Holidays and Frugality

I'm planning a trip to Paris and Brugge at Easter. "That's not very frugal", I hear you say, "How can you do that when you are supposed to be saving money?"

Frugality means different things to different people. I've lived on a very small income before, when I was a student, and when I was just starting out in my career, and also when I was made redundant a while ago, so I know what it means to have to count every penny just to be able to scrape by and pay for essentials like food and heating.

Now, I am very lucky in that I have a little bit of disposable income, which I have because I'm careful about what I spend money on. I'm happy to take sandwiches to work every day and would not dream of doing what my colleagues do and spend pounds every day at the coffee van. I have holes in my socks and I wear my clothes until they fall to bits.

I do this so that I can spend what little extra I have on the things which are important to me. One of those is being able to travel. I'm not a globetrotter. I don't go on expensive beach or ski holidays. What I enjoy is visiting Europe. We've had some great, cheap Euro holidays in the past, the cheapest and probably the best was when we back-packed between campsites in Northern Belgium with our then 8 year old daughter. Doesn't sound much, but we had never been to Belgium before and we got to experience a different culture, and best of all, it was a very cheap holiday.

So I'm planning a week at Easter in Paris first for a couple of days, and then on to Brugge, where we have rented a house with my parents and sister.

My only regret about visiting Brugge when on the Dottie angel challenge is that I will be able to look only, not buy in the excellent Dille & Kamille shop, which sells household goods, kitchenwares, baskets etc. Seen here - the shop with the plants outside. It is a bit like Habitat used to be 20 years ago, and well worth a visit if you are in Belgium. I shall look, but not buy.

Toxic Information and Penguin Birthday Parties

There's just too much bad news around. I don't think that in itself is a new thing. Bad news has always sold newspapers. When did I change from being someone who bought a paper every week or so, and listened to the news if it happened to be on while I was in the room, to being the person I am now.

I read four national news sites and one local site, sometimes "checking the news" every few hours, or even more. Sometimes if I'm crocheting or browsing the web in a room with a television, I leave the news programme on, and it spins round and I realise I'm listening to the same news as an hour ago. I think that it is the result of September 11th - the images of that horrible day are seered into the minds of so many. And I think because of that I have to "check the news" just in case I need "to do something". You see, at 3am, that "do something" becomes "fleeing the city with my children" or some other unlikely scenario, that plays itself over and over in my head. I wasn't even there and that is the long term effect on me: I hate to think of the trauma of people who were directly involved.

There are several things I've seen or heard in news programmes or seen on news websites, or even read in fiction books that have stayed in my head for a long time, some maybe forever, and they're not very positive. I could really have lived my life without seeing or hearing them. I'm not going to give examples or go into detail because then they would be in your head, but I'm sure you have your own examples.

I'm not advocating an ostrich stick your head in the sand approach either. It is impossible not to hear of any big events, but so many of the news items we hear about, I can personally do nothing about.

I don't want to get philosophical about the reasons : I've just come to the realisation that there is too much bad news getting into my head, so I'm going to try to stop watching TV news and browsing newspaper websites, and buying those paperbacks in the supermarket which always have a gruesome death or incident on the back cover to draw you in. That should save me: I would guess - yikes £100 a year - considering all the times I'm buying my groceries and I just have to have a book, and they're cheap so might as well get two. I'm not an unhappy person, but surely all this bad news must take its toll - no more.

So in a completely unrelated kind of way, here's a picture of two gorrillas turning up for the baby penguin's party on the back of reindeers :) Otherwise known as : Don't buy lots of expensive toys - a box of plastic animals can have hours of fun playing with children of all ages.

Another great way I have found of keeping a toddler busy for free, is to let them play in the sink. All little kids love this, and will happily splash around in a bubble enfested sink with whisks and measuring spoons and funnels for ages, whilst Mummy sits with her feet up on a chair watching, eating a big cream bun and drinking a coffee (in my dreams). Just make sure they can't turn the hot tap on and don't take your eye off them in case they fall in and drown, or more likely: try to eat the bubbles. Health and Safety advice courtesy of my dad who always likes to remind us of all eventualities.

Frugal Living - Cleaning Cloths

What am I doing? I thought, as I made a list of things to buy at the supermarket, including cleaning cloths, and a list of things to do, including taking old clothes to supermarket rag bank.


When did I become so susceptible to marketing that I would throw away old clothes which could be easily turned into cleaning cloths. Then I would waste time and money buying packaged cleaning cloths from the supermarket. And, if I'm being honest with myself, although I think I reuse them by throwing them in the washing machine, they fall to bits after a couple of washes and get thrown away. I buy about one packet of cloths a month, so that's about £25 a year I can save: not much in the grand scheme of things, but every little counts.


And then I read the packaging on the ready made cloths : "Made in China" and I got really annoyed with myself for buying these. I've nothing against the Chinese - the ones I know through work are hard working, decent people, just trying to make a living for themselves and their families. But what am I doing spending my money and time buying something which has been shipped from the other side of the planet when I already have a free solution in my own home. I should know better than that.

So, I've spent the last couple of hours, whilst watching TV, sorting through the clothes I was going to put in the clothing bank. Anything which looks new and good enough to wear, goes to the charity shop, hoping that it will be of use to someone. Anything else: stained, torn, or too many washes, gets put into the rag recycling.



Many of us will remember our mothers and grandmothers having a rag bag for cloths. Ours was in the bottom of the clothes drying cupboard and contained a not very exotic mixture of old pants, vests and shirts which had seen better days. A call for a cloth resulted in someone running upstairs, fishing about behind the boiler, and then trying to rip something resembling a cloth from an old piece of clothing. If you were lucky, you would find something which had been ripped up a bit before since it was difficult to start a new tear.


I've folded my new cloths up nice and neatly (won't stay like that for long, lol) and put them in a little basket under the sink. Now when I reach for a cloth, I'm reminded of clothes my kids used to wear, which is nice.

I realise that it is a bit obsessive to cut them up like this, and it is something my mother would never have done. However in our house, laundry just doesn't seem to be the organised affair you see on TV, and I don't want to see my kids wearing something I previously used as a wash cloth and then threw in the laundry. Best to cut them up to look more like cloths, and less like clothes.

Frugal 2010

Like many families, we're worried about the credit crunch and what it might mean for us. Already hubby has lost his job, but thankfully found another. I work for a large corporation and know due to past experience that the axe can fall with little warning.

We're very fortunate to both have jobs at the moment, and I know that a lot of others are not so lucky, but it doesn't pay to be complacent.

Because of this, we've decided to try to live as frugally as possible this year.