Every day, before I go to bed I like to try and think about how I have managed to save some money, that I would have, in a past life, spent without thinking.
Since finances became so tight with my illness and I had to give up work I have had to have a complete re-adjustment towards my attitude to life, money and the roll of advertisers.
Before I used to watch the adverts on TV, scour the flyer's that came through the door, read the ads in the magazines, just in case there may be something of interest to me.
Now that just doesn't happen, I have suddenly realised that advertisers are paid to part me from the few pennies I have.
For instance, do I really need that new anti-bacterial washing up liquid to keep my family healthy? My family has always been healthy before so what is different now that I have to change my spending habits and buy something that is a third again of the price of what I normally buy?
Nothing, that's what. They are using our fear of 'super bugs' to sell us something we do not need, and may in fact actually cause more damage in the long term.
Let me explain. Our bodies need to encounter both good and bad bacteria. The bad bacteria is just that, bad, but our bodies have an amazing thing called an immune system, that, if you are relatively healthy, will fight the bad bacteria in to a cocked hat. It only needs to do it once, and from there on in, you are protected forever from that particular bug!
So if you kill every single last germ in the house, wash your hands with anti bacterial hand wash, use anti bacterial hand wipes when you are out and about, how is your body supposed to encounter and build up an immunity to even the simplest bug? It can't, is the basic answer.
Admittedly, if your immune system is already compromised by illness, then it is a whole new ball game, but generally speaking, we don't need anti bacterial anything!
Now take that same basic idea and apply it to every single advert you see.
What is so different about that new car that makes it impossible to live without? Will that new shampoo do any more for your hair than your normal one, or will it just smell different and cost a few pence more? Does that new format newspaper have any more news in it than what you can get off the TV or the Internet? Sure if it has a DVD of a film you would like to see as a free gift, buy that edition, but why buy it every day? Do you see where I'm going here?
So what did I do today to save some money? I left the house without any money on me, and didn't even realise until I got home again. That would have been an impossible thing for me to do before, I would have HAD to of turned round and gone home to get my purse because there was always something else I had to buy.
It makes me shudder now, to think how much money I have, literally, wasted over the years, and I really wish I'd had this epiphany when my children were small.
Friday 26 September 2008
Thursday 25 September 2008
Now I'm feeling guilty
After my first posting, where I went on about my families need to save money, what am I doing? Burning the midnight oil to write this! That's what!
Oh the shame of it! I've got a light on which, if I was posting during the day, wouldn't need to be on. How can I bear the shame? Okay, it's an energy saving bulb, but can that off set my wastage?
I think it can, because during daylight hours there are so many other ways I can be saving money!
Take today, I worked down the allotment for a few hours, brought home the last of the runner beans and froze them for use later on in the year.
Then I picked up a pair of trainers off Freecycle that will last me through the winter, which could well have set me back over £30 if I'd had to go out and buy them.
While all this was happening dinner was slowly bubbling away in the slow cooker, or crockpot as our American cousins call it, using the same amount of electricity as a light bulb to cook the whole meal. (Note to self, must try and find out if that is an energy saving light bulb or an old fashioned incandescent one!) So much cheaper than cooking in the oven or on the hob!
I got some more rows done on the top I'm crocheting myself for Christmas wear, a nice bright cheery red, well scarlet actually. The pattern is for a top and contrasting shrug, which I'm planning to do in black to tone down the scarlet a little.
Now the frugality behind this is really impressive.
The pattern was free off the Internet, the scarlet wool my friend gave me as she has had to give up knitting due to a whiplash injury, (thank you Linda!), the black wool for the shrug is left over from a skirt I am also crocheting for myself, so the only cost involved is that of my time, which I know I have said is in short supply at the moment, but as I am unable to work because of the combination of the COPD, under active thyroid and labyrinthitus, isn't worth that much to start with, and think about it, most ladies happily spend the best part of £50 or more on one Christmas outfit, mine is free, and probably unique in style/colour. I doubt if anyone else in the UK will be making the exact same top, with the exact same shrug, in those exact same colours, to wear with the exact same crochet skirt. What more can a girl ask for? lol
I also did a little more reading on making my own hard cheese, but am beginning to feel that maybe our little rented kitchen isn't going to be up to the task as we don't have a cool cupboard or larder for the cheese to mature in, but I will keep on reading the book manfully to the end, just in case I have misunderstood something. The book also covers making my own butter, yogurt and ice cream, all of which I can do in our kitchen, so it will still pay its way even if I land up not being able to make our own hard cheese. I will be disappointed though, if that is the case, I kinda had my heart set on it, seeing as hubby paid out a disgusting £3.56p for less than half a pound of the stuff today!
Oh and I read a tip somewhere about growing carrots.
Now bear with me, this may seem a little convoluted, but I am experimenting with using the same tip with parsnips too! Okay basically the tip said to cut off a bit more off the top of the carrot than you normally do, put it on a bit of kitchen towel and keep it wet until it starts to grow again, then put it back in the soil and the whole root will grow back again. Now the cost of carrot seed is not a bank breaker, nor is the cost of parsnip seed come to that, but, for every five seeds you sow, you may or may not get one plant. So far I have replanted four carrots and re started one parsnip which also seems to be taking, so at the moment I am five for five instead of one for five, I wonder why more people don't do this!
Oooo! Now I'm wondering if it can be done with beetroot, turnips and other similar root vegetables too! How sad am I? lol
Oh the shame of it! I've got a light on which, if I was posting during the day, wouldn't need to be on. How can I bear the shame? Okay, it's an energy saving bulb, but can that off set my wastage?
I think it can, because during daylight hours there are so many other ways I can be saving money!
Take today, I worked down the allotment for a few hours, brought home the last of the runner beans and froze them for use later on in the year.
Then I picked up a pair of trainers off Freecycle that will last me through the winter, which could well have set me back over £30 if I'd had to go out and buy them.
While all this was happening dinner was slowly bubbling away in the slow cooker, or crockpot as our American cousins call it, using the same amount of electricity as a light bulb to cook the whole meal. (Note to self, must try and find out if that is an energy saving light bulb or an old fashioned incandescent one!) So much cheaper than cooking in the oven or on the hob!
I got some more rows done on the top I'm crocheting myself for Christmas wear, a nice bright cheery red, well scarlet actually. The pattern is for a top and contrasting shrug, which I'm planning to do in black to tone down the scarlet a little.
Now the frugality behind this is really impressive.
The pattern was free off the Internet, the scarlet wool my friend gave me as she has had to give up knitting due to a whiplash injury, (thank you Linda!), the black wool for the shrug is left over from a skirt I am also crocheting for myself, so the only cost involved is that of my time, which I know I have said is in short supply at the moment, but as I am unable to work because of the combination of the COPD, under active thyroid and labyrinthitus, isn't worth that much to start with, and think about it, most ladies happily spend the best part of £50 or more on one Christmas outfit, mine is free, and probably unique in style/colour. I doubt if anyone else in the UK will be making the exact same top, with the exact same shrug, in those exact same colours, to wear with the exact same crochet skirt. What more can a girl ask for? lol
I also did a little more reading on making my own hard cheese, but am beginning to feel that maybe our little rented kitchen isn't going to be up to the task as we don't have a cool cupboard or larder for the cheese to mature in, but I will keep on reading the book manfully to the end, just in case I have misunderstood something. The book also covers making my own butter, yogurt and ice cream, all of which I can do in our kitchen, so it will still pay its way even if I land up not being able to make our own hard cheese. I will be disappointed though, if that is the case, I kinda had my heart set on it, seeing as hubby paid out a disgusting £3.56p for less than half a pound of the stuff today!
Oh and I read a tip somewhere about growing carrots.
Now bear with me, this may seem a little convoluted, but I am experimenting with using the same tip with parsnips too! Okay basically the tip said to cut off a bit more off the top of the carrot than you normally do, put it on a bit of kitchen towel and keep it wet until it starts to grow again, then put it back in the soil and the whole root will grow back again. Now the cost of carrot seed is not a bank breaker, nor is the cost of parsnip seed come to that, but, for every five seeds you sow, you may or may not get one plant. So far I have replanted four carrots and re started one parsnip which also seems to be taking, so at the moment I am five for five instead of one for five, I wonder why more people don't do this!
Oooo! Now I'm wondering if it can be done with beetroot, turnips and other similar root vegetables too! How sad am I? lol
Erm... Hi
I've set up this blog on the spur of the moment, with the vague idea of putting all my thoughts and ideas in to one place, but now I realise you need to have your thoughts organised to do that, and my mind is a complete jumble at the moment!
I have so much going on, and so much to do, I don't know where to start!
For instance, I have just become the proud owner of an allotment, but since I've never even owned a window box before it is a real learning curve for me, and I seem to be spending a major part of my waking day just looking up plants, pests and cheap alternatives to getting rid of said pests!
I am also a 'wannabe' fiction writer, and the urge is on me to start writing again, but when I write it also becomes a total obsession, and the allotment cant afford that at the moment. When I get a story in my head, I eat, sleep and breath it until the last word is written, leaving no time for anything else at all!
Add to those the fact that the credit crunch has really hit my family with a wham, and we have never even had a credit card to our names, and rent rather than own, so I'm trying very hard to save every single penny and become 'Super Frugal Woman', which also takes up time I am very short of, and I suddenly realise we have not been hit with just the 'credit crunch' but also the 'Time Crunch' too! Can I really be frugal and still have time to do everything else that needs to be done?
Yet here I am, playing with the idea of doing a blog?!?
Am I mad?
Probably, but, this could be a good way for me to document my daily little savings of both time and money, and the trials I go through on the allotment, and just maybe, when things calm down a little bit, a few hints about the next story I'm going to write. Time will tell.
I have so much going on, and so much to do, I don't know where to start!
For instance, I have just become the proud owner of an allotment, but since I've never even owned a window box before it is a real learning curve for me, and I seem to be spending a major part of my waking day just looking up plants, pests and cheap alternatives to getting rid of said pests!
I am also a 'wannabe' fiction writer, and the urge is on me to start writing again, but when I write it also becomes a total obsession, and the allotment cant afford that at the moment. When I get a story in my head, I eat, sleep and breath it until the last word is written, leaving no time for anything else at all!
Add to those the fact that the credit crunch has really hit my family with a wham, and we have never even had a credit card to our names, and rent rather than own, so I'm trying very hard to save every single penny and become 'Super Frugal Woman', which also takes up time I am very short of, and I suddenly realise we have not been hit with just the 'credit crunch' but also the 'Time Crunch' too! Can I really be frugal and still have time to do everything else that needs to be done?
Yet here I am, playing with the idea of doing a blog?!?
Am I mad?
Probably, but, this could be a good way for me to document my daily little savings of both time and money, and the trials I go through on the allotment, and just maybe, when things calm down a little bit, a few hints about the next story I'm going to write. Time will tell.
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