BEING BROKE AT CHRISTMAS
I decided to write this after struggling to get into the Christmas spirit as usual.  We are blessed with being financially solvent  thanks to having followed the Your Money Or Your Life programme in the book by Jo Dominguez and Vikki Robbin, but it was not always so easy.

This post is for you, if you are struggling with debt and lack of money this Christmas.   I would rather give the money to charity than buy things no one really wants and this year have made a donation to the local food bank in lieu of Christmas cards and some gifts. So ask for the Your Money or Your Life book for Christmas, or my other bible, The Tightwad Gazette

I get cross that people feel pressure to spend money they don't have just because it's Christmas.  Have a look at the blog entries for previous Christmases about the ways we have found to get around that over the years.

For this year though, I want to focus on money and what to do if you are broke this Christmas.

So here is a question:
What could you do to earn £10 right now?  One of the things about being broke is the blind panic.   If you need a lot of money in order to be solvent, earning £10 can seem like a drop in the ocean.  But break the problem down into managable chunks and you begin to feel resourceful again.  If you can find one way to earn £10 you can find several ways.  Do it ten times and you have £100.  Then think what you could do to earn or save £50...there always seems to be something.

Think about your hourly rate when deciding which things to do first.  Some things will net you £50 an hour and some 5p!  So this morning I have been experimenting and here is what I did:

Put some books up for re-sale on Amazon.  
 Non fiction is best.  I went through the book shelves and pulled out anything that had not been read for a while, or was available from the Council library service (check their website).

As is often the way, I found that one of the books will sell for about £13 although the others will only net me £1 or so each.  A good result, assuming they sell but it didn't take long to do.

books put up for sale on Amazon today

NB It is easy to sell things on Amazon and does not involve Paypal.  There are many things other than books that can be listed and I once sold a tent on Amazon!  You don't need a photo if the item is already listed on Amazon which is a big advantage. 


Switched to a Nationwide Flexdirect account
Look at moneysavingexpert.com for up to date information about bank accounts and choose one that suits your needs.  I got an interest free overdraft for a year and a £50 referral fee split with a friend because she recommended me.  I will also get 5% interest for a year so long as I pay £1,000 a month in.  What prompted the change is that Smile started charging a £25 a year just for having an overdraft facility even if it is not used. Some accounts will pay you £150 just to switch to them but might charge more for an overdraft, so do the sums.

Made a large pot of soup
This has gone in the freezer so that when we think 'what can we eat' there is something there and we will not end up with a takeaway.  A packet of broth mix cost £1 in the Pound Shop and will do two pots of soup.  I added carrots, onion and potatoes and some vegetable stock.  (buy Marigold tubs of veggie stock for a lot less than veggie stock cubes.)  I know this isn't big news but every so often I remind myself to do it, as bad habits creep back.

Here are some other things we have been doing, just not today...
Repaired some hiking boot laces
Yes really!  the ones on my hiking boots had got all frayed and I had problems finding new ones that would fit through the holes.  Getting new ones would mean braving the shops and I would undoubtedly come home with lots of things I didn't know I needed until I saw them.  So I got a reel of sewing thread and bound the ends -they look fine and you cannot tell the difference.  Actual saving about £2 but take the inevitable impulse shopping into account AND the fuel to get there and it is a lot more than that.

My daughter made some Christmas decorations
the felt and sequins cost £1 for a large quantity of each and she used the stuffing from an old pillow to pad them with.  Great for giving as a little 'thoughtfulness' if you go to visit someone.  It may not have actually saved much money but is a real morale boost and a handmade gift is so special.  We love the ones she gave us.

felt hearts cost pennies to make

Had a £1 gift challenge with friends
This always seems to result in more fun than 'normal' gift giving and you get extra Brownie points for a second hand or hand made gift, or even a book that you have read yourself and want to pass on.   We have had some hilarious times as a result of it - remember the pink and orange psychedelic long johns Andrew...  We also keep a gift box throughout the year and if we see a likely present for anyone, it goes in the box. 

Bought this year's turkey on Boxing Day last year
A huge turkey cost only £10 and is lurking in the bottom of the freezer.  Our lovely neighbour also presented us with a huge trout after a fishing trip and we are saving it for New Year.  So plan ahead for next year and look out for bargains on boxing day and New Year's day.  We found that 9pm on New Year's Eve is a great time to go to the supermarket.  We bought things for 5p that would usually be £5.  Yeah I know some of you would rather be at a party but call in on the way like we did!

remember - do review your bills...
Over the holidays if you are at a loose end, check your house insurance fuel, phone and car insurance bills.  If you have never done this before you will probably save a lot of money by reviewing them.  Look at www.moneysavingexpert.com for the latest information.

Something for nothing and the art of giving

This is a time of year when a lot of thought goes into giving and receiving.  I find the whole spending thing depressing.

Thinking about shopping in general and the waste of stuff and money got me to thinking about how easy it is  to get many things without money if you are prepared to wait and to share what you have with others.  

Frugal living is not sponging 

 That said, frugality is not about being a sponger, cheating or using others.  It does not mean going to the pub and letting someone else pay for the drinks and the golden rule is always give something back somehow, in some way to somebody.  Simplicity is about is building a sense of community in which people feel okay about borrowing things, sharing and passing on good fortune. 

gift carpet spare room

A good example is the past ‘foraging for clothes’ article on this blog.  I rescued a bag of clothes dumped beside a re-cycling bin.  It was raining heavily; a bank holiday and they would have been ruined long before being collected by the charity. 

I took them home and kept some of the clothes.

We gave the rest in to a charity shop and I donated £10 to the charity who owned the bin.  They got more than the value of the clothes had they been re-cycled, another charity benefitted by being able to sell the clothes and we got some good clothes for only £10. They did not end up in landfill so the Planet benefitted too.

I call that a win-win though am not strictly clear about the legality of it!  I was honest and did not rip anyone off though and my conscience is clear.

Accept things graciously.

Most people enjoy helping others by passing things on.  The bit we all find harder is accepting things when they are offered to us.  By saying no you deprive that person of the satisfaction of helping another and re-homing things that are no longer needed.

So if you say no do it gently and thank the person for thinking of you. It takes courage to offer things to others which is the main reason it does not happen more often. If you don't want something but know someone else who could use it, offer to pass it on. It will encourage that person to offer things to others again and it may have been the first time they plucked up the courage to ask.  

Deal with your ‘gratitude feelings’ about being given things by entering into the spirit and sharing or passing on the surplus. 

gift carpet 2

How long can you keep it going?

The best fun ever is seeing how long you can keep it going.  For example, Jude gives me 6lbs/3kg of rhubarb from her garden.  She has more than she can use and does not want it to be wasted.  I say thanks and make some rhubarb jam and chutney with some of  it and put the rest in the freezer - which is easy as you just chop it up and bung it in a plastic bag.  If you make wine (but only if it is good wine) you could do that too.  Never, ever inflict battery-acid style home made wine on your friends.

• I give some jam to Eric as a thank you for the wood he gave me for the stove. (His old garden furniture and it saved him paying the Council to take it away). 
• I give some chutney to Joanne because I know she likes it and doesn’t make her own.  I would like to get to know her better and it breaks the ice. 
• I leave another jar on Clive’s doorstep and hope he has fun guessing who it is from.
• I invite Jude, Eric, Jude, Joanne and Clive round for a Christmas Eve drink and nibbles 6 months later and tell everyone the jam in the tarts is made from Jude’s rhubarb which chuffs her no end.
• Everyone brought some baking with them (unasked) and I now have a freezer full as no one wants to take it home with them.  I decide to stop buying Kettle Chips and eat pancakes from the freezer saving me £3 a week.  I give some of the baking to the Church for their forthcoming coffee morning although I do not attend that Church.  I find out about their shoe box campaign for Romania as a result and resolve to fill a shoe box next year.   
• There is lots of milk left over from the get together.  I put some in the freezer in small jugs or sterilised plastic milk cartons, as we don’t use much and it is handy for visitors. 
• I make some yoghurt with the rest and give half to a friend.
• We have an almost-free pudding of stewed rhubarb, yoghurt and left over macaroons that someone brought to the get together.  Yum.
• Everyone gets to know one another a bit better and Clive and Jude realise they could give each other lifts to work.  Jude decides to help at the Church coffee mornings now she knows that Joanne goes.

This is how you build community.  Everyone used to do it before going to the shops and going out for dinner (aka spending money) took over as forms of entertainment. Many people still do it of course  (and if that is you well done).

Those of us who commute by car tend to get the shopping from the supermarket near work on the way home.  This means you are not  out and about on foot near home, will not see the notice about the church coffee morning and won't even know it is on.

this phone just needed a new battery

How to give something back

We have great fun thinking how express appreciation.  Sometimes it is just a thank you card.  The fact you have thought to say thanks can build bridges and friendships in surprising ways.

It does not always have to be something given back to the person concerned.  The general concept of generosity, passing on good fortune and not being stingy is the overriding principle here. 

Giving and not getting caught is one of our best forms of entertainment. 

Here are some other ideas.

• The no hoarding principle.  If you don’t need all of it, keep some and pass the rest on. That generosity will come back in surprising ways.

• Each time you get something for nothing, give something back to someone somehow, somewhere. 

• Offer to re-home things you cannot use if you know someone else who would appreciate them.  Always ask if that is okay with the person giving it to you. 

• If something is re-homed make a point of telling the giver where it ended up as it will give them great satisfaction.  Feedback encourages people to re-home or re-cycle in the future.

• Think who would like things before offering and do not burden others with your old junk.  Some things really do need to be re-cycled or thrown away.

Some of the things we have been given.  Most were destined for landfill.

Our son’s 3 piece suite and cooker due to be picked up by the Council one hour later!

Floor covering for the garage

Clothes

A washing up bowl brand new, rescued from a skip

A chest of drawers

A carpet for the spare bedroom

A carpet for our bedroom

The living room carpet in our last house

Towels that did not match someone’s new decor

woodshed from re-claimed timber.

Timber for building a wood shed

Firewood

Buckets

Herbal and fruit teas that no one wanted

A cordless phone that needed a new battery

Children’s clothes

Tea bags being dumped when a wooden holiday chalet was cleared out

Some of the things we have given to others.

A disabled hand rail given to us by someone for re-homing

Jam, chutney, home-made wine

All manner of garden produce including apples rhubarb strawberries potatoes leeks herbs garlic and salad

Plants for gardens including herbs, blackcurrant bushes, raspberry canes, strawberry plants

Children’s clothes

Books

Home cured bacon made from pork we got on special offer ( A future blog topic this)

Kitchen units we inherited in the garage

Seeds for the garden

Hand knitted hats and baby things

Snow, sense and nonsense

Like many of you out there, we have a lot of snow right now.
About 12 inches actually.
Living in a village we have shops, buses and can walk to the library, swimming pool, cafe and other amenities. Actually for the size of the place (population about 3,500) we have a lot.

Having all that snow has reminded me just how great it is here. For 10 days I went hardly anywhere else at all, although most of the time we could get out if we really needed to - it just wasn't worth the hassle.
I couldn't get the car out at all actually, due to the water board digging a whacking great hole at the bottom of the drive then going away and leaving it. I could have got the bus to the local town, but could not go anywhere else.
Admittedly it has been a lot better since the library, cafe and swimming pool/gym opened up again after Christmas break.

I was fine over Christmas. Then I got stressed about the weather and not being able to get the car out. The snow's just gone on so long hasn't it - we are used to it coming up here in Scotland but it doesn't usually hang about for this long. And the seasonal break meant hardly any gritters or snow ploughs out.
The buses kept running most of the time though (and yesterday I finally got the car out of the street safely and parked it at the bottom of the hill.)

After a couple of post-Christmas days of Being Fed Up and according to my hubby a Pain In the Neck, I went out on foot to get a change of scene and found that I immediately got de-stressed and started having fun.
Due to the weather I have:
*spoken to people I had never met before.

*Got a lot of exercise shovelling snow, developed muscles and lost 4lbs in weight over Christmas instead of putting it on.

*Been more environmentally friendly and realised I don't need the car as much as I thought and can have an even better social life without leaving the village (I already do do quite a lot of things here).

*Used local shops more than usual and not found it that much more expensive.

*Got out in daylight every day for the half hour required in winter to combat Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Apparently this is many times effective than a whole daylight bulb light box.

*And yes I also got frustrated with not being able to get out, but it was okay, actually and I am learning not to get het up about things I can do nothing about.

Just so's you know, as well as being snowed in, the access to our street was closed for 2 days earlier this week due to a burst water main turning it to ice. Before that there were two other bursts in our street. Unfortunately the Water Board dug a hole at the bottom of our drive and went away for a week, leaving my car trapped in the garage.

We have had our share of trials. Not nearly as bad as some though and nothing like the (now famous) Scottish Islander who went to get a turkey 2 weeks ago and still hadn't got home by yesterday!
How stressed we get about the perfect Christmas - would it have been so bad not to have a turkey, given the weather forecast?

I remember hearing on the radio about someone who went back out at the last minute on Christmas eve because they had forgotten the stuffing. They had been unloading the car when they remembered and drove off in a hurry, managing to reverse over the CD player they had just bought for their son in the process.
Then the car broke down in the dark on a bend on an unlit road and they spent the next 2 hours with torches trying to stop it from causing an accident while waiting for the breakdown company. I often say that simplicity is about more thinking than doing... illustrates the point huh?
The New Road Map Foundation website put it well about Christmas - whose birthday is it anyway?

Today a digger came up the street, followed by a gritter. We felt like cheering and waving. Thanks guys. I wonder when they will get their tea tonight and whether they got a lunch break?

Thanks to those residents and shop keepers who cleared their bit of snow too - it has made life a lot easier over the last few days.

Who Got a Foot Spa for Christmas?

I did a survey down the local car boot sale just before Christmas.
Here's what I found:
7 foot spas (there was also one on freebleayr one on Cheapcycle and one in a nearby charity shop.)
5 slow cookers (NB Tesco, across the car park was selling these on special for a lot more money...) There was also one on Cheapcycle.
3 vegetable steamers .
...And a partridge in a pear tree?? Please note - this is no reflection on the actual foot spas, slow cookers etc. I have a slow cooker (got second hand) and I love it.
But get this: I have checked AND IT IS TRUE. Practically everything I had have bought new could have been got down the car boot sale. Felt a bit sick when I realised it.

Why are we spending money on new foot spas and slow cookers when you can get a perfectly good one for £5? Could it be partly because it is not seen as 'proper' to give a second hand one for Christmas?

Do we also feel is it not good enough to make a gift, give something we no longer need ourselves, or give a gift of time, as it may make us seem mean?
We don't want to be mean, so we buy the new one. We are less well off as a result and the poor old foot spa goes into land fill.
Here's another take on it. Imagine the new one costs £20 and the second hand one £5. Get the second hand one. Then either:

• donate the £15 to a charity and get one of those nice cards for the recipient to say what you did (chicken in 3rd world etc)
• get your dear friend, lover ect a second gift for £15 and enclose a note saying why you were so generous.
• Get this second gift down the car boot sale for £5 and get them three additional gifts with the remaining money...we could go on forever here and your friend is now embarassed because you are being over generous!
• Agree with your friend that you will both buy only second hand gifts and put a limit on it of £5. This is a great idea if your friend is hard up as it takes the pressure off them. If they are the hard up one, they will never be the one to suggest it - it has to come from you.

The most fun we had with a group of friends one year was when we all agreed we would not spend more than £1 on each other. We got the most amazing gifts. It was almost as if because it was just £1 we didn't care as much and it made us Creative and Daring. The hit of the day was a pair of psychedelic orange and pink long johns bought (still in packet) in a charity shop for a gardening friend. they were meant to be a joke actually but he thought they were great!

Then there was the Bird Bower Year. We had bought these fetching little birdie resting places from the RSPB. To make it more fun, we took them out of the packs of 3 and wrapped them individually. I got a bit carried away and in the end there were 9 little packets for my folks. On Chrismas day, Dad opened a gift from my Aunt and there was...a bird bower. Then another And another. Turned out she had done the same thing. We were all opening bird bowers for simply ages.

We ended up hysterical with laughter and it gets talked about yet. In fact you only have to mention the words Bird Bower in our family to cause helpless giggling, completely incomprehensible to outsiders and, presumably, the RSPB who produced this laudable product. My Dad had one on every fence post for many a year and each time I sat in the conservatory and looked out it made me smile.

The last Bird Bower fell from our eaves a few weeks ago (sob). And I realised it must have been at least 6 years since that Christmas. (built to last these bird bowers but I don't think a bird ever went in).

so be daring and remember it's the people who make money out of Christmas who want us to spend money at Christmas.

What is Downshifting?

How it All Began..

my name is Janet and I have been meaning to do this for a while.

'Downshifting' is what we call it when you learn how to live on less money without having less fun.
It means getting out of debt, having a more meaningful way of life and living outside the groove.
In other words, thinking what you really want out of life and then setting about getting it.
To us it does not mean moving to a house in the country - bad move this financially speaking. It does not mean depriving ourselves yet it does not mean earning lots of money at the expense of our freedom.
It does mean thinking what we really do want and focusing on how to get it. Not in a frantic dream-and-it-will-happen life coachy sense, though. I am talking about working with what you already have here, to make it work for you instead of the other way around.

Sometimes it is hard, just because being your real self makes you stand out. It makes others curious and they ask you questions. They want some of what you have. (That may, however be mainly because I just cannot resist talking about it - hence this blog... )

So here is some of our story.
We have been downshifting for 15 years now. It has become a way of life, entertainment, making friends and most of all a passion for a life style we would not change.

Downshifting is about choice and getting what you want out of life.
15 years ago we had an average income, a mortgage and some credit card debt. We worked full time yet there was never quite enough money left at the end of the month although we would not have said we were extravagant.

Today we have no mortgage, no debt and work part time. We have just worked it out that we could retire and live off our savings if we really wanted to.

All of that was done on an average or less than average middle class income. We are not in the 'executive' class, and have not had any kind of promoted posts except for long enough to discover we didn't like it. That is not to boast, rather to illustrate that changing what you do and how you think can make a difference.

The most obvious solution if you don't have enough money is to earn more. And yet it seems that if people do earn more, somehow their expenses go up and they still don't have quite enough. Whatever their income level research shows that they still think life would get better if they had about 15-30% more money. Research also shows that once we have about £15,000 (or the equivalent in your currency if you live elsewhere) per person per year to live on, more money does not make us happier. In other words it is enough. Interestingly this figure does not go up in line with inflation. That is because inflation figures include consumer goods, buying a bigger house etc.

• As downshifters here is what inflation means to us: We already have a house and do not need a bigger one. (In fact as you will see on this blog in the future, once we had de-cluttered we got a smaller house because we didn't need to store all that stuff) . Therefore rising house prices don't concern us.
• We paid our mortgage off 12 years early so rising interest rates do not increase our outgoings, only our savings.
• Rising prices of goods do not generally affect us. the price of good plain food that you cook yourself has actually gone down over the years. When Bernadine Lawrence wrote her book 'How to Feed Your Family on £5 a day' in 1978,(whilst living on State benefits with 4 kids) bread, milk, most vegetables, fruit, pulses and meat were more expensive than they are today. Watercress was cheaper because you could buy in by the bunch instead of ready washed in a supermarket bag.
  Almost everything else costs less.
• As we buy almost all consumer goods second hand, the increase in the price of new ones does not affect us. the second hand price has not changed much over the years. Even the price of new ones does not change much if you stick to the plain one rather than the new-with-extra-features one. We bought what was effectively the same washing machine twice at 10 year intervals and it cost £10 less for the replacement.
• Many consumer goods such as TV's fridges etc can actually be got down the car boot sale or for free on 'freeble' which has online groups around the UK to re-distribute unwanted goods. If people buy the newest model or get one that matches their new kitchen they often just get rid of the old one.
• Inflation does put the Council Tax up. Income Tax or your equivalent Tax on earned income is a percentage. Council Tax which we pay on our property for local services is not and just goes up as much as the Council thinks it should so far as I can see. the council tax we pay today (£141 per month) is more than I earned per month in 1978 (£132).
• Fuel bills, household and for vehicles affect us. You can combat that to some extent by energy saving measures but not completely.
• If inflation goes down our cash savings earn less interest. However as our lifestyle is mainly inflation proof, this does not matter as much as it seems, and looking after money to get the best rates available makes a big difference.

The real secret of getting ahead with money is not how much you earn but how you spend it. We now earn a lot less than we used to but have a lot more money to spare!

So how much did our Christmas dinner cost? about 50p. but get this: we had pheasant that was a gift from a friend and sat outside round a roaring fire, surrounded by 6 inches of snow. (That had not been the plan, but being snowed in we could not visit my sister as intended.) And of course the pheasant went on to be pheasant and butternut squash curry the following day and then stock for soup.

That fire was so warm I sat out there for hours knitting...(hot water bottle covers seeing as you ask.)

And how much did our new year's eve dinner cost? about 70p for 4 of us. We had king prawn and chicken paella. Thanks, Asda for 5 packets of king prawns and one packet of chicken reduced to 5p each.

So read on and see how we got out of debt and ended up with savings, no mortgage, a great social life and able to work part time.

And this blog will not all be about money.

If you are broke and cannot see a way out, there is hope but you have to put the work in.