Great Rural MoneySaving Hunt

alastairq

hi.....speaking as someone who has 'lived rural', but worked urban, for 25 years, one sad aspect of 'rural' ...ie village life I have noted is the disappearance of 'community'.

It seems our rural villages have become mere housing estates in the fields.....and the folk moving in have little sense of community in the traditional sense.

However, all is not lost......

Consider the advantages, with ever increasing gas and leccy costs....and the risk of 'shortages'...[look at Russia???] and suddenly, being able to go out, chop some wood, and get heating and hot water [ours is always scalding]...has some appeal?

What price living on an urban Barratts estate now?

Something I have had recommended when seeking out wood for the stove......regarding chain saws.
Most people think of petrol powered buzz saws at first...yet these have a disadvantage when out in the woods chopping timber...they are continuously running, regardless of whether you're cutting wood at the time, or not.

buying a small petrol generator, and running an ELECTRIC chainsaw is less obtrusive [at the site]...and when you release that trigger, the whole thing stops....


another problem...having just moved from very rural, to actually being rural ...WITH NEIGHBOURS.....I now find I have the dreaded...ECONOMY SEVEN...for heating. I had this once before...and used to plug the washing machine into an economy 7 socket....and do the washing on cheap rate leccy.....trouble is, the 1200 rpm spin speed at half past one in the morning!


downside to village life is the closure of village shops.

I will now have a 5 mile plus drive to the nearest pint of milk.

rural living IS hard work, though....

harryhound

bawbeesaver wrote: »

This is a great tip. I too shop around for the best oil price but I have started to burn logs in our fireplaces and a log burner to provide background heat as an alternative to burning oil. I have worked out that burning wood is cheaper than oil - especially now that the oil price has risen so much.

Guide to fuel prices here:
http://www.nottenergy.com/energy-costs-comparison2

I'm still doing my best to melt the polar ice-caps burning Anthracite, a sort of turbo-powered cross between these two.

Smokeless fuel .... 29.85 p/kg ...... 5.94 (75%)...... 6.70........ 0.392.
Coal................... 21.00 p/kg....... 4.18 (75%) ...... 6.70 ....... 0.291
Pence per kWh at % boiler efficiency^^.
"Nottingham" still has house coal @ thermal content ? ^^
And finally a measure of climate warming Carbon Dioxide per kWh, ^^

Tiger_greeneyes

Alastairq - you're dead right, rural living isn't easy - although if you're prepared to put in the effort it's far better than suburbia I used to have a ten mile round trip to the shops when I lived in Aberdeen.

I'm now living in Gloucestershire and the best thing ever is Tesco's home delivery. I can generally find a voucher on the Tesco Voucher thread which at least pays for the delivery cost if not more.

Having a pantry with lots of shelves for dried packets, tins, herbs etc and a large capacity freezer is invaluable - buy and prepare in bulk and pop to a farm shop for fresh veggies - I'll be growing my own when we moved to a house (we're in a flat but house hunting). I suppose I could always rent an allotment but I've enough to do right now.

There's no takeaway delivery where I live so I make up pizza dough and freeze it in individual bags - it doesn't take long to defrost if we fancy a pizza. I've taught myself to cook Indian food from scratch - just as good as any Indian takeaway/restaurant. Again, I cook the sauce in bulk as it takes a while and I freeze individual portions.

For me, it's all about being as self-sufficient as I can be, whilst saving as much money as I can, and having all the things I miss about living nearer town. It takes a bit of forethought but I get the best of both worlds.

harryhound

nykmedia wrote: »

Find out all you need to know here. The Forestry Commission also offers training seminars for chainsaw use, as you need a licence to operate one on forestry land. Hope this helps

Or volunteer with a local wild life group - there are plenty of groups needing free labour for a bit of coppicing or hedge-laying..

mardatha

Is there any kind of scheme for coal , buying in bulk ? And thanks very much for this thread, i can barter stuff & didnt ever think of it before !

BMcQueen

Jolaaled wrote: »

the farm shops round here all seem very expensive, compared to tesco in the nearest town, although the quality looks great.

I have found, though, that i can save a lot on free range eggs by buying from the roadside farm gate..there's usually some sort of hand-painted sign saying that they have eggs for sale. I'm lucky that i can pick them up when travelling to and from work.

Round here, they're about £1.50 per dozen, compared to tesco's £1.35 for half dozen.

And they're lovely quality too.

Hi all, anyone know what the regulations are re. selling free range eggs ? I have often though about keeping a few hens & selling the eggs, but was told by friends that I couldn't unless I had food hygiene certificates, insurance, etc. in case someone gets salmonella, etc. ?

Thanks

Barry

mikeywills

hawks wrote: »

I use a wesite called www.boilerjuice.com for buying oil that seems to get better prices (bulk ordering I guess) and also groups orders together by postcode to save money. So if you don't have enough neighbours to form a consortium this site sort of does it for you.

This is my first post so if I should not have mentioned the website sorry!

This might work better elsewhere, but these guys were abpprox 5p per litre more than my most expensive quote elsewhere, and 8.42p more than my cheapest. Always good to shop around, if you can

abbey_87

BMcQueen wrote: »

Hi all, anyone know what the regulations are re. selling free range eggs ? I have often though about keeping a few hens & selling the eggs, but was told by friends that I couldn't unless I had food hygiene certificates, insurance, etc. in case someone gets salmonella, etc. ?

Thanks

Barry

I guess it depends what kind of community you live in, but plenty of people around me sell their own eggs, including my family, no one has hygiene certificates or anything like that - it's just a way of making sure our surplus eggs don't go to waste... we eat them too so know there's no problem with them!

Frugaldom

BMcQueen wrote: »

Hi all, anyone know what the regulations are re. selling free range eggs ? I have often though about keeping a few hens & selling the eggs, but was told by friends that I couldn't unless I had food hygiene certificates, insurance, etc. in case someone gets salmonella, etc. ?

Thanks

Barry

Contact your local Environmental Health department and have a word with them first. It's always better to be on the safe side and they should be up to date on current legislation. (I used to sell all my surplus eggs through the local farmers' market without any problems, and supply neighbours, but the rules may have changed since then.)

Mardatha - have you tried calling the local coal merchants to haggle and compare their best price per ton?

Seakay

mikeywills wrote: »

This might work better elsewhere, but these guys were abpprox 5p per litre more than my most expensive quote elsewhere, and 8.42p more than my cheapest. Always good to shop around, if you can

"http://www.boilerjuice.com" definitely varies. I tested it on my Cardiff postcode and got 57p a litre, but an Essex postcode was 49p a litre.