Leaving London and downshifting to become a full-time parent and rural homemaker
Ok I’m not strictly qualified to write this post just yet as the house move has not yet been successfully completed but have a few choice gems to share from others who have recently relocated their family home and am so pleased I listened to their advice.
1. You can never have too many strong boxes [...]
Last night we returned home from a weekend away. On the journey we had been discussing the fact that we’d like to move to a smaller, more energy efficient house to further reduce our costs. Because we rent we are able to move whenever we want to with very little in the way to stop [...]
My poor little head is too full of too many things to do (an exciting dot com project with my beloved, administrative work for our small internet business, a small babe and two little kids on summer holidays to look after, a house to keep in order, tummies to feed, this blog to write AND [...]
I do know that we are extraordinarily lucky living where we do and living the way we do. We have three beautiful, healthy little kids, great friends and family etc etc etc but very occasionally, when I’m tired, or have too many things going on at once and feel under it I need a reminder [...]
Here’s a fantastic list of easy ways to save money from The Times Online. Some really good ideas.
http://timesbusiness.typepad.com/money_weblog/2008/02/the-thrifty-fif.html
I’m already doing some of them (cooking in bulk, using leftovers, magazine swapping with a friend each month, using a piggy bank for all my loose little bits of change, reusing pots and bread bags for storing sandwiches [...]
Ever since we noticed our monthly food bills rising without good reason, since we heard more and more about the so-called ‘credit crunch’ and the predicted downturn in the economy, we started thinking seriously about what options we had to make ourselves recession proof.
A brief look at our fixed monthly outgoings identified our rent, food, [...]
EDIT: We’ve set up a new blog called Becoming Self Sufficient that you may also be interested in visiting.
Its a new long term project that has just emerged for this family but since Bealers has been Head of Veg Gardening and really enjoying it (having never planted or grown anything before he’s now growing chillis, [...]
The Willow Den in the background will get much leafier this summer
Last March we bought the willow withies to make a willow den for the children as our garden has no shade after midday during the summer months. Withies can be bought from November-March in the UK when the wood is dormant.
We followed the instructions [...]
I was a bit shocked to see that we had overspent by £175 on our Housekeeping account but it is not yet the end of the month. My initial reaction was to be cross with myself for not keeping on top of the spending, for not sticking to the budget and for not doing things [...]
Luckily for my purse and our bank balance we don’t live near to any shops apart from the butcher, the bakery, a small grocery shop and a few charity shops (full of old ladies’ things mainly). When we lived in East London and I worked in the City I found that the majority of my [...]