So you want to be a prepper eh?
What do you need to do? buy loads of freeze dried foods, store buckets and buckets of water, buy guns, live in a neo critical commune with a mass underground survival bunker with loads of other like minded red necks..
Oops sorry that is the Doomsday Prepper example on TV.
The more civilised genteel British version is a long way from that but then we are not sucked into the mentality of the TV shows all the time.
For me "prepping" like organic gardening, like saving money like being vegetarian is more of a lifestyle change. You were not "born" a Prepper or an organic gardener or a money savvy person or vegetarian etc you may have drifted into the change by associating with other people of that ilk or you might have got up one morning with a stonking hangover and made a new years resolution to be a Vegitarian or a Prepper etc.
With that in mind "Prepping" is just a word and to do it properly and with some justice you need to work out just what you are prepping for. There is a set of ideas that help you prep which when I find the links I'll update this blog. Simply put there are high probability low probability high effect and low effect.
For instance, A nuclear bomb going off in your back garden may be considered a LOW PROBABILITY BUT A HIGH EFFECT if it did where as losing your job if you hit the boss may be a high probability with a high value effect especially if you are the only income earner in the household.
When prepping you need to decide what to prep for. In the two examples above you could "prepper" by buying a nuclear fall out shelter or you could "Prepper" buy 6 months food and have cash reserves equal to six months bills.
Then if a bomb does go off you have your shelter and are Prepared or if you do bang the boss one then you will have enough food and cash to see you OK for 6 months thus you are prepared. Personally with some of the bosses I've had I would go for the food !!
If you are staring from scratch then write down a list of things that are worrying you such as potential job loss, having the house re possessed, nuclear war, economic depression like it was in the 1930's or 2008 for example.
Take one of these above, say losing your job. You still need to provide food for your family and yourself. You still need to pay the bills and you still need to look for more work. So whilst you are working now and you go shopping for your food then write out a shopping list of items you want to buy. Each separate item you buy, add an extra one on the basket. You buy 2 tins of beans, buy 3 instead. Buy 2 tins of chopped tomatoes, instead buy 3. Those extra buys got in your prepping cupboard.
If you use bottled water buy extra and store but also keep your empty bottles and fill with tap water, if you can't drink it then flush the toilet with it.
Look for special offers and so and so on. Look at the blog posts earlier in this year for more ideas on this.
Save what money you can and even if you save £1 a week then keep it away from your normal money because it will get spent if you don't. If your new years resolution is to stop smoking or eat less crappy food then make sure you attach a monetary value to these actions. For every pack of fags not smoked, put the money away. If you eat one less KF* or Big ** then put that money away and you will be absolutely amazed at how much you Save / waste depending on your standpoint.
What you carry on like this you will build up food and money for one weeks worth of living. Then 2 weeks then 4 weeks then 8 weeks etc and before you know it you have enough food and money to last you a year.
Then you could keep say 6 months of cash and invest the rest in extra debt payments or buy a big ticket item like extra sources of cooking food etc.
That will have to do for now as I am in critical pain again today but I will carry on this soon.
AS A FOOT NOTE, I practise what I preach. I changed my electric and gas supplier and saved £21 a month. I then swapped it again 3 months later, I.E. last week and saved another £28 a month. My fuel bill was £121 a month and now from February it will be £67 a month so the extra £54 will be going into a jam jar. Also the wife got a better deal on buying a car and the car insurance so that saved us about £21 a month so added to the £54 for the utilities we are saving be£75 a month every month. I'm going to be using this to snowball one of my debt credit cards so instead of paying the normal £50 in February I will be paying £125 which has reduced the time for charging interest down to 4 months instead of 12 !!!
Take care and keep prepping.....
Friday, January 10, 2014
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
Gardening and Grow Your Own
Growing your own food these days is more accepted in the main. Even if it's a few herbs on the windowsill right up to a small holder plot of several acres with animals it is seen as either the thing TO Do or the thing you WANT to do.The reality for the vast majority is that people spend a large proportion of their income on food and the fuel it takes to get the food to our stores from the supplier and then from the store to our homes. After a few days the plastic packets with some arbitrary lettering on it say it's too dodgy to eat so you chuck it in the bin and head off to the supermarket to do the ritual all over again..
I once watched a programme with two chefs who took certain sets of people, very rich, students, 2 working parents with kids etc and the aim was to stop a lot of the waste and save money. The rich couple were spending something like £1000 a week on food and throwing away probably £800 worth and the same but in proportion to the incomes were the other groups. This programme showed up one glaringly obvious point and that was we buy a lot of food, but what about growing a lot of food? What effects would growing your own food have on you and your family etc?
A lot of people reading this will have a reason for not growing some of their food.It may be you are too busy, you have a hectic lifestyle or even you are just not interested. All valid reasons but why not turn each one around especially if you are looking to be more self sufficient or prepared for the tribulations that life might throw at us from time to time. Why not let me turn your objections around and give you a reason why you SHOULD grow at least some of your own food. Planting seeds is not rocket science. You put some soil in a dish and sprinkle some seeds on the top and add a bit of water and leave. Even between the extra activities you are taking the bairns to can spare a few minutes here. Maybe you could do this right before you go to bed? Of course you WILL save money even from just growing herbs providing you use herbs of course.. You will also know where your food comes from, the fact that they have "food feet" instead of Food miles and they are fresh. The best example of sweetness, if a little difficult to grow is Sweetcorn. As sweetcorn is picked the sugars that make it sweet instantly start turning to starch so what I do is get a pan of water boiling on the oven then go to the garden, pull a couple of corn cobs from the plant, run inside and put them into the boiling water.
Oh man, the taste of these are just out of this world but how much of the sugars have turned to starch in the cobs that are grown in Argentina or the USA!! You think that sweetcorn is good, try your own grown corn and you will never buy another cob.
Now I am not at all a romantic with rose coloured glasses but everyone could grow some herbs on a window sill. If you make a pizza for tea why not throw on the top of it a handful of sweet basil as you serve it up.
Mint is another easy to grow herb and can be used for minted peas or potatoes. Just make sure it is in a self contained pot of some type as the roots are quite virulent and it becomes a bit of a garden thug.
If you don't like cats don't grow cat mint... They love it and you get probably 100's of screaming moggies in your garden. If you grow some thyme then this works well with pork as does the various sages. Try making some Yorkshire puddings and as you rest the mix in the fridge add a few sprigs of lemon thyme and leave it for an hour or two to rest. The taste difference is enormous when you bite into a crisp, hot, yorky pud!!.
Going on from the window sill you can grow in plant pots if you have a balcony or a patio. If you plant specific crops at the right times of the year you can get a lot of flavoursome food from very little space. A 12" or 15" plant pot will give you a good 2 kilo of new potatoes. You could plant Garlic in pots, carrots, parsnips, onions, leeks in fact there is probably an odd one or two crops you can't grow in a plant pot but as yet I've not seen them.
Moving on up from the plant pot you can use a plastic dustbin or a thick black sack like a compost bag to grow your crops the same as the plant pot version. Heck it's even been known for me to stick a couple of seed potatoes in a fresh bag of compost and forget about them.
The next upward stage is into a garden setting but again, many of you reading this will say I haven't got the room. You have. At least if you have 1 sq ft of land that is 30cm x 30cm or 12" x 12" then you can grow food in the "square foot garden " version. With square foot gardening it all grows against the traditional long rows and careful weeding regimes. In SFG the idea is to plant many seeds a lot closer together but pick younger, sweeter, fresher crops all the year round. Take for instance Beetroot. You can grow beetroots until they resemble tennis ball size and they taste really nice. In a Square Foot of space you might get 2 plants to grow and each at harvest might weigh say 4ounce or 100 g so you have 200g of beetroots. You might get another crop out of the same soil if you have a good season. Thus in total you have grown 4 beetroots which weigh around 400g in total. In Square foot gardening you might plant 10 seeds in the square of ground. as they germinate and start to put on leaves you plant a second set of seeds in the spaces you have left between your first lot of seeds. This will probably be about 3-4 weeks after the first sowing.
As the first sowings get larger, say 8 weeks after first sowing you pull a few baby beets for your meal. In this space you plant a third crop of seeds. Your first crop is 8 weeks old, your second crop is 4 weeks old and your third crop is new. You keep going on like this until the season finishes and you can end up with as much as 25 to 30 pounds in weight of fresh garden baby beets. Now have a look in the shops to see how much this amount of food would cost, subtract the cost of your seeds and fertilizer and the rest is profit that you can use as you wish but you can also use it to pay down your loans or mortgages. 2 seasons ago I grew food in a deep bed with a size of 4.8m x 1.2m divided up into square foot gardening spaces. It total I had 48 little plots all nicely divided up by string and nails in the deep beds and I grew over 800 pounds of food crops. It cost me about £45 in manure and chicken pellets and another £24 in extra soils / compost to help rejuvenate the soil but I hammered the land and it paid dividends. In the end I had to give away a lot of fresh produce.
Other versions of gardening for larger scales ( larger than plant pots) are allotments, permaculture, three sisters, Hoogerculture and no dig no weed deep beds.
So you can see that from a small windowsill up to many acres YOU can grow at least some of your food and boy does it taste so much fresher.
During this season I was able to pay over £1800 off my mortgage that I would have spent on fruit and veg and this represented about 75% self sufficient AND I was able to save seeds for last year as they were not F1 hybridised seeds etc.
Please do leave comments on any posts I do, especially if you want a topic looked at or anything clarified.
take care,
Alan
I once watched a programme with two chefs who took certain sets of people, very rich, students, 2 working parents with kids etc and the aim was to stop a lot of the waste and save money. The rich couple were spending something like £1000 a week on food and throwing away probably £800 worth and the same but in proportion to the incomes were the other groups. This programme showed up one glaringly obvious point and that was we buy a lot of food, but what about growing a lot of food? What effects would growing your own food have on you and your family etc?
A lot of people reading this will have a reason for not growing some of their food.It may be you are too busy, you have a hectic lifestyle or even you are just not interested. All valid reasons but why not turn each one around especially if you are looking to be more self sufficient or prepared for the tribulations that life might throw at us from time to time. Why not let me turn your objections around and give you a reason why you SHOULD grow at least some of your own food. Planting seeds is not rocket science. You put some soil in a dish and sprinkle some seeds on the top and add a bit of water and leave. Even between the extra activities you are taking the bairns to can spare a few minutes here. Maybe you could do this right before you go to bed? Of course you WILL save money even from just growing herbs providing you use herbs of course.. You will also know where your food comes from, the fact that they have "food feet" instead of Food miles and they are fresh. The best example of sweetness, if a little difficult to grow is Sweetcorn. As sweetcorn is picked the sugars that make it sweet instantly start turning to starch so what I do is get a pan of water boiling on the oven then go to the garden, pull a couple of corn cobs from the plant, run inside and put them into the boiling water.
Oh man, the taste of these are just out of this world but how much of the sugars have turned to starch in the cobs that are grown in Argentina or the USA!! You think that sweetcorn is good, try your own grown corn and you will never buy another cob.
Now I am not at all a romantic with rose coloured glasses but everyone could grow some herbs on a window sill. If you make a pizza for tea why not throw on the top of it a handful of sweet basil as you serve it up.
Mint is another easy to grow herb and can be used for minted peas or potatoes. Just make sure it is in a self contained pot of some type as the roots are quite virulent and it becomes a bit of a garden thug.
If you don't like cats don't grow cat mint... They love it and you get probably 100's of screaming moggies in your garden. If you grow some thyme then this works well with pork as does the various sages. Try making some Yorkshire puddings and as you rest the mix in the fridge add a few sprigs of lemon thyme and leave it for an hour or two to rest. The taste difference is enormous when you bite into a crisp, hot, yorky pud!!.
Going on from the window sill you can grow in plant pots if you have a balcony or a patio. If you plant specific crops at the right times of the year you can get a lot of flavoursome food from very little space. A 12" or 15" plant pot will give you a good 2 kilo of new potatoes. You could plant Garlic in pots, carrots, parsnips, onions, leeks in fact there is probably an odd one or two crops you can't grow in a plant pot but as yet I've not seen them.
Moving on up from the plant pot you can use a plastic dustbin or a thick black sack like a compost bag to grow your crops the same as the plant pot version. Heck it's even been known for me to stick a couple of seed potatoes in a fresh bag of compost and forget about them.
The next upward stage is into a garden setting but again, many of you reading this will say I haven't got the room. You have. At least if you have 1 sq ft of land that is 30cm x 30cm or 12" x 12" then you can grow food in the "square foot garden " version. With square foot gardening it all grows against the traditional long rows and careful weeding regimes. In SFG the idea is to plant many seeds a lot closer together but pick younger, sweeter, fresher crops all the year round. Take for instance Beetroot. You can grow beetroots until they resemble tennis ball size and they taste really nice. In a Square Foot of space you might get 2 plants to grow and each at harvest might weigh say 4ounce or 100 g so you have 200g of beetroots. You might get another crop out of the same soil if you have a good season. Thus in total you have grown 4 beetroots which weigh around 400g in total. In Square foot gardening you might plant 10 seeds in the square of ground. as they germinate and start to put on leaves you plant a second set of seeds in the spaces you have left between your first lot of seeds. This will probably be about 3-4 weeks after the first sowing.
As the first sowings get larger, say 8 weeks after first sowing you pull a few baby beets for your meal. In this space you plant a third crop of seeds. Your first crop is 8 weeks old, your second crop is 4 weeks old and your third crop is new. You keep going on like this until the season finishes and you can end up with as much as 25 to 30 pounds in weight of fresh garden baby beets. Now have a look in the shops to see how much this amount of food would cost, subtract the cost of your seeds and fertilizer and the rest is profit that you can use as you wish but you can also use it to pay down your loans or mortgages. 2 seasons ago I grew food in a deep bed with a size of 4.8m x 1.2m divided up into square foot gardening spaces. It total I had 48 little plots all nicely divided up by string and nails in the deep beds and I grew over 800 pounds of food crops. It cost me about £45 in manure and chicken pellets and another £24 in extra soils / compost to help rejuvenate the soil but I hammered the land and it paid dividends. In the end I had to give away a lot of fresh produce.
Other versions of gardening for larger scales ( larger than plant pots) are allotments, permaculture, three sisters, Hoogerculture and no dig no weed deep beds.
So you can see that from a small windowsill up to many acres YOU can grow at least some of your food and boy does it taste so much fresher.
During this season I was able to pay over £1800 off my mortgage that I would have spent on fruit and veg and this represented about 75% self sufficient AND I was able to save seeds for last year as they were not F1 hybridised seeds etc.
Please do leave comments on any posts I do, especially if you want a topic looked at or anything clarified.
take care,
Alan
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Water
Today's topic
is all about water and to be honest I NEED A BIG SLAP AROUND THE HEAD!! In my
last post I asked what we really needed to survive etc. The one thing we
definitely need and I missed off the list was WATER! How I missed that, I will
never know considering I had just been in the garden cleaning the water butts
out. Anyway, consider me well and truly SLAPPED and here is a whole topic on
water to make amends.
Water is vital to life, YOUR LIFE, My life, everyone’s and everything’s life. In the western world, we turn a tap on and hey presto clean safe water usually comes out. In the UK, we have a privatised water system where the water companies have shareholders and have to make a profit for them whilst providing water for the populous. My personal view is that water should not be in the hands of a private company, which, as a first priority makes profits in order to give those dividends out to the so called "investors". The flip side of this is that, again, in the UK, we have some of the cleanest water in the world and in general, it is affordable. The big drive so far is to get every household onto water meters so you get charged by the cubic metre or 1 tonne of water used. This makes you look at your consumption like the other utilities of gas and electric but you don't need gas and electric to exist, water you do.
Anyway, why should you be concerned about the water supply? I've already said it is safe, relatively cheap and ready at the turn of a tap but what would happen if it wasn't any of these things.
If it was dirty water, if it was contaminated, expensive or intermittent? What would you do?
At present, each water company has a legal responsibility to provide every person in a given area with 10 litres of clean water per day. End of. So, if your water supply is going to be off for more than 18 hours you will either get a bowser of water in your street or bottled water. The thing is the water companies only need to supply it to a given area. What happens to it then is not regulated so, as happened in 2012 a lorry full of 25000 litre bottles of water was taken to a car park ready for local distribution. A gang of armed men stole the lorry, drove it off and then stole the water and returned the lorry to the road network and locked the doors. The water company did not have to replenish the water that was stolen.
So what would you do? The obvious answer is to store your own water the same way as you would store some extra food. Also, this is not being paranoid or an American Doomsday Prepper or the likes, it is sound government advice taken from the www.gov.uk website which states that you should keep enough food and water stored in your home to last you at least 3 weeks. This linky is from the F&CO and applies to those Brits that may have to live through a "Hurricane Season". Although we don't get hurricanes much in the UK maonland it is a good source to show you what to keep as emergency stocks. The water element states at least 1/2 a gallon of fresh water per person per day. More water will be needed for sanitation and washing so this link advises you to store other water which could be a pond in your garden or water barrels so you have water available that could be sterilised for personal, clothing and household washing.
If your water supply was cut off for whatever reason how long could YOU or your LOVED ONES survive? The answer varies upon each persons needs but it is generally thought of as three days without water and you are dead.
If there is a flu pandemic then the staff at the local water company might be ill and thus your water is either not treated properly or is switched off. A flu pandemic can and probably will last over 90 days or 3 months.
If a terrorist wants to infect a lot of people in a short space of time then the water supply is a key route post water works.
Health can be compromised without good hygiene, many foods needs water to be cooked in or with and what would us Brits do without our marvellous cup of TEA??
Pets need water also. Did you know an average medium sized dog like a Red Setter, Labrador or Vimarana (Doberman / Greyhound cross) all drink up to 3 gallons of water a day!!
In order to ensure you are not to go without your water you need to start looking at storing water TODAY. It would be really nice to have an IBC or two that holds 1000 ltrs or a cubic tonne of water in each but to start with today have a look around your home. You can fill up bowls and dishes immediately, now, this instance. At least that way you have water if your tap runs dry in the next 20 minutes. Also, start looking at ways of keeping water in “pop” bottles. These are generally 2 ltrs in size and once full can be dropped from a good height and not damaged.
10 pop bottles of water is good, 15 would be better and that 30 ltrs is what one person should be storing for 1 days use and that does not include the toilet or washing machine or dishwasher.
Plastic milk bottles are also OK for short term storage but make sure these are washed out thoroughly.
You can do a search on the WWWeb to find suitable containers that you can afford and store water in them. You can use water butts in the garden and even a garden pond if need be. This topic is too big to be covered in one sitting especially as I mention storing water outside of the home in the garden or pond.
Therefore, I will be revisiting this topic later this week with reference to usage, storage methods and conditions, Purification or filtration, ( do you know the difference??).
As for today, if you are looking to buy storage containers MAKE SURE THE CONTAINERS ARE FOOD GRADE USE.
Also, look for new containers. Many available are “reconditioned” or cleaned and refurbished. They are OK if you are storing non foodstuffs like diesel or lubricating oils but for food stuffs and water you really don’t want to be taking the risk, well in my opinion you don’t and as for that I’ll wrap up my thoughts for this episode of Tales from the edge of town.
Take care,
Alan
Water is vital to life, YOUR LIFE, My life, everyone’s and everything’s life. In the western world, we turn a tap on and hey presto clean safe water usually comes out. In the UK, we have a privatised water system where the water companies have shareholders and have to make a profit for them whilst providing water for the populous. My personal view is that water should not be in the hands of a private company, which, as a first priority makes profits in order to give those dividends out to the so called "investors". The flip side of this is that, again, in the UK, we have some of the cleanest water in the world and in general, it is affordable. The big drive so far is to get every household onto water meters so you get charged by the cubic metre or 1 tonne of water used. This makes you look at your consumption like the other utilities of gas and electric but you don't need gas and electric to exist, water you do.
Anyway, why should you be concerned about the water supply? I've already said it is safe, relatively cheap and ready at the turn of a tap but what would happen if it wasn't any of these things.
If it was dirty water, if it was contaminated, expensive or intermittent? What would you do?
At present, each water company has a legal responsibility to provide every person in a given area with 10 litres of clean water per day. End of. So, if your water supply is going to be off for more than 18 hours you will either get a bowser of water in your street or bottled water. The thing is the water companies only need to supply it to a given area. What happens to it then is not regulated so, as happened in 2012 a lorry full of 25000 litre bottles of water was taken to a car park ready for local distribution. A gang of armed men stole the lorry, drove it off and then stole the water and returned the lorry to the road network and locked the doors. The water company did not have to replenish the water that was stolen.
So what would you do? The obvious answer is to store your own water the same way as you would store some extra food. Also, this is not being paranoid or an American Doomsday Prepper or the likes, it is sound government advice taken from the www.gov.uk website which states that you should keep enough food and water stored in your home to last you at least 3 weeks. This linky is from the F&CO and applies to those Brits that may have to live through a "Hurricane Season". Although we don't get hurricanes much in the UK maonland it is a good source to show you what to keep as emergency stocks. The water element states at least 1/2 a gallon of fresh water per person per day. More water will be needed for sanitation and washing so this link advises you to store other water which could be a pond in your garden or water barrels so you have water available that could be sterilised for personal, clothing and household washing.
If your water supply was cut off for whatever reason how long could YOU or your LOVED ONES survive? The answer varies upon each persons needs but it is generally thought of as three days without water and you are dead.
If there is a flu pandemic then the staff at the local water company might be ill and thus your water is either not treated properly or is switched off. A flu pandemic can and probably will last over 90 days or 3 months.
If a terrorist wants to infect a lot of people in a short space of time then the water supply is a key route post water works.
Health can be compromised without good hygiene, many foods needs water to be cooked in or with and what would us Brits do without our marvellous cup of TEA??
Pets need water also. Did you know an average medium sized dog like a Red Setter, Labrador or Vimarana (Doberman / Greyhound cross) all drink up to 3 gallons of water a day!!
In order to ensure you are not to go without your water you need to start looking at storing water TODAY. It would be really nice to have an IBC or two that holds 1000 ltrs or a cubic tonne of water in each but to start with today have a look around your home. You can fill up bowls and dishes immediately, now, this instance. At least that way you have water if your tap runs dry in the next 20 minutes. Also, start looking at ways of keeping water in “pop” bottles. These are generally 2 ltrs in size and once full can be dropped from a good height and not damaged.
10 pop bottles of water is good, 15 would be better and that 30 ltrs is what one person should be storing for 1 days use and that does not include the toilet or washing machine or dishwasher.
Plastic milk bottles are also OK for short term storage but make sure these are washed out thoroughly.
You can do a search on the WWWeb to find suitable containers that you can afford and store water in them. You can use water butts in the garden and even a garden pond if need be. This topic is too big to be covered in one sitting especially as I mention storing water outside of the home in the garden or pond.
Therefore, I will be revisiting this topic later this week with reference to usage, storage methods and conditions, Purification or filtration, ( do you know the difference??).
As for today, if you are looking to buy storage containers MAKE SURE THE CONTAINERS ARE FOOD GRADE USE.
Also, look for new containers. Many available are “reconditioned” or cleaned and refurbished. They are OK if you are storing non foodstuffs like diesel or lubricating oils but for food stuffs and water you really don’t want to be taking the risk, well in my opinion you don’t and as for that I’ll wrap up my thoughts for this episode of Tales from the edge of town.
Take care,
Alan
Sunday, January 5, 2014
What do people REALLY NEED?
OK, so what do people "really need"?
A smart phone perhaps or maybe a 55" TV ? How about a fast car, year we all love fast cars. Oh I forgot, all the money to buy them so we need a well paid low stress short hours job. Yeah that's what we all need.
In fact what we all need is shelter, food, warmth, security and perhaps company. We also need to be debt free. OK I hear you say, when am I going to be debt free? probably when I die which is the case for so many of us but it doesn't need to be.
Going back to what we really need, the shelter, food, warmth, security, company bit is really all we NEED but I am the first to say that 55" TVs are also important but we don't NEED the TV, we may WANT the TV but we don't need it.
Why is it seemingly important to get ourselves debt free? Simples, because if you owe someone some thing and this is mainly money then the product isn't yours until it's paid for whether that's your house on a mortgage, a car on HP or a full house of luxury goods on tick. We might be able to pay the bills when they come in each month but what if we lose our jobs? have a read of yesterday's missive below about being a Boy Scout and you will see the effect of not having a prepared mentality.
Only when we are debt free can we begin to be more secure in our way of life, well that's my take on it.
What you need to do is SNOWBALL YOUR DEBT. I lay NO claim to this theory but it is widely held as a good way. So here is how it can work for you.
Say for instance you have 5 debts on credit cards and store cards etc without the big ones like the mortgage and car payments.
Say for instance your five debts are £100, £200, £900, £2000 and £5000 and you pay off the minimum each month to keep the card and shop companies happy.
What you need to do is find extra income from somewhere. If that means getting an extra job locally to your home then do it. You might only work 4 hours extra a month but even at minimum wage that's an extra £30 or there abouts. You could also sell off all your stuff in the house that you don't use but keep "just in case it comes in handy" It's called hoarding and I'll admit I am one of the best at it but if you can sell a few bits and pay the money off your smallest debt then you will save money in interest and also get rid of your debt faster.
For instance you pay £20 a month off the £100 debt. Forgetting about the interest for now, you have £80 left to pay so you plan to pay that off in 4 more installments of £20. If you do the extra 4 hours work and pay the £30 off that debt WITH your original £20 you can then pay that debt off in 2 months instead of 5.
Then you start on the next debt. In this case it is the £200 debt and say you were paying this off in 10 payments of £20. You keep paying this £20 as normal but you also have £50 from the 1st debt made up of £20 payment and the extra £30 you earned. So the next monthly payment will be £30 plus the £50 from the first debt or £80 in total. So again you pay the second debt off in a little over 2 months instead of 10 !!
The third debt of £900 was 30 monthly payments of £30 but by snowballing the debts you pay the £30, the £20 from the second debt and the £50 from the first debt. All totalled up you pay the £900 debt off in 9 months of £100. This carries on and on until you pay off all the debts but the VERY IMPORTANT part is not to take on more debt to replace the debts you are removing each month.
Secondly do we need to spend £1000 a month on food or do we want to show off to our fellow shoppers and neighbours that we can spend such money if we want to? A man need about 4000 calories a day with hard work like an outdoors job or about 2400 for a more sedentary job like an office job.A woman needs about 3000 calories, again for a physical outdoors type job and 1500 for a more sedentary job so do we need all the butter, cream. salt, sugar and ready meals and eating out or can we learn to cook wholesome nutritious food at home that we can enjoy THAT IS HEALTHY for us to eat.
If you decide that you can cut back a bit on your shopping bill then the average money saved could go towards the mortgage because you have already paid the debts of haven't you??
Warmth, we all like to be warm but do we actually need to have central heating on in every room and at a temperature of 80 degrees F or about 23 deg C? why not put the heating on a timer for an hour in the morning and a couple of hours in the evening especially if you are out at work all day and then only have it set to 20 Deg c with the aim of reducing it to 18 Deg C / 35 deg F. Again money saved on your bills can go direct to your debts and if you do this well enough then you will get to be debt free before you die.
Security is also paramount and shouldn't be skimped on to save money but it can be done cheaper. If you have a garden then put a spiky hedge in place around the perimeter fence. Put low energy lights on a timer in different rooms at different times of the day. Play a radio or TV the same way and if you want get a dog. the bigger the better but make sure you can look after it well.
Hopefully that has given you a bit to think about and if you would like to comment then please please do. If you have any ideas that you want me t cover in future blog posts then please also leave a comment.
For those living on the edge and not wanting to fall off it!!
Take care Alan.
A smart phone perhaps or maybe a 55" TV ? How about a fast car, year we all love fast cars. Oh I forgot, all the money to buy them so we need a well paid low stress short hours job. Yeah that's what we all need.
In fact what we all need is shelter, food, warmth, security and perhaps company. We also need to be debt free. OK I hear you say, when am I going to be debt free? probably when I die which is the case for so many of us but it doesn't need to be.
Going back to what we really need, the shelter, food, warmth, security, company bit is really all we NEED but I am the first to say that 55" TVs are also important but we don't NEED the TV, we may WANT the TV but we don't need it.
Why is it seemingly important to get ourselves debt free? Simples, because if you owe someone some thing and this is mainly money then the product isn't yours until it's paid for whether that's your house on a mortgage, a car on HP or a full house of luxury goods on tick. We might be able to pay the bills when they come in each month but what if we lose our jobs? have a read of yesterday's missive below about being a Boy Scout and you will see the effect of not having a prepared mentality.
Only when we are debt free can we begin to be more secure in our way of life, well that's my take on it.
What you need to do is SNOWBALL YOUR DEBT. I lay NO claim to this theory but it is widely held as a good way. So here is how it can work for you.
Say for instance you have 5 debts on credit cards and store cards etc without the big ones like the mortgage and car payments.
Say for instance your five debts are £100, £200, £900, £2000 and £5000 and you pay off the minimum each month to keep the card and shop companies happy.
What you need to do is find extra income from somewhere. If that means getting an extra job locally to your home then do it. You might only work 4 hours extra a month but even at minimum wage that's an extra £30 or there abouts. You could also sell off all your stuff in the house that you don't use but keep "just in case it comes in handy" It's called hoarding and I'll admit I am one of the best at it but if you can sell a few bits and pay the money off your smallest debt then you will save money in interest and also get rid of your debt faster.
For instance you pay £20 a month off the £100 debt. Forgetting about the interest for now, you have £80 left to pay so you plan to pay that off in 4 more installments of £20. If you do the extra 4 hours work and pay the £30 off that debt WITH your original £20 you can then pay that debt off in 2 months instead of 5.
Then you start on the next debt. In this case it is the £200 debt and say you were paying this off in 10 payments of £20. You keep paying this £20 as normal but you also have £50 from the 1st debt made up of £20 payment and the extra £30 you earned. So the next monthly payment will be £30 plus the £50 from the first debt or £80 in total. So again you pay the second debt off in a little over 2 months instead of 10 !!
The third debt of £900 was 30 monthly payments of £30 but by snowballing the debts you pay the £30, the £20 from the second debt and the £50 from the first debt. All totalled up you pay the £900 debt off in 9 months of £100. This carries on and on until you pay off all the debts but the VERY IMPORTANT part is not to take on more debt to replace the debts you are removing each month.
Secondly do we need to spend £1000 a month on food or do we want to show off to our fellow shoppers and neighbours that we can spend such money if we want to? A man need about 4000 calories a day with hard work like an outdoors job or about 2400 for a more sedentary job like an office job.A woman needs about 3000 calories, again for a physical outdoors type job and 1500 for a more sedentary job so do we need all the butter, cream. salt, sugar and ready meals and eating out or can we learn to cook wholesome nutritious food at home that we can enjoy THAT IS HEALTHY for us to eat.
If you decide that you can cut back a bit on your shopping bill then the average money saved could go towards the mortgage because you have already paid the debts of haven't you??
Warmth, we all like to be warm but do we actually need to have central heating on in every room and at a temperature of 80 degrees F or about 23 deg C? why not put the heating on a timer for an hour in the morning and a couple of hours in the evening especially if you are out at work all day and then only have it set to 20 Deg c with the aim of reducing it to 18 Deg C / 35 deg F. Again money saved on your bills can go direct to your debts and if you do this well enough then you will get to be debt free before you die.
Security is also paramount and shouldn't be skimped on to save money but it can be done cheaper. If you have a garden then put a spiky hedge in place around the perimeter fence. Put low energy lights on a timer in different rooms at different times of the day. Play a radio or TV the same way and if you want get a dog. the bigger the better but make sure you can look after it well.
Hopefully that has given you a bit to think about and if you would like to comment then please please do. If you have any ideas that you want me t cover in future blog posts then please also leave a comment.
For those living on the edge and not wanting to fall off it!!
Take care Alan.
Saturday, January 4, 2014
Oh to be a Boy Scout.
Hi folks,
At 52 ish I am a bit long in the tooth to be a REAL boy Scout but like Boy Scouts the world over I want to "be Prepared" as they say.
To me being prepared is not like those numpties you see on Doomsday Prepper or other American lifestyle programmes on Discovery et al.
To me being prepared is common sense and what your mothers or grand mothers did as a matter of course.
In fact these stalwarts of the community used to keep a "war cupboard" where they would buy an extra tin of something and leave it in the cupboard in case war broke out. Now you might think that the great war ended in 1945 et al but what about the Korean war, the Cuban missile crisis, Vietnam, Ireland, Afghanistan, Iraq!! Any of these could have turned into full scale world war so even today it could be prudent, to keep a "war cupboard". Actually thinking about it keeping a war cupboard these days is probably more important than in any time in the past 70 odd years !!
It's not only in times of war that we need to plan or prep for. We are all living in "austere times" well the politicians might not be unless austere to them means only spending £200 on a bottle of wine but that's another rant.
What about your living, could you lose your job and if so do you have enough money saved for 6 months worth of bills and 6 months food stocked away? No? I thought not and if you said yes then well done to you. You will be interested in many of my blogs coming soon.
If you haven't got 6 months worth stashed away what will you do? Go to the DSS? the rules have all changed so like me you might well find out that you are not entitled to any help at all!!
So to recap you don't have to be in a war, fear of war, lose your job or anything else to start to prepare for these things but it might be prudent to do so just in case they happen.
When you go shopping buy an extra tin of things you eat. You can easily plan these things if you want but put simply if you buy 4 tins of baked beans for a months supply buy an extra 1 and then over 4 months you have an extra months worth of beans stored away. Now you can of course do it faster if you want but don't let it impact on your normal life.
Buy 4 tins of beans plus 2 extra tins then in a month do that again so in 2 months you have an extra months beans. Do something like this every time you go shopping and you will be surprised at how much you can stash away for your " war cupboard".
Another way to do this is watching for special offers. There might be a certain tinned pie on offer for £1 or soups for 50p for example. If you buy 4 tins of soup for £3 that's 75p each tin. When the 50p off is on don't just buy the usual 4 tins but buy the same amount of money's worth thus you still spend £3 but you get 6 tins of soup. Put the two extra in your supplies box etc. If of course you were buying 4 for £3 AND THEN AN EXTRA 2 for another £150 as above with the beans idea then you will be buying £4.50 worth of soups. Last week at 75p each you would get 6. this week on the 50p offer you will get 9 so you have a surplus of 5 over the original 4 you wanted.
It's not rocket science but it does help you if you think about what you are doing.You can also partake in BOGOF offers, Buy One Get One Free or buy 2 and get 1 free. Again, only buy what you eat and eat what you buy.
You can look for coupons to get free or cheaper products and put these in your stash. If your favourite tooth paste is on offer buy whatever you can. If you use one tube of paste every month then buy 12 on offer and you have 12 months worth. If you use this and say after 3 months there is another offer on then buy another 12 months sup[plies at the offer price and so on.
If you or we do have a war or people fall on hard times or even just a prolonged severe winter that stops food and supplies getting into the shops "just in time" what value can you put on a toilet roll or a pack of ladies sanitary requirements? Don't be squeamish about these things as it is currently a supply and demand where as we demand and the shops supply but in hard times people still have demands and you as a prepper will have the goods on hand to be able to barter.
Think about it.
Until next time take care and go shopping........
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Hello folks,
If you are reading this can you let me know please as I'm going to blog a good bit more from now on and also hope to start doing a podcast.
The podcast will vary on topic theme but it will be based around living well but cheaply if at all possible. Also there will be topics covering the state of the country and world, economic disasters, a bit of how we can prepare for any future economic failures. Also I will be doing shows on storing food by various methods, paying down debts, gardening and topics like that. I won't be preaching religion or conspiracy theories but I will be challenging you all to try new skills and actively try to change yourself because we cannot make the world a better place until we make ourselves better people.
Well thanks for reading so please do let me know how you are and what topics, if any in articular you would like me to cover.
Take care,
Alan Teather
If you are reading this can you let me know please as I'm going to blog a good bit more from now on and also hope to start doing a podcast.
The podcast will vary on topic theme but it will be based around living well but cheaply if at all possible. Also there will be topics covering the state of the country and world, economic disasters, a bit of how we can prepare for any future economic failures. Also I will be doing shows on storing food by various methods, paying down debts, gardening and topics like that. I won't be preaching religion or conspiracy theories but I will be challenging you all to try new skills and actively try to change yourself because we cannot make the world a better place until we make ourselves better people.
Well thanks for reading so please do let me know how you are and what topics, if any in articular you would like me to cover.
Take care,
Alan Teather
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
long time again
Long time since the last postt. Blame the dodgy back, wrists, neck, shoulders... lol.
Getting ready for christmas now on a budget. I say on a budget but that could be anything but on my budget it will be a small one. For instance we have £2.31 in the bank at the moment ! it's a good job I am a prepper and have food in the stock room / safe house.
Getting ready for christmas now on a budget. I say on a budget but that could be anything but on my budget it will be a small one. For instance we have £2.31 in the bank at the moment ! it's a good job I am a prepper and have food in the stock room / safe house.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Long time no post
Just where does the time go?
I see today that it is over 4 months since I updated this site, goodness knows why because I've had plenty of time doing nothing as I've been in so much pain of late but then again smashed out of my head on prescribed medicastion does help with the missing time bit!
I see today that it is over 4 months since I updated this site, goodness knows why because I've had plenty of time doing nothing as I've been in so much pain of late but then again smashed out of my head on prescribed medicastion does help with the missing time bit!
Monday, October 4, 2010
This environmental jolly is a good thing .....
So 20,000 plus delegates, politicians, environmental activists and journalists et al all failed to get a binding agreement in Copenhagen in Dec 2009 so they are all trying again this year in Cancoon, Mexico with all the associated travel, disruption, policing, Co2 and other environmental pollutants just to have another stalemate at the end of it....
The best part is that they will be doing it all again in 12 months time in South Africa........
As I said this environmental jolly hollies are a nice little experience ...... if you can get on the band wagon [ run on bio diesel from a non rain forest deforestation country project of course] that is.....
The best part is that they will be doing it all again in 12 months time in South Africa........
As I said this environmental jolly hollies are a nice little experience ...... if you can get on the band wagon [ run on bio diesel from a non rain forest deforestation country project of course] that is.....
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