been lying in pieces out in the shed at the bottom of the garden. Looking at it, I thought to myself, what better way to support the beans and peas than to get them to grow up the cage while waiting for it to become an integral part of the permaculture garden? I have several plants to train up and over this, which will also house bird nest boxes inside it to protect any little visitors from the cat! At the moment, I have beans in troughs on two sides and will have peas on the other two sides, but I am sure the Russian Vine, ivy and honeysuckle cuttings will be well established by next year, turning this into a piece of environmental art as part of our eco-arts project!

Now that we have reached the end of part 2 of these 3 significant posts, I hope you wont mind my ploughing on with the third. I think it's the most exciting part!

Frugaldom.

Needs and Wants - What Does it Mean to 'Earn a Living'?

How Much is 'a Living'?

The Raven
By Edgar Allan Poe

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore —
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visiter," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door —
Only this and nothing more."

The question of earning a living sprang to mind while discussing the differences between town and country life, mainly in the context of earnings and self-employed income. Being a follower of frugal living, I seldom dwell on the prospect of counting my millions, or any other such trivialities for that matter, it is simply a case of survival in a manner found to be acceptable to the society in which we live.

The latter may seem irrelevant but, on closer investigation, it is indeed very relevant.

The United Kingdom is made up of four countries, each consisting of four completely different social dynamics. Seldom are these differences highlighted when we listen to the idle chit chat and false promises of politicians based in London; what they say can become fairly meaningless to some of us. Some of these people have never been into the countryside, other than for their own political gain or pleasure, protected from what's around them by cash, blinkers and spin. So, without further ado, let us take a closer look at what we all call 'earning a living'.

Edgar Allan Poe, in my opinion a fairly dubious character, is said to have been the first 'well-known' American writer to try to earn a living through only writing. This resulted in many financial difficulties, most of which I can fully understand. But cast aside any notion that I should ever compare my own scribblings to those of such famous names. (I have never relied on alcohol, nor have I ever married my 13 year-old cousin, so the comparisons are null and void from the start.) Still, I do wonder how much he needed to earn and what sort of life he was able to afford to lead on his meagre earnings?

Living a frugal lifestyle is perfectly normal for me - I know how much I need each month, therefore I need to live within those means to avoid debt, malnutrition and destitution. It's perfectly simple to me, one of the most obvious 'things' to grasp. But we are all different. The villages, towns, cities, counties and countries are all different.

"One man's loss is another man's gain. One man's pleasure is another man's pain."

In order to earn a living, I need to afford a roof over my head. After years of saving, that roof is bought and paid for, so there's no need to worry about rent or a mortgage. But there's always the council tax. It's compulsory!
Let's call it £1,000.00

We need heat and light. I live in a fairly chilly part of the UK (Scotland), albeit probably the warmest part of Scotland (deep southwest), but it still rains and it still freezes or gets frosty for at least six months of the year.
Let's call it £1,000.00

Without food, water and clothing, we would perish. All these things cost money, even if we are tending the garden, microholding or smallholding to grow our own 'edibles'. Preparation and storage costs money. All the extras cost money.
Let's call it £1,000.00

Living in a rural location with no shops, post office, bank, entertainment/recreational facilities or public transport, we need to take all of that into account and keep a car on the road.
Let's call it £1,000.00

We do have TV (£145 for a licence), telephone (£120 line rental) and unlimited Broadband (£240) but all of these cost money.
Let's call it £500.00

We have a fairly large garden that's home to several hens, ducks, quail and the rabbit. These all cost money to feed and house.
Let's call it £500.00

As you can see, the cost of living soon mounts up before we even factor in the more luxurious items. It is our understanding of the differences between our needs and our wants that determines how happy we are with what we earn. Bowing under peer pressure isn't really anything to worry about when there are no nearby Jones families with which to 'keep up' and the local school has less than 30 pupils.

We ruralites can often be stuck for choice. As far as grocery shopping is concerned, our biggest choice in the local corner store is take it or leave it, or we could travel to the nearest town to see what the supermarket has to offer. But now we have the Internet, in many cases we have Broadband, albeit slow, and we have delivery companies trekking miles off the main roads to reach us. We have access to the world of commerce, department stores, online banking, shares trading, cashback, savings and investments and all of these things can be fun! Why would someone like me opt to travel 200 miles each week for the sake of attending a dead-end job that paid minimum wage of £6.08 per hour when I need only £100 each week to 'live' my current, happy-go-lucky lifestyle?

A trip into the 'big town' is a full day's event for us, whereas those who care not for reviewing their spending habits (then moan that they are skint) fail to see the domino effect caused by continually fuelling up the car to make a 150-mile round trip for the sake of saving a few pounds on a pair of shoes. Travel costs, including car running costs, amount to around £25. Postage & packaging costs online are around £5. It's a no-brainer!

Downsizing isn't always the easy option. Selling up your 3-bed town or city dwelling for a packet to pack up and relocate to a cheap, cash purchased fixy-up cottage in the country may not be what you are expecting. Self sufficiency is an urban myth, 'The Good Life' was nothing more than a hit comedy on BBC and Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall still has a job to earn him the kind of income he needs to live his fairly affluent, possibly extravagant, lifestyle.

No, frugal living is certainly not for everyone. It's either a way of life you have grown accustomed to through a weak financial situation or it is a learning curve forced upon you by circumstances beyond your control. It may be a lifestyle choice you choose in pursuit of your 'dream', but that's where money helps initially. It may cost you more money than you'll save trying to launch yourself into this because of some quaint, fairytale notion that country living without the security of guaranteed income looks fun and stress-free.

Some of the people who have, in the past, been part of the Frugaldom forums have become classic examples of how not to do it and it is a simple fact that they just didn't understand the concept of earning a living while isolated from old friends and family, then living within their means after their security blanket incomes had gone.

Then again, given the choice, I'd buy as close to my dream 'forever' home and do whatever was needed to keep it, safe in the knowledge that I'd worked for it and, therefor, deserved it. The bottom line will forever be the bottom line. £100 per week could be seven days of gardening, scraping out chicken poop, attending LETS meetings, sharing bulk bargains with friends and typing frantically in the hope of being paid by someone who will publish your words, but if it all goes to pot, it's still only 16 hours per week for one person earning minimum UK wage.

There's truth in my madness and it's only mad if you can't see the bigger picture.

Happy living with everything you need does not cost a fortune. It's those rogue 'wants' that mess up that system. :)

Comments appreciated.

NYK Media
http://www.scottishmultimedia.co.uk/

It's the end of week 1 of the Frugaldom Microholding Challenge

One Week On and What has Changed?

The weather has been quite good this past week, despite some cloud and mist, so the garden has received plenty of attention.

Blue sky has greeted us most mornings, but there have been some very interesting wispy cloud formations passed overhead. We're reliably informed that the swirls foretell the arrival of rain. On this particular day, after what seemed like another mini heatwave, the shower of rain arrived around 7pm and watered all the plants for me.

The bulk of the work has been digging, raking and weeding along with clearing more growing space. 2011, being our first year here, has got off to a late start for us, after having had to transplant so much at such a late stage in Spring, but things are catching up slowly.

Across the other side of the burn (stream), H has cleared most of the weeds and brambles to produce an extra space that might be suitable for another hen run. It stretches to about 8m x 4m at the longest and widest parts, but that's taking it a bit close to the edge of the water for planting or building anything.

Extending the hen run or building a second run, perhaps for the little Pekins, is feasible and would still leave enough space for planting a few willows and making some sort of feature by the edge of the burn.

I haven't researched what could possibly be grown here but, at some time in the future, we'd like to improve on the bridge that crosses it.

The Pheasant Berry, or Himalayan Honeysuckle, is growing on both sides of the water, so it obviously likes the type of soil and drainage it has there. I'm assuming that since this shrub produces edible berries, it will not be poisonous to the hens.

On the opposite side, H has been digging away relentlessly at rubble mountain, in an attempt to clear out all the rocks, rubble and rubbish.

Once cleared, there will be enough space for the summerhouse/art studio and adjacent patio or seating area, as it covers an area measuring approximately 6m x 6m.

This area is behind what we call wild bird corner and overlooks the mini-orchard, but it has a view of the main garden all the way up to the house. On the other side, it looks down onto the stream.

It will take many weeks of digging and clearing before the ground is anywhere near ready for preparing to build a summerhouse, but this is one of our longterm projects that has been given a top priority rating. It would be great to see it completed this summer.

In the upper third of the garden, we have finished transplanting all the berry bushes. The surplus raspberries have been planted along the edge of the orchard.

Yesterday, I dug out a new bed for the hardwood cuttings I had taken last year, so they all look happy enough in their metre wide bed. It's about 8m long, so plenty of space for these to grow and spread. Trouble is, I didn't mark the tubs they were planted into, so I'm not sure if these are the blackcurrant or redcurrants. All I know is that they are all the same variety.

Today, I edged the bed with rocks to seperate it from the other fruit bushes and then topped it up with some of the soil dug from the soon-to-be duck pond.

The duck pond is another one of those priority non-priorities. We all want it completed before any ducklings hatch (due 9th July) but the rocks in the ground have proven to be really stubborn.

As with rubble mountain, the excavation that is our duck pond has been attacked by a big mallet, in an attempt to smash through the rocks that would, otherwise, have ended up as an island in the middle. It's very slow progress, slower still, as son has taken charge of this particular project and is fitting it in between work and weight training. Lifting the rocks should be good exercise for him!

I have a proper pond liner for here but we'll be using an old carpet as the liner. It won't be a huge pond but it will, hopefully, be big enough to keep the ducks happy and well enough made that filling, cleaning and emptying won't be a problem.

It will be so much better than the kiddy paddling pool that the ducks have been using for the past 18 months.

In the meantime, Joey and Phoebe watch and wait. It's almost as if they KNOW what is going to be there one day!

After setting out all the different growing and rearing areas in the garden, I decided to start measuring up for next year's raisied beds. In the upper third of the garden, which will be where all the vegetables will be grown, I have now marked out a space measuring 10m x 4m. This will be where we'll build proper raised beds, probably in two lots of four, so that the crops can be rotated each year.

 At the moment, we have makeshift veg beds made from all manner of things, ranging from fish crates to old drawers and kitchen cabinets. It's a general mish mash of make do planting, in an effort to get some homegrown produce in year one. So far, I have picked several lots of blackcurrants and strawberries and there's a courgette almost ready for picking. The first of the peas now have pods and the lettuce continues to grow as quickly as we eat it.

I have to admit that I can hardly wait for the fruit trees to grow, as it has always been an ambition of mine to own an orchard.

Our little orchard is slowly taking shape and, although it will still only be a micro-orchard, it does have 20 trees growing in it already, a mixture of plums, pears, cherries, apples and a solitary nectarine that was planted by my grand daughter when she was 2 years old. She'll be 7 soon and the nectarine 'tree' is only two feet tall. This is the first time it has been planted into the ground after spending the last 5 years in a pot, alongside the tiny apple tree that she planted at the same time.

I'm amazed that there are apples on a couple of the transplanted trees after all the digging and moving they had to endure in order to survive the move. One of the cherry trees is covered in fruit but I'll need to wait and see if it all ripens fully.

The far corner of the garden, where the bird feeding station is set up, is going to be wired off from the ducks and turned into a proper cottage garden with flowers!

Now that I've seen how well the foxgloves are doing, I have plans for all sorts of cottage garden type flowers to provide us with a blast of colour in summer and plenty of choice for the bees and other insects. This is also where I'll get round to planting my artichokes, but those will need to be started again, as they were left behind and have probably been mulched into the ground by now.

I have seen a garden that I really like, created by a friend within the space of a year. Said friend has offered all sorts of advice on seed collection and what to plant where, so her help will be called upon when it comes time to plant.

It's lovely to see a bit of colour in the garden, even if the bulk of it is overhanging from neighbouring gardens. I'll need to learn the names of all the plants and flowers so I know one from the other.

Plenty of choice for foraging this summer, what with the elders, haws, rosehips and brambles... and all of this in our own back garden. What more could a true frugaler want?

Frugal Living - it's a great life in Frugaldom!