It's getting tough out there. Feeling the pinch?

wondercollie

In Canada, we've never had free post secondary education.   I graduated nursing college $14K in debt with student loans and that was considered a low amount.

I won't go on regarding FQ.  But there is a lot I agree with.   If I remember right, she still has her home in Cornwall that she rents out, but that never seems to be mentioned.

I'm about five years older than her and can honestly say, that I work with people who still have mortgages.  One coworker is 68 and she's accepted that she will never pay off the mortgage and that she is renting from the bank.  She's hoping to retire next year on her 69th birthday.

JinJinBlue

I went into higher education in the 1970's and it wasn't free. I had a grant and the grant system was means tested. Some people paid, some didn't depending on their parents circumstances. I certainly couldn't have continued studying without a grant. I'm coming up to retirement now and feel so sorry for young people who have to take out student loans to continue their education. To start working life with a huge debt would have scared the life out of me. 

greent

Fq bought the house in France with an inheritance,I believe. She used to round on blog followers who dared to disagree or point out inconsistencies- she was often a do as I preach, not as I do and used to moan about people buying houses in Cornwall for lets and not living there and keeping locals out - I appreciate she had her Cornish house first before France but it's a similar situation.

Bluegreen143

Like everything else, there’s things to love about Frugal Queen and things I don’t love, but I just take what’s useful from her advice (I used to read her blog way back). 

She is a bit holier than thou and tbh I find her attitude a bit rigid and joyless to my taste (I also think that if she is like that in person she must be a nightmare to live with!). I appreciate though that the kind of relentless budgeting and scrimping she preaches is getting more and more necessary for many, but she is basically quite severe on spending anything on what makes you happy 😆 I prefer to think of frugality as a positive, empowering thing I do to allow me to spend on my priorities (or not spend, because I’m prioritising freedom or building security). I don’t think it always needs to be joyless and I do think that there’s no one right way.

But equally, there’s lots to learn from her perspective. Wouldn’t learn much if I only watched videos I 100% agreed with, and given the current state of my grocery spending, I could probably do with challenging my own thinking a bit more currently.

littlemoney

Brambling said:

I'm sure Tripe for human consumption is bleach so it's no longer green so I'm not sure on the nutritional value once processed. I just remember my sister boiling green tripe for her dogs when I was a child it wasn't a pleasant smell 🤢

The butcher at our local farm shop sometimes has turkey drumsticks they're £1.50 regardless of size so can vary slightly but are usually quite big. I buy one occasionally and with added veg they will make six greedy size portions of soup (or 8 not so generous)  😋 with the added benefit of being from a local farm so no air miles. Usually I first make the stock in the slow cooker and then make the soup on the hob the next day but yesterday I skipped the stock process and made the soup in the pressure cooker from the raw drumstick and skimmed the fat today, it tastes just as good and has the benefit of less electricity used 🙂 

whilst the pressure cooker was out I cooked a small gammon joint in 18 minutes and today I made a 12 minute rice pudding using up a excess of milk dated today with a added half tin of coconut milk from the freezer, cheaper than yoghurt for a pud it just needed a grating of nutmeg over the top, thanks JackieO for reminding me I has pudding rice in the cupboard 🙂

Could you post how you make rice pudding in a pressure cooker please. I have an old prestige high dome cooker, nothing fancy but I do like rice pudding but can't justify having the oven for the long time needed. I failed at microwave rice pudding.

Nargleblast

I used to like reading Frugal Queen's blog and following her story about how they became debt free. She was really inspiring and I got several good moneysaving ideas from her. When I started watching her videos about her life in Huelgoat, I had to stop. She used to work as a teacher, and that is exactly how she sounds on video, patronising, talking down to her viewers like they are a class of not just five year olds but simple minded five year olds. Can't be doing with it.

timehastoldme

@Doom_and_Gloom I've tried to find the post but I think she deleted it after being called out. Modern menstrual products are amazing, cups and period pants make everything easier, more environmentally friendly and cheap. Her post was advocating the cheapest tampons as being absolutely fine and implying anyone who used cups was some sort of weird hippy.

The output from the blog is meant to make us think if we all just were militantly thrifty we could all afford a house in France. It's disingenuous.

Bluegreen143

Even if reusable menstrual products weren’t cheaper, I’d still use them as more eco friendly (particularly a cup which doesn’t require machine washing, because realistically with small kids I do a lot of tumble drying so need to factor that in if I’m adding extra cloths to my life). But as they are cheaper in the long run, I’m not sure why she would have an objection. 

I mean I’m sure some people spend far too much on pretty reusable menstrual pads and the like. There is that danger with expensive eco products that become trendy.

There’s a lot of that in cloth nappying anyway, some patterns become collectible and people spend so much money building a huge (unnecessary) stash where some nappies only end up used very occasionally! 

I always kept in mind how many I could realistically and practically use (based on twice a week washing, about 24) and kept in mind I was doing it to save money. While I had a few with pretty patterns (which made me smile to put on my DD) I bought them all second hand, only had the amount I needed and sold them on once done. I used a different type for her than I had used with DS (he needed extra strength night nappies on during the day so his weren’t pretty 🤣) but again I sold his once done. I did use disposables sometimes with both kids, and about half the time with DS as he went to the childminder in disposables.

Floss

When I had my boys in 1986 & 1988, i had 2 dozen terry nappies. Good to see that is still the optimum number!

-taff

Have to say, the few videos I have seen of fgif I haven't taken to her because her life just sounds so joyless. And I dislike the way she talks. Now I know she was a teacher, I can see why.

Which is not to say her message isn't good. In these times, people are going to need all the help they can get and we don't all have a Jackie O on tap....