Put away your purse & become debt-averse

Deni_debt-free_dreamer

"help s me feel not alone and with like minded friends.  the benefit of this cannot be underestimated. "
@savingmore - i totally agree with all you say, well put

I rarely put my heating on as I only have one rad in the whole of downstairs and it is behind a sofa (can't move sofa as too big to put elsewhere); I went to bed last night in pjs, with 2 hot water bottles and a blanket over the duvet; apart from a cold nose i was very toasty!  
I've got washing dry on the line over the weekend, hopefully you won't need to use your heated airer too much now foxgloves

Love to all 
Deni x

foxgloves

That is a kind thing to say about my diary, @savingmore, & I thank you for it. I am not embarrassed to talk about money with my friends & family, but I think the combination of warmth & anonymity on here does mean we can often drill down into the nitty gritty of money saving. These are difficult times indeed & I am thankful that I found myself in the position to be able to pay off our mortgage before it all struck. Yes, I could only do it for a sad reason, because of losing my both my Mum & Dad in a 13- month period, but it has facilitated a dose of basic financial security we wouldn't otherwise have had. Traditional values of 'make-do & mend' have always been a feature of hard times. My Nana simply couldn't believe how wasteful people had become as she entered her old age. She didn't have much at all growing up, my Grandad was a very skilled craftsman but earned very much a manual labourer's wage. She always said living through 2 world wars had made her the thrifty person she was. However, I do think we can add in another factor to old-style thrift. There was no availability to credit for the vast majority of people. I suspect people in the upper echelons have always been able to raise an advance from a bank or sponsor, but this wasn't available for ordinary people. Credit availability is something which has rocketed in our lifetimes. Back when I was a student (early to mid 1980s), I could have a small overdraft by personal arrangement with the bank bank manager of my branch & I could buy things from mail order catalogues which offered payment in instalments. Compare that to the credit options available today. The consumer credit option exploded because the capitalist system requires people to keep buying things. As this is only an option for those with money, the solution was, of course, to make credit widely & hugely available to everyone, including those who patently could not afford to pay it back without hardship to themselves further down the line. Our wasteful consumer society has contributed so much to the destruction of the planet too, they really do go hand in hand. I can feel that my mindset has shifted up a couple of gears in terms of running our household efficiently. My planned jobs for today include 2 items for mending & another which will hopefully filter in to careful meal planning. So much of this is outside our control, so we need absolutely to be onto those elements over which we still exercise a degree of influence & control.
Worrying times indeed.
F x

foxgloves

@Deni_debt-free_dreamer - The laundry didn't do too badly at all out on the whirlygig yesterday. I will be pegging it out whenever it is dry now. There were lots of big thick items like jeans, hoodie, bath towels, etc, plus a huge old cotton curtain I laundered as I want to make it into something else, so I did have the heated airer on overnight, but it went off first thing this morning, as everything was dry. Normally that amount of laundry would need to be on the heated airer for a couple of days, so it was still a saving. That's the way we all need to go forward, isn't it? Make every little energy saving we can so that by the autumn when the price cap lifts right before the colder weather strikes, we have 'banked' absolutely as much credit in our energy accounts as possible. That is very definitely what I am aiming to do here. Have explained to Mr F that we both really do need to be doing this. It's not that he doesn't get it, he does, but I could tell he was quite shocked when I translated what the additional money we will be paying for our energy into what I am doing with it atm. Of course it's money we are currently able to pay into general savings or our savings pots. The more we have to pay to our energy provider, the less we will have to pay into those. He was chewing his toast very thoughtfully, so I think he will be on board with my energy-saving blitz. It is borne out of necessity, not me wanting to be some kind of killjoy who enjoys sitting in the dark in 3 jumpers!
F x

Four_Seasons

I totally agree its so nice to be able to share saving tips on food, waste, fuel etc., I dried my washing outside yesterday and bedding on the line today, its just lovely to see the sunshine and the bonus of dry washing.  Have a good day Foxgloves and thanx again x

Baileys_Babe

Four_Seasons said:

I totally agree its so nice to be able to share saving tips on food, waste, fuel etc., I dried my washing outside yesterday and bedding on the line today, its just lovely to see the sunshine and the bonus of dry washing.  Have a good day Foxgloves and thanx again x

I love the smell of laundry dried outside, especially bedding it smells so luxurious

marionmgcars

Just catching up with the posts.  Thanks for the link from the magazine, I’ll enjoy reading that later.  I start my retirement now, so excited to live a more mindful life enjoying all the things I have at home.  Foxgloves, I am too using my stash & planning things I can make.  At the moment finishing a jumper I bought wool for last year,  and a pair of socks from leftovers from other projects.  It’s great to chat with like minded folk, as you say, some people just don’t understand you can enjoy having a thrifty lifestyle.  X

foxgloves

That's the thing, @marionmgcars....it's being thrifty with the boring everyday things that can facilitate some of the other stuff we want to do by freeing up money from cutting waste.
Enjoy your retirement. You'll find you save money by having more time for old-style economies. Am enjoying knitting up my stash.
F x

foxgloves

@Baileys_Babe -Me too. Clean cotton bed linen ironed fresh off the line. Love a crisp freshly changed bed. One of life's tiny free pleasures.
F

DawnW

I peg washing outside all through the year if there is the chance of it drying a bit. So any day when it isn't raining, or one of those days where the air just hangs wet, if that makes sense, I will peg it outside. Windy days, of which we seem to get quite a lot, help. Bedlinen today, as it looks brightish, and a bit breezy. When it comes in, it gets put on the airer overnight by the wood stove. We don't keep the stove in overnight, but there is enough residual heat in the room to finish off drying the washing.

I try not to wash when the weather is wet, though this is not always possible. If I have to, it goes straight on the airer, but it is surprising how seldom that happens. It helps that there are only 2 of us - with several children there would obviously be far more laundry. I have never possessed a tumble dryer though, even when I had 3 children at home. In the early days I couldn't have afforded one, and once I could, there didn't seem any point. Even when I worked full time and had to go away quite a lot, I managed fine without.

Deni_debt-free_dreamer

Morning
@DawnW - I'm the same as you, never owned a tumble drier mainly due to not being able to afford one; then didn't see the need.  I put my washing outside whenever there's a chance it might get even partly dry.  
Apart from being MSE and better for the environment, line dried bedding smells lovely