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I Can’t Be Self-Sufficient With a Black Hole of Debt

October 5, 2013 by Lucy

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?

Filed Under: sustainability, tips, work Tagged With: debt, self sufficiency

Sowing, Growing, Mowing

April 7, 2013 by Lucy

Buds appearing on the Lark Ascending rose

The sun came out for the first time in what feels like an aeon. The last time it properly showed its face, I was in the office and effectively missed it. It seems though that we’ve finally got over that hump, and we’re well on our way to Spring. I can’t tell you how much happier it’s all making me feel.

I’m still not sure about whether I can kick start the growing properly; temperatures are down overnight, and I’m still having to break the ice in the bird baths in the morning, so I think the soil needs a good fortnight to start warming up properly before I start sowing directly. Having watched Gardener’s World on Friday night, I took Monty’s advice and instead of playing a waiting game and risking losing any more of my onion sets, I decided to plant them into seed modules with compost, and let them begin rooting. I shoved the garlic in too, for good measure. Until we get some mini polytunnels set up, I’m not playing poke-the-garlic-in-pull-it-out-again with the woodpigeons.

I bought the Red Baron onion sets from my local Gardener’s Association back at the beginning of March (or was it late February?), but they’ve had to stay put in their paper bags. This means many of the sets have gone soft and are useless, but I managed to “sow” about 70% of them. There were a few which were on the verge, but I always seem to be championing the underdog, so I thought I’d at least give them a chance.

I also found a bag of alliums that I’d bought at the beginning of March too. I think at that point I was desperate to just buy something that would make me feel as though spring was upon us. But these little guys had already begun to sprout, so I popped them in the seed trays too until I’ve prepared the patch where they’re going to planted. To be honest, I don’t think the alliums need much – they prefer well-draining soil, and will even thrive in poor soil, but I think ours is virtually sand in some places and I wonder whether it’d be pushing it to expect them to do anything there. I have a couple of Purple Sensation alliums to go in too – can’t wait to see them flower and the bees and pollinators to come knocking.

So although I’ve been sowing in earnest, there’s still not a lot to show. Spring is more than fashionably late this year (we only did our first little bit of mowing yesterday), but it doesn’t mean that I can rest on my laurels. There is just so much to do – clearing, weeding, soil preparation, ripping up brambles and bindweed. Every year it’s like starting from scratch, but this year, it’s all about progress. I’m more determined than ever to make it work – even if that means just turning one corner into my self-sufficient, wildlife-friendly Smallest Smallholding vision – and for now I’m just sowing the seeds of what I hope will be a successful season of sowing, growing and mowing.

Filed Under: garden, plans, veg, wildlife Tagged With: gardening, growing, seeds, self sufficiency, smallholding, sowing, spring, wildlife

Pondering Permaculture

January 28, 2011 by Lucy

OK, so here’s the *real* Sunday post that I wrote. The post that I hadn’t planned on writing, the product of which is entirely based on my thoughts and muddled meanderings of my mind.

Actually, the Berocca seems to be helping. Well, that and the fact that I’ve been sleeping 10+ hours each night. I feel much more zen-like (for me), and less like my eyes are about to fall out of my head and my mind is swimming in a fog. I’m starting to feel as though I have energy and that’s allowing me to keep busy and get on with things.

I spent a good couple of hours in the greenhouse last Saturday, tidying and pulling great handfuls of spaghetti-like bindweed roots and nettles up. I think I’ve just about got it under control so the next job will be to get the greenhouse staging in situ and just give my old seed trays and pots a quick going over. I tidied up a bit around the outside of the greenhouse too and managed to find 20+ ladybirds overwintering under various rotting leaves and branches, all of which have been meticulously transferred to a new abode in my warm(er), dry greenhouse. There are many escape routes should they wish to relocate again, but having had a quick check on them this morning I think they’re happy where they are.

This, I guess, is good news for my natural pest control next year. The fact that so many have survived the snow and harsh frosts means that we should hopefully have lots of breeding ladybirds; I’m never particularly precious or fastidious about tidying up over autumn and winter and I think this stands me, and wildlife critter pals, in good stead.

In fact, it’s got me thinking a lot about permaculture. By ‘home farming’ standards, I think we have a relatively small amount of land here – although much bigger than your average suburban garden. But I still find it so hard to manage every year. I don’t want to be working *against* it all of the time. Yes, we’d like to use it socially, but all that means is that we have some lawn and maybe the Mediterranean-esque eating area where the sun shines all day in summer and the soil is particularly sandy.

I’d like to develop a system whereby I’m merely managing rather than having to hack things down to the ground each year and despair when it all goes a bit t**s-up come summer. I think I just have to look at it from a different angle. After all, I’m aiming for a productive garden that encourages wildlife… in my mind’s eye, that is an attractive garden. I’m not neat, I’m not particularly fussy or preened, and neither should my outside space be that way.

So I’m thinking of investing in a permaculture book that’ll help me understand it better – and maybe it’ll make us look at the way we run our house and our lives too. For instance, our old car is slowly but surely falling apart and I’m not sure how long it has left. So our resolution is to walk everywhere within this town, cutting out a lot of short (expensive) journeys. Small but significant changes, you know?

I just have this feeling that the way things are going at the moment, there’s much more reason to be even more self-sufficient and rely on ourselves or local businesses. I’ve also noticed that there are a lot of films, tv programmes and just a general interest surrounding the Edwardian era, too. I wonder whether it’s because there’s a general feeling of austerity, self-reliance, (Britishness even?), self-reflection or perhaps social and political activism that’s harking back to that time. It’s strange… Hmmm.

The times, they are indeed a’changin’… or recycling…

There goes my brain, mumble mumble ramble…

Filed Under: sustainability Tagged With: greenhouse, permaculture, self sufficiency