Fiona Lippey,
Miser Extraordinaire and
founder of Simple Savings

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Unleashing the camping monster    

Jan 7, 2008

Happy New Year everyone! I've printed off my purchasing planner from the Free Stuff area and so far it's really working. I've only spent money three times so far this year and only on essential items. The planner really makes you think doesn't it? Wish I could say the same about Noel, although hopefully he'll follow my example as time goes on. Mind you, our New Year's Day trip to the beach didn't turn out as cost effective as we had planned. 'Whaddya want to do today?' I asked him on January 1st. 'Chop firewood!', came the reply. On a scorching hot day like today? No way I thought! 'We'll go to the beach', I decided to the kids' delight and spent all morning baking so we could have a picnic and not have to spend any money when out. Being New Year, our usual favourite East Coast beach spots were not an option - the queues over the one lane Kopu bridge are horrendous on public holidays - so in my wisdom I picked a quiet little seaside town half an hour away from us, called Kaiaua. Unfortunately, approximately 200 campervans had also picked the same quiet little seaside town to visit at the same time. They stretched bumper to bumper across the entire length of the beach! We managed to squeeze in between two of them and had brought Hubble and Minnie along for a swim but soon found this was impossible as the sea was full of people dragging nets for flounder. We couldn't find anywhere to unpack our picnic and to top it off, no sooner had the dogs set a foot on the beach than an enormous pitbull leapt out of the open window of a neighbouring vehicle and was making its way over to us at great speed. The boys quickly bundled their poor dogs back into the sweltering hot car and as Noel and I surveyed our surroundings I could bear it no longer. 'This is really horrible - can we go home again?' I asked. After being my bright idea in the first place I thought he was going to say no, that we had to stay and stick it out but fortunately he agreed and we high-tailed it back home and ate our lovely picnic in the peace and shade of the garden instead! Boy was I embarrassed - so much for my so-called frugal trip, what a waste of petrol! 'Now can you see why I wanted to stay home and chop firewood?' Noel laughed. Lesson well and truly learned, I won't be repeating it next year!

It's not all bad though - I managed to finish off 2007 with a fantastic saving! Although, I fear I have created a camping monster in Noel. As you know, I've been keen to try out camping for a while now but alas Noel wasn't, having 'been there, done that' in his youth and with several friends willing to lend us their beach houses, he couldn't see the point. However, once he could see how keen the kids and I really were, he began mulling it over and a couple of days before New Year he announced one morning 'I think you're right. Camping could be really good for us - how about we go and check out the sales today?' The kids thought it was a great idea but I have to admit I was feeling a little miffed. After all, I had been carefully soaking up as much information on camping from the Vault as I could for weeks - what to buy, what not to buy and how to save and so on - and here he was now taking matters out of my hands. Just because he'd gone and got all enthusiastic now, I hated the thought of doing a Sad Sally at the camping shop just because everything was on sale! Fortunately he could see I was less than pleased at the prospect so he agreed we would check out the Vault together first and print out a list of essentials. Hooray, that was more like it!

Instead of heading to the camping shop, (which was holding a 50% off sale, I had already checked the catalogue online), I suggested we first go to Rebel Sports. This was where I had first saw my dream tent a couple of months ago. 12 feet by 15 feet with two large rooms and an awning, it was reduced to half price, but only for a few days. I excitedly rang Noel to tell him I had found the perfect tent and we should snap it up now but I was soon put in my place. 'You are not buying a tent without me', I was informed, 'we'll have a look in the sales after Christmas'. Classic fob-off but at least today he was willing to look and whaddya know? My tent was still there and he thought it was great too. Unfortunately it was back up to full price. I was NOT impressed - if only he had let me get it in the first place! 'Oh well, I guess we'll have to go somewhere else', said Noel as he started to walk out of the shop but I wasn't finished yet. I was disgusted I had missed out on my brilliant bargain and wasn't about to let it go without a fight. I caught sight of a nice looking salesman and zoomed in on him. 'Sorry to bother you but I'm afraid my husband is crap and I was wondering if you could help!' I went on to tell him about how I had missed out with the tent weeks before and now it was back to full price and what a shame it was. He agreed wholeheartedly it was a shame but yes, now it was back to full price. I was about to admit defeat - and then I uttered the magic words 'How much do you want to get rid of it?' After all, it was a flipping great tent, surely it was taking up valuable space in the shop? The salesman scratched his chin thoughtfully, 'Hmm, we do want to get rid of it. Hang on, I'll just pop out the back and see what I can do.' Five minutes later he returned, wheeling 'my' tent - another one, all packed and ready to go. 'Here you go, you can have it for half price if you want', he offered. I couldn't believe it! I thought maybe I might get $100 or so off but my cunning plan had ended up saving us SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS! This might sound a lot but believe me, I had done a lot of shopping around on tents in the weeks prior and hadn't seen anything nearly as good as this one. Also, with the birthday money I had been saving and the family pooling their Christmas money together, it didn't even make a dent in our bank balance. I was absolutely delighted with my SS savvy and didn't let Noel forget it all day!

After that, we went to The Warehouse with our trusty camping list in hand and shopped around for some other camping accessories. By this time we were in full SS mode and we were ruthless! We didn't buy a single thing we didn't think we could get for cheaper elsewhere and using our frugal know-how we were able to save a fortune on camping crockery by purchasing exactly the same ones in the camping aisle for a fraction of the price in the picnics and plasticware section on the other side of the store. One tip which really helped was this one which reminded us always to think what we had on hand at home first and this saved us heaps. We saved heaps more on air beds in the Kmart sale and our final stop was Kathmandu, the camping shop. We used their 50% off sale to save another $100 on good quality sleeping bags and I was pleased to see that wherever we went, nobody else's prices came remotely close to my tent bargain, not to mention the quality. All in all, a very productive day with some huge savings made, thanks to the Vault! We had our first 'camping practice' that night in the back garden and it was so much fun, even the dogs thought it was a wonderful adventure. We cooked our dinner on the portable barbecue I had got Noel for Christmas and just had a wonderful time talking and laughing together in our $8 fold-up chairs. As mentioned, the whole experience has unleashed a camping monster in Noel, who has since spent ages on the Internet writing out lists of possible camping sites we can visit. Compared to the usual cost of renting one of our usual holiday homes, our tent will have paid itself off in just five days, so we reckon it's a pretty good investment in the long run. It's going to be so much fun!

Apart from our camping splurge, the holidays have been extremely low cost so far. The boys and I go swimming every day for the princely sum of 30c a day (we paid upfront at the beginning of the summer, so it works out to just 90c a day for the three of us compared to as much as $8 that it would normally cost us if we just paid the casual fee every day - wow, I never realised what a saver that was!) We have also sacrificed part of the field adjoining our house and designated it as a 'family sports area', which is getting heaps of use. It's the boys job to mow it and take care of the cricket pitch every week and at least now we don't have to worry about breaking any windows! We can play volleyball out there, badminton and softball too, so one way or the other I might lose a few kilos in 2008! Yes, like many people I am trying to 'better myself' this year (as I try every year and usually fail miserably), however last year's effort ended up better than I thought, as one lovely member reminded me that by giving up Coke Zero I had saved myself $900 last year. I hadn't even noticed, I was too busy beating myself up about all the things I HADN'T done! It has also now been five years since I gave up smoking, which adds up to a whopping 45,625 cigarettes I have NOT smoked and a staggering $22,082.50 I have not spent! Oh how I wish I had put my cigarette money away in a money tin when I first quit, can you imagine how rich I would be by now? Unfortunately I don't quite know where that $22,000 has gone but as I pointed out to Noel yesterday, can you imagine how much worse off we would be if I hadn't quit?! So I've successfully given up the smokes and the Coke and now I'm back on the diet wagon. I'm doing quite well - I'm on Day 4 now and only starving half the time (just kidding!)

I have received so many emails in response to my last blog, I will reply to them all I promise! Half of them tell me how it's nice to see I'm only human too and my post didn't make them feel so bad about their splurges after all, and the other half said 'why the heck can't Noel make his own lunch?' Tee hee, I had great fun imparting all those ones to him! He goes back to work this morning and I bought a bag of bread rolls on special to fill with last night's roast beef so we're starting the year off on the right foot. I learn just as much from the Vault and Forum as any other member on here and as I finally got round to paying the bills and working out our monthly budget yesterday, I decided to try something new from the Forum thread 'Recording your spending - January 2008. It's something I have always put in the 'too hard' basket but I'm proud to say I've finally tried it out and it's a cinch! I downloaded the budgeting spreadsheet here as recommended by Natalie and it's just brilliant! I've put it on my computer desktop so I don't forget to enter info into it every day and stuck a Memory Trigger sticker on my monitor too to make doubly sure. I think it's going to be really interesting to watch where our money goes during the year ahead. I reckon it's going to be a really good year! Now if I can just remember to fill in my bloomin' Menu Planner...

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Food glorious food    

Jan 21, 2008

A comment I read in the Forum about rising food prices last week has really stuck in my head, written by Sara (Nonsuch Gardens). She wrote "So many people seem to think that food magically appears on supermarket shelves. People are so cut off from the land they have no idea of the problems it and farmers are facing, nationally and world wide. Food shortages just don't compute in their heads. We'll just get all the threads whining about rising prices and no one seems to get it." Straight away I thought, 'that's so true!' Moaning about the increasing price of food - like most of the people I talk to unfortunately - achieves nothing. So it made me very proud as a Simple Saver to know that our family isn't complaining about it but doing something about it by trying to provide ourselves with as much homegrown foods as we can. I realised just how good a job we were doing yesterday during a trip to the supermarket. Oh, what a joyous trip that was! I haven't had so much time to myself since December 18th, the day the kids finished school. For the first time in 52 days I was allowed to listen to what I wanted on the car stereo and I cranked it up LOUD baby! I took as long as I liked in the supermarket, largely due to checking various brands of soy sauce in the eternal hope I would find some that didn't contain wheat - no luck and whizzed through the fruit and vege aisles as I didn't need any of those. It was only later when I was in my favourite place - the orchard - that I realised just how much I didn't need to buy. I didn't have to buy beans, celery, broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, sweetcorn, spring onions, lettuce, swede, tomatoes, cucumber, apples, peaches and plums. They're all there for the picking right now in the orchard and Noel's vege garden. Not to mention eggs too of course. It won't be long before we also have potatoes, pumpkin, capsicum, guavas, pomegranates and watermelon to add to the list too. Yes, Tui's little memorial tree is a real picture at the moment, covered in bright red flowers and baby pomegranates. Poor Ali misses her dreadfully, I still find him in tears now and again, clutching his favourite photo of the two of them together. This year is the first year we have actually been able to harvest any plums - we have three trees but the birds have always got them before. Not this year though! The boys climbed into the trees and strung up old unwanted CD's from the branches. They swing in the breeze and catch the light and the birds haven't got a single one! Ali is particularly looking forward to sampling the first plum from his very own tree, one he chose himself a couple of years ago. He liked the name - 'Elephant Heart' - kind of appropriate really!

When I think to what our food bill was prior to joining SS, I can hardly believe it. I used to spend a minimum of $400 a fortnight in the supermarket and I also used to have an account at Mr Patel's, which was never less than $900 a month I had to pay off, sometimes more. Woah! With so much of our own food to choose from, our food bill is next to nothing at the moment and should remain so for quite some time. Mind you, I hate to sound ungrateful but I'm sick of zucchinis again already and runner beans aren't far behind. Great diet food though! I weighed myself last Thursday and was a bit miffed - 71.8kg. I hadn't put any weight on from the week before but I hadn't lost any either. This week I'm hoping will be different. I feel as though I've lost definitely lost quite a bit and am looking forward to this Thursday's weigh-in. Mind you, I should have lost a heap - if I was doing any better I would be a saint. No meat, no wheat - and now no alcohol either. Yes, you read right. I do believe I have actually cracked it.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN I, PENNY WISE HAVE SUCCESSFULLY GIVEN THE BOTTLE THE BOOT!

As you can tell I'm rather proud of myself, not to mention confident! I'm secretly hoping that my astounding display of willpower and healthy living will rub off on the chain smoking, beer swilling Noel. My hugely reduced food portions mean we have leftovers every night now, which is making quite a saving on the food bill and of course now I'm not spending any money on wine either. Unfortunately I made the mistake of showing off to Liam how wonderful I was compared to how crap his dad was. Liam still has the contract Noel signed on August 20th 2007, declaring that he would quite smoking forever. We're still waiting... so Liam decided he would make a bet with me. He reckons I can't manage to go without having a glass of wine for a whole month. 'Not even when we're on holiday?' I asked hopefully. 'Nope!' he said firmly. So that's it - I'm bound to be booze-free for a whole month and I reckon by then I'll be so used to it that I just won't bother at all any more. I wonder if I should put my wine money away in a separate savings account and see how much I save, like people do with their cigarette money when they give up smoking? I might just do that! Not buying any more wine means I also have to go to Mr Patel's less often and that means fewer impulse buys too - although I have to admit I have been doing pretty well through No Impulse month. The hardest part is saying 'no' to the kids to their request for an ice cream when we come out of the swimming pool every day - I make them go home and have a bowl of it instead but it's not the same. The savings really mount up though, especially for Ali who always wants a Cornetto at $3.50 a pop! Besides, it's good practice for them for No Spend Month. Whew, thank goodness I gave up wine before No Spend Month too!

Today is the beginning of my new style menu plan a la Helen Beamish! She's the latest Hint of the Week winner, with her hilarious tip 'Rhyme saves time and makes meals divine'. What a hoot and how ingenious! Unfortunately it's only Monday and I'm stuck already. You see, it's supposed to be Bun Day but with Liam and I not eating wheat it makes it a little hard - not to mention time consuming and expensive were I to use the wheat free versions. So I need to find an alternative that rhymes and I'm not doing very well. I did come up with 'Rum Day' which was quite appealing but I don't think the kids would like it so if anyone has any other suggestions do please email me!

We were supposed to be going away this week for our first official 'Big Camping Trip' but as usual our plans have turned to custard. First Minnie came on heat and unsurprisingly neither the boarding kennels nor anyone else wanted to look after her. Then we also realised that this weekend coming is a long weekend in NZ and all the campsites plus the boarding kennels for the other three dogs were all booked out. To top it all off, the weather has also turned horrible with a cyclone approaching after weeks endless of scorching heat to blow our camping dreams away. So we're going away next week, just managing to squeeze in a few days before the kids go back to school. Unfortunately it means that we are going to have to forego our family triathlon but needs must, it's the only window we have to get away and try the tent out before the end of the holidays. I am back running again, up to 3km so far. I don't know how long it will last but am thinking positive. I went to the GP who gave me a calcium supplement and said the only way we can work out what is going on with my dodgy legs is to have a bone scan, which I did two years ago and it cost me $400 to tell me what I already knew. So I went half way. I went to a reputable sports shop, got my feet and running style analysed for free and spent $200 on a pair of suitable running shoes which cushion me like a cloud instead. So far so good! To some I'm sure that sounds like a huge extravagance but to me it's really important. I LOVE running and having not been able to do it for two years has been really frustrating; I've tried other sports and hobbies but nothing else has been anywhere near so enjoyable or so 'me'. I figured there was only one way to find out if my legs were up to it after all this time and so far my shoe splurge has been well worth it!

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Holier than thou    

Jan 24, 2008

It's weigh-in day and I'm another kilo down, yah! 70.6kg and (hopefully) shrinking. I am also on my sixth alcohol free day and am amazed to find that it's all rather easy! Like I said, I think I'm finally in the right headspace. Although I can see myself being a prize pain in the bum towards everyone else during No Spend Month. Already I am feeling very 'holier than thou' about my new vice-free, saintly persona and I hate to say it but I've been guilty at looking at Noel with what can only be described as disdain every time he cracks open a beer, sips a gin and tonic or lights a cigarette. 'Look at all that money you're wasting!' I think to myself. 'It's not good for you, you know - it will all catch up with you in the end!' Dreadful I know, I mean who am I to criticise? It's not as though I've never done the same. It's just now I have finally stopped, I can see how much money I spent. Since I gave up the wine, I've only had to set foot in Mr Patel's once (for bayleaves, how exciting). Consequently because I don't go in there for wine, I don't buy anything else either. Today is Thursday and I've spent a grand total of $27 of my housekeeping money this week - $20 of that was for a haircut! It's great practice for No Spend Month I must say. Noel thinks I can't really be serious about our family doing No Spend Month. Campbell Live (national current affairs show) are looking for a Kiwi family to track throughout No Spend Month - I wish they would choose us, then he would HAVE to give up all those expensive luxuries. With a bit of luck he would feel so much healthier and be so amazed at how much we had saved, maybe he would decide never to go back to it! Yeah, and pigs might fly Penny.

I can't believe how hard it's been to try and find a willing family of guinea pigs to go on Campbell Live when I'm chomping at the bit to take part! It's like they're all terrified of being exposed as being rubbish with money but that's not the point at all. We simply want to show how much can be saved by not throwing away money on all the little things so many of us do without thinking. We want people to sit at home and identify with it and say 'Wow - I do that too! Is that how much I'm also wasting?' So far in almost everyone we've asked, we've found the same - one partner would love to take part, the other - the spender of the two - says no and I reckon I know why. Like I used to be, they are scared of their partners finding out how much they REALLY spend on non-essentials. Either that, or they truly believe they can't go without them for a month - or both!

At least the boys are getting into the 'No Spend' frame of mind - well, Liam is anyway. He's still selling up a storm on Trade Me and has made an impressive $184 so far, just by selling his WWE wrestling figures. He hasn't spent a cent of it so far. Ali on the other hand has made a grand total of $15 so far and spent $8.50 of it yesterday on an Australian cricket heroes magazine (just as in rugby he supports the Aussies over the Black Caps, tut!) I'm quite excited about a new kind of bank account Credit Union is offering to 11-18 year olds called Bfree, which unlike other youth accounts I've investigated, offers ATM and Eftpos. While Liam already has a savings account, he is getting to the age where he would like a little more financial independence with his pocket money and extra bits that he earns. I trust him not to waste his money and I think it would be good for him to keep track of his own money and see using an Eftpos card does indeed cause your bank balance to go down, rather than provide access to an unlimited supply. The Bfree account sounds like just what he needs and offers free transactions too, so am going to find out more. Much cooler than having to come to Mum for a handout on pocket money day!

Am so enjoying my new meal planning regime as described in the last blog! Although saying that, I don't actually know what's for dinner tonight yet, I just know that it's Furs Day. It's lovely to get up in the morning and know that the main choice is already made for you. Yesterday was Hens Day but we ended up having the stew from the night before as it didn't cook in time on Tuesday (which we renamed Stews Day, seeing as I'm off the booze!) It's making me a lot more adventurous with my cook books - the stew we had was 'Melt in your mouth shin stew' from Jamie Oliver's 'Cook' but to be honest I preferred Sophie Gray's version from 'Everyday Smart Food for the Family' called 'Wine braised beef with herby dumplings', which Liam calls 'that stew I love'. Still, was good to try something new. I am a big Gordon Ramsay fan and was sorely tempted to buy his 'The F Word' book, especially with a $10 discount voucher from Fishpond burning a hole in my pocket. Fortunately I was given a wake up call just in time by a foodie friend who has the book. He and his wife entertained another couple last week using recipes from the book and it cost them $80 to feed the four of them, but wait for it - that was for the dessert and a bottle of wine alone! So I guess I'll hang on to my voucher for now - I just wish he hadn't told me about some of those desserts, it makes me want to rush out and buy fresh berries and mascarpone right now. However, I should have known that there's a cheaper way to do just about everything and while I was checking the spelling of 'mascarpone' I found these handy tips for cheaper substitutes! You can either 1) Use the freshest, best quality cream cheese you can find, 2) Mix equal amounts of cream cheese and sour cream together, or 3) Mix half a pound of ricotta cheese with a cup of thickened cream in a food processor until it forms a homogenous cream, whatever that's supposed to mean. That was a very productive spellcheck, I might have to try that dessert out after all!

Haven't seen the painter for a few days, what with the gale force winds and rain but I'll let him off for that as the rain was desperately needed. The last month has been a bit of a challenge and I've had a bit of a peek into how it must feel to be in Australia and constantly have to conserve every drop of water. I don't know how you do it and hugely admire everyone who has to live this way every day. We have tank water for the house and that was getting low with no rain for so long but that wasn't such a huge issue - if things got too horrendous we could just pay $100 for a tanker from the local fire station to come and fill it up for us - of course I didn't want to give in and do that anyway unless absolutely necessary. The main problem though was the garden and livestock. While our drinking and washing water comes from the tank, all our outside water, the hoses and so on, comes from the neighbouring farm - and they had no water. It was almost three weeks before it got fixed and the situation with the animals was getting pretty urgent but Noel managed to keep them going with enough somehow. It was the garden which worried me most - the vege garden which Noel had spent so many hours in; if we weren't careful, all the food we had been looking forward to harvesting was going to be lost. Fortunately thanks to the multitudes of Simple Savings tips I knew how I could at least keep them watered, even if the rest of the family thought I was bonkers. Far from being bonkers, I thought it made sense to me - why waste a drop? Unfortunately I did such a good job I'm going to have to spend a good hour or two slicing and freezing runner beans for the freezer, talk about an avalanche! Seriously though, after just a month like that I really take my hat off to all the Australian members for whom it is second nature. The way the world is going, we'll all have to do it one day out of necessity, so I reckon the rest of us should join you now. Another bonus of having wet n' wild weather this week is of course that the longer the painter takes to finish the job, the longer I'll have to pay him!

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Naughty Noel and Penniless Penny    

Jan 27, 2008

Well whaddya know, No Spend Month has come early for us. I recently discovered when paying the bills a few days ago that we are broke. B.R.O.K.E. Stony broke. We have zilch, nothing, nada (is that how you spell it?) I had absolutely no idea - sure, we had some big bills recently and it didn't help when the painter asked for $2000 deposit but on the whole I thought we were doing well, particularly with the usual 'post-Christmas' slump. I know what you're thinking - how could I not know? Easy - there was one bill I had been blissfully unaware of - Noel's American Express card. This is a charge card, not a credit card and his work provides it. He puts all his work expenses on the card and is then able to claim them back. Sure, he can put whatever else he wants on the card but whatever he does use the card for, he has to pay for in full every month. So imagine my horror when I opened the bill and discovered a total of $4000 demanding to be paid in full immediately. Talk about sick to the stomach! How were we going to come up with that amount and still be able to live? And just as importantly, what the hell had that $4000 gone on? Almost $1000 of it was work expenses admittedly. There was also the kids' trampoline and the family tent (which I was a bit perturbed about Noel putting on his Amex card at the time, when I already had the cash for it) however, there was still $2000 worth of bits and pieces on there, much of which could only be described as crap. Now I hate to point the finger but IT'S NOT MY CARD...

I'm telling you, I know how poor old Pete feels in the Sally and Hanna stories at the moment! I know I have some vices of my own and we'll get to that but it made me angry. I wish we didn't have to have the blasted card but it's a work necessity. And very convenient for all sorts of other things, obviously. I suppose in some ways it's good that we have to pay it off every month, otherwise with a bill like that I would be tempted just to make the minimum payment and then where would we be? And of course the timing is perfect, with tax to pay next month, the painter will be wanting to settle his account (should it ever get finished) and to top it all of - we're going on holiday tomorrow. Thankfully one of Noel's colleagues has offered to lend us his beach house for free but how do you have an entire holiday without spending anything? Funnily enough, I'm pretty confident. The accommodation is free, the beach is free, we're taking as much stuff as possible from home. I reckon we can have an even better time together without spending a cent.

The boys however have taken the news pretty hard. Ali is as we speak hunting all over the house for money he can call his own. His $5 book voucher, the ten pound note he and Liam got from an aunt in England for Christmas, the $1 coin on the coffee table. He reckons he might be lucky enough to have enough to go and see Alvin and the Chipmunks at the movies but is a bit worried how he's going to afford to pay for all of us to have dinner at our favourite holiday restaurant, the Ocean Sports Club. Liam, our seasoned Trade Me veteran on the other hand was unruffled and asked if we would like him to give us a loan. In his eyes, $184.50 goes a long way! He didn't really see there was much of a problem until he accompanied me to Mr Patel's this afternoon. 'Can I get ice cream?' 'No'. 'We've run out of dip, I'll go and get some'. 'No'. 'Oh please can I have a bottle of lemonade?' 'Nope'. I then overheard him talking to a friend on the phone not long after. 'We're broke', I heard him say miserably. 'Welcome to my world - now you know what it's like!' came the reply from his 10 year old buddy who's dad has been struggling to find work for months.

My mind is racing ahead as to how we are going to cope during No Spend Month. I have four birthdays, three of which require presents. We are going to see Colin Fry - thankfully Mum and I bought the tickets last year and she has a voucher for a free night at a hotel, thank goodness. We were supposed to be going back to Miranda Holiday Park for a weekend, then there's the work 'do' day at the races. I guess at least everything is free for that except the petrol to get there. Whatever happens, we'll cope – we have to. It's not all doom and gloom - I mean in other areas we are doing so well. We picked a huge bucket of plums yesterday and are going to have a go at making plum jam. I also froze seven huge bags of runner beans and there are still so many other fresh food items we don't need to buy for months. Noel has surpassed himself with the zucchinis again. I wonder if I could start trading them with Mr Patel in exchange for other items? Now there's an idea worth pursuing when I get back!

Fruit and veges aside, the situation is still pretty desperate and there are bills to pay so tonight we have called a family meeting. We are all going to sit down, identify our wasteful habits and work out roughly what we can save. Maybe then every one of us can see how we are all contributing to us having no money. Thank goodness I have the SS know-how to get us out of this, but I still need everyone else to pull their weight too. Wish me luck!

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