Great Rural MoneySaving Hunt

mardatha

We budget really carefully and any tiny bit of extra goes to coal. Always try to have a stock of coal, and logs can make it last longer but are poor heat. Peat is good and warm though, if you can get it.
If you get really down and cold and fedup, then go a walk - its amazing how it always lifts your mood and its FREE
I never do a meal at lunchtime just home made soup -- if you can grow stuff then throw it all in the soup, thats a free meal .
EM what else ---we dont pay for water up here, its in with the CT. I totally agree re petrol or buses - that takes the money. I just don't go out an awful lot which suits me because I dont keep well sometimes...but its hard if you're younger.

janejustjane

downshifter - I live in a very similar situation to yourself and agree that country life is not always all its cracked up to be. For the 15 years or so before I retired I was self-employed, working from home. This was the best thing I ever did and I wish I had started much sooner. I am not saying it is easy, and I worked in temporary, menial jobs until my business was established. And I missed the company and regular salary cheques. You need something which gives you a decent living, not envelope stuffing or the scams advertised in the newspapers.

However self-sufficient you try to be, you are always going to need money for petrol, CT, seeds, vets bills etc. Apart from the obvious advantages of self-employment - saving petrol, not having to buy expensive clothes or food, being on hand for any livestock emergencies etc, you have your independence and can work when you feel like it, or into the night if you need to meet deadlines. A lot of freelance work is computer based and I see you have problems with Broadband. However, I think some sort of freelance/work from home is the ideal solution for anyone with a small holding.

mardatha

I was brought up in the country but when I got married I moved to a highrise flat in a city. I liked it but really missed the countryside. Then we moved back when my youngest was 4. That summer I was ecstatic & kept telling them all how lovely life would be from now on...:lipsrseal
That summer, sheep were being found here with their throats ripped open and the papers were full of headlines like "PUMA ON THE LOOSE" ; there were rumours of bats with rabies; and a small plane crashed in the field next to our house and exploded.:rolleyes:
That winter the telegraph pole carrying our phone wires got struck by lightning and melted the phone and the Sky; a winter storm put the elect off for 4 days and ruined all the stuff in the freezer as well as freezing the pipes at the back door; and we ran out of coal and money:D

zarazara

A timely warning peeps. Dont do what I did earlier this evening, I put some coal and a log on the fire [ multi fuel burner] and left it open to get going well. forgot to shut it up, came into sitting room about half hour later and the pipe which goes up the chimney was actually glowing bright red! and the paint smell wasnt nice either. Shut it up PDQ and now its ok. could easily have caused a fire though.

Frugaldom

davemorton wrote: »

nykmedia, I notice in an earlier thread that you said you took part in the scheme the forestry commission ran, where you could pay to collect wood. Do you know if they still do this, as I had heard they had stopped. Just wondering if what I heard was true or not.

Hi Dave, we were discussing this just recently after a friend was offered a licence for £10 and told she could collect as much fallen wood as she wanted. We were a bit dubious at such a low cost so I contacted head offices of both the Forestry Commission and Scottish Woodlands Ltd. Forestry Commission confirmed that although not all areas offer the licences, they are still available at £50 for 3 months - that is, collect all the fallen wood you can within 3 months, but no felling or chainsawing permitted without further specialist licensing. They also sell timber straight off the forestry if you have a way of lifting and transporting it - friends use tractors & trailers. I THINK the current price is about £18 - £20 per tonne. Scottish Woodlands managed forestry do not permit any sort of gathering within their managed lands but they are carrying out trials in northwest Scotland and Isle of Skye allowing online bulk ordering of logs straight from forest to your door. Costs are around £30 to £40 per tonne delivered but I'll go get the link and add it here just in case I'm wrong.

Edited in - Firewood deliveries on a large scale! (Currently lonly available in the Isle of Skye and Wester Ross areas but ask your local Forestry commission if they are planning or have any similar schemes.

Frugaldom

Mardatha, are you sure you don't live near me? :rotfl: The sheep and cows are a pain, we're forever trying to keep a step ahead of them here but the hens and ducks do just as good a job at demolishing everything. The mole is still very active on our semblance of a lawn and the pitch blackness outside means you haven't a clue what's going on if there's a disturbance. We' also have the 'big cat' stories but I just check out BigCats online to see if the sightings have been registered. There are 'creatures' around that cannot be explained but I've only been scared once in the forest. :rotfl: Upside, someone was with me, downside, with no mobile signal here, what good would dialing 999 do? :rotfl:

Broadband is a pain - we are borderline distance from the nearest village exchange, so we can get the network running and all 3 of us can get online at the same time but at dial-up speed and then when the phone rings, Internet disconnects. It's 2.5miles round trip to the wheelie bins, it's a single track road, we are not within delivery route distance of any large supermarkets but we now have Lidl and Sainsbury's as well as Co-op about 5 miles away. I don't think of us as being particularly rural but I have never lived in a big town or city before, so cannot compare.

Public transport is great IF you can get to the nearest bust stop - about 5 miles away, and it's the same for post office and general store. Council tax is slightly higher but we don't pay water rates or sewage because we aren't on mains for either. That saves us about £300 a year but, on the downside, if the cattle all start drinking from the water trough in the back field whilst any of us is in the shower, we get scalded! :rotfl:

Working on the dawn til dusk theory, as demanded by my ridiculously bad at timekeeping cockerels, makes summer days very long but it's great staying snuggled in bed until closer to 8am during the long winter nights. OK, so egg production is rubbish (4 eggs from over 30 birds today!! :rolleyes:), freezing mud and torrential rain is horrible when you're just starting your day and trying to dry out logs when summer lasts 6 weeks and winter lasts 46 weeks can get you down when the storage heaters start gobbling up all your hard earned (whilst sat at home in front of the log fire) income, but I wouldn't swap it for anything. If that £million cheque arrives, I'd just invest in a proper multifuel heating system and buy myself a plantation where firewood grows on trees. :cool:

BUT... I have considered the easy option of saving for a wee flat somewhere with all the mod cons, central heating, on a bus route, within walking distance of shops and then whooping it up when I reach the age of qualifying for my bus pass.

mardatha

Noooo, wee cosy flats in cities are BORING. Think of all the fun you'd miss !:rolleyes:

elektra-2007

Living rural is hard, Having a coal fire to snuggle up infrount of in an evening sounds idylic, But consider this; twice a day I have to go out in the cold or wet or snow to get a bucket full of coal, then i riddle the fire and have to go back in the cold to take out the hot old ashes and if its windy i get a face full of ash and so does my house. Coal spills on the floor and if the fire goes out I have to clean out the fire, screw up newspaper but on some kindling and a layer of coal then light it and hope it takes. On a good day the fire will go first time in 10 mins, on a bad day i can try 4/5 times which can take a few hours. The reality is a coal fire is hard, coal dust is dirty. I get constant hot water and my house stays a constant temp tho which is the upside. Another downside is summer I have to use an immersion heater for water and if it gets chilly in the evening, there no point lighting the fire because it can take a few hours to get upto temp for the radiators so its just a waste. Petrol costs are about 7p/L higher rural, and theres no cheap shops like pound shops or supermarkets nearby. The village near me has a bus service every few hours but to get to the nearset town and back is £7! I have no option to have a car to get my lad to school, work, college, shopping ect. Ive lived in the city and city people dont realise how lucky they are with what is availible to them not just shops ect, Cheap childcare, surestart centres, local libaries, parks, museums, holiday clubs, sports facilities, hospitals, dentists ect. If you live rural and on benefits its extremly hard I think people in rural areas on benefits are more poor than the city because everything is so expensive and unavoidible, like petrol and food costs. Internet shopping is a god send but only a few supermarkets will deliver. Septic tanks are awful, no gas is horrible, your car is constantly filthy due to the dirt track roads and cars going past splashing the muck at you! On the upside, crime is very low, local newspapers report good stuff like school acheivments ect and hardly any crime, schools are low numbers. People are more polite and nicer on the road. Theres more of a sense of community. The views are fantastic especially sunsets on a summers night, the peace is wonderfull, The smell of tree's, grass and hearing the wild birds chirping is lovely(not counting muck spreading days!). Lambing season is georgeous, watching new lambs jumping and bleating in the fields is really nice. We do have a mobile libary and a mobile police unit. I wouldnt swap my life for being back in the city never, my friends come and stay but love going home to their houses where they flick a switch for instant heating, they can walk to the local supermarket and order a takeaway then nip and collect it! This of course is just my view...if people out there think they can cope with it My advice is go for it, its easier to move back to the city if it dosent suit you.

mardatha

I cant live in a city or a town, I feel smothered... and I think you can feel very lonely in a city surrounded by strangers. With open space I never feel lonely, just content.
I always say this place is magic if you're trying to save money or stick to a diet - because we're the same as you . £7 and a long walk to the bus stop if you so much as want a Mars bar LOL!
Re the coal fire Elektra, this is why we keep the stove always on. You can turn the damper down to 0 and close the doors, then still get hot water. We empty/refill it once a day, but I know how you feel re the emptying ash on a windy day LOL! most days are windy up here and you have to get your timing just right! And we have a mad orange stray cat that lives in the stick box and tends to disguise himself as a doormat until the last minute... one of us is def going to be barbecued one day:)

harryhound

nykmedia wrote: »

that is, collect all the fallen wood you can within 3 months, but no felling or chainsawing permitted without further specialist licensing. .

That is where the expression "by hook or by crook" comes from.

Us peasants were allowed into the Lord of the Manor's woods armed only with a hook (sickle) and a crook to cut and drag down dead wood.
The stuff still standing often does not need to be stored to dry out before burning..