The Really Good Life | Growing, Making & Doing in the UK

The financial pros and cons for building up a food store/pantry

Writing about my “I’ll keep a store cupboard in case zombies attack!” paranoia yesterday (ahem) reminded me that I wrote something for a personal finance website last year but for some reason, didn’t get around to sending it over. I’ve re-edited it to make it suitable for here/now but have kept it purely about the financial side of things. I would love to hear your thoughts on it. Over the last few years, we seem to be experiencing more and more cases of extreme weather and natural disasters. This year in the UK, we’ve had an unusually wet summer, leading to flooding, and elsewhere around the northern hemisphere, it’s been too hot, which has caused fires. There have also been unseasonal hurricanes/tornados, and while we’ve been comparatively lucky so far this year, 2011 was horrendous for other natural disasters such as the earthquakes in New Zealand and the earthquake/tsunami in Japan. There’s no question that having a small supply for food and water is essential if bad weather is predicted and it’s important to maintain emergency supplies in case an unforeseen disaster strikes. But I’ve recently been considering the financial pros and cons of keeping a larger store pantry. Why it makes financial sense to keep a large food store at home Aside from the security of having emergency supplies when needed, the largest day-to-day benefits of maintaining a large store at home are the financial ones. Many people with large food stores grow and/or preserve a lot of their own food when it’s in season so have put-up supplies that are a lot cheaper than it would cost to buy them ready-made in the shops/out of season. Certain items (such as sacks of wheat berries, dried pulses or rice) can be bulk bought, resulting in a cheaper cost-per-serving, and in many places can also be bought direct from the producer or through a not-for-profit co-op, cutting the price even further. Having a well-stocked store and list of “store-cupboard recipes” should also reduce the amount of times/frequency with which you visit your local supermarket. When you shop your own pantry, you’re not going to get persuaded to part with a few pounds on unnecessary temptations and treats. Depending on how far you are from your local shops, that may also save a considerable amount of money in fuel/public transport costs too, as well as time. As well as saving money directly and indirectly in the first place, a large pantry is also essentially a saving scheme. In the UK interest rates on savings accounts are considerably lower than the rate of inflation so our bank savings are actually shrinking in real terms while food prices are rising. Items bulk-bought...

How I lead a green and frugal life by Lily-dog

It’s two years to the day since we brought Lily-dog home so I asked her to put some words together about how she leads a simple, green & frugal life with us. Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Sorry, got a bit overexcited there, I do like meeting new people. Would you like me to bring you a shoe? Because I can go and get one if you like? Here! Here’s a shoe. I hope you like it. It’s my shoe. Don’t try to take my shoe! I like shoes! Ok, ok, I’ll put the shoe down and start telling you what you want to hear. I’m not quite sure what the female feedy-huggy one has asked of me because I am a dog but I’ll try my best and will try very hard not to randomly woof. Although I am told I enunciate my woof splendidly, with a proper “wuh” at the beginning and everything. Wuh-oof. So, yes, I have lived here for two years now and I think I lead a pretty green & frugal life. Well, a white-and-brown frugal life. I grow my own fur so I don’t need clothes – 12 items in ’11? Pff! I had less that 12 items of clothing in 11 years! – and my fur can be composted when I don’t need it any more. I am also more than happy to snuggle underneath a duvet or a blanket too for extra warmth, no need for gas-guzzling central heating. I do not – NOT!NOT!NOT! – like going in the car because they are expensive and noisy and sometimes involve journeys to the vets which are expensive, noisy and sometimes involve injections. If I had my way the tail-less ones would get rid of the car and we’d just walk everywhere we needed to go. Because the only place we need to go is the woods, right? Definitely NOT the vets, just the woods. I like the woods. They are at the bottom of my garden. Walking in the woods is my favourite hobby and it makes me happy that we go there every day. If I wasn’t such a scaredy dog, I’d probably run around the woods on my own all day, making sure I’m instantly aware of any changes in smells and to check that those squirrels aren’t up to anything. Those squirrels are always up to something. That’s why they need barking at. “What are you up to, squirrels?” I say with one single well-enunciated woof. They know I’m onto them, that’s why they run. I like eating things I find in the woods. Once I found a tuna sandwich. That was a good day. I carried it for...

Washing in winter: ideas for reducing laundry?

Hi guys, sorry for the radio silence for the last few days – I went on a drama training course on Tuesday and have only just recovered ;) It was a lot of fun and very useful but I’m farrrrr too lazy for what was essentially a five hour exercise class. My neck is sore and I’ve a huge bruise on my knee from stage combat training but on the other hand, pretending to beat up a new colleague for 2.5hrs is a really good bonding experience :) ANYWAY, back to reality now. Lazy, lazy reality. I do like being lazy in winter because it can actually be an efficient/frugal way to do things: yesterday, John was out of the house all day so me & my aching body worked from bed until I had to go to out myself – no need for heating. And as I’ve said before when talking about linedrying laundry in winter, some things just get left until spring: throws/blankets get taken out of service, occasional wear that I won’t need for another few months can stay in the washing basket, and bedding etc gets left in the washing basket too until a nice drying-outside day, even if that’s another month (or longer) away. Lazy is good. But I wondered what other strategies people use for reducing the amount of laundry they have to get through in winter. Aside from burst washing machine pipe incidents, the washing isn’t the hard part but the line drying is, particularly if you’re tight on space at home. I remember looking into the issue of laundry a year or so ago and being shocked how much people wash clothes – a whole outfit in the wash every day – some people wash bedsheets & tumble dry every day. I mean, gosh! Around here, underwear gets changed every day, t-shirts every other day, jeans & jumpers not so much. They get washed when they’re dirty, which isn’t after one day for us desk jockeys. I also have different sets of clothes for different jobs – for example, my scruffs (for gardening/chicken coop cleaning/DIY) have a much higher dirtiness threshold than the nicer clothes I wear when I’m teaching. How about you? Do you try to minimise the amount of washing you do in the winter (or all year around)? If so, what tactics do you use? If you don’t – how do you keep on top of it all in the cold days of...

Book Review: Stitch Step by Step by Maggi Gordon and Ellie Vance

It was a moment of serendipity when I spotted this book, Stitch Step by Step by Maggi Gordon and Ellie Vance, on the “new additions” shelf at the library back in September – I didn’t know it but I was about to get poorly sick — not ill enough to just collapse in a heap but not well enough to, you know, move. I suddenly found myself with a lot of sewing playtime! The design of the book grabbed me from the outset: the pretty blue/dotty cover; the clear, well laid out tutorial pages; and the stitch galleries, oh my, the stitch galleries. I think it’s worth noting that I’m quite new to embroidery. I’ve cross-stitched for a few years now but I’ve not spent a lot of time looking into the different stitches available when you break away from the cross (or fractions of it) and backstitches. The stitch galleries in this book really opened my eyes to the different possibilities – I could suddenly see the appeal of making samplers! As this is nearly all counted-thread work, it didn’t seem a million miles from my cross-stitching and it gave me the confident to jump straight into some stitching myself. I’ll admit, I followed a handful of the tutorials because it was clear to see what to do from the stitch gallery pictures but those that I did follow were clear step-by-step guides as the title of the book suggests :) The pictures were crisp, with good fabric/thread contrast so it was easy to see what was going on. (The one I “chose” to take bad pictures of to illustrate this point is probably the least contrasting one but you can see the layout.) In addition to the colourful thread work, there were also sections on whitework – which was a new concept to me (the idea of using the stitches to open up holes in the fabric I mean, not just the white-on-white stitching), using beads & sequins and on designing as well as stitching Florentine/Bargello work. Purr. Me like! As with all tutorial books, they covered the basics as well – how to use embroidery hoops, useful tools, finishing and whatnot – which again, was useful for a newbie like me. Overall, I didn’t read this book cover-to-cover or feel like I wanted to try every different stitch/tutorial – but it’s not for that: it’s for providing inspiration and reference, and I think it does those things very well. I did have two minor problems with it though – both design issues. Firstly, I had the hardback version from the library. Apparently there is a paperback version available too — I think the hardback would be...

My ten favourite simple living/growing/cooking/making books

(Inspired by book-aholic buying behaviour this month, I’ve decided to have a bit of a book-themed week both here and on my recycling site, Recycle This.) Despite living on the internet & using it/blogs for most of my day-to-day info, I’ve got quite a few simple living related books and as you might expect, some are better than others. Some were chosen after careful research, others randomly picks from charity shops & the like – but as is often the case, there is little correlation between that and which are the better books! Here, in no particular order, are some of my favourites: The New Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency by John Seymour – this is a great overview book of so many different things. It’s admittedly more aspiration than practical for me at the moment – and because it covers so many different areas, it doesn’t feel like the most practical book anyway (it doesn’t have space to go into detailed how-tos/trouble-shooting on each different topic) but it’s still very useful. If I was fleeing to escape the zombie hordes*, this is probably the non-fiction book I’d grab. Growing The Vegetable & Herb Expert by DG Hessayon – my first veg growing book and the one I keep going back to over & over again. Not hugely detailed on each type & some bizarre comments about only eating chillis if they’re part of “your heritage”, but very clear, with lots of pictures (very useful when troubleshooting pests/diseases) and packed with useful info. Grow Your Own Vegetables by Joy Larkcom – this book is almost the opposite of the Hessayon – lots of detail but not anywhere near as easy to dip into and few illustrations. I like them together but would struggle with the Larkcom on its own. The Edible Container Garden: Fresh Food from Tiny Spaces by Michael Guerra – I was a little disappointed when I got this as it includes a lot of whitespace, big pretty rather than purposeful pictures and a lot of general overview text — but the 30 pages on “what shall I grow?” made the book worth it – very useful reference information about varieties, pot depths etc. I would recommend it to anyone who grows more than just the basic herbs in containers – but try to find a secondhand one so you don’t resent paying for the padding. Foraging Mushrooms by Roger Philips – not a field guide but a very comprehensive, very clear reference book for all sorts of fungi found in the British isles and thereabouts. No “if it’s got this shape cap, it’s this” identification charts but lots of very clear pictures once you have an idea...

Fixing runny/solid jam and reusing marrow & squash leaves

Posted by louisa on Friday 20 August 2010 in green | 0 comments

Just a quick heads up that over on Recycle This, we’ve had a few relevant posts this week.

Yesterday, I asked how to fix jam that was too runny or too solid – and lots of other jam related reuse/recycle questions.

And today I’m asking about reuses for marrow & squash leaves, other than just heave-hoing them into the compost. They’re so giant and tough that they seem like they might have other uses… we’ll see what people suggest.

If you’ve got any answers to either question, head over to Recycle This and tell us all about it :)

Fishing for fruit: catching wild plums with a fishing net

Posted by louisa on Thursday 19 August 2010 in wild food | 4 comments

Over the last week or so, we’ve slowly been watching the mystery fruit (on the mystery fruit tree outside our kitchen window) turn from green to deep red. We had no idea that the tree was a fruiting one until green baubles started appearing earlier in the summer and still aren’t quite sure what the fruits are – we think it’s wild plum. As I said the other day, John thought they tasted almost peach-ish but yesterday our friend George taste tested our harvest and declared them to be plum.

Or mostly plum.

Or plum related.

We’re treating them as plums.

Mushroom spotting at The Chevin, Otley

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 17 August 2010 in wild food | 4 comments

As I mentioned in my quick round-up yesterday, we found loads of mushrooms while walking at the Chevin, Otley with Lily-dog at the weekend – lots of different types and lots of each type. Unfortunately we didn’t have our mushroom identifying books with us so I had to make do with taking photos of some of them and attempting the identification later. The identifying is the most important thing for me at the moment – there are too many inedible and poisonous ones for me to want to try eating them until I’m more confident in my knowledge.

I’ve made some stabs at identification here – anyone got any feedback or better suggestions?

FYI, all the mushrooms here were found in the grass, but in a tree lined area so not exactly open grassland or deep dark forest. I didn’t pay that much attention to the trees but it was a largely deciduous area rather than the planted pine woods around there.

Mushroom 1

This was the first big one we saw. A light orange sombrero-shaped top with pinkish white gills underneath.

A few days off

Posted by louisa on Monday 16 August 2010 in cooking, frugal, growing, wild food | 1 comment

I’ve just had a few days offline to clear my head a bit – I spent a lot of time reading, resting & DSing so it wasn’t as productive as four days off work usually is, but there are a few things to report:

Massive egg update
The supersized chicken egg we got on Monday has been repeated on a few days this week – not a scientific test but definitely more likely to happen after they’ve had a good portion of green treats the day before. We’ve had a couple of them and they’ve been double yolkers – which is a worry as it hints that there is something wrong with the fine lady’s reproductive system (even though they’re still young, I think they’re a bit too old for it to be a “really young and still learning” quirk). Will keep an eye on the situation.

Foraging & fruiting
Took Lily-dog for a long walk around Otley Chevin on Saturday – found the most wild mushrooms I’ve seen in one place but unfortunately didn’t have our identification books with us, doh! Took lots of pictures for post-hoc identification – means we can’t forage them but the identification part is the more important bit at this stage in our learning really.

We also found the dregs of some wild raspberries – so ripe it was hard to pick them because they’d fall off as soon as we went nearly them.

Speaking of which, the bramble bushes in the woods next to our house are just about ready to give up their first glut – John had some as a pre-breakfast snack while dogwalking this morning and declared them delicious. Have to go picking soon.

Experimenting in the garden: leeks & tomatoes

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 10 August 2010 in growing | 0 comments

As I mentioned in my “lessons from our garden so far” post, this year is about experimentation in our garden. It’s our first growing season in a new place, with very different sun, light & soil conditions from anywhere I’ve grown before so it’s interesting to generally see what works and what doesn’t. I know what the books say will work and what the books say I should do, but sometimes that doesn’t mean squat ;)

There are a couple of areas where I’m experimenting a bit more specifically.

Leeks
A number of respected sources recommended lopping off the top thirds of the leaves and the bottom third of the roots on transplanting. Other equally respected sources recommended transplanting them as they are and “not mutilating them”. So I decided to half-and-half my leeklings – or rather third/third/third them because I ran out of space, and had to plant the third in another spot. So my leeks experiment is:

some leeklings top & tailed
some leeklings left intact
some leeklings in a bed where they’ve been trampled on by the cats & my clumsy boyfriend.

I think it might be between the first two about which is more successful.

Supersized egg!

Posted by louisa on Monday 9 August 2010 in chickens | 0 comments

After a run of just three eggs a day nearly all last week, then three eggs and a small pale one yesterday, we’re back to four eggs again now – and boy, one of the girls is over-achieving!

The smaller egg here weighs around 60g – which is the large end of medium and a typical size for our girls – but the big one weighs over 90g! No wonder I was woken up by some loud bwarking this morning! According to standard UK egg sizing guidelines, anything over 73g is a XL-sized egg – this is quite a bit over 73g!

I suspect Mrs Mauve is responsible for it – she’s quite a bit bigger than the other girls but she’s still only a young one, 26 weeks old max, so she – and her eggs – might get bigger still. Yesterday I was working in the garden and they got a lot of greens/veg – I’ll have to keep a check on the treats/super-large egg thing is causal or a coincidence.

Keeping track of personal finances – how do you do it?

Posted by louisa on Monday 9 August 2010 in frugal | 1 comment

How do you keep track of your money from day to day?

Considering my love of both frugality and numbers, I don’t actually have a particularly good handle on my finances. I have a rough picture in my head of things – how much my standard incomings/outgoings are, how much I’ve spent in addition to those, how much I have in savings and how much I have on my paid-off-in-full-each-month credit card – and I check my bank balance reasonably regularly so nothing really passes me by — but I’ve been thinking lately that it would be better if that picture was in sharper focus. It’s hard to say how much growing our own food is saving on our food bill or how much an insulation measure saves us on heating unless we know what we’re spending in the first place.

All my accounts are paperless/internet-based and I use finance software as part of my job so it makes sense to manage things on my computer/online – but I’ve not been able to find an app (either online or offline) that does what I need. I’m not asking for the moon on a stick but I want to be able to import statements from my bank, manually create/delete transactions, define categories & assign stuff to them easily, produce useful reports and most importantly, not feel it’s a chore to do (because if it feels like a chore, it won’t get done). I’ve spent a good number of hours over the last couple of days looking into different options but all either had major show-stopping flaws or were that complicated/clunky to use that I would actively prefer to do actual chores than that.

(Offline, on Ubuntu/Linux, I tried GNUCash, Grisbi, KMyMoney and Homebank. Online, I tried Xero Personal & the very US-focused Mint.com. I also tried to try the multi-platform YNAB – You Need A Budget – but the free trial just wouldn’t download for me, no matter what I tried.)

A couple of friends suggested just using a spreadsheet, which I think are great for overall finance planning but would involve a lot of manual data entry work for keeping a track of every transaction — and I want that “every transaction” focus or I won’t have gained anything over my mental map.

Do you use dedicated software, or a spreadsheet, or some other computer-based method? Or do you still keep a track of things on paper? If so, how does that work out for you? Any advice, tips or software recommendations would be gratefully received!

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