Living for free 1/1/07

CFC

Blimey this takes me back well over 20 years - I and an idealistic group of friends did this for real in a village in Ireland. Of course our 'spend nothing for a year' was intimately connected with poverty...I remember going and cutting peat for the fire, and Christmas dinner was a small chicken roasted over the peat fire, and we were too poor to afford a spit, so it meant one person turning the thing round a poker (it fell off once so came with added ashes!) and that fed 8 of us and it tasted like manna from heaven - our only bit of meat for a year ...LOL!

Oh goodness the stories I could tell from that year. We lit the house with paraffin lamps, so we could avoid using any electric at all, the fun was when you put the wrong stuff in the cooking pan cos the light was too dim. We did have fish though, if you went down to the harbour at the right time of the week you could have a couple of fish off the fishermen for nothing when they came in with the catch, bless 'em.

It was extremely character building!!!

Best of luck fishcakes

hollyh

Just wanted to say good luck fishcake

Keep us posted

xx

pink_fairy_7

Good luck fishcake.

pink fairy x

[Deleted User]

nelly wrote:

I spend over a tenner a day on fags!

Bollax to living for free enjoy life I say

Nelly my dear please try to cut down, we need your wit and wisdom on here.You are precious to us all and keep us laughing

tiddles

Good luck Fishcake!

Tiddles

fargo_3

ViksB wrote:

Hi Fishcake,
The idea sounds good, I read about it too and I am planning on doing something similiar this year. partly because I have just given up my job to spend more time with my daughter and partly because I love saving money!!!
My aim is to only spend what I earn (sadly not the well paid job I had before!).
We have a some chickens and sell eggs, so thats a few pounds a week and then better is AQA which is more money and of course trusty ebay.
In addition to freecycle there is a new site called http://www.efreeko.co.uk/ which I think could eventually be even better.
I also second the mooncup thread above, they are a great way of saving money if you are a girl!!
Good luck and let us know how you do.

Viks

I admire you both. I am trying to cut down on spending as baby number 2 is on the way. If only I could find away of removing ebay !

new_leaf_6

I'll have to cut down till I get another job. Made redundant at the end of 2006. I'm trying to do a BOGOF only theme this month except for essential like milk. Don't think I could be as good as Fishcake but hope she succeeds.

catznine

I have just put on a pot of "free" soup using vegetable peelings and trimmings (washed) and it smells lovely. I used ends of celery, ends and peel of a carrot, 1/2 a red onion that was looking a bit sad, a bit of an odd sweet potato (left in a bag from Christmas) and a leftover potato from the fridge. Just covered with water and added salt and pepper. Will blitz in the processor when cooked.

Just popped back to say OH thought soup was lovely! Will definately do again.

fargo_3

You have inspired me to empty the old veg out the fridge and cook up something soupy !

lilac_lady

I'm all for cutting back but I'd need a cup of tea. Imagine no tea!!!