Out with the Old and In with the New

 

This is is my final Blog post of 2012.

 

Usually I do a review of some kind, summing up the Blog and events over the previous 52 weeks but this year the words escape me completely, there is nothing I can say on here that sums up this year in the way that my heart will let me express.  So I will keep quiet and let this year slip by, trickle away unnoticed, end with a fizzle and pop not a whoosh and a bang.

 

I am looking forward so much to 2013, a brand New Year. 

 

One that holds hope and freshness, one that beckons me with arms flung wide, that we will begin and end it together is all that I ask, and that it will be gentler with us than the last one is my heartfelt prayer.  We walk forward into this new year with hope, with strength and with determination, that we walk into it together is the only thing that is holding me up at the moment.

 

Thank you to all my Blog readers for your words of support over this past year, you have been as good a bunch of true friends as I could ever have asked for.  You have been there when I needed you, you have sent your prayers for me and my family, you have contacted me through the Blog and privately with helpful advice, with words of encouragement and with your very presence when I have needed you most - THANK YOU.

 

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Two of the pages at the top of this Blog will vanish tomorrow to make room for new Challenges for the coming year.  If you would like to have a last read of them please do.  The ones going are £2012 in 2012 and Live Below the Line. 

 

I have already put up two of the newer Challenges, The £2 Housekeeping Challenge and I Love Saving Money - 2013, these will be joined by another complimentary Challenge that I will be working towards in the New Year.

 

The main push for us in this coming year is to save money, we have found what we would like to be our 'forever home', now we just have to have the finances to make it ours.  An offer is going in towards the end of January and we have our fingers firmly crossed that it will indeed be ours.  It would be a wonderful way to start a brand new year, with a brand new home to call our very own and to make this a reality we have to save like mad, we have a large deposit, but we will be pushing from day one of ownership to pay off the mortgage as soon as we possibly can, for only then can Lovely Hubby take partial retirement from work and we will both be truly living Our New Life in the Country.

 

So this Blog for coming year will be full of our many and varied ways of saving money and making money, of making what we have last and jettisoning all that was part of our old lives that we no longer feel the need to hold onto.  We are intending to simplify our lives as much as we possibly can in every way we can think of. 

 

It truly will be our 'Year of Less'.

 

Streamlining the Blog is my first little step, so read the pages (if you want to) before they vanish, if you haven't already  voted in the Dorset Cereal Blog Awards I would love it if you could nip over and vote today as that too will be deleted later on tomorrow.   A huge thank you to those of you who have already voted, I am truly grateful.

 

 

 

Thank you to everyone for reading over the course of the last year and in the years before that, and a huge welcome to those of you who have just found 'Our New Life in the Country', you are along for an interesting journey with us over the next 12 months, fasten your seatbelts.

 

Sue xx

 

I did it .... £2012 in 2012

 

Challenge Complete!!

 

At the start of this year I set out to try to make an additional £2012 in this year of 2012.

 

Using the means of Amazon selling, EBay selling and car boot sales all through the Summer, I brought extra cash into the house.  By cutting down on our weekly housekeeping bill and being penny pinching with my personal spends (okay so the odd treat crept in mostly books she says, hanging her head in shame ... lol .... as if!), I stopped cash leaving the house.

 

And the brilliant news is I managed it. 

 

In fact I beat it (but only just) I made a grand total of £2015.73.

 

 

 

Does happy little jiggy dance, just like this bunny!!

 

As my reward the rest of the year is a CHALLENGE FREE ZONE, well maybe just the odd coppers being dropped into the Sealed Pot, I can't let this go hungry.

 

Thanks for all the encouragement and if you want to see more about how I made the money month by month, visit the stand alone page (at the top of the Blog) entitled '£2012 in 2012'

 

Sue xx

Not Spending in September

Last month I was going to challenge myself not to spend ..... it fizzled out through lack of keeping track and circumstances.  I decided to begin again for September and this time I've been keeping tabs on myself properly.

 

 

The Challenge is purely to spend as little as possible from my housekeeping budget for the month and to put all the money I have managed to save towards my other Challenge ....  £2012 in 2012.  Both Pages are at the top of the Blog under the Blog title if you want to follow my progress.

 

 

My Housekeeping Allowance is £50 a week, this is used for food for the two of us and dogs, (I buy them supermarket cheapo mince and tins of tuna, we are trying to wean both of them off  'dogfoods' as such, as Rosy doesn't like them much and always leaves some which Suky then eats ... and she is supposed to be on a diet!!).

 

 



 

So I have £200 for the month of September and my weeks are running Saturday to Saturday as this is when the month started.

 

 

 

I have lots of food in stock as you can see from these photos, tins, jars, packets and lots of dried foods in jars.

 

 

 

There is also lots in the freezers, both of them.  And dried herbs and seasonings to compliment the ones that are still growing happily away.

 

 

  We also still have crops growing in the Veggie Patch, including Spinach, Kale, Courgettes and Cabbages, so there is absolutely no chance of us going hungry.

 

I am trying not to go to the supermarket too much even though that particular Challenge has now ended, (all Jokers were played by 5th September) I still love my High Street shops way to much to just abandon them.  But in an effort to keep costs as low as possible I will be using up all my vouchers and Nect*r points to help pay for my shopping while I am doing this Challenge.

 

The food in the picture at the top was last weeks additional necessities, I spent £22.25 and a voucher at Mr Sainsb**ys.  The small bottles of water are a rare buy for me, we have them in to use for when we are travelling and once emptied they are filled from our big cheap bottles or with diluted squash.  The biscuits were for travelling too, to save us money at the services, (own drinks, own nibbles equals pennies staying in pockets), I could have made some but I ran out of time last week, so they were a compromise.

 

I am going to run this for as long as possible, but the main push is through the month of September, I would actually like to run all supplies right down, I wonder how long it will actually take me.

 

 

 

 

After all not spending at all is the best way to save. So for the foreseeable future I am shopping from my cupboards and freezers and putting the money saved into the Bank of Sue.

 

 

Sue xx

Broody Hens...... and Not Spending

Look what I found under some of our hens today, this was hours after I had done the first sweep of the henhouses fetching the eggs.   With the much higher temperatures of the last few days three of them have gone broody on me, including Mother Goose, who must now have decided that her three HUGE children are most definitely big enough to look after themselves.

Of course this now means that I must be vigilant each day and go out and fetch the eggs from under them.  We don't want any more chicks on the smallholding this year.  We have more enough hens at the moment.

Hopefully I will be able to persuade them that motherhood is not all it's cracked up to be and get them out and about eating and drinking with the others.   While a hen is broody she usually stops laying, and disassociates herself from the flock, I don't want to have any outsiders while the goslings are growing so quickly, and these three are simply pinching the other girls eggs to sit on.

What's more annoying at the moment is that I haven't actually got any eggs to eat myself!!

We sold out of eggs at the Car Boot sale last week and then Lovely Hubby had a bumper order from work which we just about managed to fulfill and now, she says with a sad sulky face, I haven't got any eggs for me!!

And on a completely different note....

Today I have made a decision NOT to  spend any money for the rest of the month.

There are three reasons,

1.  I don't have much money left. 

2.  I don't think really I need anything.

 3.   I want to eat up what we have in the cupboards and freezers to make room for storing and freezing our own produce in the next few months in readiness for Winter.

So although  I will still have my normal weekly housekeeping allowance of £50, in case of emergencies, I'm going to try NOT to  spend it.  Whatever is over at the end of each week will be transferred to the £2012 in 2012 Challenge pot, which is looking decidedly poor at the moment and way behind where it should be.

Call me strange (and some folk do), but I like the idea of this, let's see how long I can go before I spend any money.

Sue xx

£2012 in 2012

Now we're in the house I have to get my mind back in some small ways back to normality (if there is ever a state of normal here).

One small way is to resume my Challenge of raising £2012 in 2012.  As I still have sooooo much to do I thought a good way of earning some extra pennies and not actually having to do very much is to get a few bits on Ebay. 

I put them on yesterday on a seven day sale so it ends next Sunday, a little tip I picked up from someone else here in Blog land, seemingly folk like to sit at their computers at the weekend bidding away in a determined effort to be the lucky 'winner'.

The first things to go on are these lovely little Cath Kidston Egg Cosies.  I thought with it being so close to Easter someone might want to give them as a gift.

They were one of those daft things that I liked the look of and bought, just because I could.  Now seeing them sat there, I'm slightly of the opinion that I must have been mad.  We rarely eat boiled eggs, if we do they are gone in minutes, why would I pop a cosy on to keep them warm.

Wearing my newly frugal and sensible head I have decided that although they are gorgeous to look at they are completely unnecessary and they need to go away and make someone else happy for a while.

They are HERE, if you want to watch their progress.

Today I have to nip back to the old house to pick up a few bits and pieces that we need here and couldn't fit in the cars over the weekend.

What unnessary, but lovely thing have you been tempted to buy in the past that you now know just has to go?

Sue xx

£2012 in 2012 - Can I do it?

After reading this Blog post over at 'my beautiful life' written by the lovely fostermummy I was very thoughtful.  Feeling inspired to have a go I thought about it overnight and then decided YES, I was going to try and make/save an additional £2012 in 2012.  Obviously I'm starting a couple of weeks late so I thought I better get my finger out and get doing something.

One of the dvds that has already sold - very appropriate title!!

So.....what have I done up to now, well firstly I listed some books and dvds on Amazon, I've sold £16.23 worth already and the money is currently on it's way to my bank account (isn't it amazing how long it takes money to reach your account, if a company is taking it out, it's out in a flash !!). 

One of my Ebay bags BNWT Cath Kidston Shoppers

I've just listed some bags I found tucked at the back of the wardrobe whilst sorting, and a shirt that just doesn't look right on me on Ebay.  I'm not doing loads of listings yet, I'm just testing the waters at the moment, I wasn't sure if it was a good time of year to be selling, we'll see.  There appears to be lots of interest anyway I've bids on most of my things and lots of Watchers. They are HERE if you want to pop over and have a look. The bidding ends at 1.17pm on Monday, fingers crossed for a half decent amount of money to add to my total.

Something else I've done is allow Adsense adverts on the Blog, if you click on them I get a few pence per click, so you can really help my total here and you don't even have to buy anything from them, simply click to open and then come back to the Blog and I'll get some lovely cash each month.  I'll let you know how much I get at the end of each month so you can see just how much you're helping.

Once the weather improves and the house move is out of the way I'll do a couple of Car Boot sales to help swell the total and clear the clutter, we have NO room for clutter at our new place.  Last year we made over £1,500 doing Car Boot sales all through the summer, but obviously we have nowhere near as much stuff now, but hopefully I'll be able to make at least half of that amount this year.  Maybe a spot of buying and selling will called for towards the end of the summer.....we'll see.

As well as the selling I will add to the total any housekeeping money over at the end of each month, hopefully some clever budgeting will help the total to rise and rise.  If you break it down it's £168 a month or £39 a week or £5.50 a day. There that sounds more manageable. Hopefully I'll catch up from my late start this month.

Do you have any more ideas that would help me raise this money?

Sue xx