Great Rural MoneySaving Hunt

zarazara

fire lighters

Lotus-eater

That's a good idea, I use free newspapers atm, which are probably easier to store

rhiwfield

bonsibabe wrote: »

Oh goodness I wish I lived in the countryside!!!! I've just emailed my local council about allotments. They are considering starting up some and I emailed and asked if they had maybe considered the waste ground that is at our back between the two roads. At present it is used by kids on quad bikes (illegal!!!) and I asked if we couldn't have our garden extended to meet with the back yard of the house in the next road?? That would mean the council had less waste ground to tend and we could have a chicken coop and possibly a rabbit run to breed rabbits for food!!!! Hubby just looked at me like I was mad!!!! But why not!! Only problem would be what to do with the rabbit fur???? After all, rabbit tastes like chicken???!!!

Reminds of the film Jean de Florette. Dark, but funny and gorgeous at times. If you havent seen it, and the sequel Manon des Sources, get it on rental. Without giving away too much Gerard Depardieu raises rabbits in Provence and inadvertently gave birth to the Stella Artois ads.

BTW this is (just about) on topic, both films are about making money in rural areas

zarazara

mambury, very good post and mariat, i agree, i went down that road once, lovely lamb but twive the price as something from NZ. I dont understand it. My B-in-law farms,he had 175 acres so a small farm. He gets £18,000 in subsidies a year,and yet he moans...............,he was left the farm in someones Will so he didnt even have to pay for it! unbelievble.

rhiwfield

Lotus-eater wrote: »

That's a good idea, I use free newspapers atm, which are probably easier to store

Doing the same Lotus Eater, I get the papers left over from a local cafe and use half for fire lighting and rest for composting.

spanner_man_3

houses in the country normally have bigger gardens to fill unless you just go for a massive lawn. found quite a few discounts and half price plants on gardeningexpress.co.uk today when ordering autumn bulbs.

also keep your own chickens - you could even put a stall by the road with an honesty box for the surplus eggs! tasty

you could also scavenge the hedgerows for free food!

downshifter

spanner_man wrote: »

also keep your own chickens - you could even put a stall by the road with an honesty box for the surplus eggs! tasty

...unless they're like my hens who produced a mass of eggs in a 2 week period sometime back in July, then all went broody and as soon as they stopped that mularkey started to moult! Definitely a poor return on investment. Their saving grace is that they are so friendly and look really sweet on the lawn. Great pets but rubbish egg layers!!

A beautiful morning again today - bright sun on white grass. Incredibly still. Lovely.

DS

Lotus-eater

nykmedia wrote: »

My stash of cones is doing not too badly but is nowhere near enough to see me through the winter.

zarazara wrote: »

fire lighters

Just thought about this, I haven't even had a fire yet!

bonsibabe

I called the energy saving people the other day and found out that my "environmentally friendly" experimental heating system is actually one that uses massive amounts of peak electricity to run! No wonder our leccy is £200 a month!!!! Half hubbys benefits gone every month! So they got a guy out from the council to look at it. He came and said "well what do you want us to do about it?" The flamin cheek!!! My hubby said give us a heating system that doesnt cost the blooming earth to run and then got told that the energy saving people didnt know what they were talking about. when we questioned the council guy he finally admitted that he didnt know anything about our heating system!!! So he was talking out of his behind!!! So we are now waiting for someone else to come see us about it. I said to hubby we would be better off with solid fuel central heating as it is more economical. Yes we would need to buy fuel, but we could easily take a drive to the local forest and pick up loads of free fuel from the forest floor! not to mention the fact that this heating system we have doesnt even have a timer!!! If it did we could set it for the off peak leccy so it would be cheaper but i'm going to see if the council will actually do anything or if i will have to goto the papers about them ... yet again!!!

Lotus-eater

What heating system have you got then?
I'm not sure what to think about the fact that you complain that the council should do this or that for you, if I want to change my boiler it would cost me £1000, £1000 I haven't got, I wouldn't get any help from anyone, so we have our heating at 15 degrees during the winter and supplement that when it is really really cold with a woodburning stove running on wood collected by me.
What you have to remember is that wood is difficult to collect store and process in any meaningfull amount.
It takes me a great deal of work to collect free wood, cut it, split it, store it for a year outside under cover, store it another year in a dedicated wood shed and then burn it.
You need large logs, not small twigs to run a fire.