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

What is a Frugaleur?

What is a Frugaleur?

We've all heard of entrepreneurs, then came mumpreneurs, dadpreneurs and any other type of 'preneurs' you care to mention, so we decided that it was only fair to introduce frugaleurs to show the world that even those of us who live a frugal lifestyle have the chance to build a business and make it pay. At the end of the day, entrepreneurs are just people with vision and a will to succeed, aren't they?

Have you got what it takes to become a frugaleur and run a debt free business? Or perhaps you are turning around a failing business to steer it to success by way of money saving and money spinning tactics? Whatever you are doing, if you are doing it for yourself then join our project and share our vision. All our members can benefit from additional shared (FREE) advertising, marketing and promotion by way of some rather unique methods we have researched and tried out over the years… 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.

Scottish Multimedia | What is Eco Art?

Scottish Multimedia | What is Eco Art?

Eco art can be many things but what does it mean to us, here in Frugaldom? Eco normally refers to ecology and the environment but it also relates to our economy, so the Thrift Cottage studio has settled on a combination of all of these things - environmental art, eco-friendly art and economical, or affordable, art.

Creating something that is visually attractive, thought-provoking or unique is what art is about here. It's not about investment pieces by the great Masters of Fine Art, it's about enhancing our own environment in ways that are appealing. Better still if those artistic creations can be hand crafted in Thrift Cottage Studio - the name we have given to the old out-building in the garden that has slowly but surely been showing signs of nearing refurbishment completion. It's not exactly a modern art gallery but it's big enough for what's needed.

Since moving here, we have been trying to … continue

NYK Media's Frugal Green Desk

NYK Media's Frugal Green Desk

We’re adding a little more greenery to the Frugal Blog.

If you would like to find out how you can join in and put your name on the Green Desks global map, simply read on…

Please Send Warm Weather Soon, Thank You.

And Now We Have Rain.

It seems such a very long time ago,
That winter hit us with everything it could throw,
Yet, here I am, sitting just so,
Looking out the window and still seeing snow!

A very bad poem, indeed! But it's true. Now, to add to the mix, the rain has begun to fall. I doubt very much if it will be enough to wash away the acres of snow we still have around this area, but it's a start. Take a look at the photo - that's me standing next to one of the drifts that still blocks a local lane. Time to light the stove, I think, as I can see my breath in here again!

The prolonged cold spell hasn't done anyone any favours, that's for sure. The garden has barely been touched this year, other than some basic tidying and clipping the straggling brambles that nothing seems to stop from growing. There are buds on many of the trees and fruit bushes, so they must sense something better coming our way soon.

Indoors can be much colder than outdoors when the sun shines during winter here, so there have been quite a few extra miles of walking and cycling done, carrying with me my trusty basket and taking the opportunity to fill it with firewood. I'm mostly taking advantage of all the fallen sticks that have dried to tinder and become perfect for lighting the stove.

Alternative energy that's helping to reduce our overall carbon emissions! Dry firewood, hand collected, brought home by bike.

You don't need to walk or cycle very far to find an abundance of free fuel lying by the roadsides. Around this area, there's not even the need to venture into the forests or woodlands, as there's so much lying by the roadsides that can be salvaged. Most of these crushed, fallen branches are now so dry that they ignite instantly and are soon burning hot enough to boil the kettle within minutes - a warning, indeed, to landowners, farmers and gamekeepers of the dangers of wildfires spreading during moor burnings! We have collected quite a few bags filled with already charred gorse wood and this seems to burn with frightening ferocity!

Free heat is never something to be scoffed at, especially when we consider the cost of electricity, and is always welcome during the cold months here in Frugaldom. Some also say it's carbon neutral, so a bit of a benefit to be had in that department, too - no fossil fuels used in cars to collect or move these sticks, as we're walking and cycling nowadays. It also gives us far more opportunities to take the time to photogrph the wildlife that lives all around us.

Having to adapt to not having a car has been quite a smooth transition, I have to admit. It certainly
makes you think more about how far you are going and how heavy the load will be that needs carrying home. I have now switched to a wicker basket on the back of the bike for collecting sticks, as it's far easier to just lift that off and sit it by the stove.

In the greenhouse, which is unheated barring any sunshine, the wormery has been safely under cover and its occupants are thriving. Last week, while feeding the wrigglers, we spotted several babies wiggling about the place, so it may well be tme to start tapping off that lovely 'worm juice' soon and preparing the raised beds for this year's veg-growing. Just send us a little more sunshine and a lot less frost to arm the ground enough to sow something soon.

On the 'working from home' side of things, the new googly eyes have arrived to complete the next batch of McGonks and we have just published the first ebook of the year:

"What if the Famous had Allotments? A quirky guide to vegetable gardeners of fame and fantasy." It was written by 'Northsider Dave', whose blog you may already read. The new ebook should, hopefully, be available to download to your Kindle by this evening. I'll post the link here as soon as it becomes available.

Good luck with the new book, Dave! :)

When Potentially Good Sites go Bad!

Some People Just don't want to be Helped!

I thought long and hard about this before posting, as it actually involves a string of potential civil or criminal offences along the way, mainly the following:

• Misuse of personal information
• Defamation
• Fraudulent impersonation and deceit
• Copyright infringement
• Impersonating a business

So, readers of Frugaldom blog, I am going to quietly slip back into journalistic mode and am presenting this article to you as a factual report, rather than a factually based blog post. Seriously, we cannot take such things lightly and although I have almost dismissed any thoughts of pursuing the matter, I would very much appreciate some feedback.

Here in Frugaldom, we work from home, as you all know, witing, crafting and offering an assortmnent of art-related works, virtual admin and publishing services. We use sites like O-Desk, E-Lance and People Per Hour. So, it comes as no surprise that we occasionally get paid by others to post in forums, while having the benefit of knowing who else is involved in the set up and running of such sites. That's how we found DS and his forum site - when he was advertising to hire posters for his new forum.

Personally, I was not hired to post on the above forums, but I did offer my services free to help out a business partner, who was being paid to post. However, all was not well and things on the site just didn't appear to me to be run in a sufficiently professional manner to warrant any more of my free help. Indeed, one incidence forced me to withdraw my services completely, including removing many of my previous posts. That's when the site administrator decided to log into MY POST and rewrite it!

My typing is not great, of that I shall freely admit, but I do know the difference between 'i' and 'I'. Likewise, I know the difference between 'lose' and 'loose', so the mere fact that he chose to include the phrase, 'saw looser', which I think is supposed to mean 'sore loser', makes this all the more laughable. For the purposes of  providing police evidence, should the need arise, I have screen printed the relevant posts, which include the following proof positive of when the illegal act took place:

"Last edited by djs on Thu Sep 20, 2012 7:08 am, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Frugaldom leaving That Forum Site and removing/changing posts out of spite. The other users require an explanation to this."

I would like to let it be known, in no uncertain terms, that I did NOT leave 'That Forum Site' out of spite, nor did I write the ridiculous comments in that blog post - I left the site to dissociate myself from what I deemed to be a very unsuitable and unprofessional organisation. Nothing more, nothing less. For Mr Shackleton (I presume) to have felt the petty need to doctor one of my posts in such a despicable manner, reflecting so negatively on my character, I feel no guilt in publishing this report to alert others to the abuse they lay themselves open to when registering to use a forum. I hope DJS's mum and other associated forum members are proud of his achievements. I wish them every success with their project but people need to play be the rules, keep it fair and represent honesty.

I'm trusting the forum owner will have the good grace to remove the incriminating posts from www.thatforumsite.com but also hope he is aware of the fact that the pages are now cached by search engines and logged as evidence.

Frugaldom.

For anyone interested, here is the link to the post that alleges to be written by Frugaldom/NYK Media

Micro McGonks? How Much Cuter can it Get?

When Recycling Develops into an Obsession!

Good evening readers and followers of all things frugal. As you will know, my obsession with challenge setting has continued to flourish over the years, each Hogmanay (31st December) bringing a whole list of new challenges to be faced during the following year. 2013 will be no different, except that we launched the Frugaleur (frugal entrepreneur) Challenge in late November, in order to allow ourselves adequate preparation time without being hampered (pardon the pun) by the annual festive celebrations. 2013 is going to be my biggest push towards zero waste, combining it with my eco-arts project to recycle as much as possible into something worthy of developing into a micro-business. I'm not looking to stock superstores, I'm just looking to make the most of whatever I can in the hope of earning a few pennies extra towards the upkeep of Frugaldom.

 

Clan McGonk went 'live' at the weekend, which is when I made my first ever sample of the furry little critturs available to view online. I like to refer to these as my frugal pets and I'm sure you can see why it is so easy to become attached to them. But they have many secrets to divulge over the coming year. They have places to go, people to see and the whole wide world is their playpark, assuming anyone wants to get involved. Feel free to browse the Frugaldom Store at http://frugaldom.ebid.net and I will happily sell you a McGonk that's been handmade here in Thrift Cottage, Frugaldom. For those of you who prefer to make your own, I'll put together a simple to follow 'how to' post very soon.

 

This evening, I found myself forced to play my next hand early, after someone mentioned keychain McGonks. So that is what you are looking at in the top photograph... but I call them micro-McGonks. This one has a keyring attached, so he can always be seen hanging around the place, looking cute and looking towsled. These are much smaller than the McGonks, as you can see by the first photo and, once again, I used shredded paper as stuffing, a button for a nose, scrap of fabric for his hat and then added the luxury of wobbly eyes and a tiny pompom. So there you have it - Frugaldom is not only the home to Clan McGonk, we have also developed our very own micro-Mcgonk. As many of you know, microholding is one of the other things that we are attempting here - everything 'smallholding' but on a much tinier scale.

 

Once again, I would like to thanks all of those friends and associates who are kind enough to donate me their offcuts. I do have to make one not so frugal admission, though. I invested another £6.44 into my 2013 Frugaleur Challenge after I spotted some fabulous off cuts of furry fabric listed on eBid. I guess I should really give you a run down of how my participation in the Frugaleur Challenge is going, so here it is, as briefly as possible.

 

2013 Frugaleur Challenge - to set up a frugal enterprise that will help pay some bills or, at worst, convert a home-based hobby into a self-funding passtime (so it doesn't drain any of your much-needed financial resources).

 

Starting 'investment' limit = £50 maximum

 

Spends to date = £30.22 including .com and .co.uk domain names

 

Sales to date = £21.77 after deduction of PayPal fees

 

The above means that of my original £50, I currently have a balance of £41.55 and I am hoping to be able to recoup the full £50 before the 1st January. At that point, the hobby of recycling one thing into another will need to sustain itself. Fortunately, the act of writing the little stories for the series doesn't cost anything more than my time and the brain-ache of trying to keep everything interesting and entertaining while thinking 'recycling'!

 

Hoping a few of you will join me for the McGonk-making workshop soon and I'll look forward to sharing my frugal fun.

 

Frugaldom

www.frugaldom.com

 

PS: Don't forget you can join us in the Frugaldom forums at http://frugaldom.myfreeforum.org or on the McGonk Facebook page www.facebook.com/ClanMcGonk and also on Twitter, where you can follow @Frugaldom

 

Moneymaking Challenges

2013 Frugaleur Challenge

12th - 18th November is Global Entrepreneurship Week so this is a good week to launch our new challenge.

With just over 7 weeks remaining of 2012 I decided it was time to start planning ahead and setting some new challenges for 2013. Times are getting hard, income is at an all time low and spending at an all time high, so I need to look especially hard at redressing this balance before things get out of hand. OK, I've no rent or mortgage to pay now but the truth is, there wouldn't be enough income to cover rent if it had to be paid! Something, somewhere, just isn't adding up correctly.

 

Prices are escalating on everything while the Government has allowed an extra £75 BILLION of new money to be pumped into the system, diluting the value of the pound as it goes. They don't seem to reflect this devaluation when they spout off inflation figures, so we're left wondering how much our pound is going to be worth by the time we reach retirement age, especially if we fail to generate sufficient income to make up all these shortfalls. It's scary stuff!

 

Fired up with enthusiasm, I set to work dusting down old projects that had to be shelved in the past for a variety of reasons, mainly personal circumstances and finances. I began the relaunch of www.scottishwebdirectory.com and hope to gradually fill the pages with everything Scottish and I'm equally hopeful of incorporating a few affiliate links that may cover the costs of running the project, plus earn a bit extra. We're talking pennies here, not pounds... even if the site only generates 35p profit each day, that's enough to cover the cost of annual Class 2 National Insurance Contributions. Of course, it doesn't help when so few people actually want to be linked to a free directory - this part has me baffled! I don't understand why people wouldn't want even a tiny bit of extra promotion for their own businesses, especially when it is offered free. (Comments regarding this peculiar state of affairs are very welcome.)

 

Next up, I need to plan ahead for the frugal living and frugal working challenges that are conducted through the Frugaldom forums. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it? Nobody actually needs the forum, few read it and even fewer post on it. It's a bit like blogging - there's no real purpose to it other than sharing parts of your daily routine and lifestyle with a handful of strangers in the hope that it entertans, amuses, enlightens or even helps them in some small way. Money isn't the be all and end all of this life. Which brings me back to income.

 

Love or loath money, we all need it, but it isn't always easy to find the enthusiasm, determination or even the confidence to launch yourself headlong into a new business venture or land yourself a well-paid job that you love doing. That's why the frugal working challenges are kept low budget, in an attempt to make them affordable to all.

 

Just as we have frugal living challenges, so, too, we have frugal working challenges, based on the pricipal that anyone can be a entrepreneurs, even when following a frugal lifestyle. Anyone can set themselves up a frugal micro-business with very little cash outlay. Indeed, the 2012 challenge had a maximum start-up budget of just £10. Succeeding in turning a profit and generating a significant income seems to be down to some sort of single-mindedness that tells you to keep going, against all odds. To this end, I'd like to remind you that Sir Richard Branson began his enterprising rise to fame and fortune off the back of, I think, £3 he borrowed from his mum back around 1966. This, he used to pay for the printing of his first 'magazine'.

 

Opportunities to become a frugal entrepreneur, or fugaleur, as I now call them, are all around us, we simply need to grasp the opportunities as soon as we spot them. Had someone set aside £3 back in 1966, their money would now be worth just under £50 (plus whatever interest accrued) so that's the starting figure for the all new 2013 Frugaleur Challenge.

 

If you would like to 'play along', you'll find details at www.frugaleur.com along with a link to the relevant section of the Frugaldom forums. Could 2013 be YOUR year?

Frugal Living - A Means to an End

WHY DO WE DO IT? BECAUSE WE CAN!



Eco-renovation - it's a titanic task



Almost a month has passed since my last post, what with one thing and another happening within the family (RIP 'Wee Jean' 08/08/1918 - 29/07/2012) and various other circumstances beyond my control.

It's now time to get back on the frugal path to put this place in order, even if that path does appear very long and winding at times. I freely admit to occasionally stopping and wondering if it will all be worthwhile, but I also freely admit to saying a positive 'YES', it will be worth it!

My cousin volunteered to pose for this photo during one of our recent adventures and I thought it very apt for this post. :)

Work has restarted, once again. Once completed, the outbuilding will provide the much-needed space to allow work indoors to resume. I may even have a kitchen by the end of this year!


The (soon to be) studio.



The 'studio' is beginning to look good now that all the old wood and blocks have been replaced. We salvaged the old back door that was removed from the house plus half a dozen of the windows that were lying about the garden when we arrived here. There are still two more windows to be completed but the frames are in and all that's needed is for the glass to be fitted - this we have had to buy. (We got a really good deal from a local double glazing company who had spares lying in their yard.) One day soon, we'll have a studio workshop right on our back doorstep and working from home will become even more enjoyable. 

As the year progresses, we're having our fair share of sunshine, even managing to don the shorts and visit the beach a few times to enjoy a splash about with the grand children. This, however, reminds me of how unfit and over weight I havew become, so it is time to address this problem in a much more serious way. Afterall, we have the best gym in the world right outside our doors and anyone is free to use it at any time!

The great outdoors can offer anything you want from a short walk to the post box to some high-powered aerobics, assuming you have the enthusiasm to just do it! Frugal living should never leave you needing, even if you have to create your own imaginery outdoor gym.

An eco-renovation doesn't come cheap if we're looking at eco-friendly building products but a frugal eco-renovation is about making things affordable. Whether it means cutting back on unneccessary expense so you can afford the right materials or recycling what is already available to you, it is still good! Ensuring you are fit enough to enjoy and appreciate all the years of scrimping, saving and hard work that goes into a renovation project has to feature strongly in your plans if you expect to reap the long term benefits. So I am making a new start RIGHT NOW!

GET FITTER, NOT FATTER (Pedometer cost 99p inc P&P via eBay.) I often hear or read of people trying their best to get fit and lose weight by spending ridiculous amounts of money on low fat and/or high protein foods, joining local gyms and/or 'investing' in fitness equipment. I have to admit to having thought about these things myself in the past, especially as my son is a fitness fanatic and into all sorts of weight training.

I have now cast aside those thoughts and am lookingg at the whole picture - the old joints have taken some serious punishment over the years, what with various falls, bumps, sprains, strains and fractures (mainly horse-related) and it has been quarter of a century since I weighed what I would like to weigh. That's 25 years of careless living that has slowly increased my weight and decreased my fitness. I certainly don't plan on taking another 25 years to redress this balance, but I do understand that it will be a long and arduous task, one that cannot be supplemented by unneccessary spending, dieting fads and paying to be told how to do it. The process needs to fit in time-wise and weather-wise with frugal living, earning an income and renovating a home!

I hope nobody minds if I post about my exploits during this frugal 'Get Fitter, Not Fatter' challenge, but I set it up online so long ago that even I am beginning to think of it as a bit of a joke.

The following items are what some people see as essentials to their fitness regimes:

• rowing machine
treadmill
exercise bike

local swimming pool

weights

The following are what I have right here, right now:

This is my Rowing Machine. OK, so my rowing machine comes in the form of a small rowing boat moored at the edge of the nearby loch, but look at the spectacular views it offers and look at the space for sharing with friends, taking a healthy lunch and, if we so desired, trying our hands at fly-fishing. I haven't done the fishing bit, as that entails purchasing a permit that allows us to fish - not frugal - but rowing around Elrig loch is a brilliant way to get some easy exercise whilst communing with nature.

This is my Treadmill. The frugal treadmill will keep going for miles and miles, as the roads, lanes and tracks criss-cross the countryside. The whole point of spending years scrimping and saving is to afford to live debtfree somewhere we want to be, a place of our own that we can call home. If you can't see the possibilities of doing something like this on your own, then consider finding someone with shared ambitions. You'd be amazed at how many people jump at the chance to quit the rat race and follow their dreams as crafters, writers, artists or even for the simple choice of working their own hours in order to make the most of everything else life has to offer. Chaos is acceptable, no matter what others may think, if it is en route to realising your dreams.

The Exercise Bike (cycling) Almost everyone knows someone with a bicycle tucked away in a shed, forgotten, unused or surplus to requirement. Well, I borrowed one from a friend this summer. What with one thing and another, I haven't even managed out on it once, but there are no real excuses. They say that you never forget how to ride a bike... I'll put that theory to the test just as soon as my knees have agreed to bend and straighten in one smooth rotational action while synchronising with upper body balance and an ability to steer.

The Poolside - Living in a rural location means there's not really much call for such things as gyms or leisure centres with indoor heated swimming pools. Living within walking distance of the coast, however, offers all sorts of possibilities. Wild swimming can be done pretty much anywhere you find that's safe and clean enough for you to take the plunge. A friend has invested in a wet suit so she isn't completely restricted to only the hottest days of the year, swimming in several of the lochs that can be found within the region - her particular favourites are all within the Galloway Forest Park. I prefer the sea, as the thought of pike swimming below me puts me off even dipping a toe into any of our nearby lochs. As yet, I have not swum in the sea, only paddled.

Weights - Who needs dumbells when there are millions of rocks lying around the place? One local here power walks while carrying a rock in each hand, raising them and lowering them in step with his pace of walking. I'm sure this must provide an extra element of aerobic exercise and will be setting him well on his way to achieving his optimum heart rate.

My first challenge is to gather enough rocks to equate to the amount of excess weight I am already carrying. Granted, it won't come close to Stonehenge, but I'm sure it will amount to a tiny cairn, at least.

That's the tale of Frugaldom thus far - the indoor renovation works ground to a halt months ago, the weeds always seem to be winning the war in the garden, the greenhouse is still standing and producing some lovely tomatoes, I'm cooking courgettes in almost everything - bread and cakes alike - the derelict outbuilding should have a new lease of life as a studio within the next couple of weeks and I'm about to embark on a much healthier lifestyle, even if it takes me forever.

How could anyone not want to live this life? It's certainly never boring!

This post is also dedicated to all friends, family and other residents of Garlieston in the wake of recent events, the facts of which have been twisted out of recognition by certain newspapers that chose to feed the general public with outright lies! I would appeal to anyone who has read such garbage to cast it aside and never sink to the depths of allowing it to cloud their judgement on our wonderful area!

Regular updates relating to frugal living can be found in our forums at http://frugaldom.myfreeforum.org 

Feel free to join us online anytime and invite your friends to do similar.

When Running Frugal Forums and Blogs...

Who Reads What, When and Why?

Specially posted for 'someone'.

I couldn't decide whether this post should be included here or in the likes of the Paranoid Times blog. The topic is a rather curious one but I am sure it's a familiar one to some of you reading this.

Blogs are normally more likened to diarie, but I disagree strongly with this comparison.  Diaries always conjure up images of secrets contained within private writings, innermost thoughts set down in print for the benefit of the writer, little thought ever being given to any other eventual readers. Not so with blogs - they are for all the world to find and explore, should anyone be at all interested in searching.

Here is where things begin to get a little more different. Recently, a discussion sprang up about lack of followers, comments and/or sales, despite the invisible number-crunching programmes churning out figures that suggested thousands of visitors.

With blogs, forums and websites, you can invite any number of people to visit, join or contribute but the truth of the matter is, few will! Regardless of whether they be a friend, relative or, even, spouse, few of these people will actively support your 'cause' for the simple fact that your 'cause' may not necessarily be theirs.

So let's look at how the figures pan out, as I do happen to have a websites, some forums and several blogs. Most are used purely as free space for writing about things I would like to keep for future reference, or for the purposes of checking back to see what progress has been made on certain projects, when and where. Some are relevant to what's being discussed elsewhere but, owing to their nature, such diverse topics cannot be mixed together. None of these things is aimed at generating traffic by way of the general public. Should they choose to read, they are welcome to do so. This blog is for all, it's where I give away the secrets of my money saving, frugal lifestyle, but it is not about footfall through a virtual business gateway.

Back to the numbers - I recently opened up the Frugaldom forums to the public, so we now have a slowly growing 'membership'. It's free, so anyone can join at anytime. But of those who choose to join, how many are brave enough to step up to the mark and declare their interest in money saving and frugal living? How many are brave enough to post on the forums, comment in the blogs or physically interact with others, most of whom are there for the exact same reasons?

To date, 436 usernames have been registered on the newest frugal living forums.

Of these, I deleted 176 (40.3%) because they failed to complete the joining process . This leads me to believe they are spammers or electronic, automated 'visitors' sent to infest the forum with links to websites that I wouldn't want there in the first place.

Of the 260 'active' users, only 97 (37.3%) of them have ever posted to acknowledge their presence.

Of the 97 who posted, only 28 (28.9%) of them return to post regularly. This is what I refer to as the true conversion rate - 28 posters out of a possible 97.

THIS IS A FANTASTIC RESULT!

BUT... how many of these 28 people are longstanding family friends or relatives? Not a single one!
This post has been thrown together to demonstrate how the numbers game really works - I have nothing to hide, nothing to sell and I don't track visitors to my forums, so there could be a million readers and I would never know they were there unless they took the time to register or participate in the discussions.

If you are in the business of generating yourself some income, you need to spread the word far and wide then monitor every real visitor. You need to analyse what percetage of these visitors are spending their hard earned cash while visiting your site or business. As a general rule of thumb, many marketing, advertising and sales professionals would accept 0.5% as an average result for something like a leaflet drop, while others spend a little more time preparing their leaflets - normally paying extra for sales copywriting - and look towards around 2.5%, assuming they have done their homework and targetted their advertising.

It doesn't take a genius to work out that in order to have thousands flocking to buy your product or service, you need to remember that your chances of turning a casual passer-by into a visitor (or reader) can be around 1 in 200 and then you still need to convert your visitors into paying customers or clients. Agai, this can be as low as 1 in 200. That's like one sale from every 40,000 website visitors!

What has this all got to do with Frugaldom or the frugal living and working brigade? Most of us are self-employed and/or working from home. We all need to earn a living and the depressing fact is that it's not always easy. The hours can be long, the hourly rate once calculated over each year can be a joke and the prospect of fame and riches isn't somthing often considered; those things don't drop into your lap purely with a stroke of luck.

The Frugaldom blog is about showing, by example, that fame and riches aren't always the best rewards. The sense of achievement and the freedom to pursue our own goals within our own budgets are what matters most to us. The integration of the concept of frugaleurs - entrepreneurs who have little or no debt/financial backing - is something completely new to many. It is my hope that dreams can be realised, even fortunes made, but without being indebted to a system that seems to prefer keeping the majority of people trapped by debt.

Be all you can be, set yourself free from the constraits of escalating credit or debt, speculate within your means if you have to, but be prepared to do whatever it takes (within the eyes of the law) to succeed and live a happy life, because we get only one shot at it...

That shot is now.

NYK Media
www.scottishmultimedia.co.uk

Shona Prophett on the Frugaldom Challenge in 2011

Hellooooooooo Fellow Frugalers!

Just introducing 'Shona Prophett' on here before the start of the Frugaldom Challenge in 2011 - £4,000 for a year, will I be Shona Prophett by the end of it? Who knows!

Getting started immediately, with £4k at the ready: £1,000 is in Premium Bonds in preparation for the first draw of 2011, so the starting figure for everything else is £3,000. Working from home should make the entire Frugaldom project self-sufficient, self-funding and, eventually, profitable.

It's going to be difficult juggling the various challenge budgets but I'll overcome any problems as and when they arise, with a little help from my friends.

Here is the link to the spreadsheet I'll be using.
(Right click the link and save file as whatever you want it to be.)

The above is the Frugaldom Budget spreadsheet - it shows all the budget amounts from which all expenses will be deducted, but it also has a seperate section to the right for all the other things not included in the household budget. If anything gets spent, it gets logged in the negative and anything that comes in from any of the categories listed gets logged in the positive. The household budget balance is still maintained but it then continues across to the overall budget in the lower right hand side of the spreadsheet. My challenge is for this figure to be positive or, at the very least, '0' by 31/12/11. Because the budget is supposed to beat the bank, the minimum this final figure should be is £20, to reflect the 0.5% interest that the £4k would attract had it been left in the bank - my reward, or profit, had I not needed to spend it.

I want to be 'SHONA PROPHETT' next year. But don't we all?
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I was Shona Penny but it turned into a pound, so I'm now Shona Prophett
Check out www.shonaprophett.com/
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I have just logged -£119.88 from the telephone budget, as I opted to pay BT an annual lump sum in order to make the most of their discount. Weekend calls are free, so no phone bills as long as we don't use the phone through the week. 1571 service cancelled - we don't really need it - but still got online billing for checking the monthly statements and calls plus the DD set up for internet calls to 0845. Despite this being a free number for many, it excludes internet dial-up, which is what needs to be used here once a month or so for updating a website. Keeps it otherwise free.

Going into 2011 with a grand total of £2,880.12 plus £1,000 of Premium Bonds in the hope of winning something, even if it's only £25. It will still beat the bank, working out at 2.5%

I'm planning on earning everything extra needed by selling surplus eggs, surplus stock, hand crafting decorative eggs, small investments, utilising cashback sites, using a cashback credit card for almost everything, negotiating discounts, trading and bartering, possibly trying a few free competitions, selling on eBid and hoping the interest rates increase so the monthly ISA interest payment covers the cost of the chicken feed. I'm also hoping to make the most of social media, learning what I can about it in a bid to generate some extra interest in the challenge.

As always, you are welcome to follow the Frugaldom challenges in our free forums

GOOD LUCK TO ALL WHO DECIDE TO PARTICIPATE IN 2011