Simple living in the country - back to basics

Honeysucklelou2

Those are really interesting questions to ask oneself, particularly the financial goals for 5 years and then 10 years time.

Are you able to sell any of the eggs to offset the cost of feed etc?

Cheery_Daff

Hello lovely people

Honeysucklelou2 said:

Those are really interesting questions to ask oneself, particularly the financial goals for 5 years and then 10 years time.

Are you able to sell any of the eggs to offset the cost of feed etc?

I've not ever tried selling eggs, although people have suggested it. We've only ever given them away to friends and family - none of them have ever offered cash and I wouldn't start asking now! We could put some out at the top of the drive, but the road only comes to our house - it would literally just be walkers on a not-very-busy footpath who go past. For now we do manage to get through them ourselves with an occasional couple of boxes when we visit people, but it's certainly something to bear in mind. 

Mind you, I'd have to sell them for about £50 a box to offset the cost of the vets bills :l:lol:

Just sat for an hour or two getting back into the Happy Wheel - and lost £7.87. So that was worthwhile!  

Karmacat

Happy New Diary, Cheery!  I've only been off mse for 36 hours, good grief, loving your uber frugal January thoughts, though    I totally get the points you're making about how you can change - here's hoping you'll have lots of nice coffee in your lovely new kitchen!

The other thing I wanted to let you know is about doing your own chimneysweeping?  I have a friend on another forum who does his own.  He's a countryman, and has a set of sweeps tools, uses them twice a year.  Not as expensive as you think, though when I looked on amazon, his cost more than what I saw, about £70 I think.  Not sure if that's something you'd aim for just at the moment, you've got such a lot still on.

Anyway, subscribing.  Here's to the mortgage being gone in 9 years  

greenbee

Happy new diary Cheery.

Eggs - I think if you sell them you have a whole lot more rules you need to comply with, so it might not be worth it. 

Chimneys - this might work, but you need to check with your insurance provider. Mine insists on a certificate from the sweep. 

Jessy103

Happy New diary cheery! Best of luck with your frugal 2022, I'm sure you'll smash it! x

Cheery_Daff

greenbee said:

Happy new diary Cheery.

Eggs - I think if you sell them you have a whole lot more rules you need to comply with, so it might not be worth it. 

Chimneys - this might work, but you need to check with your insurance provider. Mine insists on a certificate from the sweep. 

The rules for selling eggs are limited if you have under 50 hens - you don't have to register, you can class as a 'farm gate seller' - but then you can only sell to people who will use the eggs themselves, not sell them on (so no shops or B&Bs). Can't use any of the official designations (eg 'free range') and you may have to label with a date, but I can't remember. Not too onerous, but unlikely we'll be doing at this stage.

We do have a set of chimney sweeping brushes as it happens, and we've done it ourselves in the past, but I couldn't get all the twigs out from the jackdaw nests, so we had it done properly this year, and a cowl put on the top. I confess I have no idea about the house insurance though, must check when I renew!

Karmacat

Professional sweep + cowl = you're set up for life wow!

CathT

I do love a shiny new diary and glad I spotted it as your diaries move so fast! 

Baileys_Babe

I'm loving your thoughts on a uber frugal January. They are making me reflect on some of our behaviour and where we would like to be financially in 5 and 10 years.

Like @greenbee for insurance reasons, we have to have our chimney professionally swept.

themadvix

Happy new diary Cheery!

Re eggs, don’t underestimate how much walkers might happily buy them on the footpath - I always have a couple of pounds in cash in my rucksack for random spends (usually ice cream) - and we have bought eggs before when walking. I get that it’s not a priority right now but might be good in the summer?