I’ve made our bread for the next few days and we eat a loaf between us every day. I pay 65p for a bag of bread flour and 65p for 6 sachets of yeast. My bread costs me 15p and there’s no where you can buy a handmade loaf for that. I also went to Trago today to price up wood for our new raised beds and to look around the garden centre. We didn’t spend any money but now have a good idea of the amount we need to put aside to do this. We did get deafened by the River Fowey as it thundered past Trago Mills today and even in the depths of winter, it is a lovely sight.
Monthly Archives: January 2010
cheap at Trago
It doesn’t get any better than this!
As it was so cold in this house; I slept in this morning and was woken around 8 am by the boiler man (Craig, Mr Kern’s son and also our neighbour) and had the boiler fixed by 10.30! Well there goes our budget!!! Almost £300 including the VAT. February and April is when we have no Council Tax or Water DD, so the money we would have put towards debt repayment has actually gone on repairing the boiler. I think it was on its last legs as it was noisy and now it’s silent! It’s been on for two hours today and set to 18 degrees and the house is now so very warm.
We then went off to Plymouth to pay a flying visit to my daughter and were delighted to find her well and that the boyfriend (who she’s moved in with) is just lovely. I love the journey up and back on the train as we trundle through the Tamar valley, past the water side at St. Germans and over Brunel’s Bridge until pulling in to the bustle of Plymouth. We met up with Josie and Adrian, stayed a while and left them to it……young people are nocturnal and it was much too early for her!
Plymouth, like most major cities has the same array of shops as every other shopping centre and the shuffling masses flock there to pay homage to the till! We avoid the main areas and chose to browse and nose around Plymouth Pannier Market. It’s a mass of indoor stalls, where food is reasonably cheaper and the service comes with a chat and some real human contact. Since the demise of Woolworths, there is a proliferation of ‘Pick and Mix’ stalls in the market and we treated ourselves to a bag each. I also treated us to some Naag Champa soap and incense, so now we and our home will smell almost divine, well like a Hindu temple any way and that can’t be bad.
Next to the soap is my shower timer and we both allow oursleves 3 minutes each in the shower and I use 5 minutes when I wash my hair so I will smell lovely and save water, electricity and money!
I can hear you wondering what has happened to my frugality? What’s with the money spending. Once upon a time; we’de have had coffee and even lunch but no more. We took sandwiches, coffee in a flask and a piece of homemade cake each which we intended eating in a picnic on Plymouth Hoe, but as it was so cold and as we had to wait for our returning train, we ate it on Plymouth Station on the way home. Mike used his usual rail pass, so his journey costed nothing and mine cost £5 for a cheap day return and it would have cost us that to park! before fuel and bridge toll. So it was a frugal day out. Total spend of a lovely day out was under ten pounds and don’t any one worry - I will save what I have spent somewhere else this month.
Well the heating came on at five and I’m only wearing a vest, long sleeved jumper and a body warmer which is positively naked compared to the previous few days of dressing like Scott of the Antarctic. The heating’s fixed, I spent time with my daughter, I had a lovely train ride, a picnic and the sun has shone! It doesn’t get much better than this! I’ll now go and put my feet up with my pick and mix.
Sometimes you’ve just got to splash out!
Every now and then a girl’s got to go mad and treat herself. Now I wouldn’t normally throw £8 around in Focus but I am doing so to save electricity. Next to my thirteen year old vileda mop bucket is my brand new broom. My old broom is just a clump of tangled nylon that really doesn’t sweep at all any more. In spite of looking, all the brooms seem to have short handles and small head; they’ve been stunted by the economy I think or at the risk of stereotyping made in the far east where people are smaller than Europeans and therefore the broom fits them just fine!
Here you will see, not only how cheap the seeds were but the answer to my earlier post about my coffee envy although I am yet to buy a very small flask. My theory is that I will make my coffee before I leave and pop in my school bag and drink it on the train on the way home. An easy end to my coffee envy! Below are some pots I aim to grow potatoes, carrots and parsnips in whilst encasing them in old net curtains from British Heart Foundation or other good retail outlets of equally charitable status. Mum gave me these so they were free and I’ve heaps of home made compost all at the ready. The gravelled area is where dearly beloved is going to build himself a greenhouse, although he’s not sure from what just yet!
I went mad today and spent £3.70 on ten packets of seeds from Lidl, which averages at 37p a packet. I’ve bought cheap seeds before and they are not perfect and you don’t get 100% success rate, but then you don’t with expensive seeds either. My shop today will last for a lot longer than a week and I went primarily to buy the seeds and could have held out for a another week to shop but didn’t want to miss the seeds and don’t want to go shopping tomorrow or next week if possible. As much as though I love my fellow Cornish people, if they hear there’s something cheap to be had, whatever it is, will be gone seconds after it’s put on the shelves so I’m glad I got there early this week.
Nothing goes to waste.
I was just thinking about waste food today and how much the average British family wastes. I can hand on heart say we waste nothing. Orange soft with some mould on one side? Eat the one side that’s OK. Banana gone brown and almost gooey? Mush up and add to sponge mixture and pour into bun cases and take to work as a snack. I use everything. Then some!
I compost and own three compost bins and every leaf, grass cutting, kitchen waste and even shredded junk mail is composted. It also forms my workout as I periodically tip it over and dig it about and decant the most composted matter into one bin and the least into another so it rots down most effectively. I then use it where needed in the garden. All of my compost bins have been bought at much reduced prices from local council schemes and I’ve always moved with them. It means that nothing at all goes to waste and what little goes in the bin doesn’t smell of rotting peelings, which has got to be better for the guys who collect the rubbish. I also think the bins have character; like friendly Daleks at the bottom of the garden!
No such thing as the wrong weather….
……just the wrong clothes. The boiler man came today, Terry, also a neighbour and we found his number on the side of his van and told us the fan in the boiler was broken and he’d order it tomorrow so we’ll have a few days of me looking like this! Which is not a problem as we didn’t really turn the heating on until December and then only for a couple of hours a day but it’s amazing how it takes the chill off and I’m currently in the chill. It’s incredible how we just flick a switch and then we have a massive bill, whilst actually a few more clothes and just the heating we need in one room will actually do.
Mum, whose wisdom I never truly appreciated until much older, always said “Some is plently, enough is too much!” Though an austere view and quite unfashionable now as we’ve all got so used to enough and never appreciate the some anymore. So I’m sat here in my fleece, with jumper and gilet underneath and my scarf and my hat and have to remember sometimes that I used to sleep in more than that as a child and by the fact that I’m here today: it never killed me. So, I’ve bounced back, fed myself with my £1 supper and even managed to come home early, to some heating and I’m afraid to say, enough supper to leave me feeling very full, in my toasty office as I have an electric radiator and the smile has come back to my face and all is truly well in the world.
5 days until pay day and I’ve still not spent anything.
You’ll have to excuse me…..not my cheerful self today. I’ve spent no money and I’m still over drawn. I’ve also had to drive miles out of my way today to go on a course; the road was closed so there was a even lengthier diversion. I did, however, have a free lunch but no left overs to bring home.
So, over drawn I’ve arrived home to fuses blown and I can’t work out why as the trip switches are OK and the pilot light on the boiler isn’t working……so it’ll be five days before I can afford some one to look at the boiler and maybe longer until I can have it repaired as I have to save for it………….because I have no credit cards as I cut them up.
Haiti comes to mind and I have some where to live, I have a fire and I have an electric blanket and an electric shower and a kettle and this is the view I saw today on the way to the course. Bethruthen steps, near Newquay, Cornwall. In a few minutes I’ll get this into perspective and will feel better!
A warm welcome waiting for me!
It’s so cold outside that I was delighted to find the station was still manned/or wommaned! when I got off the train at five thirty to wait for Mike’s 5.40 train to arrive from Plymouth. No matter how long our day, how delayed our trains and how cold the walk home; I always enjoy that 20 minute chat on the walk home. The dogs are delighted to see us, but best of all is the delicious smell emanating from the kitchen….bolognaise today and the pasta is bubbling away whilst I write this. The hot pot was a recent purchase and has saved me a fortune as it’s big enough to cook two meals at once, one I will freeze for another day and one waiting for me when I got home. Dinner is often veggie soup and reduced price bread rolls from the co-op, sometimes it’s a chicken stew made of cheap leg or thigh pieces which just fall apart when lifted out of the pot. What ever it is, it’s cheap and a real warm welcome home. Dinner today for two meals, 1/3 of a pack of spaggetti 14p, pack of mince £1.80 onion 5p pepper 30p tin toms 20p tom puree 25p , sprinkle of herbs and garlic granules total £2.79 divided by two - £1.39 for two people for dinner today! and all ready when I got home.
Wondering at the ancient
I’ve been at home today, revelling in the wonders of a new washing machine and feeding my son and his girl friend, who came home funnily enough, to do their washing. We’ve had a lovely day, simply chatting whilst I ironed and lolled around with the dogs on our laps, just catching up. The sun has shone on Liskeard today and my Rik and Shelley came back from walking the dogs with red faces looking a lot healthier than usual and, although yesterday and Friday had gloomy news and left me contemplative; I have spent today counting my blessings. I live in such a beautiful place and there are so many places around me which are just stunning. Trethevy Quoit is a ten minute drive from where I live, simply plonked in a field behind a row of cottages. On the day we went to see it, there were local kids climbing all over it and playing hide and seek in and out of it. Sheep or cattle graze around it and there’s nothing to stop anyone looking at it. I love the way they are no different from the Breton Dolmens in Brittany, that this ancient archtecture to the dead linked our ancient celtic forefathers as they came here and we went there and Breton and Cornish are almost indistinguishable. I am very, very lucky to live here and although I may not be in the house I want, I can count my blessings…..as they are many. Dha weles x
Frugal luxury
I have recently sold my large American washing machine and matching drier, plus a mobile phone and some handbags on ebay and with the money I bought a new, economical, miserly with water and electricity modern Bosch washing machine with a three year warranty. It’s the first new electrical appliance I have bought in over five years and was needed as we want to have a water meter and our old washer used five times the amount of water of a dinky European washer. It arrived, with great fanfare at ten this morning and has been on ever since and consequently my house looks like Widow Twanky’s! Frugal dearly beloved has moved my wirly gig today, to a sunnier part of the garden so the washing would be in the sun for longer, although the sunlight did little good and the laundry is now hanging, as usual on three clothes horses in front of the fire. However, we will make massive savings on our water bill as currently, our South West Water bill is £1500 a year!!!! Yes , you heard right…..we have the highest bills in the country because of the disposal of the tonnage of tourist poop!
My clever buys last night meant that we had a luxurious and yet frugal start to the day with a bag of coissants for 15p and a bag of oranges for 30p meant that we had warm coissants and freshly squeezed orange juice for breakfast this morning, which were a real treat after the usual toast and jam we have every morning with a cup of tea! This weekend has been tinged with sadness as we have discovered that there is no way we can move as the building society has turned down our mortgage application even though it is half the size of the one we have and the cottage we wanted to move to is a third of the size we live in now. Our debts have rendered a new mortgage ‘unaffordable’ (even though we pay them) according to the Abbey’s calculations as they base the application on our currents bills and finances even though they will be halved when we move. We have been truly saddened by this and felt that we could simplify our lives by moving and are stuck with a four bedroom detached house that we no longer need now the children have moved on. We are also saddled with an inaffordable redemption fee which prohibits us from switching to another mortgage compary, even if they would look at us if they too use the same ‘affordability’ calculation. We know we will get on with life, enjoy where we live now and keep admiring the view!
