The thriftyish way to debt freedom

f0xh0les

Hi Thriftyish, not sure which part of the UK you are in, but have a look out for a local community orchard near you.  

Soon it is full on foraging time, so get the kids helping out blackberrying and raspberrying in the hedges, the apples will soon be ready and the cherries are ripe now.  If you find a damson tree then you are laughing.  There is nothing like opening a jar of home preserved (be it jammed or alcohol) fruit in December and saying to the kids - you picked these in Summer.  The year before last I think our freezer blackberries lasted til Xmas.  It also reduces Xmas spends if you can give homemade raspberry/damson/ blackberry liqueurs as gifts - not to the kids obviously they get to stick to toys.   So start to think about Xmas gifts now.    Your freezer is your friend.

When the charity shops open up again, there are going to be some fantastic things people have cleared out over lockdown.  Keep them in a special place and save them until then.  Nobody knows what the end of the year is going to bring.  Be prepared. If you find a bargain then pounce on it.

Good luck with the allotment, I had one when mine were smaller, but then they stopped helping out and we were selling up, so I let it go.  It is such a good source of cheap entertainment - ours was on a small triangle of a local park, so you could take them and do allotment stuff, then have a picnic lunch, then play on the swings  or throw bread at ducks.

Totally agree with shunting the holiday money this month onto the cc. debt.  If you are paying interest on it, M&S have an 18 month 0% transfer card that Martin was recommending this week on the email.  

Are you on any of the 1% challenge boards for 2020?  You take your debt (like your £4k - ish cc debt), and break it down into 100 payments of £40.  You report in when you have managed to pay off 1% segments.  It makes everything seem less huge and threatening.   I mean £40 a could realistically be a takeaway or even  just  a coffee and cake out, for your family.   I know it is for my lot. 

£100 a week on food and cleaning and toiletries is a good easily manageable budget. 

Congratulations on the new house! 3m high ceilings may well be a bugg3r to paint, but when it got up to 39 degrees over here last summer, and it was 21 degrees at 11pm, I loved my north facing high ceilinged living room and bedroom.

Btw, once you get rid of that cc you really need to think about an emergency fund.  We needed a full rewire and the cost was £5k without factoring the cost of the plasterer afterwards, and we have a quote for a new roof (L shaped terrace) and it is coming in at £4.5k - £5k after VAT.  Knowing that you can just say 'yep, fine do it, I have the money in the bank to cover that' is priceless.

Keep this summer simple.   FHx

thriftyish

Bluegreen143 said:

Hello @thriftyish! Thought I’d drop by and say hi as you had commented on mine. I’ve subscribed! Love the sound of your allotment and chickens. We have a big garden with greenhouse/veg patch/fruit bushes and it’s so much fun growing bits to eat. We are a long way from self sufficiency! Think we got three meals of potatoes in total (only grew earlier) but it’s still fun 🙂

We keep chickens too, have four currently, but have never done eggs, good luck for a successful hatch. We get point of lay pullets for £15 each from a local farm which has always worked out well for us. Four chickens gives us far more eggs than we can use and we end up giving some to our parents etc, but my family is smaller than yours!

Good luck on your debt busting journey and also on looking for a new opportunity once school restarts. I’m an at home mum too and my younger child is 18 months. It’s on my mind that at 3 when she gets her nursery hours I’ll need to think about retraining. It’s hard to get term time only work but I’d love that too.

Every potato counts, we are a long way from being self-sufficient too! Food is our highest expense after the mortgage, so anything we can grow is a bonus, I count my allotment rent as an alternate gym membership
I think your point of lays will probably work out better value than our eggs when you consider the costs of running the incubator and lights for the brooder when they are chicks - it's looking like we only have 2 out of six growing at the moment and they could both be boys! It's a good experience for the children though, so it's worth it at the moment. A friend has just said he may be able to get us some more fertile eggs for free which is lovely. Its good to know that four chickens work well for you with extras, I was thinking between four and six for our family.

It will be nice to get back into a routine in September when the children are back at school, its hard to find a good balance. I applied for a basic 8-hour school admin contract last year and the competition was tough! I have experience in office & operations management but was up against people with years of school admin experience & someone who previously worked in accounts and finance for the local council:- we were all over-qualified. Good luck if you decide to retrain - my friend retrained as a TA when her youngest was three, she said it was hard at the time but completely worth it now shes working and the term time hours are perfect.

Moneywhizz said:

Glad you enjoyed Foxholes diary. I think it a great example of how being at home actually can save you a lot of money. It is hard to find a job that fits in well with school hours and it is hard juggling work with looking after a home and family so making the most of being at home is sometimes the best thing to do. It already sounds like you are on that pathway with growing your own food, raising chickens and home decorating. Good luck with your df journey. 

It's all a bit of a juggle, I started working at a supermarket last year but just before we moved our second car broke down and wasn't worth repairing. It brought us an extra £200ish for 16 hours, but I lost 3 evenings a week and a weekend day. My husband struggled a bit with not seeing me on an evening, and if we had to factor in buying a new car, and the commute (the supermarket was in my old town, and I moved 10 miles away) it just wasn't worth it.

Its a fine balance, and I think I can probably save us that £200 by being at home, growing at the allotment and having the time to shop around and watch the pennies. I really miss the adult time and conversation though!

f0xh0les said:

Hi Thriftyish, not sure which part of the UK you are in, but have a look out for a local community orchard near you.  

Soon it is full on foraging time, so get the kids helping out blackberrying and raspberrying in the hedges, the apples will soon be ready and the cherries are ripe now.  If you find a damson tree then you are laughing.  There is nothing like opening a jar of home preserved (be it jammed or alcohol) fruit in December and saying to the kids - you picked these in Summer.  The year before last I think our freezer blackberries lasted til Xmas.  It also reduces Xmas spends if you can give homemade raspberry/damson/ blackberry liqueurs as gifts - not to the kids obviously they get to stick to toys.   So start to think about Xmas gifts now.    Your freezer is your friend.

When the charity shops open up again, there are going to be some fantastic things people have cleared out over lockdown.  Keep them in a special place and save them until then.  Nobody knows what the end of the year is going to bring.  Be prepared. If you find a bargain then pounce on it.

Good luck with the allotment, I had one when mine were smaller, but then they stopped helping out and we were selling up, so I let it go.  It is such a good source of cheap entertainment - ours was on a small triangle of a local park, so you could take them and do allotment stuff, then have a picnic lunch, then play on the swings  or throw bread at ducks.

Totally agree with shunting the holiday money this month onto the cc. debt.  If you are paying interest on it, M&S have an 18 month 0% transfer card that Martin was recommending this week on the email.  

Are you on any of the 1% challenge boards for 2020?  You take your debt (like your £4k - ish cc debt), and break it down into 100 payments of £40.  You report in when you have managed to pay off 1% segments.  It makes everything seem less huge and threatening.   I mean £40 a could realistically be a takeaway or even  just  a coffee and cake out, for your family.   I know it is for my lot. 

£100 a week on food and cleaning and toiletries is a good easily manageable budget. 

Congratulations on the new house! 3m high ceilings may well be a bugg3r to paint, but when it got up to 39 degrees over here last summer, and it was 21 degrees at 11pm, I loved my north facing high ceilinged living room and bedroom.

Btw, once you get rid of that cc you really need to think about an emergency fund.  We needed a full rewire and the cost was £5k without factoring the cost of the plasterer afterwards, and we have a quote for a new roof (L shaped terrace) and it is coming in at £4.5k - £5k after VAT.  Knowing that you can just say 'yep, fine do it, I have the money in the bank to cover that' is priceless.

Keep this summer simple.   FHx

Thanks for that foxholes, and for your reply on your post, very, very helpful!

I watched a community orchard video last year but never got around to looking for one on the internet. My nearest one is nr Hull & I've marked in my diary to have a look at picking time

 We always go blackberry picking, but with moving last year we didn't - finding them locally this year in our new area will be more of a challenge:- but exploring will be exciting! We also knew where a beautiful pear tree was, but we have yet to find wild raspberries or damsons. Sadly my four aren't huge fans of fruit crumbles, I am hoping that changes as they are a lovely cheap dessert.

I have never made any liqueurs, they have been on my mental list for a few years and I wanted to do hamper this year with homemade goodies for the family.

My credit card should be gone next month, although I could do with opening another credit card to make my credit rating look healthier (according to credit karma), Im not sure what to go for, more research needed.

I am hoping for some spare time in the week to check out the charity shops, DH works mon-fri and I just aren't brave enough to visit anywhere on a Saturday at the moment. DH is expecting a second wave and lockdown over winter, its a good idea to get prepared now as my 7yr old had her birthday in April and it was so hard (and more expensive) to find presents during lockdown!

I don't think I added to the SOA, but we do have a small emergency fund now. DH and I had a chat earlier this year and started saving £100 per month, with the plan to aim for 6k in 5 years. We have never had an emergency fund before, and thankfully we have been very lucky - but I feel a lot warier with this house than the last!

I was expecting about 5k+ for a rewire here, though my cousins finishes his electrician training this year so he may be able to help. This house has not been rewired in 30 years, in some places the wiring has been a complete afterthought and we have wires running up walls. We have solar panels too, and our consumer unit looks like spaghetti junction. Ideally, I would like to do the kitchen at the same point, and our last kitchen cost £10k (2 years before we moved!) and we did most of the work ourselves. For the kitchen and rewire we are probably looking at 16k which feels completely out of our reach at the moment. Myself and DH are tempted to learn ourselves to plaster, my uncle self-taught and has plastered all his house, it looks immaculate!

I hadn't heard of the 1% boards but they sound fab! I will definitely have a look later - The takeaway costs are creeping up, its quite easily £30+ here, I haven't done the coffee and cake thing for a while but suspect that's about the same - I can see how it will easily creep up as appetites & tastes grow!

Today
I've managed to pop to the allotment and plant 10 kale plants and some more leeks ready for later this year. The children get bored easily so I try to take them once or twice a week and try to have a few hours alone too for a good balance. The ground hasn't been worked in years, the weeds are awful, but at least hoeing is good exercise! My new trick is to set a timer for an hour and work until it goes off:- its a total mental thing but It means I am no longer overthinking what I have to do!

I checked my cashback accounts and have transferred £51.90 across that I had forgotten about, I am hoping to pay that on the credit card when it clears. 

This week I bought a large chicken instead of a medium, and today we are having leftovers in a curry, so that's an extra meal sorted. DH and I also had sandwiches for dinner and I've saved the carcass in case I have time to make soup tomorrow. 

I had to order a slow cooker replace one that broke last week, I usually buy from Argus and take the extra insurance but this last slow cooker has lasted years so its well out of warranty. The cheapest I found £18 delivered for a 6l from Ebuy-er - I am hoping I don't regret not buying from Argus with the insurance!

thriftyish

Honeysucklelou2 said:

A blue egg - could be an arucana, beautiful birds.  I’ve used a heat pad when raising chicks . Brinsea do one that is reasonable. As the chickens grow, you can raise the level of the heat pad.

A good chunk of my allotment is given to growing soft fruit for the same reason. I find soft fruit so expensive in the shops, as we need a least a couple of packs of fruit, being a large family. It was a case of grow my own or go without, so we have gooseberries, blackcurrants and raspberries.

We candled the eggs last night and it looks like 3 out of the 6 are doing well (including Ms Blue), we can see movement which is exciting - I think I am more excited than the children 

I managed to nip out to hunt some ys bargains and managed two full bags for less than £7, thanks to the inspiration from foxhole! We had ys bagels for breakfast. I made the chicken soup last night and I had it for dinner today, and it was the most delicious soup I have ever eaten, which was a bit of a shock as the last attempt about 8 years ago was so awful no one ate it and I haven't attempted since   I am a convert now, so easy, healthy, and cheap!

I managed 3 punnets of ys fruit for less than 50p each, peaches, plums and apricots which I don't usually buy so they are a nice treat and well-timed as the 25 bananas we bought on Friday are almost gone, with the last 3 black & bruised ones heading for banana bread for pudding this evening; DS1 will be thrilled, and even more thrilled with the homemade pizza that's on the meal plan! Any savings on the food budget by ys shopping, can either top up the store cupboard, or be thrown at the debt!

The credit card payments are finally showing, we are down to £267.13. Total debt £3687.66

thriftyish

Honeysucklelou2 said:

A blue egg - could be an arucana, beautiful birds.  I’ve used a heat pad when raising chicks . Brinsea do one that is reasonable. As the chickens grow, you can raise the level of the heat pad.

A good chunk of my allotment is given to growing soft fruit for the same reason. I find soft fruit so expensive in the shops, as we need a least a couple of packs of fruit, being a large family. It was a case of grow my own or go without, so we have gooseberries, blackcurrants and raspberries.

We candled the eggs last night and it looks like 3 out of the 6 are doing well (including Ms Blue), we can see movement which is exciting - I think I am more excited than the children 

I managed to nip out to hunt some ys bargains and managed two full bags for less than £7, thanks to the inspiration from foxhole! We had ys bagels for breakfast. I made the chicken soup last night and I had it for dinner today, and it was the most delicious soup I have ever eaten, which was a bit of a shock as the last attempt about 8 years ago was so awful no one ate it and I haven't attempted since   I am a convert now, so easy, healthy, and cheap!

I managed 3 punnets of ys fruit for less than 50p each, peaches, plums and apricots which I don't usually buy so they are a nice treat and well-timed as the 25 bananas we bought on Friday are almost gone, with the last 3 black & bruised ones heading for banana bread for pudding this evening; DS1 will be thrilled, and even more thrilled with the homemade pizza that's on the meal plan! Any savings on the food budget by ys shopping, can either top up the store cupboard, or be thrown at the debt!

The credit card payments are finally showing, we are down to £267.13. Total debt £3687.66

f0xh0les

Glad to be of help.  YS bargains rock my crazy world.

thriftyish

Another good day. I've checked the bank and because I was a little overpayment happy earlier this month, it's looking a little empty or it will be after all the direct debits are taken (Does anyone else like all the direct debits to come out on the 1st and dislike the ones that don't!) We have a free overdraft, emergency money etc, so it won't make a difference but if I can keep the food budget below £260 this month we won't touch the overdraft - so that's my challenge. And we have things to sell, and the Quidco cashback is still processing if not:- I am just not telling the DH who will panic 

Managed some more YS bargains yesterday. We had 25p bagels for breakfast, 5p hotdog rolls & 50p melon for dinner (I had homemade soup) and mushroom risotto with h/m garlic bread for tea. Followed by apple crumble (with some past their best apples) or leftover banana bread. We don't usually buy melon so all three DDs were happy. DS had 2 sticks of cucumber and a mushroom and asked if that counted as his 3 of his 5 a day  I estimate all of today's food has cost less than £4 for all 6 of us, which is a massive saving, and even better as its mostly fresh & cooked from scratch. I've a meal plan for the next week and the big freezer is jam-packed full with a combination of a huge f-foods shop last week, ys bargains, pizza dough, pizza/pasta sauce, pie toppings & fruit

For the past 6 months, I have been just on autopilot, thinking we are doing okay but not really paying too much attention. It's nice to see I can make a difference, and surrounding myself with like-minded people is really helping.

DH just found a second-hand bike he's going to buy for my birthday next week, so I can go on bike rides with the kids. DD3 is just learning to ride without stabilizers so I might be able to keep up with them all now:- It needs checking over but its a bargain for £35

Action Plan
Cancel Prime (again-after 99p week trial)
Check on mine and DHs pension from previous jobs
Try to fix the fridge-freezer (There is a leak somewhere and water is forming inside the freezer and freezing - everything is encased in ice)
Check if there are better options for a current account & savings accounts, especially for our emergency savings.
Try and master checkout smart and shopmium 
Have a look at doing surveys - I did these years ago but wouldn't know where to start now.
Finish painting the kitchen - finally get the fruit baskets back on the wall where they belong!
Happy debt busting!

Bluegreen143

Lovely picture @thriftyish! Looks tasty! Well done on your YS bargains. We mainly online shop so miss out on those. Might need to pop in every so often to check for them!

f0xh0les

Surveys: 

Prolific Academic regular, short surveys, odd topics from university studies - if you have a second language they are often hugely more generous  ( often pays between  £1.00-7.00 per survey) cash out direct to your bank from £5.  Totally painless. I use it to offset my cheese-habit/ overpay the mortgage. I love this one

There is a postal survey which gives free stamps, you post letters (in your postcode area) on a certain date and they track the speed of the postal service.   Side surveys from that - what tat post comes through your door,/ how many stamps do you own this month.  takes seconds, regular monthly £5 gift cards + 1st class stamps. I love this one too

Football survey - £5 Amazon vouchers about 3x a year. Takes literally seconds - you guess who is going to win one football match a week.  Hilarious how rubbish I am at guessing.  Probably some betting algorithm that  I am totally mucking up.  I do this to prove I should never bet on anything, ever.

Valued 0pinion - takes longer, bit of a faff, cash out at £15, can cash out for supermarket vouchers - get your y/s on a free voucher and feel very very smart.  I do this if I feel skint - it annoys me, but does pay out regularly if you can be bothered with it.

Y0ug0v - takes forever to get to £50, but usually manage it at least once a year. Good payments for surveys you let the kids answer and they seem to increase coming up to Xmas.  At the end of the day it is £50 in cash to your bank account.

Nielsen- scan your shopping, you get points for scanning, you spend the points on goods from their catalogue of rewards - good for power tools/ garden implements.    Depends on where in the country you are as to if you get on the survey. Once on it, stay on it as it is fiendishly hard to get a spot if your postcode area is already covered.   I have friends who love this one.

But, like, shhhhh! Don't tell anyone.

janb5

Could I add Populus live is a good one as it pays direct to your bank account when you have accrued 50 points = £50.  

MagicCat

All sounding great @thriftyish, good work on ys bargains! I love your picture of how you served that meal, such a good idea - I might try it to tempt my picky eaters!

I second prolific academic, I find I can make £5+ per week if I keep looking. It's also worth trying to get on pinecone research, they're fairly infrequent but it's £3 per survey and sometimes you get samples. @f0xh0les the postal and football surveys sound good, where can I find them?