My story, part 2..

Thank you for reading yesterday and for all your nice comments.

I bought my first home with my, then, partner and it was an ex council house that I picked up for a song (£77,000 in the South East with was a real bargain at the time) and was in need of an awful lot of work. I love to get my hands dirty, so I did 100% of the work myself and sold it after 2 years for £110,000. I tried everything and learnt any new skill that I needed by reading books and just giving it a go with patience. Making some money was just a lucky circumstance. Unfortunately we had got into debt because we had had to take a loan out to make up the deposit and our relationship just couldn’t stand the stress, so all in all, I came out of that experience £13,000 richer, but life poorer and more stressed than ever. Shortly after this I bought my flat in London and that was an expense I could, fortunately, at the time afford, although only just. I was comfortable but very discontent in a city I hated. The thing it allowed me to do was to sell up and move here with a small mortgage of only £46,000. Which makes me a very lucky man indeed.

As I have hinted, I had become increasingly sick of people wasting money and began to look back with shame at some of the ways in which I had wasted money in the past. It is so much easier to just do what everyone else does, but I think in this way it is easy to lose perspective on who you really are and what you really need.

I bought some pots and started planting my own veg and to be honest, I think my real journey began when those first green shoots appeared in my tomato plants. It was a revelation to me that I could grow something from a tiny seed that could eventually feed me. I bought a guide to self-sufficiency by Dick Strawbridge and devoured it, borrowed gardening books and read them from cover to cover and a plan took seed, just like those first green shoots of the tomato plants. I had become increasingly depressed and stopped going out much, not just because of the money but because of my hatred for where I lived. I saw that I had to make a long term plan. Being immobile was not an option.

Stage one of my plan happened about 3 years ago, when I started taking driving lessons, I knew that if I was going to live in the country, I had to be able to drive and until then, it had not been necessary. I did this, passed and bought a car.

Stage two was saving, saving and saving some more. I knew that I would have about £37,000 once I had sold my flat, so knew this would buy me nothing in the South East without a wopping mortgage and anyway, deep down I wanted the county I was born in. It was a slow realization. I was born in Lancashire and I am a Northerner at heart and was never meant to live in a Southen city. So lucky for me that house prices are very different in the North than in the South, I could have never done it the other way around. Having said that, I can honestly say that I would move anywhere to have improved my lot. 

And that would be my first piece of advice to anyone wanting to do something similar. Don’t be afraid of moving or trying something new if it could improve your life. Move to a modest home and look at your serious priorities. I think a garden was a top priority for me because it gives me the means to grow my own food, to get my hands in the earth and to build that connection up again with mother nature.There is nothing quite so calming as spending an afternoon working in the garden. My wish list had a sunny aspect garden at the top of the list – I felt it to be more important than the house actually – which made estate agents roll their eyes at me! Next I wanted a fixer upper, learn to do whatever can be done by yourself. Don’t pay someone if you can do something yourself, however busy you are, you can find time, think of all the time you save by not going shopping!

Anyway, back to the story. After passing my driving test, I gave myself 2 years more (was stuck in a fixed rate mortgage) and decided to make myself save another £10,000 in that time – no mean feat on a fairly low income with a mortgage to pay. I literally reduced my spending down to the bare minimum, I learnt how to cook everything from scratch and experimented with learning how to make just about any product that could be bought, from scratch. I tried making baked beans, tomato ketchup, shampoo, washing up liquid (not successful) etc etc, you get the picture. When you begin to break things down to the basics, you realise that most things can be done yourself, for a fraction of the cost – not always cheaper, but mostly.

So second piece of advice, learn to cook! Go to the library and get cookery books, or beg borrow and steal them. Buy a freezer and make large amounts of everything and get it frozen. Never throw a single piece of good food away and if it looks like it might go off, do something with it and freeze it! If you don't need it, don't buy it.

That is the end of part 2 and tomorrow I will post the final part of my short journal.

My story, part 1.,

One of my fairly new followers asked me recently if I had ever written a post about the journey which got me to this little cottage in the North. Of course the blog has been an online journal of that journey over the last 10 or so months, so there is no real individual post about it, so I thought that, despite the possibility of boring you all, I would say a little more about me and how I end up here. Sorry if it is a bit long and rambling, but I won’t be at all offended if you get bored and can’t be bothered to read on much! It is a long post, so I have decided to split it over a few days. First part is a little bit more about me and what I do.

As some of you may know if you’ve read enough of my comments, I have the rather unusual job of being an opera singer. I am, by no means, famous in this field of work, but I am moderately successful, which means basically that I have never had to do anything else to earn my money (except a brief stint as a personal shopper for Tesco when money was tight a few years ago) and that I have only had to accept decent solo parts rather than going into a chorus (which surprisingly pays better than solo work, but which gives less satisfaction). I come from a musical family (mother is a piano teacher, sister is an opera singer) and it was inevitable that I would do music in one form or another, so I got a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music when I was 18 (20 years ago) to study piano and soon swapped to first study singing because my voice was ok. When I graduated with a first, I got regular work singing small roles with opera companies and eventually moved onto bigger roles. It may surprise you to learn that an opera singer really doesn’t earn very much (unless you are Kiri te Kanawa). Our time is paid for by performance and the months of rehearsals are done for as little as £300. Yes, that is £300 a month working Monday to Saturday! We are supposed to make up for that when we start the performances. I say supposed to. I have never earned more than £17,000 gross in one year and that was a good year.

The thing about my job is, is that I come in contact with enormous amounts of serious wealth and enormous amounts of waste. At first it was exciting to be at after performance ‘do’s’ that had cost thousands, to be involved in enormously expensive productions. But soon reality takes over and you begin to realise that money should not be wasted like this. To give an example, a few years ago there was a production of an opera that had 2 fully automated animals in it (don’t ask). A big cow and a big horse. Each one had moving mouth, eyes, eyelids tails and feet. And each one cost in the region of £25,000. On the dress rehearsal, the director decided he didn’t like the horse and it was scrapped. Yes, I mean chucked out and never used in a single performance. In the bin. That sort of thing makes me sick (and goes towards the reason why opera tickets are so expensive). Anyway I digress (told you it may be rambling)

The wealth of people who don’t have a clue how ‘real’ people live became a bit sickening to me, although it was a long and slow waking up process. At first I was as guilty as the next person for wanting more, wanting to emulate the lifestyle and spending more than I had, getting myself in debts. But something was changing in my life and in my attitude towards money. Maybe I was growing up or maybe I was just becoming the person I was meant to be.

Will post part 2 tomorrow.

Making my mark

Today I planted my apple tree out in the back garden. I know it will be a few years before it bears fruit, but I will enjoy watching it grow while I do. I can't tell you how much pleasure it gave me working in the garden all afternoon in the lovely warm sunshine that we were blessed with today.
3 neighbours stopped by for a quick chat 'over the garden wall' and one of them told me some of the history of the place, having lived here for over 40 years. As you know, I am on the side of one of the Pennine Hills and just over the brow is a quarry. This would explain all the rocks I hit as I dug down in the ground making the hole for the tree! It is a labour of love pulling out all the stones. I went walking the other day up the hill and past the quarry and here are some picture.

The Rossendale countryside is pretty stunning I think you will agree.

More gardening this weekend if the weather holds.

My new windows and doors

My new windows and doors are installed and I am thrilled, it all looks so wonderful. I am broke now of course, but it is completely worth the scrimping and saving that I will be doing for the next few months.

Lovely new front door

The back of the house.

View from the back bedroom window which I have never seen 'til now

And another

Patio doors from the inside

Front door from the inside

Patio doors open

And from the outside.

What more can I say, I love them and I am very happy. And finally safe from buglers (not that it is a particularly risky location!)

I have a confession to make........

Hello all,
Yes, I do actually have a confession. After all my good work this month spending almost nothing, I blew a massive hole in the budget this weekend.
The justification is, however, that it is money well spent in the long run towards my bid for low cost living. I thought, as now the weather is beginning to improve and have glimmers of spring (ah, come on, I know you have to look hard) that I had to turn my attention to the garden. I have been busy the last month or so making a long term plan of the garden and how to make it as productive as possible.
Anyway, this is what I bought (at least I shopped about and got good prices)

A Bramley apple tree.  Definitely a long term purchase. It is about as tall as me (I come in at a measly 5 foot 7) and I look forward to eventually having all those free apples. I have to buy another at some point soon so that one will pollinate the other so I will keep my eyes open for a good eating apple variety.

A rhubarb plant. You've got to love Rhubarb and I sure do. When I'm not making apple crumble I will be making rhubarb crumble.

A lavender and a rosemary - just because.

Seed packets - peas, salad, tomatoes, spring onion, onion sets, potatoes, pepper, radish

180 litres of compost.

Wood to build raised bed number 1.


So, although that little lot cost me over £40, effectively blowing nearly half of march's budget, I will find the money somewhere and reap the rewards this year and over the years to come.

On another note, my builder comes tomorrow to put in the new front door and patio door and returns on Wednesday to do two windows.

So this week is spend spend spend, which will be followed by a period of work work work and broke broke broke.

Still, I am smiling and happy and can't wait to get stuck into the garden.

Photos will follow later in the week as I get stuck into things out there. I am having regular problems posting photos on blogger (it seems as one problem dries up another one starts up) so it is a bit hit and miss. Anyone else had trouble with the photos corrupting?

£100 challenge update

Just a quick update on my challenge to spend only £100 this month. Honestly, it was a doddle. I have spent approximately £90 and with little more than a week to go, I only need some milk to keep my going and maybe one or two little extras here and there.
So feeding myself for £100 a month is very simple, in fact, I know it could be easily done for quite a bit less than that, with more organisation on my part. That shouldn't really be a surprise as I know that there are people on here feeding more than one person on that amount. The hard part is the other little things you buy in a month that you don't take so much account of. Charity shop finds, the odd house essential that you never accounted for. There are definitely some things that I need to buy but can't until next month so next time around, I will try and budget better.
Another thing that I will do next month is to pay using cash. I will take the full £100 out at the beginning of the month. Much easier to keep track of that way. In fact, I think it is a better way in general to use money instead of cards. You know where you are then.
But all in all, an experiment success and I am that much nearer to me new windows and doors now!

Heaps of tomatoes, jugs of cream and bottles of ginger beer.

When I was a little boy I absolutely loved Enid Blyton adventure stories. Read them all over and over and I think that I can guarantee that it was these books that started my passion for reading. As I got older I lost interest in these wonderful stories and moved on to a different sort of book, but I never threw away all my old and very well-thumbed copies.

I have been unpacking some boxes here and discovered all my old Enid Blyton books, safely stores away and I just spent a happy hour browsing through the various titles of the ones I loved, The Island of Adventure, The Secret of Moon Castle, The Famous Five. I could go on and on. 

Anyway, one of the things that I remember so well about the books was the fantastic descriptions of food the children all used to eat. So I looked in one and very quickly found one of the typical descriptions:

'It wasn't an ordinary afternoon tea, it was a high tea. A fresh ham, glistening pink, a veal and ham pie smothered in green parsley, like the ham. Yellow butter in glass dishes, a blue jug of thick yellow cream. Honey. Home made strawberry jam. Hot scones. A large fruit cake, as black as a plum pudding inside, egg sandwiches, tea, cocoa and creamy milk.'

I used to get hungry when I read these descriptions and always wanted that sort of tea myself.

Now I get thinking about my nephews and how they would turn their noses up at a spread like that, picking at things and preferring a mcdonalds or KFC for a treat. There would be cries of 'I don't like egg', or 'this bread doesn't taste like the one from the shop', or ‘I don't like the fruit in the fruit cake’. They don't like jam, they don't like ham, they don't like scones. All in all they are a nightmare to feed. Times and eating habits have changed beyond recognition and, ok, Enid Blyton may have been old fashioned, even when I was reading them, but one thing never changes - quality food wins the day, is home made and doesn't need to cost much! If you make it all yourself, then that spread up there would not cost much at all and would keep you going for days with leftovers! And what nicer tea to come home to!

I hope I am not alone in my fond memories of Enid Blyton. Anyone else?