’12 in 11′ Clothes challenge update

Posted by louisa on Monday 10 January 2011 in anti-consumerism, frugal, less than 12 clothes challenge, low spend 11 | 9 comments

So last week I announced my personal clothing challenge for 2011: buy no more than 12 items of clothing across the year.

Since then, a number of most excellent people have said they’ll join in the fun:

• Taphophile
• Lyns
• Alice (I think…)
• Deb/Urbanwide
• Aunty Rubbish
• digitigrade
• SBlove_crafts
• Jan
• UPDATE: Colleen
• UPDATE: Joris
• UPDATE: Maria
• UPDATE: Mel

A few other people have said they’re doing/will do something similar:

• Su is trying WW2-style rationing – she has an allowance of ration coupons which can be spent on different things throughout the year. The “social history of the Second World War” nut in me loves this idea!
• bookstorebabe can’t commit to the full challenge but will consciously recording all her purchases throughout the year, which I think is very useful in making consumption changes
• damigeron has said he’ll be more conscious about it, if he remembers to be ;)

It’s great to see so many people up for a bit of a challenge in 2011! I can’t wait to see how it goes!

(Apologies if I’ve missed anyone out! Do let me know and I’ll add you to the list!)

Quick bread: no-rising-time soda bread recipe

Posted by louisa on Friday 7 January 2011 in cooking, recipes | 17 comments

The other week, I asked about how people manage with baking when the weather is cooler – when it’s hard to maintain a yeast-friendly heat for bread to rise (especially if you’re going for a 12-18hr slow rise bread).

In the comments, Karen M said:

In my rural living days without electricity or central heating, we ate a lot of bannock and other unleavened breads in the cold times.

A smack-the-forehead moment for me. Unleavened bread, of course!

I hadn’t heard of bannock but John loves its Irish cousin, soda bread so I decided to give that a go. After trying his first slice of my first soda bread, John declared we’re never buying shop-bought bread again. We will, of course, but I liked his sentiment ;) I’ve made it a few times now and it’s been a hit each time.

Soda bread is super quick to make. Most bread relies on yeast “breathing” to create carbon dioxide bubbles but soda bread uses the chemical reaction between the alkaline bicarbonate of soda and something acidic (like vinegar, lemon juice or cream of tartar) to make the gas instead. It’s an instant reaction rather than something that has to build up over time – so no need for rising time or proving time.

And extending kneading is a no-no too – the reaction works best if it’s happening in a warm environment so it needs to be mixed, shaped and bam! straight into the oven. Super fast.

It’s a dense bread – no big yeasty air bubbles like in good yeast-based bread – but the sponge is soft and a touch sweet. Possibly because of the slight sweet milkiness or possibly because of the texture, there is something scone-like about it for me – but it’s considerably lower fat than actual scones.

Like scones though, it’s fantastic with butter and jam. Or dipped in a hearty soup.

Lime the Chicken’s badly timed winter moult

Posted by louisa on Thursday 6 January 2011 in chickens | 3 comments

You know when it was really cold a fortnight ago? When it was minus frickin’ 17C so nights and didn’t get above freezing at all for a fortnight or more? That was the time when one of our chickens, Lime, thought it would be a good idea to start her first moult.

Or rather that’s when I really noticed – looking back at pictures now, I can see she was losing feathers in late November – it just reached a critical mass in that cold snap in December – and it worried me a lot.

Lime has always been my favourite of the chickens – she was the first one we could identify (she had black flecks in her neck feathers) and from the start, she was the friendliest. She’s the only one to have jumped up on my shoulders/back (John says I look like a strange “farmer pirate” when she does it) and always wants to be as close to me as possible when I’m in the run. Her personality reminds me of our cat, Carla – and since me noticing her moult coincided with Carla having a cold and Lily-dog having food poisoning, I was already stressed about beloved animal illness!

During the coldest weather, I kept a close eye on her – she got a lot of warm porridge hand feeding and other treats, all including generous quantities of poultry spice (a mineral booster). I thought about making her a jacket but thought it might stress her out further so had it as a last resort plan. Thankfully her feather loss seemed to slow at that point and then eventually the weather got warmer too so I’ve not had to do it yet. She lost a lot of feathers on her neck and on her back & breast – but retained enough on her back & breast so she didn’t look completely bald, just white and scruffy. This pic shows her next to one of her sisters – she looked as red and fluffy as that before the moult started.

Over the last few days, we started seeing some great regrowth around her neck – yesterday the new pin feathers looked just like thin paper tubes (they’re actually a keratin sheath) but now little feathers are sticking out the end like super fine paintbrushes.

I suspect she might not be out of the woods yet but it’s still nice to see regrowth, to know that it won’t last forever and within, hopefully, a month or so, she’ll be back to normal.

The end of my no spend (three) weeks

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 5 January 2011 in anti-consumerism, frugal | 2 comments

Three weeks ago, I decided to consciously not spend any money until the end of the year. I called it a “no spend week” for neatness but it actually was a fortnight and a bit – which, due to illness over the weekend, easily extended to three weeks, finishing on Monday.

I ended up spending considerably amount of money each week for the first two weeks. Since both the dog and boiler have been a’ok, I spent less this week:

• £1.40 at the laundrette drying a load of bedding. I would have waited until better outside drying weather to wash the bedding (since we don’t have the hanging space for duvet covers in the house) but it got damp when the water pipe burst in the kitchen the other week so had to be washed or it would get mouldy. I washed it at home but dried it at the laundrette.
• John & Strowger “bullied” me into getting fish & chips for lunch again the other day. They’re such a bad influence. John paid since he was the one with ready cash in his wallet.

From my exceptions list:

• £8.50 – cake & tea for two including a tip at a cafe. Part of the “birthday gift” exception I mentioned when I first started my no spend thing.
• Some more fresh food – just a few little bits, and some good steak for New Year’s Eve since we decided to celebrate the new year by both getting colds and couldn’t face going out for a meal as was the original plan.

My main temptation this week has been the same as last week: the endless emails about January sales and other offers. I’ve unsubscribed from as many as possible. Yes, it’s useful to hear about sales but sales are so ubiquitous these days that it seems less important to hear about each one; I’d rather seek out sales and offers when I’ve decided whether or not I need something.

(I did go online sales browsing for a new jumper one evening. I’ve been wanting a new warm woollie for a while and thought I’d check out the sales to see if I could find anything. I didn’t find anything even close to nice/suitable so I didn’t have to decide whether or not to break my no spend rule. I suspect having that rule though made me stricter with my criteria than it would have otherwise – for example, I also didn’t look at anything other than knitwear.)

So anyway, my “no spending until the end of the year” exercise is over. I found it surprisingly easy – it was nice to have a reason not to give into temptation when I was in shops for present-buying reasons – a “rule” to strengthen my will power. Consciously avoiding spending has also helped break my habit of including eBay in my “I’ve got a few minutes to kill online” list, to remove my credit card details from online shops to stop impulse buying and to unsubscribe from “buy our stuff” emails from shops I’ve used in the past. But the most useful thing for me has been recording all my spending in a weekly list so I can’t hide from my spending – and I’m going to continue doing this (probably offline) through 2011.

The boiler breaking and the dog getting sick were unavoidable “emergencies” and proved an earlier thought of mine right (that I mentioned yesterday about clothes): it’s hard to stick to total bans on spending or buying certain types of stuff because things have a habit of coming up just when you don’t want them to. That type of “emergency” spending isn’t the problem for me.

Broken boiler and sick dog aside, most of the money I spent was on food (at the supermarket or fish’n’chips thanks to the bad influence boys ;) ) or was related to socialising – a couple of drinks at a pub, a curry, a cake & tea outing — nothing excessive but stuff that’s a darnsight more frivolous than a broken boiler in the middle of winter. I could have been stricter with myself on these spends – I could have used the opportunity to suggest socialising activities that didn’t involve spending any money – but it wasn’t a lot of money so I’m not beating myself up about them too much.

I’d like to start doing no spend weeks/fortnights/months regularly over the next year – I’d like to see the difference of temptations at different times of year, when I’m not ill, when I’m leaving the house more etc. I’m also going to have some “eat from the pantry/garden” weeks over the spring and summer – that’s something that’s been missing from this no spend week since I had food on my exception list – we’ve not really cut back on food spending at all — it wasn’t the point of this no spend exercise for me but I think it should be for future iterations.

All in all, an interesting experience – if you’ve not tried it yourself, I’d heartily recommend giving it a go.

The insanity of the VAT on food regulations

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 4 January 2011 in frugal | 3 comments

This morning Sarah Pennells, The Savvy Woman, pointed me in the direction of a wonderful document: HMRC’s rules on whether food goods are zero- or standard rated for VAT.

Most food is zero-rated so not subject to VAT but some things are “standard rated” – some rather strange things.

Basically, you need your chocolate inside your biscuits (not on the outside), your shortbread topped with both caramel & chocolate, and your gingerbread men with just eyes, no buttons! No buttons, dammit!! (There is definitely a joke in there about millionaire’s shortbread getting a tax break compared to normal chocolate-covered shortbread – but my brain is too befuddled by these regulations to make it!)

I think it’s interesting that there is such a distinction between stuff used for home baking and stuff that’s just for snacking/treats – I always wondered why, say, dried fruit was in a few different places in the supermarket.

As we don’t spend that much money, I wasn’t too bothered about the VAT hike – but now I feel like we should avoid VAT-able food products on principle of the ridiculousness of these rules! Only biscuit-based marshmallow teacakes for us from now on ;)

My low-spend ’11: buy less than 12 items of clothing in 2011

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 4 January 2011 in anti-consumerism, frugal | 37 comments

In my goals for 2011 list, I’ve mentioned that I’m going to limit the amount of clothes I buy in 2011. I’m not going to buy any more than 12 items of clothing in total over the year.

I could have gone for a complete ban – “no clothes in 2011” – and I know a number of people have done that, and succeeded. But my unexpected “emergency” spending (broken boiler, sick dog) during my recent no spend weeks proved something I already suspected: complete bans on spending or buying certain items are unsustainable for me.

In terms of clothes, I have a lot of them but they’re nearly all extremely casual day wear – jeans, cotton tops & hoodies. Even my idea of smart is smart-very-casual – slightly neater jeans and a nicer top. If something more formal came up – a job interview, a funeral, a wedding I couldn’t duck out of (and I duck out of most of them) – then I’d be stuck. I also teach teenagers one evening a week so have to have appropriate clothes for that (doesn’t have to be smart but has to be, you know, non-boob-flashing decent). And I probably didn’t buy more than 20 things in 2010 and I’ve got a cardigan in semi-regular circulation that I bought when I was 16 (big then, snug now) – so some things may need replacing. Having a ration of 12 allows me some flexibility when things are needed, or hell, just really, really wanted.

(The original goal (which I may have posted about the place and was in my goal list until last night) was that I could buy 12 new items of clothing AND 12 second-hand but I deleted the second bit because that doesn’t really matter – and 12 in total is much more of a challenge.)

My goal with this limit isn’t necessarily to save money – it may do but equally, I might decide to spend more on quality items than I would have done in the past – but to only spend it consciously and on things that I’ve properly considered. I want to have to ask myself “do I really want this? do I really need this? Is it better to buy this wear-all-the-time t-shirt or that wear-once ballgown?”. It’s about reducing consumption and breaking habits.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a confession on Recycle This about my almost-addiction to buying clothes. I had a bit of a hoarding tendency towards cheap clothes – if I saw something that I liked and it was officially a bargain (in a sale, charity shop or super-cheap to start with), I’d buy it because who knew when something like that would come up as cheap again? But in these days of practically-disposable clothes, something always comes along that cheap again, and again, and again. For example, I used to wear an all-black self-imposed sort-of uniform to work every day and whenever I passed a sale rack, I’d check it for black tops to add to my collection. By the time I finished working at the uni, I had about 30 black work tops, including some I’d never or rarely worn because there was a reason why they were on that sale rack.

Already when I wrote that confessional, I had improved my ways a lot and I’ve cut back a whole lot more since then. But I still think it would be useful to consider it more consciously – as I said above, I probably didn’t buy more than 20 things in total in 2010, but that’s off the top of my head now, thinking about the purchases I can remember, stuff that’s now in regular circulation – who knows how many things I’ve forgotten because they were mistakes and got buried at the back of the wardrobe? I want to know exactly what I’ve bought in 2011. I want to break these habits once and for all.

As with my no spend week last month, I’m giving myself a few exceptions though:

• Essential footwear – to me, some footwear is less a fashion choice and more essential health & safety gear – eg wellies, supportive trainers/boots, work boots. I think I’m all set in this department but I won’t need to buy anything but I’d like it as an exception just in case. (However, if I buy non-essential footwear – like the leather boots I’ve been looking out for – then that’ll be counted in the 12).
• Essential underwear – ditto to large degree – with my gargantuan sweater cows, I need good bras for scaffolding purposes. As for knickers & socks, I tend to buy multi packs for value – that would wipe out half my allowance in one pack! Again, I think I’ve got enough to last out the year anyway and this exception only covers essentials – “because they’re pretty” pants don’t count.
• Presents and other freebies – people don’t tend to buy me clothes but I’ve had the odd geeky tshirt as a gift – seems unfair to have to include stuff in my limit if it’s “forced” upon me. (I *won’t* use this as a get-around – “Philip Green gave me this as a present in exchange my gift to his shop of £30” or even “John bought this for me because I wanted it” – just to cover genuine gifts.)
• Stuff I make myself – another of my 11 goals for 2011 is to make my own clothes – I’m hope not having a steady stream of shop-bought items pouring in will encourage me to take to my sewing machine. I’d love it if it got to the end of the year and my wardrobe was jam-packed with new items – I’d only bought 12 things but made 20. That would be ace.

So that’s it – no more than 12 items of clothing in 2011. Let’s see how it goes!

Have you tried a clothes ban/strict ration before? Any hints/tips?

Anyone want to join me in this one?

My Really Good Goals for 2011

Posted by louisa on Monday 3 January 2011 in meta | 10 comments

I have set myself a list of goals for the year ahead – written up on my personal blog because they’re not all simple/DIY living related.

I did the same last year and found it useful – even if I did pretty much mentally abandon some mid-year. The most useful ones that weren’t a specific tick-off-done goal but one’s that helped shape my whole life – for example, I had a goal of “make a meal entirely out of things I’ve grown, raised, caught or killed” and in order to achieve that, I grew veg & herbs, raised chickens for the eggs and foraged for wild food.

My list is very simple/DIY living heavy this year! Here are the relevant ones:

• Increase the food output from our garden and cook a meal using things I’ve grown/raised/caught/killed completely off-grid
• Learn how to successfully take and propagate cuttings from every applicable type of perennial plant/shrub in the house/garden
• Make a piece of furniture for the house (woodworking)
• Make an entire outfit (to include conquering sewing patterns)
• Go fishing in the North Sea
• Buy no more than 12 items of clothing across the year*
• Specific food makery and/or eatery (because if I did them all separately it would take up half the list)
• Bake at least once a week
• Grow a sourdough starter and make bread from it
• Make a hard cheese
• Try ten vegetables (or veggie wild foods) that I’ve not tried before
• Build a cold smoking cabinet, try cold smoking more stuff & try hot smoking too
• Participate more in the real world – engage more with our local community and meet some internet people in real life

(* I’m going to explain this more fully tomorrow)

There were a few things I also really, really want to try but I didn’t think warranted goal status on that limited list:

• Keep records to track our usage of consumables – I mean, I want to know how many toilet rolls we use in a month, how much soap, how long it takes for us to get through a 10kg bag of rice etc. I might record absolutely everything we use for a month or so, and use that hardcore exercise to decide what is worth tracking longer term
• Have regular “eat only from the pantry & garden” weeks in the spring/summer, probably once a month
• Have more conscious “no spend” periods – minimum fortnights, possibly months, throughout the year
• Find a solution to the dog poo problem – something more useful than a cork up Lily-dog’s bum. Probably a dedicated wormery.
Collect and store more rainwater for use on the garden – we can’t use the main gutter at the back for rainwater but could still collect off the greenhouse, from a gutter at the front and possibly off the extension area too. To be explored and implemented.
• Make my own soap – something that’s been nagging at me for a little while
• Make my own vinegar – for some reason, I have a really strong desire to make pineapple vinegar (probably the efficiency of using up the scraps)
• UPDATED TO ADD: Make conscious efforts to reduce food waste at home – probably a period of monitoring it closely to see what we throw out (which I’ll post on here) as well as better menu planning.

It seems like 2011 will be a busy one!

I’m hoping that the last goal – getting to know more people locally and meeting internet buddies in real life – will help me meet some of my other goals — I’d love to find mentors for some of my learning-new-skills goals. If you fancy mentoring me, let me know! :)

What have you got planned for 2011?