Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

Thanks, but I'm happy with my energy supplier, which isn't one of the 'Big Six'.

Onebrokelady

foxgloves wrote: »

Thanks, but I'm happy with my energy supplier, which isn't one of the 'Big Six'.

:rotfl:read the post and thought they were talking about plant bulbs :rotfl:

wishingthemortgaheaway

DawnW wrote: »

This post seems to be on multiple threads?

I noticed that too, I reported it when I realised. Not sure if that breaks the rules or not though.

foxgloves

Greetings Sunday Savers,
I've been out in the garden this morning, sorting out my worm composting unit....& it got me thinking about my Spendy Years. An awful lot of the money I spent back then was pretty much wasted, but the worm composting unit is still going as strong as ever & if maintained properly, produces loads of free liquid plant food each year, as well as several trays of high quality compost.
I can remember buying it as if it were yesterday. I was at Peak Spendy & as a keen gardener bought a fair few gardening magazines. One of them had an article about worm composting & as I liked to think of myself as quite 'green', I instantly bought one. I could have had a cheaper model or built my own, but no, I had to have the most expensive one available, along with all the paraphernalia. In the scheme of things, it wasn't vastly expensive, just short of £100, but I didn't have £100. I lived in permanent overdraft & had been in debt since the age of 19. A bad decision from a financial point of view.
However, in terms of usefulness, 18 years later, this item is still very much in use. I've also found that I don't need to spend money on any of the stuff I originally bought to set up my worm composter. I use shredded bank statements for their bedding, large circles of cardboard box card for moisture mats, & when the composting worms need their numbers boosting, there are plenty to be found in our ordinary compost bins for transferring. And I love that unwanted stuff like flour bags, coffee grounds & filter papers & fruit & veg scraps can be utilised to make all this free liquid plant food. So not everything I bought back then was a waste of money.....though I think on balance there was a lot more unnecessary tat bought than useful stuff. And lots of what I spent back then was of the usual 'nothing to show for it' variety - glossy magazines, endless coffee shop visits, take-aways, top-up shops, gift shop tat, DVDs I watched once, sale rail stuff I didn't like enough to wear more than a couple of times - all ex-spenders will recognise these categories, I know.
But it was quite nice today to realise that one item I blithely added to my overdraft without a moment's hesitation back then, has really lasted excellently well.
F x

Kantankrus_Mare

You have inspired me

I have 5 ordinary composters at the allotment but think I could find room for something that gives me free plant food. Hmmm.....will have to investigate.

foxgloves

Hi there, Kantankrus,
I shall soon be getting my seed box out to see what I need to buy & what I still have in stock. Lots of clearing to do in the garden. Everything came to such a halt last year when my Mum became so ill & everything that followed. I did manage to get our food harvested & into the freezer, preserved, etc, but I always say that the new gardening year begins in October, with clearing, digging over, planning, etc, so I need to get cracking.
Re compost bins - I have 5 too, but would still be reluctant to give up my wormery. Once it's up & running, it costs nothing to maintain. If I'd known at the time of purchase what I know now, I'd just have bought the unit & an initial batch of composting worms (my old compost bin at the time wasn't open at the base, so no chance back then of any free ones). I've been using a big circle of recycled cardboard as the 'moisture mat' to go on top for years now, & it works fine. They do eventually scoff it, but that just makes more compost, & it's easy enough to have a few card circles cut out ready in the shed. The initial bedding I bought was the coir compost bricks, but since that first 'go' I've just used shredded household paper. In fact, it's quite nice to know that all those bank & credit card statements are going to be top quality compost, via food for worms! If your compost bins are open at the bottom, then you will probably have lots of the red composting worms, so as long as you can collect a lot of these, you could get a worm composter going fairly easily. They turn all sorts of things into compost - all fruit & veg scraps (apart from citrus & onion), empty flour bags & brown paper bags, paper & cardboard, coffee grounds & filter papers, tea bags (though the ones which still use non-biodegradable glue leave a bit of a weird residue), crushed eggshell (using this means I haven't had to buy any lime to add), etc. The compost is different from that from my normal compost bins because it's basically worm casts (which you can buy, of course) & I use it to give various things, a boost. The worms kind of eat their way up the unit, so you harvest the bottom tray when it's ready, & put it back on top to start filling it again, if you see what I mean. There's a tap at the base where you can run off the liquid plant feed. It gets diluted to 10 parts of water so once they start producing it, it goes a long way. It would be impossible to say what nutrients are in it without testing, but mr f says that's all his potatoes get given! I do buy commercial tomato food for the fussier crops like tomatoes, aubergines, etc, but I swish plenty of Worm Tea around too.
Anyway, I hope this is a bit useful & I'll be interested to hear if you decide to start one.
F x

foxgloves

Well, a nice little surprise today. I received a survey invitation from a survey forum I haven't really done that well with. I decided to use the link in the email just to click across & thought I'd probably cancel my membership. They don't send that many survey invites & I haven't had any rewards. I discovered the reason for this is that I had not the faintest idea of how many 'points' I'd got & so I'd never cashed in. I found I had more than enough points for a £10 John Lewis voucher, with some to spare, so that was a nice surprise! I like to keep a tally of my annual survey earnings in my signature on here, so I can see how I'm doing. It's only mid-way through January & I've made £25 already! I don't think I'll beat last year's total though, as one of the brand forums I was on has finished, & that was reliable for at least £60 a year. Oh well, we'll see. I have to admit I do get ridiculously excited by vouchers!
F x

Kantankrus_Mare

Thanks for all that great info Foxgloves. Really interesting as I get as much used coffee as I could possibly use as I work in a coffee shop/restaurant.

Have been to B&Q today to spend £20 vouchers I earnt on consumer pulse. Needed some new secateurs, seed compost and a few seeds that I realised I didnt have when sorting through my seed box.

I have been earning vouchers online for ages but I still get a kick out of getting something for nothing.

Hoping the interest I earn on a savings account will pay my allotment fees and vouchers will buy anything new I need to buy this year. So in theory..........anything I grow will have cost me nothing.

Onebrokelady

Hi. Foxgloves, I have a worm bin too but doesn't sound as posh as yours,I got mine from my local council along with a supply of worms for £20, I have failed miserably in its upkeep though and all my worms escaped eventually
I will have to research it properly and see if I can get it going again
I have a large normal compost bin that is open at the bottom so theoretically there should be some suitable worms in there

Homegrown0

Hi Foxgloves, I have spent the last week or so reading your diary from the beginning and finally caught up tonight. Loving reading your debtisodes and although they make me laugh, there's so much that I can relate to.

The story of the sequined triffid top and the dress that you kept removing bits from in the hope you'd be able to wear it seriously made me laugh out loud.

Picked up many good ideas from reading through, so i hope you don't mind me continuing to follow your diary as 2019 unfolds.