THE BICARB DEODORANT AND OTHER CHEMICALS

Just try it …

As you may know from previous entries, I enjoyed the cd recording of the book No Impact Man very much. 

Sometimes when you read a book you pick up just one tip that makes it worth buying the whole book, even if you learn nothing else. 

In this case, the tip was to use bicarbonate of soda as a deodorant.

No Impact Man was using bicarb as a deodorant in an attempt to reduce his impact on the planet and therefore cut down on his use of chemicals.  He just happened to mention that bicarb is the ‘world’s most effective deodorant so I decided to try it. 

Well it is.  Bicarbonate of soda is more effective than any deodorant I have ever used.  Two friends tried it and found the same.  Totally smell free all day, except when it was really hot and I was on a train or something. WOW!  Just carry a little pot and top it up in really sweaty conditions, or do what I do and carry a little Weleda pump action deodorant just for such a purpose.  These are the next best deodorant I have ever tried by the way.  They do a hand bag size but it works out more expensive so I bought it once and now refill it from the larger size.  (I used to get through a lot more of them before discovering bicarb!)

Well the bicarb thing got me thinking.  What is happening here?   How come we spend all that money and put a cocktail of chemicals and perfume onto our skin when bicarb works better?   (At least for some people - I wouldn’t like to say this was universal on the basis of the three of us plus No Impact Man.)

How to use bicarb deodorant

Just tip a bit onto your fingers and rub onto a freshly washed arm pit.  Voila.  Do not use too much though, or you will get a tide mark on black clothes.  It will wash (or even rub) out if you do.  Use just a little and it is as effective as a larger quantity and there is no tide mark.  As a side benefit there is no staining on white clothes under the arms either.  Turns out it is the deodorant that causes that not the sweat.

So no worries about aluminium or any chemicals in the deodorant any more and more money in my pocket. 

Just a wee note here.  The solid crystal deodorants I looked at in the health shop are crystallised alum.  In other words aluminium.  They didn’t work for me at all, along with every other deodorant I have ever bought in a health shop apart from the Weleda one which is alcohol based.  I am quite a sweaty person and always have been, so was amazed when the bicarb actually worked. 

It made me think about the nature of marketing – which is after all designed to make us want to buy things, and not necessarily about finding out what works best. 

If there is little profit in it who is going to market it to us?  A 250g packet of bicarb cost me £1/$1.50 and lasts for over a year. I bought it in the local Pound Shop (discount store).  It is increasingly available in this larger quantity as opposed to the wee tubs for baking which are also good value but more expensive if you are going to use it long term. 

 One year on I am not even half way through the packet and have been using it in baking as well. 

Other uses for Bicarb

Bicarb was what my Mum used to get rid of the smell in things like thermos flasks, and hopefully some of you already know about that. 

But just in case…Bicarb gets rid of the coffee smell out of a thermos flask, plastic smell out of your lunch box and just about any other smell.  Just half fill with warm or hot water, add a teaspoon of bicarb and top up with some more water.  Leave it for a couple of hours and the smell is gone. 

Why didn’t I try this before?. 

Marketing is such a subtle art and I believe it affects us all, often without us even registering that it is happening.  Just remember that ANY product is on the market simply because the folks selling it WANT TO MAKE MONEY.  So how do you make money when the world’s most effective deodorant costs no more than 50p/75c per person per year?  Maybe you make a new product.

It made me wonder if we forget what we once knew was good, just because something else has a higher profile.

Well, washing powder/laundry detergent. I have to make an admission here.  I have never really believed those things about vinegar and lemon juice etc being better cleaners. 

But I am carrying out my own experiments and finding that I am wrong. 

Mainly the things our great grannies used to use but have now been superseded by so-called better ones.  The thing is that for us, quite a few are not better - not even as good, cost more money and are full of chemicals that we would rather not have in our bodies, food chain and water supply.  (Yeah if you flush them down the loo that is where they may end up.)  You may disagree of course, we are all different.

Washing soda.

I always wondered what this was for and had a vague notion it would help unblock drains.  (That is caustic soda actually and is a different thing).

Turns out it is for doing laundry – hence the name, huh.  There is nothing in it except washing soda.  No additives, colours or other chemicals.  Great if you have babies or sensitive skin and better for the environment. 

It costs £1/$1.50 per packet and is easy to buy.  It works better than many laundry products we had tried and does not bring hubby’s sensitive skin out in a rash.  We had been using an eco friendly laundry detergent – washing soda is much cheaper and has no additives - and even the eco friendly ones have some.  It is fine for our automatic washing machine as it does not froth up.  If you are unsure about your machine be sensible and try a small quantity first to make sure but we have had no problems at all.

An added bonus?  All our whites got whiter.

Incidentally if I had a dishwasher I would try it in that too.  I don’t though.  So if you have one and want to try it do give feed back.

And the smell…

You get used to the smell of your own laundry detergent.  What we have come to realise now we use the washing soda is that to us, laundry detergent now has a strong  smell and i a highly scented product.

Fabric conditioner?

Turns out that if you do not use a commercial washing powder, there is no need for fabric conditioner.  The clothes just do not feel stiff and rough any more. 

20 years ago hardly anyone used it. 

If you do use laundry detergent and fabric conditioner or dishwasher detergent get the cheapest ‘form’ of it.

Loose laundry and dishwasher powder works out the cheapest.  Cheaper than the liquid, the tablet and most of all cheaper than the little sachets.  it is all the same stuff, why pay more for fancy packaging?  Try the cheaper version and see if you can tell the difference…

Liquid fabric conditioner added to the wash tends to work out less expensive than tumble dryer fabric conditioner sheets. And anyway you can dry the laundry outside or on a clothes horse or pulley most of the time…

What about wipes?  There seems to be a wipe for everything.  Maybe marketing geniuses had sessions to think of how many different wipes could be marketed so that we all buy lots of them.  They do not break down, being polypropylene or something like that and many get washed up on the beach or swallowed by sea life because people flush them down the toilet.

When our kids were small we just used tissues or paper towel when we were out if they got sticky.  It worked fine and at least it was biodegradable.  My mum used to carry a damp flannel (face cloth) in a plastic bag.  Now you have a packet of wipes. 

So the humble duster is now a disposable wipe. The mop has a wipe to attach to it.  The dog no longer has an old towel to dry its feet with but has special doggy wipes.

The thing is the paper towel just had water on it.   The wipes have all sorts of things on them.  Just look at the ingredients.  Then decide whether some paper towel or cotton wool and water would do the job.

And so to Borax

This comes as a powder and yes, you guessed it, costs £1/$1.50 a packet. It is anti bacterial and is amazing at getting marks off things.  We make it up with water in a spray bottle and use it as we used to use commercially available anti bacterial spray.  

 If we had a highly infectious disease in the house I may buy the other kind as a one off – but there is probably no need. And anyway, household bleach is the most effective thing against bacteria like the Noro virus and ordinary, thin household bleach costs about 30p/50c a litre so I would probably dilute that and use it instead. 

NB bleach can be damaging to the waterways.  If you want to use it, use it sparingly.  There is, for instance no point in bleaching a floor which does not need to be sterile and will not stay so for more than a minute anyway.  And do not mix it with detergent as it can cause a chemical reaction that gives off chlorine gas. Just stick to a simple floor soap - or of course washing soda.

Vinegar

Want to get the stains or stuck-on crud off the inside of the toilet?  Leave vinegar in it overnight.  Works a treat.  And then use the borax solution to clean it in future. We bought a commercial eco friendly toilet cleaner but it rusted the bolts that held the loo seat on.  Guess it was vinegar based, but it was a lot more expensive than vinegar. 

Do not use the vinegar to clean the seat or outside of the toilet though for the same reason.

The £11 Christmas dinner - plan now for 2012.

I know Christmas is past but in order to have a relaxed, organised and cheap Christmas now is the time to plan it.  

We watched a programme on iplayer (as we very occasionally do) about how to make a Christmas dinner for eight people for ‘only’ £50.  To us, that seemed like an awful lot of money for just one meal.  But then we don’t want to work full time to pay for all that stuff.  so I decided to cost our Christmas dinner.  It is always more than you think, once the extras are added in.

Admittedly the family concerned had been spending £1200 on just that one meal. It was big shift for them and very well done.  It got me thinking though because £50 for one meal seemed so extravagant and there are people in the world who are starving.

The same meal can be done for a lot less and no one would even notice the difference.  Just take out the impulse buys that you thought would make it perfect they will probably only sit in the cupboard anyway. 

You would be hard pressed to know which meal was the £50 one and which was our £11 one.  Yes, really.

Judging by the amount left on people’s plates after their £50 meal on that TV programme there was still way too much food.  There was lots left in the serving dishes too.   I hope they had a cook in and made lots more dishes out of it.  By that I mean the veg, stuffing and everything else not just the turkey.  It would provide meals for weeks to come.

Actually our £11 Christmas dinner is providing meals for weeks to come too.

With a food budget of £50 we could easily provide open house and feel whoever came along for a week.  And feed them well. 

Before Christmas some of us are groaning ‘let’s just get this over with’ and others are saying ‘I love Christmas’. 

My First question is this:  Are you religious and if not, what do you love about it?  Shopping?  Cooking?  All the family in one place? Turkey?  Those things are all fine but only the first one needs to cost a lot of money.   Analyse what you really love and focus the spending there rather than trying to do it all.

My second question is: Do you still love it in January when the credit card bill comes in? 

There is certainly lots of marketing and advertising to make us think that presents, decorations, too much food and the ideal family is what Christmas is about.  Without spending money, the story goes you cannot have a good Christmas.

The family in the mythical ad we have all seen has:

·         A large enough living room for that jumbo sized Dobbies pre-decorated £500 (now reduced to £250) Christmas tree without having to sit round it. 

·         The ideal gift every time – not for them the gift that results from no one knowing what to buy each other.

·         The perfect family who all want to do the same thing at Christmas and never get bored or stuck in an airport.

·         Lots of money and a large house.  Money is no object here they just buy what they like.

the main course

The £11 Christmas dinner

It is different each year, but it is always cheap, always good and always opportunistic. 

Christmas dinner cost us around £11 this year for four people.  Last year it was a bit more and the year before it was a lot less.  The amount of food we had would have easily fed 8 people so the aforementioned £50 Christmas dinner on the TV programme would have cost much the same as our 4 person dinner did.   

The large bags of veg were such good value that I  bought them anyway and froze the surplus.  There was enough turkey left over for several more meals.

 In those years when it has cost  us more – say £20 because of buying  a full sized turkey – that turkey and any other associated leftovers will make many, many meals for months to come.  In fact we just had the last 2 slices of turkey breast from last year’s turkey the week before Christmas.  Sometimes we have kept half of the turkey in the freezer for the following Christmas. 

How I did the costings

In the costings below I have included the full purchase cost even if there was quite a bit of the item left.  If I just costed what we actually used the true cost would be about £5 I reckon.
If something came out of the cupboard and was half eaten (eg the oatcakes and Bombay mix) I have still included the whole cost (with the exception of the custard.)  even if we already had it and did not use it all.
Using what you have saves a lot of money for  a meal like this of course but costing it anyway means I know I am not cheating.

It’s all in the planning

The trick is to think ahead.  Think of Christmas (or any other ‘big meal’ event such as a wedding or birthday) all year.  Just keep it in mind and keep your eyes open.

Make sure it has your favourite foods in it.

Adapt any suggestions to encompass everyone’s favourite foods and the meal will be a hit.  We love veg and smoked salmon and like to eat healthily – hence the simple starter below. 

Think over all cost

It is the overall cost of your weekly food budget that is important not just the cost of this one meal.  So if for instance you get a turkey the size of a house reduced to £10, that may be better value than a small one for £5.  The ‘cost’ of Christmas dinner may seem more on the face of it but you are actually saving money.

My daughter got an absolutely huge turkey reduced to £7 last year.  We reckon it was just too big for most people – and most ovens.  Just cut it in half and cook it in two pieces. 

If you cook both halves, keep one half for next Christmas.  Or slice it up and freeze the slices in bags (put just a few slices in each bag) to use for other meals or sandwiches.

The Turkey

We bought this year’s turkey on Boxing Day last year.  It was a fresh, humanely reared turkey crown and suddenly was not worth very much.  The frozen ones did not go down in price but the fresh ones sure did and we got it for £2/$3.  The thing is, the planning takes very little time – just pause to think once in a while, and keep your eyes open when out shopping throughout the year.

The nibbles and starter.

Smoked salmon at £2.50/$3.75 a packet along with oatcakes at 79p/$1.20.  Served with the remaining carrot sticks and raw broccoli florets.  Very tasty, healthy and got a big thumbs up.  You can pay a lot more for very special smoked salmon but this was on offer and tasted fine.

To nibble on before dinner there was half a packet of Bombay Mix (1.20 a packet) and crudites - chopped up raw carrot and broccoli florets with a few chopped raw brussel sprouts because I am partial to them like that even if no one else was!

There were lots of oatcakes left and the veg is costed in the main meal.  No Bombay Mix left because I ate it all – that’ll teach me.

Total starter and nibbles cost £4.49

the veg was good gravy on this one too

The veg

The parsnips and leeks were grown in the garden.  We dug them up in advance just in case the ground was frozen at Christmas.  There is lots of other veg in the freezer.  We would normally eat what  we have so it might be broad beans and cabbage instead of brussel sprouts.  The potatoes cost £1 for a bag and we used about half of them. 

We had roasted and boiled potatoes.  the gravy was made from the stock in the turkey tray.

This year we were taking dinner to my daughter’s house so I decided to buy brussel sprouts and be traditional.  They cost £1/$1.50 for a very large packet on special offer.
Guess what - they don’t like brussel sprouts and we don’t eat them often (nice shredded in salads though) so I needn’t have bothered.  The carrots were 40p/60c a kilo and we used about a quarter of them.  The quantity of veg could have have easily fed 10 people so lots left for the freezer.  (And we eat a lot of veg.)  The broccoli was also £1/$1.50. 

There seemed to be some really good last minute offers on veg this year for Christmas. 

Total veg cost £3.40/$5.10 with lots left over, both cooked and uncooked.

A bargain Christmas pud

The 20p/30c Christmas puddings

In July we bought ten Christmas puddings for 20p each and gave quite a few away.  They were ‘extra special’ ones with a best before date of Nov 2012.  Not that it would have mattered if the date was past, a ‘best before’ just means it might not taste quite so good and we could have kept them in the freezer.  We added custard made from a tin at about 40p cost including the milk. 

Total pudding cost 40p/60c

And the cake? 

We usually start it on Boxing Day as there is more than enough food on Christmas Day without it.  A friend gave us a lovely dumpling when we had a recent get together.  Hardly any was eaten but she generously gave us the rest as a gift. A Scottish dumpling is a wonderful moist fruit cake rather than something you eat with stew and hers are legendary. 

I had some marzipan in the freezer that was also bought last year at a reduced price.  I think it was 50p but cannot quite remember.  I looked at icing sugar and it was twice the price of ordinary sugar for half as much. 

So I made my own with granulated sugar which is very simple.

How to make icing sugar

Put the sugar in a blender or food processor and process until it turns into a powder.   Takes about 2 minutes.  Cost about 30p. lots left over.

The cake was delicious and no one could tell the difference.   In fact it was voted better than ‘normal’ Christmas cake.

Total cost for cake 80p/$1.20

Christmascrackers on the table

Christmas crackers

We bought a box of 12 last year but not everyone wanted one and only four got used.  This year there were only four of us anyway so another four got used.  There are now four left for next year.

 

A couple of tips here:
1.  I put a note in my diary in November and another in December saying ‘do not buy crackers there are some in the loft.’  Do the same with anything else you buy as a bargain and you will not forget and end up buying more.

2.  Get the crackers out of the loft a couple of weeks early and keep them in a warm room to make sure they are not damp – or no bang when you pull them!

3.  Make your own crackers or just give little party bags – do they really need to go bang anyway?

Total cost Zero – these were costed in last year’s dinner.

What was left over

There was masses of food left over.  We gave my daughter and her boyfriend lots of turkey slices to keep them going and put a load in our own freezer too.  There was half a bag of brussel sprouts and another of carrots left.  There were also cooked carrots, sprouts  and broccoli which were made into soup (carrots) and bubble and squeak (sprouts, potatoes and broccoli). Most of the box of oatcakes was also left but we ate all the smoked salmon.  (mostly me actually)

And as usual the cake kept going for another week even though it had not seemed very large to start with. And I only used half of it.  I just got the other half out of the freezer today.  We could have had a larger Christmas cake but the small one felt nice and was loads.

Its different every year

Now its easy to think ‘But I didn’t get given a dumpling/find a bargain turkey etc so I can’t do it for the same price.’

It is different every year but keep an eye out and be creative and something will come up.

Here are some ideas:

·        Buy a turkey and keep half in the freezer for next year.
·         Freeze any left over veg so that it is not wasted.  Remember it is the overall cost of eating that is important not just the cost of that one meal.
·         Get a chicken or other meat instead of a turkey
·         If you are vegetarian ignore the Christmas dinner conventions altogether and just have a nice meal.  Do not feel honour bound to replicate what is actually a rather simple meat and two veg meal anyway. 
·         If you are a meat eater, ignore the Christmas dinner convention and just cook a nice meal too!
·         Use what you have.  We had a pheasant one year because we got given one.  Another year we had trout.  We were given some fish by a friend and one was huge.  So we kept if for Christmas dinner.
·         Keep a look out in the shops all year round.

                             

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

don't get scared

kale pesto is cheap and surprisingly good

I have been listening to the news in order to learn about the recession.  I am blessed because it has had some impact on me, (I will not get my pension until I am a lot older than I would have) but overall life is okay.

Our financial house is in reasonable order, we have no debt and the mortgage is paid so we could survive for a while if we had to.  Yet despite all this I have been feeling anxious about the recession.
So I asked myself this: if I did not listen to the news, how would I feel? the answer is fine.  I am still doing the same things, still in good health, have a roof over my head and enough to eat.  We never did have a lavish lifestyle anyway as you will have guessed if you read this blog regularly - that is the whole point.

I came to the conclusion a long time ago that listening to the news or reading the papers (or watching it on TV) does not give you a balanced view of world events, or even of those in your local area.  It only reports the bad things and it is easy to think that things are worse than they are.  Some people who live in gated communities get an impression that the world outside the gate is a dangerous place, and this is bit the same.

So despite the fact that I don't personally know anyone whose life is in ruins I feel like all of our lives are.  That is not to minimise the impact on some of us, and it is important to work together as a community and family to help those who are not doing so well.
I have therefore made the following decisions:
1.  to stop listening to the news
2.  to give more money to charities that help those in difficult circumstances
3.  to continue blogging about saving money, living on less and all those great things that anyone can do whether they really need to because they are broke or because they just want to live a better life and to live on less.
4.  to harvest all the veg in my garden that is still out there.  we grew such a lot this year and the freezer is nearly full.
5.  to don my frugal black belt and do all I can to save, economise and otherwise be a good example to my kids.
Frugal recipe  kale Pesto
ingredients
A good handful of young soft kale leaves.  this is important.  it is tasty with young leaves and strong and tough with old ones.
the young leaves are sweet and delicious. Cook the leaves until just tender in pan, the base of which is covered with a little water.  drain.
tablespoon of pine nuts or cashews
1 table spoon of olive oil.
blend until smooth and serve with pasta.  It is very good.  a raw version can be made if the kale is not cooked first.

Is it worth growing your own food?

A lot more people are growing a bit of fruit and veg now and it seems to be one of the good things to come out of this recession.  Yes, there are some good things, though not so much if you have lost your job and are really struggling.
If you are struggling it may be even more worthwhile to grow some food. 
the equation works like this:
There is the actual value of the food if you were to buy it.  Now on this basis, the gains are small for the work and hours you put in. However if your produce is organic you may find you are eating healthier food than you could afford to buy as well as saving a bit of money compared to the cost of buying the non organic alternative.  If you compare the price of the organic food directly the savings are greater. the food is or course very fresh so its nutritional value will be better than even the shop bought organic produce.
Our strawberry bed is only 10 feet x 4 feet (3mx 1.5) and we get a kilo/2.4lbs of strawberries a day for a month from it.  It is in the front garden and does not even look out of place.
All for the price of a compost bin of our own kitchen waste each year.  perennial crops like strawberries, raspberries blackcurrants and apples give a lot of food for relatively little work and expense.

You get free exercise Cancel that gym membership for the summer - it probably exercises your wallet more than it exercises you anyway.  Put the £20-40/$10-20 a month it saves you (even assuming you did not drive the car to the gym and use fuel to get there) in a savings account.  It can pay for next year's load of manure in one month and the seeds in another.  All the rest is a saving.

Substitute your own produce for what you would normally buy.  This means that a home grown potato is the equivalent of not only shop bought organic potatoes  but also can replace rice or pasta.  It does more than that, because there are a whole host of meals actually based on potatoes, such as potato and spinach curry, baked potatoes, potatoes au gratin etc.  Add four different varieties of veg and salad (eg stir fried chard, mange tout & shallots with a lettuce & rocket salad made with four kinds of lettuce) and who would not feel it is a meal.  If you want to add meat, fish eggs or cheese go for it but they do not need to be the centre of the meal unless you want them to be.  But don't worry too much about the protein.  It is actually hard for someone in the Western world to ed up with a protein deficiency.  The amount an adult needs per day is only 00g/4oz which is smaller than almost any protein serving we have at one meal these days.  A child needs a little more if they are growing but only about 6ozs/150g.  One glass of milk and a small piece of meat, an egg or a small amount of cheese in other words.

Added value.
Added value means making things with your produce that you would pay more for, such as chutney and jam, dried fruit, pies etc.  Then the produce replaces something more expensive to buy.  Another idea is to dry things like apple rings and strawberries to add to muesli.  We dried strawberries ad blackcurrants this year and I wish we had done more.

How to make chutney.

Plum chutney

I have just made four jars of plum, apple and carrot chutney.  I added curry spices, chilli and ginger and it will replace expensive lime pickle to go with curries.  Delicious.  Just pick any chutney recipe and substitute any other fruit or veg for the one specified.  Change the spices and seasoning.  I miss out the raisins and sultanas too.

Swap produce with friends. 
It is good to grow a smaller amount of more different things and eat them as they go rather than waiting until they are 'ready' especially with potatoes.  Another idea is to swap with friends so that you get more variety.  I just swapped some of our grapes and celery for some plums to make the chutney with.  Makes a change.

Instead of freezing it all as veg, make soup and stews and freeze those.
 That means you have a freezer full of healthy, organic ready meals.  the main thing that stops people using all the veg they grow is that they get home from work hungry.  It is raining and they do not want to dig up veg, wash and cook it before they can eat.  Pick and wash salad in advance and keep it in plastic boxes in the fridge.  Then is is just as handy as bought, bagged salad.

It takes practise to get the best yields
Bear in mind that in your first year the yields will not be as high because it will probably take a couple of years to build up the soil fertility - annual veg crops in particular need a lot of nutrients.  In the beginning, more things will not succeed due to learning and after two or three seasons you will have a better idea what is likely to do well in your locality.

Get gardening - not shopping!
The buying habit can simply transfer itself to gardening and then there will be little financial benefit for quite a while.  Buying expensive plastic raised beds, bags of compost and fertiliser (hopefully organic fertiliser at least), exotic seeds and expensive seed varieties that promise all sorts of things will soon break the bank.  The garden products and seeds that promise all those miracles are a bit like hair and beauty products.
Eventually you learn to be selective after ten different products do not make your hair shinier or give bigger yields of extra fast growing crops, but in the meantime it costs a lot!
And fertiliser is of course good old fashioned manure.  Horse or cow manure will do fine.  There is no need to worry about E Coli contamination - composting the manure for a year takes care of it and it is apparently only present in cow manure not in horse manure as it does not survive the gut of the horse.  If you are worried, compost it for two years and pretty much all experts agree it is safe.

Network or join a gardening club
lots of things on sale at the garden centre are being chucked out by gardeners all over the country.  eventually mature plants need thinning out and the surplus just goes on the compost heap.  Many gardeners hate the waste and will be delighted to give you cuttings and root stocks.  For instance, blackcurrants must be pruned each year.  Just shove some of the prunings in the ground and they grow new bushes.  Or you can buy them for £8/$14 each of course.  Raspberries throw up suckers.  These are what the garden centres pot up and sell to us as new plants, but many gardeners have to throw them away.  The garden centre would say theirs are better and disease free, but every time I have had a disease it came from a garden centre, not from a friend, who would tell you if there was a problem after all. 

Garden companies tell us it is too risky to use supermarket potatoes as seed because of the risk of disease.  But you can see disease on potatoes and I have often seen it on seed potatoes, which lets face it are grown in a field just like any other potato is.

Blight is the biggest threat to potatoes in temperate zones with high rain fall.  It caused the Irish potato famine.  Sarpo varieties of potatoes are very blight resistant - they just don't get blight - and therefore you can save a few for next year once you have some.  You can also just leave a few in the ground.  common wisdom is that this spreads disease - but most gardeners will have noticed that the once that got left in the ground are usually the only ones that don't get blight!

Keep it simple to start with.
Grow a few potatoes, some broad beans, leeks onions and salad crops such as rocket and lettuce.  If you live somewhere with a reasonable climate, try some runner beans and courgettes.  Buy standard seed varieties.  the tried and tested ones are often the cheapest and the newer more expensive varieties not always worth the extra cash.
 And do the sums, do not waste money on expensive promises and buy good basic seeds.

What did we grow this year?
Well it is not over yet.  We have  a small polytunnel and there will be produce in it until Christmas. 
Our best producers this year (in common with most gardeners) are:
Rhubarb 10kg

One day's strawberry pickings.  about 3kg.  They semi ripe ones will be ripe by morning.

Strawberries 30kg
Blackcurrants 30kg
Apples 25kg (small cordon trees along a fence then they fit in a small garden)
Potatoes about 20kg
Broad beans 10kg
Courgettes about 10kg so far
Tomatoes 3kg so far and lots more to come
Lettuce and rocket  as much as we could eat since April  (got to the lettuce soup stage!)
Onions, shallots & leeks.  more still to come but about  5kg in total
lots of tasty but less productive things such as grapes, mange tout and purple podded peas 10kg in total.
20kg of celery.

that's 173 kg of fruit and veg at a conservative estimate.  That is a lot of food.  It is probably nearer 200 kg in actual fact and we grow veg all winter too.  Although the returns are less in January and Febtruary, the cost of fresh produce is more in winter so the savings on salad in October to December are significant.    At a cost to buy of £2/$4 a kilo that is £346 $692 approx.  We spent about £100 on the garden - £40/$80 for a load of manure, £40/$80 on seeds and £20/$40 on books and other things. 

We had a load of fun and the food tasted better than anything we could buy.  Actually keeping accounts of the financial costs and benefits has been great fun too.

How recession-proof are you?

Some of us are of course really struggling in this recession.  When that happens, it is all about survival paying the mortgage or rent and buying food.  If there is no money for anything else you do not get anything else. 

The trouble is, many people have actually been in that position for years without realising it.  In other words, they had less than nothing to start with because they have borrowed more than they earned and were not paying off the debt as a priority, but spending their income on other non-essential things.  Then when someone in the household loses a job it is a disaster, even if there is someone still working.  So this is about how to assess your situation and recession-proof insofar as that is possible, because this affects everyone.

We have been  reviewing our position given the changes and these are the questions we are asking ourselves.

1.       How inflation proof are we?

2.       Are we living on income or capital?

3.       Are we putting some money into savings each month – even if it is a very small amount?

4.       How would we manage if one or both of us lost our work?

5.       How will the proposed changes in our occupational and state pensions affect us in the future?  This is relevant no matter how young you are.

 

1.       How inflation proof are you?

We are fortunate to have a relatively inflation proof lifestyle.  Not having a large income, we also do not spend much money.  That means spending time doing things instead of paying others to do them, which is more inflation proof.  

As the price of goods and services goes up and the risk of unemployment gets higher, the value of doing things yourself also goes up.

So for example economising to reduce expenditure rather than just earning more money makes sense.   The job can disappear in a moment and when no money is coming in, the time spent growing food is worthwhile even if the hourly rate is low.  The lower the expenses the better you survive unemployment and wage cuts.

There are other hidden benefits to things like growing vegetables such as meeting the neighbours whilst out in the garden and being able to cancel the gym membership.

2.       Are you living off income or capital?

Spending everything you earn in wages actually means you are living off capital!  There is nothing there for unexpected expenses so when those occur you need to borrow money.

This is not a time to deplete savings but to increase them whenever possible.  The interest earned on savings has gone down in many cases (unless you have inflation linked savings) which means you need to save harder to gain the same ground.

Here are some useful questions:

Are you saving 20% - or at the very least 10% of everything you earn?  If not you are actually living beyond your means and have no financial cushion if circumstances change or for roof repairs, a new car or other larger expenses.

·         Do you have debt?  If you are working in a well paid job but have debt get rid of it as fast as possible.  Put every spare penny/cent into paying it off.  If the debt agreement does not allow you to pay if off early, put the money into a separate savings account to pay for it later.  Get rid of the most expensive debt first.  Transfer any credit card debt to a 0% deal.  Do NOT use that card for purchases and aim to pay it off before the 0% deal is finished.

Remember – debt can be a disaster if you become unemployed.

·         Insure what you cannot afford to lose – but no more.

In other words, insure your house and your car.  Your health if you live in a country without a National Health Service.  If you have dependents and no income other than your job, look into insuring against you becoming ill or dying so that they will survive without you.

·         If you lose your job, make sure you will not lose your home.  If there are two people in jobs within a household, mortgage protection insurance may only pay up if both people lose their jobs.   Or it may pay for half the cost of the mortgage but not all of it.  Check that the cover has the right balance, so that if the main wage earner is made redundant there will be enough to pay the mortgage and remember there is usually no payment for the first three months.  In other words, the very least there should ever be in the bank is enough to cover three months, mortgage, council/property tax and bills.  Remember you are unlikely to get any state benefits if the other person is still working, mortgage or not, and it is very difficult to borrow money if you do not have a job.

·         Put your savings into tax free cash savings.  This is not the time for individuals to play the stock market.  Remember financial advisers do not make commission out of cash savings such as National Savings and Investments so are unlikely to recommend them or be abreast of them in the same way they are with other investments. 

Use up all the tax free cash savings options available.  In the UK National Savings and Investments Index Linked Savings Certificates are tax free and earn the equivalent to the Retail Price Index in interest, plus a small amount.   That means they are inflation proof.  Check the inflation rate and if it is high (as it is at the time of writing) they are very worthwhile.    You are not paying any commission off what they earn either.

·         Check that your personal pension is in the safest investments possible whilst the stock market is volatile.  You will have to ask the question, it will not happen automatically.   Keep an eye on how the pension is doing and it will do much better.

·         Remember - no one will look after your money as well as you will.  Keep on top of it, move it when interest rates go down and keep putting a little bit into savings each month.

·         Consider all the ways you can reduce out goings and inflation proof your lifestyle for the future.  We installed solar panels which have inflation linked payments for the electricity generated, grow some of our own food, have a wood burning stove and have paid off the mortgage early.  Your house is a liability rather than an investment in most cases, because you cannot sell it and live off the money without becoming homeless.  Make the house as low a liability as possible by moving to a smaller house if you have a large mortgage, doing Bed and Breakfast, getting a lodger or anything else you can think of. 

In other words this is a time to be resourceful, reduce unnecessary spending and put more money into savings.  Develop good habits now and if things do go wrong, it will be much easier to cope.

Chop Wood, Carry Water.

Helen and Scott Nearing in their famous book ‘The Good Life’, talk about the meaning of life being ‘chop wood, carry water’.

I know exactly what they mean.  The things that give life meaning are things that make us feel real.  It does not literally have to be chopping wood and carrying water – they can get a bit irksome if you have to do them all the time.

I have been listening to a rather amusing series on Radio 4 about a care worker from abroad called Beauty.  She commented yesterday that we Europeans seem intent on doing away with all our modern comforts and conveniences and living like someone in the third world – ie back to nature, camping, doing without electricity etc.  She has a point, actually.  It is all very well doing without these things if you already have them and can go back to them at any time.  If you really have to depend on chopping wood and carrying water and growing all your own food for your survival it is very hard, especially if you are ill, or old, or pregnant…

However, somewhere in there is a compromise.  There is no need to exhaust ourselves trying to do it all, but maybe it makes sense to make mashed potato rather than buy a plastic tray of it in the supermarket for £1/$1.50.  It will be more enjoyable not just because it tastes a whole lot better, but because you made it and because it only cost 20p/30c.

I love to chop wood and I love to rescue wood from the dump and use it on our woodstove.  This week I learned to use metal splitting wedges to split huge logs.  I phoned up a company that sold such things and asked what a five foot tall and not very strong woman could use to split logs.  So now I am the proud owner of two wedges.  With a sledge hammer, a bit of practise and the help of a You Tube video I found I can split some quite large logs that I was given and it feels great.  But thank goodness it is not my only form of heating in minus 20c. 

I guess it is all about balance.  I like to make do and mend rather than have to work full time.  But too much make do and mend and I feel deprived and am likely to go and spend money to make myself feel better.  A bit like the binge and diet syndrome. 

We all have deep human needs to be 1. Understood,  and   2.  Useful and valued. Doing no work at all is quite depressing actually.  

I do not mean only paid work here, having children or relatives to care for, volunteering, growing food, chopping wood and carrying water all qualify.

Even Scott and Helen Nearing left their ‘Good Life’ when they got older.  Actually, the whole point of communities is to not have to do it all yourself.  And we simplify and aim to live in one place and have a locally based life of meaning and community, then realise that is just what people living in small towns and villages all over the world have done for generations.  It just does not seem sexy when it is the kind of life you grew up with.  Peasant life in rural France seems romantic if you grew up in a mining village in the UK and probably vice versa.

So here I am living the life that my Grandparents did, in a geographically different but otherwise very similar part of the country.  They had allotments, so did I.  They grew veg and kept chickens, so have I.  They chopped wood for the fire and so do I.  My grandmother saved bits of string and plastic bags and so do I.  I can even still taste the tinned ham that was fast food if she ever got unexpected guests.  (It makes a great sandwich with a spot of mustard - yum).

In fact today I bought a new(er) copy  of the Good Housekeeping Cook Book. In our local charity shop.   

 My mother gave me a copy when I left home and it has everything in it that I have ever needed to know, even down to party menus and quantities for larger scale catering.  Her mother had bought her a copy of it when she got married.  And it is still in print today.  And I chopped wood, but drew the line at carrying water and used the hosepipe and automatic sprinkler to water the poly tunnel and strawberry bed.