Monthly Archives: December 2010

Make do, mend and maintenance

New Year's resolution

We’ve been working inside and outside the house today. Last night, Dearly Beloved got round to ‘Frankenhoover’ and took our working motor out of our old Dyson (electrical wire defunct and suction tube broken beyond repair), which funnily enough was also given to us over ten years ago and was second hand then. He transplanted the working motor into the Freecycled Dyson (perfect in every way but needed a new motor!) and now it works perfectly. So #1 of household maintenance (will you pleeeeeeaaaaaase fix the Dyson xxxx!) is done.

Above is a photo of the kitchen window and it at long last has a blind. We didn’t buy that either. It came from the bathroom of our old house and we took it with us and never got round to putting it up. The canvas photos of trees on either side used to be in our dining room and never really did anything to the room. I think they ‘add’ something to the kitchen. They are certainly not what I would choose and I would dearly love to go out and buy something to brighten the house up, but as we don’t have the money to spare; making doing will have to be the order of things for the years to come.

I also did some more garden maintenance today and cleaned up more fallen leaves, cut away a whole mile of sprawling ivy which had invaded the paths and swept most of the mulch, off the paths and back onto the borders. Our next job, is to go through the garage and have a look at all the paint, filler, sandpaper, brushes and any other resources we have, to see what we can use to clean the house up and keep on top of things.

I am determined to use up and wear out what I already have and get as many jobs done as possible without spending any money at all! I am also determined to not waste what I have and use every last scrap. Nothing spent and three jobs done.

Maintenance saves money!

New Year's resolution

Dearly Beloved and I have been getting on with MY new year’s resolution (I am so kind sharing it with him xx!) to make sure we keep up with maintenance and do one job a week, no matter how small, to keep our home in good order. Although I live in a detached house, we are quite tight to the boundaries on either sides of the house and we neglect those areas; they tend to be wild and messy and I am going to look after all areas of my home. It will save money in the long run as I will keep it in order.

Today I started by cleaning up all the winter leaves that have blown here in the storms. They are now in a compost bin and being turned into mulch.

I scrubbed the steps with hot soapy water. Everything gets covered in green algae when you live in a densely wooded area, we’re surrounded by trees, which are beautiful but keep the light out. So paths, steps, fascias, window sills go green and there is no alternative but to scrub away with the hot soapy water and then rinse off afterwards. I washed down the exterior of the utility room and cleaned the windows outside, the door frames and the canopy over the back door. My arms are aching from stretching and scrubbing and my hands are sore from the hot water, but strangely I feel really satisfied at my simple endeavours.

It’s also vitally important to clear out drains, gutters and areas that could flood, gather mould or attract vermin. These jobs need doing monthly and will work your muscles in a way the gym never could. There is also something cathartic about having a clean house and garden (that may be unique to me!) Clean and tidy home equals a clean and tidy psyche for me; in fact, order equals sanity. We were in the garden for just over an hour today and now I’m off to find some indoor maintenance to do. If only I could decide, which of the seventeen jobs must be done first?

Turning leftovers into some thing special

frugal food

Saute any onions, garlic and peppers, or any veggies you have.

Defrost the ready made pastry and sausage meat that only cost 20p each on Christmas Eve - if you can stand the last minute crush, and if you have a freezer, then you can get bargains for pennies.

Roll out the pastry into a large oblong, place the well sauteed onions, garlic and peppers onto the pastry, roll the sausage meat out to fit the pastry.

Use any leftovers you have. I added a few chopped sun dried tomatoes and a couple of tablespoons of cheddar that I had curling up in the corner of the fridge.

Cut the pastry so it resembles a child’s version of a Christmas tree and then plait.

Glaze with a beaten egg and bake in a hot oven on 180′ for 45 minutes.

Get Dearly Beloved to make a salad of reduced price spinach, grated carrot and peeled and sliced reduced price cucumber. Toss in a homemade dressing.

The finished plait will serve six with salad, or made three meals for the pair of us.

The final result make leftovers, for nothing more than pennies, into a delicious and very frugal supper.

A tin of chick peas and Ewan Mc Gregor!

frugal food

I got the house straight today and the washing up to date. After a healthy day of salad and fish, it’s time for something full of calories, comforting and just delicious…………….and Ewan Mc Gregor!

So simple, one tin of chick peas, juice of two lemons, 200 ml of olive oil, 3 crushed cloves of garlic, salt, a dash of cayenne pepper and wizz in the processor. Serve in a bowl with pitta bread, your feet up and Moulin Rouge!

I’m typing this with one eye on the TV, typing and dipping bread into hummus! The other is drooling over the magic created by Baz Luhrman.

Onwards and upwards.

money saving

Apparently, if you do something every day for 30 days, then you have made it a habit. I’ve successfully become a habitual frugal, so now I need to keep going with my long walk to financial freedom. I have no choice but to work for the rest of my life as my pension estimate is 3K a year so far!!!! I also have no hope of paying off the mortgage on the house I live in, so I need to make plans to move as soon as the financial market improves.

One of the joys of being older,is that I’ve seen it all before and this is my second recession. I was young and in a dodgy job market in the 80’s and I learnt then to do ANYTHING to earn money and that motivation to pay the bills has always stayed with me. I know we’re probably in for another five years of hardship and then a period of slow growth.

For some people, the future may not be visible or even imaginable. I’m holding onto my future and my resolution is to continue to be proactive to make it happen. Here’s the plan to continue to nurture my ‘green shoots that will eventually grow into a simpler life with financial freedom.

1. Maintain the house and garden to the best standard I can. The house will continue to depreciate and whoever buys it in 2012, will drive a hard bargain. I can not afford to go into negative equity, or to leave with out a deposit, so I need to do what I can, to make it lovely. I need to fill up the borders in the garden to make the garden look as lush and beautiful as I possibly can. If I plant small, cheap flowering shrubs this year, then they will be bigger and in flower by 2012. I need to fill the backs of the borders with tall, bright green bamboo, so it looks verdant and tropical.

2. Use what I have. I have plenty of paint, white gloss, filler etc so I need to maintain what I have. I must sand down door frames, doors and keep everything shiny and new looking. It’s amazing how far a £20 pot of magnolia paint will do. I need to do this over the coming year so I am ready for 2012 when it happens and not be in a mad rush when I get there.

3. Keep things clean. It’s amazing how longer things last if you look after them, sometimes that simply means giving what you have a good scrub. Fascias often need a scrub and don’t need painting or replacing. Drive ways and patios also can look brand new with some hot soapy water and a scrubbing brush on a long handle. I also need to build this into my maintenance regime.

4. Work on the lawn. I don’t usually and it’s really a collection of green weeds more than a lawn. It will also be good exercise. I need to scarify, stab it with a garden fork, brush compost into it and rake it so the weeds don’t build up again. I need to remove the moss on a regular basis and make sure it greens up by 2012 and putting it off won’t work…….it’s a long old job without chemicals so I better make a start in the spring.

This may all sound like a lot of hard work when I have no intention of staying. The deeper the recession, the harder any job is. It’s going to be harder to pay off my debts with increasing prices. I am going to have to shop even less, use less water, less energy, use the car less, give up any thoughts of going out any where at all and really, really knuckle down for a year or else my downsizing dreams will remain nothing more than a dream. My dream is to buy the smallest property I can find, and to pay off the mortgage in five years, even if I go without heat and light to do it. When I’ve done that…..I will be 53 and then and only then can I consider working part time and actually living the real life that I’ve longed for, for so long!

It’s going to be another hard year, in fact, harder than this year but I am going to look back at the end of 2011 and see that it was worth it.

Over for another year!

Life changing

I’ve been good this year! I’ve not shut myself in my room and cried or told anyone to go forth and multiply. I’ve managed two whole days of being civil, friendly and I’ve been the perfect hostess. I appreciated Christmas being at the weekend and feel, that like Easter, we should move it each year to a convenient weekend. Just a thought, my own, no one needs to agree.

Now I feel a lot brighter as I don’t enjoy Christmas and can start looking forward to another year. I’ve already started thinking of the resolutions I need to make. I need to keep paying off debts and not spending any money. I’ve managed this for more than a year and need to keep going with this forever more! It’s the only way. I have other areas of my life that I need to get under control and keep under control. So, what resolutions do you need to make? what do you need to change? I shall mull over this for a good few days and then choose one thing I can do to make my life better. What will yours be?

Be prepared!

frugal food

Christmas lunch, along with any Sunday lunch, is doddle of a meal to prepare. We/You/anyone can do all of it the day before. I had made the desserts. Christmas apple pie - like apple pie but make the pastry with butter, eggs and sugar to make it really rich and add mince meat to the apples to make the pie spicy. I’ve also made the family favourite, Lemon Meringue pie. Both of these can be served cold and left on the side board so folks can help themselves.

Sloe gin and blackberry gin, made months ago. Kept in readiness. Poured into tiny liqueur glasses and sipped; a fiery winter warmer.

Mince pies, also made well in advance. Frozen if you want, but mine were made two days ago and stored in an air tight tin.

The turkey has been stuffed with forcemeat, smothered in butter and covered in streaky bacon. The pigs are already in their blankets. The potatoes and parsnips are peeled and cut to size and are covered in water with a good slosh of lemon juice so they don’t go brown. The carrots are peeled, sliced and also in lemoned water. Everything is ready to be cooked. The table is laid, the house is clean and the beds are turned down for guests. I’m prepared for a very relaxing family day.

Each of us is the Inn Keeper who decides if there is room for Jesus.
From my home to yours,
Merry Christmas

Tom Bawcock’s eve!……..Meur Ras Tom!

cornwall

In the far, far west of Cornwall. In the fishing area of Newlyn and Lamorna, is the tiny fishing village of Mousehole - pronounced Mowzel. Those beautiful and barely changed villages are now delightful places to holiday, whereas, once the only living to be made was from fishing. The Cornish are a brave lot. The soil is so thin, it’s barely worth farming and yet Cornish farmers get the first vegetables of the season into the shops to beat the English at their game. For hundreds of years, the Cornish miners blasted through solid rock to mine copper and tin. To this day, fishermen will risk an ‘easterly’ in ‘ellish conditions to make a living.

In times past, in fact so long ago that the date is forgotten, Mousehole was battered by storms for days and days and the fisherman couldn’t get out. The tiny gardens gave all they could and people were living off salted pilchards. The village was facing starvation. An older man, a widower, called Tom Bawcock risked his life and almost a certain death, on a dash to sea, that others would think nothing more than a suicide mission.

Reputedly, he came back with nine different types of fish. To this day, in Mousehole, he is remembered and celebrated. People eat ‘star gazey pie’, which is a mixture of any landed fish, mixed with a cheese sauce, mashed potatoes and boiled eggs. I love Pilchards, but eat them in the summer and autumn when they are at their best…………..they’re almost too difficult to get hold of as most of them are sold to the French and Spaniards.

Every year, Mousehole lights up the harbour side and has done since the 1960s. The brave tale is best told by Antonia Barber in her beautiful children’s book ‘The Mousehole cat’. Children on holiday will often look for the Mousehole cat. I can still remember reading this to both of my children when they were tiny and them being enchanted by the story and the magical illustrations in the book. Enjoy the links below to the ‘telling’ of the tale. Happy Tom Bawcock’s eve!

Click HERE for part one of the story.
Then! Click HERE for the second part of the story
And finally, Click HERE for the third part of the story.

Much more relaxed today

Frugal Christmas

We dragged the 15 year old Christmas tree down from the loft. We then proceeded to have a jolly old time reminiscing at the where, whens and hows of the decorations. There were a few decs from our trip to France for my 40th birthday. Items we had bought in the January sales over the years. Nothing has been purchased in the last four years. The decorating is done. The fabric lid covers are on the jams and chutneys and weather permitting, I’ll be delivering homemade gifts to family tomorrow. After the few minutes we spend decorating the house, it was time to sample the homemade Sloe Gin……………if it wasn’t so nice; I might have had more to write.

Stop the ride - I want to get off!

Frugal Christmas

After watching an episode of ‘Ice Road Truckers’ I decided that I would try driving on the ice myself and was fine once I had made it off the estate where I live; onto the treated roads. Beyond my drive way, the world seemed so normal. Well, normal until I ventured inside the local Tesco. Firstly, Tesco is now being run by Dick Turpin and since last week, veg prices have almost doubled. None of the bread or dairy offers are around and everything was really expensive. Their ‘value’ range has disappeared, which has meant I had to pay full price for a lot of items.

Also, people all seemed to have adopted alcoholism as their hubris of choice. Trollies clanked their way around the shop with hostile, half crazed people pushing them (probably in discomfort, due to having to sober up to go shopping!) As I carefully made my way through the store, buying my usual, plus a few nice things such as satsumas and grapes (those are a REAL treat on my limited budget!) everyone else seemed to be hell bent on killing themselves with the contents of their trollies! Enough! Stop! I want to get off!

I am really looking forward to a family meal on Saturday and hopefully a brisk walk after lunch. I have probably spent £50 on Christmas……….after my experience today; I think most people in my locale spent that on cheese!!!