Rich and I have made a pact to try to not put the central heating on until November 1st. At least, that’s our first goal. So I’ve been collecting offcuts of wood from various DIY projects, cuttings from the apple, damson and cherry tree, and cut up our old shed and fencing… all to supply our little fire in the living room (trying to keep use of coal down to a minimum).
The problem is that open fires are so inefficient with their energy consumption/heat output compared to log burning stoves. That is the dream – a little log burning stove that we fuel from our own little patch… but so many other things to save up before we can even think about having one installed. The aim with keeping the heating off is to make a small contribution to ‘saving the planet’, and all that jazz, but to also save on our heating bills (whatever the government says, they’ve increased every year and it’s a massive outgoing).
I don’t usually write about my finances any more on my blog. I made an executive decision a few years ago to not talk about my financial situation here; this was for a number of reasons, but mostly because people in my life would read my blog and ultimately, I felt as though I would be judged. In fact, I was judged. But today I’m going to make an exception to my own rule. I just had to fork out a rather large sum on getting my car to pass it’s MOT re-test, and it’s left me really quite short for the rest of the month. It wouldn’t be an issue, if it wasn’t for my personal debt.
Although things are much better now – my work life is much happier, so much more fulfilling and much better paid – the fact is that since before my student days, I have accrued a lot of debt. And it hangs around my neck like an albatross. It’s like a big black hole that sucks away your hard-earned cash, never to be seen again. So much of my pay packet goes into that black hole of debt, and it just feels so futile sometimes. It’s mostly my own fault. As a student, I couldn’t work due to time constraints and chronic back problems (I couldn’t even get a job decorating Christmas trees because of my back, they didn’t want to know), so with food bills, fuel bills, transport costs, printing costs, materials costs for the degree, and general living costs, my stupidly small student loan went nowhere, and the credit card company rubbed their hands together in glee.
Getting a job after uni was hard, despite my collection of A-grade A-Levels, and my degree. I was working to live a lot of the time, and when I got my corporate hell full-time job, my back was so bad that there were some weeks where I couldn’t walk properly, couldn’t push a door open without being in huge amounts of pain. All so just enough money would arrive into my bank account to cover the bills, but not a lot else. But we needed to replace electrical appliances, we never thought that vet bills would amount to so much when we got our chickens and the stray cats kept arriving at our door. I could barely pay my tax and national insurance, and I was sometimes just plain careless with my spending. My friends also live far and wide, and seeing them ultimately becomes a costly experience. I was afraid I would miss out by not seeing them, but the reality is, I can’t always afford to do it. In the past, I would run out of money barely a third of the way through the month and blindly put the rest on my credit card, blocking out all thoughts of what my statement would like the next time it arrived. And yet, they kept giving me more credit, and the APR would creep up and up and up. Not particularly “self-sufficient”, as has been my aim for the past seven years or so.
So here I am, 13 years after leaving school and leaving home, with this ball and chain of debt that hoovers up large numbers out of my bank account every month. These days, maybe because I’m older and wiser, and maybe because I’ve been forced to think about things such as saving up for a mortgage, I have faced my finances. I know what the score is. And I know that I have to work really hard to keep chipping away at my debt, because when it’s gone, my life will be so much better. I’ve kept a spreadsheet of my debt for about 2 years now, and it’s not gone down. But I’m determined to make it happen.
The first way that I shall do this is to work more; my back problems have meant that full-time work has never really been an option, but my current job is flexible (REJOICE! REJOICE!) and so I am able to control my hours, my breaks and manage my rubbish joints and back so much more. It has been a God-send. I can now work more than I’ve ever been able to work in the past. The second thing I have done, is remove all but one credit card from my wallet, and leave one for emergencies. I have successfully not spent on the card with the biggest debt for well over a year now. The interest on that card is appalling, and I’ll be damned if I give HSBC Mastercard a penny more than I currently owe. I’ve not put anything on a credit card for almost 4 months, and this is my new aim. If I ain’t earned it, I ain’t spending it.
The third thing that I am going to do, is cut down my food bills. I have said this incessantly over the years, but never really taken proper action. I will set a budget for groceries and for cat food and rabbit food, and stick to it. Maybe take out a set amount of cash every week and just have to make it last. And I’ll have to do my research and find lots of yummy recipes on a budget. Being vegan, I don’t buy expensive things like meat and cheese, so this – in theory – should be relatively easy, especially since I love things like stews, curries and soups… all of which are usually pretty cheap to make in bulk. Takeaways will not be a weekly occurrence.
I will also try to grow the more expensive food on my own patch. Now that I am working harder on producing my own compost, my yields should be higher. I’m not sure what constitutes ‘more expensive food’ from my shopping list yet, but I’ll have to sit down with the shopping receipts and have a think. Peppers, possibly? The bunches of flat leaf parsley we buy for the rabbits? Maybe it’s the organic carrots that we buy and eat like they’re going out of fashion. On the flip side, my homegrown potatoes and garlic have been fab this year and saved us a few pennies at least, and somehow growing my own makes me more inclined to use every available scrap of food I produce, and keep waste reduced to a minimum. Rich and I collected a month’s worth of shopping receipts to break down what we spend where, and how we can reduce our outgoings, but I haven’t looked at the numbers properly. Must. Make. Time.
Next on the list is what I call superfluous spending; I am also going to have to budget for things like Birthdays and Christmas. I love giving presents, but ultimately over the years I’ve been a bit too generous for my circumstances. So this year for Christmas, I’m not only starting early to spread out the overall cost of buying gifts, but I’m setting a budget per person, and sticking to it without feeling guilty. It’s all too easy to get sucked into the “bigger is better” mindset, worrying that you’ve bought less than you might receive from something else, but my plan is to buy something within budget from a charity, so there’s a three-fold benefit. 1 – the receiver gets a nice gift! 2 – I don’t break the bank. 3 – the charity benefits. So far I have bought a few things from the Turkish Animal Rescue Organisation monthly auctions, and intend to buy my Christmas cards from another Romanian dog charity. It will take some research to sort out my gift list, but I have time.
And lastly – the fuel bills. We’ve already re-jigged the hot water so that it only comes on for certain periods in the morning. It used to come on at least four times in the day, and we didn’t always use it, so of course it was a waste of energy. The heating is off until the first of November at least, and we’re repairing the windows and making some draft excluders to help keep the heat in. And I imagine in a few weeks, I’ll have become very well acquainted with my hot water bottle and thermal socks again…
All together, I hope that in time, I will be able to put more money into paying off the debt and getting back on an even keel again. I just can’t keep going on like this. I have a lot of saving to catch up on for adult things like mortgages (can’t even think about pensions right now), and giving copious sums of my hard-earned money away on credit card interest is just plain depressing. I can’t move forward with this ball and chain of debt.
So can you help me out? Any other ‘green’ ideas of how I can save money?
We have just finally paid off our debts after four years on a debt management plan. It has been hard but as of the end of this month we are free of credit cards and owing every bank in sight money. We used a charity called StepChange, it is funded by the banks and was fantastic. Through them some creditors stopped the interest we owed so our debts came down so much quicker. We set up a budget plan which made paying back our debts affordable but still hard. It made us mend our ways, realise the true value of things, the money we wasted over the years. We will never get in debt again, we gave no credit cards any more, won’t be able to get credit or want to get credit any more and it feels fantastic to be free at last. I would advise anyone in debt to contact them. http://www.stepchange.org/Contactus.aspx
I wish you all the luck clearing your debts, remember at the end of the day it is only money in a capitalist system. Friends, family and living is what makes a life….
Running up a debt is so easy to do – too easy in fact. There are lots of good blogs about living thriftily which I’ve found really helpful as I live on a budget. You are definitely on the right track to reducing your debt I think. The area I find that sucks up the most money is food. This is something where thrifty blogs have really helped. The less spent on the food, the more can be saved. I try and think before every single thing I buy, whether I could do without it. I hope you are able to reduce it steadily. We live with the minimum heating my other can stand! It won’t go on until it’s pretty cold. I’d love a woodburner too. One day maybe… Good luck with all of your efforts.
I have found that writing a menu for a week and then only shopping for the ingredients that I need to make that menu has cut down my food bills. I am not tempted by the bargains unless they are on my list. We never throw food away.
We buy a few items in bulk which adds to the expense in one month but in the long run works out cheaper.
Nearly forgot that we also only shop once a week no popping out for items and spending another £10..
I assume you have already looked into transferring you credit card debt onto 1 year interest free cards. Credit card debt is sole destroying so I feel for you. We find we spend less when we do food shopping on the internet as we don’t see all the silly offers for things we don’t really need plus there is a running total staring you in the face so easier to stay in budget. Also we have found that if we don’t do it for a while they email an offer of 10 to 20% off to entice us back so then we stock pile a bit until the next offer. Good Luck…lets hope all those animals stay well and the cars behave:)
I agree wholeheartedly with all of the suggestions above. Budget, menu plan, grow what you can, reduce food waste, balance transfer to 0% where you can. It can be a hard slog but oh so much better at the other end !
Totally sympathise, even if you live simply these days, it’s tricky paying the bills – let alone of you have debt to pay off. We have an Esse woodburner which we cook on during the winter and put loads of insulation in around our walls (made sense as when we bought our house most walls weren’t yet plastered) and it does save a fortune on heating bills, when you can manage to save for a woodburner, if you have a free source of wood, it’s a great investment. Also, parsley is so easy to grow – I have a hedge of it growing from a packet of seeds and I make so much cheap pesto from it as well as tabbouleh etc. Good luck!
Make presents for people. My brother and sister even get a little disappointed these days if we haven’t made something for each other! If you’re growing lots next year set up an honesty box. I only sell eggs from ours at the moment but it easily pays for the chicken feed so with veg as well it could help pay for your seeds.
Hi Lucy, debt is a horrible thing to have hanging over you but you sound like your doing all the right things.
When it comes to saving money on energy bills, I know it sounds simple but make sure you have good thick curtains with thermal linings, honestly it saves a fortune. Also I know its a bit old fashioned but a thick door curtain is a great idea too, our front door is really draughty but the curtain has solved that.
It always amazes me when I go to my friends houses and they have flimsy thin curtains or blinds! Also I know a log burner seems expensive but they really are efficient at heating a room, I recently switched gas suppliers and when they asked what my last years consumption was, the lady on the end of the phone through I was lying! I had to explain about the log burner and she still didn’t believe me.