BlogFAQ with Eco Thrifty Living

Mar06
by TFS on March 6, 2014 at 7:45 am
Posted In: BlogFAQ

An Interview with Eco Thrifty Living

I’m starting up a new feature of the site today which I’ve decided to call “BlogFAQ”, which is going to be a series (hopefully!) of interviews with other blog owners, about their blogs and how they live their lives.  The reasons behind the name are twofold:

The first is that when I stumble upon a new blog I often have some questions for the owner, which I am guessing may well be questions that are often thought of by other new readers. You know, like Frequently Asked Questions. The answers are no doubt hidden away somewhere in the depths of the archives, but wouldn’t it be great if they were all in one place for them to refer new users to? (Note to self: do this for theFIREstarter blog as soon as possible!). Most “normal” websites tend to have a FAQ section so why don’t most blogs? I don’t know and I am here to fix this unexplainable anomaly.

The second reason for the name is clearly that it sounds a bit funny. (Or is it just me that thought that?) 🙂

Anyway, if you would like your blog to be featured please drop me a line on the contact form page and I will look at your blog and formulate some questions for you to answer! Likewise if you have any FAQs about theFIREstarter blog then do the same and I will add them to my own BlogFAQ and publish it in a couple of weeks time.

 

BlogFAQ I – Eco Thrifty Living

The prestigious honour of featuring on the very first BlogFAQ goes to one of my favourite blogs since I discovered it: Eco Thrifty Living. ETL is written by Zoe, who has introduced me to many great new ideas such as seriously reducing the sugar in my diet and reducing the amount of single use plastics in my home. And the great thing about most of her ideas is that they will save you money as well as the environment! I can tell you are bored of me by now so let’s move swiftly onto the BlogFAQ to hear from Zoe herself:

 

How did you get into the frugal/eco scene? What was your main motivation and did you have a particular “light bulb” moment?

I have been interested in environmental issues for as long as I can remember and have always been pretty sensible with money. I wasn’t especially frugal though until after I had my second child and I realised I really didn’t want to go back to work, but felt like I had to. We had just moved house and had our second child and I wasn’t prepared to stop buying organic food and eco-friendly products, which can often be more expensive.  At this point I came up with the idea of being eco-friendly and thrifty and it changed the way I viewed everything. The more I looked into it, the more I found that being genuinely eco-friendly rather than costing more can actually be the key to spending less!

 

You are living an extraordinary life compared to the mainstream, have you received much negativity from friends and family and how do you deal with that? 

I am lucky that in general my family and friends are pretty supportive and some read my blog/ want to know why I am doing a particular thing, which has sparked some interesting discussions.   I think the things that have been hardest for my family to accept however were my choices to quit my job and some also weren’t so keen on the idea of me quitting shampoo.  Quitting my job was the most difficult change to make, but I didn’t quit it until I was comfortable that we would be ok financially.  I felt confident in my decision and decided that everyone else would see what I saw eventually.

Blogging definitely helped give me the confidence to see the alternatives to working both because of what I was blogging about (i.e. how I could thrive on less) and because of the whole experience of and learning curve of blogging.  Other things that have really helped me include listening to hypnotherapy CD’s (specifically Glenn Harrold’s Learn How to Think Positively CD) and inspirational quotes like this one:

“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.”

— G.B. Shaw

 

Switching quickly to a positive vibe, have you converted any friends and family to your eco thrifty ways?

My immediate family i.e. my husband and kids have gone through a lot of the changes with me without really noticing many of them.  One simple change which has saved us a lot of money is taking packed lunches (and sometimes packed dinners) everywhere with us.  They are packed in reusable containers and the contents are homemade and unpackaged e.g. sandwiches with chopped up fruit, veg and chunks of cheese.  My family has become used to taking staycations (i.e. holidays at home), having foreign students living in our house and having mostly second hand toys and clothes. My kids are also shampoo free and have been most of their lives.

 

We often say be the change you want to see. What actions of change have rubbed off the most / easiest on your friends and family?

Some friends have got into clothes swapping and I have given away and been given loads of clothes this way.  Other changes people have told me they are making since reading my blog include going sugar free (or greatly reducing sugar in their diets), reducing food waste and doing more local shopping. I am undertaking a Year of Eco Challenges and have asked people to sponsor me with eco actions via my DoNation page, which has also encouraged friends to make changes. (See my page here).  In general though I tend to live and let live and try not to tell my friends and family how to live their lives (although I probably do go off on one from time to time if someone asks me the wrong question 🙂 )

 

What are your main methods for generating passive income? 

We rent out our garage, have invested in solar panels and sometimes rent out our spare room to students (this is semi-passive income as it doesn’t involve much work), and I make a tiny amount of money from affiliate links and sponsored posts on my blog… In total when we do have students we are making over £600 a month from these sources.


Common advice in the FI community is to invest in broad based index funds of stocks and shares to produce your income. For example the FTSE 100 index. Considering that you are essentially buying a small part of every large corporation in the country by doing this, some of which you would clearly disagree with their actions and policies, would you ever consider this method for passive income? (Sorry for the long question!)

I wouldn’t invest in mainstream funds, but would consider investing in ethical funds.

 

Would you ever consider any type of stocks and shares as another means to generating passive income? (For example investing in wind or solar energy companies directly)

This is something I have considered and I have heard of (but not invested in) local energy schemes such as the Brighton Energy Co-op which I find very interesting.


You cover a portion of your expenses with passive income, and are frugal to the extent that you don’t have to work any more. How would you describe your situation, do you consider yourself Financially Independent?

It really depends on your definition of financial independence.  The income we are generating from the passive sources mentioned above pretty much replace the salary I was earning after childcare, plus on top of that I have made lots of savings by cutting back, so we are probably actually better off financially than we were when I was working with two kids in childcare.  As a family though we are not financially independent as we still need an income, although we do have various back up plans which would cover us for a time should my husband ever be out of work.


You quit your job to become a stay at home mum and blogger. What was the job you quit from? Have you ever had the urge to rejoin the workforce since?

I used to be a Chartered Member of the Institute of Internal Auditors and worked as an internal auditor in the NHS for 10 years. I have no current urge, plan or need to go and get a job, but I can see myself doing work of some form as my kids get older (most likely working for myself or on a voluntary basis).


A lot of people worry they would get bored without a full time job. Apart from looking after the kids and blogging, how do you keep yourself busy? (I’m kind of expecting the answer “There is no time left!” for this but thought I’d ask anyway 🙂 )

I only have a couple of kid free hours a day (except for one day a week when I get the whole day) and when I’m not blogging, I’m doing stuff around the house, doing my ‘local’ shopping, or doing stuff that relates to my blog e.g. experimenting with making bread or decluttering and giving stuff away…  I do also sometimes squeeze in a catch up with friends.


What is your number one money saving tips (it doesn’t have to highest in terms of money saved, but just your favourite tip for any reason)

Dust off some old skills and/ or learn some new ones.  This can save you money as you realise you are capable of doing more than just your day job (if you have one) and can help to increase confidence in all areas of your life.  Rather than buying something or getting someone in to do it for you, you might give it a go yourself instead and in the long run that can save you a lot of money.


What are your three biggest goals for the future in the areas of your financial life, eco-life, and your blogging life?

At the moment my main eco focus is to complete my year of eco-challenges and on getting 100 pledges on my DoNation page for undertaking a year of eco-challenges.  Financially I feel we have achieved our goal of being able to thrive on one salary, but maybe we should start to think about thriving on no salary… I can’t lie to you, I don’t have any blogging goals at the moment, I just enjoy writing it.


What are your favourite blogs that readers of theFIREstarter may not yet be aware of?

Mymakedoandmendyear – http://mymakedoandmendyear.wordpress.com/

Freeourkids – http://www.freeourkids.co.uk/

A girl called Jack – http://agirlcalledjack.com/

My Zero Waste – http://myzerowaste.com/

Little Green Blog – http://littlegreenblog.com/

Wonderthrift – http://wonderthrift.com/

Westywrites – http://westywrites.wordpress.com/

My Plastic Free Life – http://myplasticfreelife.com/

 

Can you give us a few book and film/documentary recommendations to get us started on our eco thrifty ways? 

The Story of Stuff (and all related videos) – http://storyofstuff.org/

The Clean Bin Project – http://www.cleanbinmovie.com/

Trashed – http://www.trashedfilm.com/

The Moneyless Manifesto – http://www.moneylessmanifesto.org/

 

Well there you go, what a great first interview to kick the BlogFAQ feature off with! I can’t thank Zoe enough for agreeing to answer my questions and doing so in such a detailed and interesting manner. There is a lot of food for thought in there and some great links to keep you all reading (for weeks!) but obviously don’t forget to come back and visit your old friend TFS once you are done 🙂

 

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Completely unrelated note: Those of you expecting the next post in the FI Planning series this week… apologies! I have seriously put about 15 hours into this post already and it’s still not finished yet! I am away from tomorrow until Sunday so I will pick it up when I get back, get it done, and post hopefully in the early part of next week. A valuable blogging lesson has been learnt – don’t promise an article will be posted unless it’s already been written! 🙂

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Pancake Day Recipe – Oat, Seed and Raisin Pancakes

Mar02
by TFS on March 2, 2014 at 10:35 pm
Posted In: Bad Ass Cookery Class, Frugal Food
Oat, Seed and Raisin Pancakes

The finished article(s)!

Welcome to the Shrove Tuesday special edition of the Badass Cookery Class*! People love a decent pancake and it does boggle me why most of them (in the UK at least) wait for this special day to make them. They are very cheap and quick to make and are also quite filling. Granted, they are not the healthiest thing to eat but as a treat every so often I personally think they can’t be beaten. In a (vain?) attempt to make them slightly healthier, I’ve added some seeds for a bit of protein, vitamins and minerals, and some porridge oats thicken the mix up a bit compared to the normally rather flaccid cakes that recipes from the UK generally produce.

Oat, Seed and Raisin Pancakes: Ingredients

To make this super quick and easy I just measured out the ingredients in a 1 pint measuring just and mixed it in the same jug. So to make 1 pint of the batter you will need:

150ml (porridge) oats

1-2 tablespoon sunflower seeds

1-2 tablespoon pumpkin seeds

1-2 tablespoon linseed (I think this is called “flax” in the US)

2 teaspoons brown sugar

A pinch of salt

The above ingredients should come up to about the 200ml mark of the jug as in the picture below

100ml Flour

2 eggs

250ml milk (or enough to fill the jug up to a pint)

Handful of raisins per pancake

Oat, seed and raisin Pancakes Ingredients

The dry ingredients up to the 300ml mark

Oat, Seed and Raisin Pancakes: Method

1. Measure all the dry ingredients barring the flour in the jug, transfer it all into a food processor and whizz it up a bit. I use a hand blender and attachment which cost about £15 and it seemed to do the business pretty well! You don’t have to do this stage if you don’t have one but please note the pancakes may come out a little stodgy and the seeds will give it a nice crunchy texture, which personally I don’t mind, but slightly prefer it whizzed up

Oats, Seeds and Raisin Pancakes

Whizzing up the seeds and oats

 

2. Pour the mixture back into the jug, measure out the flour on top, then mix it all in with a fork. Crack the eggs on top and pour on the milk so it makes up a full pint.

Oat, Seed and Raisin Pancakes

Keep the wet and dry ingredients separate at this stage

3. Gently mix the milk and eggs together on top without mixing the dry ingredients in at the same time (if possible). It is much easier to get a smooth batter if you do this first! Then slowly mix in the dry ingredients. Once more solid batter starts forming you can give it a good beating with the fork… the fun bit! Extra points if you don’t spill any!

Oat, Seed and Raisin Pancakes

The final batter should look like this…

4. Put the batter in the fridge for at least 20 minutes to settle

5. Heat the pan with some oil. Once hot then ladle out the mix into the pan, you should be able to cook two at a time in a regular sized frying pan. I added the raisins at the very last minute but you can probably just mix it into the batter to be honest!

Oat, Seed, and Raisin Pancakes

Cooking side one of my perfectly spherical cakes 🙂

6. Cook the pancakes for about 1-2 minutes on the first side and about 1 minute on the second side (or until they look brown enough for your tastes!)

Oat, Seed and Raisin Pancakes

Ooooh yea looking good baby!!!

7. Transfer to plate (or keep warm in the oven if you need to cook a big platter!).

8. Add your favourite pancake toppings. The classic is obviously lemon and sugar and I can testify that this topping works perfectly with this type of ‘cake! I also tried honey and banana which was also sublime.

Happy pancake day / Shrove Tuesday all!

If you have a favourite and unique pancake topping then let me know in the comments below! Also if anyone has any pictures of their pancakes send them in and I’ll publish the best ones on here!

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*I realise it’s not Shrove Tueday at the time of posting, I just thought I would put the recipe up so people could buy some of the ingredients in time for Tuesday if they needed to. How thoughtful of me! 🙂

 

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Conclusive Proof that your House should be Included in your Net Worth…

Feb28
by TFS on February 28, 2014 at 7:54 am
Posted In: Financial Independence, Personal Finance

…But you’ll have to wait till Monday to find out exactly why!

Calculate Net Worth

Nope… Your beloved expensive Porsche is not an asset…

Happy Friday folks! I’ve been beavering away at the next post of my financial independence planning series all week, which as you’ve probably guessed by now is all about calculating your Net Worth. When I talk about Net Worth I am talking about it specifically in terms of a number that when you reach it, you can call up your boss and tell him to stick his job where solar radiation is not observable.

The big sticking point in the world of Personal Finance blogs it would seem it whether to include house equity in the calculation. There are many arguments for and against but I’ve never seen a post back up anything with hard numbers to explain their point of view (if you know of one, please let us know in the comments below!). There seems to be a lot of wishy washy chat but no one has run the numbers.

I set out to right this particular one of the World’s most heinous of wrongs, and it turns out (perhaps unsurprisingly) that there is hard evidence that you should include it. The reason I haven’t made the full post today is that I have to iron out a few last details in my spreadsheets, make them look half presentable for human consumption, and attempt to derive a simple formula from them as we did in the last post about calculating your savings rate (Hint: it’s not as simple as just including the net value of home equity into your Net Worth!).

Another very important point to note is that by including some proxy value for house equity into your Net Worth calculation, you must also consider that a similar proxy value for principle payments must be included as part of your savings, which will affect the calculation we did in the above article. For those of you who struggled through that behemoth of a post and made it to the end, apologies, but I will have to make an (hopefully very small) amendment to it, so you might have to go back and have another read of that as well when Monday comes. 🙂

Anyway, just so you can see where I am going with this, I ran a simulation of numbers for theFIRErat whereby he saved 50% of his income from the exact point he signed up for a 25 year mortgage. These are very convenient numbers because a 50% savings rate means you will retire in exactly 25 years. So, having run the numbers, I noted that when he retires and his mortgage expires, his monthly expenses drop dramatically (no mortgage left to pay). The sensible thing for the rat to do would therefore be to work out how much he needs to cover his non-mortgage expenses and then continue saving until he has that much, plus enough to pay off the rest of his mortgage.

At that point he can quit his job, which is turns out is a whole six and a half years earlier than what we are told if we follow the straight up rule of a 50% savings rate equating to 25 years of bondage to the corporate ‘cuffs.

Clearly this is not an insignificant amount of time!

So there is my conclusive proof 🙂 that we have to include (a proxy value for) house equity in our calculations for Net Worth, but you will have to tune in on Monday to read the full findings, and hopefully a simple derived formula to calculate that proxy value.

In the mean time, I hope you have a scintillating weekend my lovely readers!

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Seeking out some more energy efficiency gains, switching to renewables

Feb24
by TFS on February 24, 2014 at 7:45 am
Posted In: Frugality

Can you feel the electricity in the air!?! Cos that’s what we’re talking about today!

We are roughly a year into our relentless quest to optimise our expenses and after a while you do tend to think that you’ve done all there is that you can do. However until I’m living in an energy neutral yurt with complimentary self sustainable organic farm in the Cotswolds, there is clearly still work to be done. Let’s have a quick look at where we are now, and how things could be improved.

The current energy bills picture

Aside from the fact that this winter has been a lot milder, temperature wise at least, than the last, I think we’ve still done a pretty good job of decreasing our energy usage in the flat. There has been no real effort on our part or revolutionary ideas employed aside from the bog standard “top energy saving tips” such as:

  • Changing light bulbs to energy efficient CFL ones
  • Turning the heating down by 1 degree C
  • Turning off a few things we don’t use when they are not in use (e.g. microwave, we have about 10 clocks in the house already and do not need another one!)
  • Generally being a bit more conscious of leaving lights and appliances on

Small gains add to worthwhile savings

Our old supplier Atlantic (part of the SSE group) were charging us £52 monthly for gas and £45 for electricity, which admittedly was a bit over the top in the first place, but when we switched and received our final bill they ended up owing us £122 for the electricity and £263 for gas. That leaves us with an actual cost of only around £25 per month for gas and £31 for electricity. Seeing as gas usage drops considerably over the summer it will be interesting to see our next bill from our new supplier, it should be even less than this, but we’ll have to wait a full year of a summer and winter to get a full picture of the costs with them.

Much like our old friend compound interest, it is great to see that all the small optimisations have been adding up to tangible savings, but the main point I really wanted to make with this article is that there is always room for improvement!

Seeking out some extra optimisations

A few spotlight bulbs conked out in our kitchen recently and I realised that we have been using Halogen bulbs for all of our spotlights without realising it. I’m not sure why it has gone unnoticed but I think we basically fell for the old trap of purchasing the cheapest bulbs we could find when we first installed these light arrays. Big mistake!

Anyway I managed to replace 10 bulbs with much more efficient LED ones for around £35 which we should make back in just 4 months according to the fact that they use around 90% less energy than normal lamps. I’ve installed them and they are also nice and bright, and I am hoping will be more reliable than the halogen lamps which have tended to blow fairly regularly. I also sold the remaining lamps I had (11 in total, 8 used and 3 new) for a nice round tenner on a facebook selling group.

Good Energy – switching your electricity to renewables

Some of you may remember my post on switching energy suppliers a while back and I was looking at Woodland Energy Trust, however that brand seems to have been eaten up by OVO energy now. OVO managed to put me off somewhat by the confusing number of tariffs, some of which are marginally cheaper on comparison, but only use 15% renewables, which I thought was a bit pointless. Surely you either support renewables and go in 100% or just want the cheapest provider in which case you choose one of the other guys who are burning a load of irreplaceable fossil fuels to feed your flat screen TVs in every room 😉

Anyway so long story short, I decided to go with Good Energy in the end who offer a simple 100% renewable plan and have a much better customer service record; they have been voted top provider for customer satisfaction in a Which survey three years running in fact! Can’t really argue with that. I’ve had a few emails back and forth so far and can confirm they answered promptly and politely, and resolved any issues I brought up with them more than satisfactorily.

What’s the cost?

In comparison to my old supplier here are the current prices:

Good Energy Electricity Gas
Unit price (pence per kWh) 14.220 p 4.157 p
Standing charge 17.66 p per day (£64.46 per year) 22.34 p per day (£81.56 per year)
SSE (Atlantic) Electricity Gas
Unit price (pence per kWh) 14.564 p 4.809 p
Standing charge 16.44 p per day (£60.02 per year) 16.44 p per day (£60.02 per year)

As you can see, it will probably work out roughly the same for me, plus or minus ten or twenty pounds over the year.

The only slight downside I can see is that I am now on a variable rate so we’ll see how that goes over the next few months. I may end up switching again soon if it goes up too much! Fingers crossed.

Anyway, if you want to do your bit for the planet and potentially save a few pounds, compare your rates to the ones above, and if they look roughly the same or less than your current charges, maybe you should consider switching as well

Have you had success in reducing your energy bills or finding a good alternative to fossil fuel based energy supplies? Let us know about it in the comments! Thanks!

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Please note: Some links on this page are affiliate links which means I may get paid a referal fee if you sign up through them. Rest assured these are all companies whose services I am already using and would recommend regardless of any referal fees, so if you think you would find their services useful and would like to support the blog at the same time, then I’d be forever grateful if you could click the links provided above! Thanks!

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Blog update and Weekly Reading

Feb23
by TFS on February 23, 2014 at 7:09 pm
Posted In: Blogging

IMG_20130728_122638

Well it’s been quite an exciting couple of weeks for the blog. Here’s what’s been happening:

  • Scored a guest post spot over at Done by Forty, read it here if you missed it.
  • Subsequently this post got featured on Rockstar Finance. If you haven’t heard about Rockstar Finance yet you should check it out, it is basically a content aggregator specifically for Personal Finance articles, but they are hand picked by J Money (of Budgets Are Sexy) so you know you won’t waste any time reading a load of gumph. Consequently to be featured on there is high praise indeed, and I can’t thank J enough for featuring the article on there.
  • J also set up a very interesting (to the financial voyeur types amongst you at least) page which is tracking PF blogs net worths: The Ultimate List of Blogger Net Worths. I thought it would be fun to be on there so submitted my Net Worth (I’ll update it on my 2014 Goals page) and so there I am! Quite far down the list at the moment, and I need to re-calculate it (more on this in the next article in my Financial Independence Planning series!) so will probably drop further, but hopefully from next month on I can start moving up the table!
  • The crazy couple of weeks has culminated in Monevator featuring my last article on Calculating your Savings Rate in their Weekend Reading section. Again to be featured on such a prestigious money/investment blog is bloomin’ marvellous, and it has seen a further surge of traffic so thanks again to the guys at Monevator for including me there.
  • I also noticed that JC over at Passive Income Pursuit had added me to his blog roll so again thanks to him! JC is pursuing Financial Freedom with a brilliant plan of buying stocks in quality dividend paying companies, so if that sort of thing is your bag, go check him out.
  • On a personal note, I completed the Brighton Half Marathon in 1:34:54 which was a personal best, so maybe my strange training schedule / megadetox challenge I did throughout January did pay dividends in the end!

So anyway, if you are new to the blog, welcome!

I hope you like it and will stick around to see what I have in store for future posts.

If you are new and want to read more, here is a brief list of some of some of the highlights on the blog, if I may be so bold:

  • Meet The FIREstarter! – My first ever post. Please excuse the horrendous picture of me, that was done as kind of a joke!
  • Start Your FIRE Series – A series on how to get your finances in order. I haven’t added to this in a while but do plan to continue to do so after I’ve finished my current series which is the…
  • Financial Independence Planning Series – Only 3 posts in so far on this one but it’s getting quite exciting already, and there is more to come imminently.
  • The Badass Cookery Class: A Beginners Guide – Yes, I like cooking! If you aren’t so handy around the kitchen, read up on some tips to greatly improve the efficiency of your time and efforts spent in there. Then check out this recipe for…
  • 20 Minute Pork Stir Fry – Needs no further explanation, apart from maybe “scrumptious”
  • A Conscious Conscience – Getting all philosophical and introspective around Christmas time
  • The Fresh Prince of Bel-Fire – I also have a side line into write rap parody… yes really! (Just a bit of silliness here)

If you are still hungry for more check out my all posts ever page which is in the top menu under The Story So Far…

Link lovin’

Finally it would be rude of me to post an update such as this without linking out to some of the stuff I’ve been reading this week:

Dare to Pursue the Unconventional Path (They Don’t Teach You THIS in School) @ FI Fighter – If you have never thought about investing in property before, you probably will do after reading this!

Five Blissfull Months of Early Retirement @ Root of Good – If you can avoid getting too jealous, then this is a very nice read of what it’s like from the other side of the FIRE line. I say good on you Justin and we’ll see you there soon!

Find the Best Broker Online @ Monevator – The UK investing scene has just had a massive shake up with new regulations on brokers charge structure. The dust has finally settled so check out Monevators excellent article and comparison table here to find out if you need to switch. This was great timing for me as I was/am just in the process of opening a new ISA and a SIPP.

How Hungry Is Your Appliance? @ Eco Thrifty Living – How much power might you be wasting on appliances left on stand by? Which appliances are energy vampires? Find out here!

Slow Cooker Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Pork Loin @ Herb on Herbs – I made this yesterday as we had friends over in the evening and it was decidedly delicious! I would heartily recommend you buy a slow cooker right now if you haven’t got one and try it out.

Enough: Money, Love & Life @ Pura Vida Journey – Another cracker of an article from Nick that will get you thinking deeply about, well, Money, Love and Life unsurprisingly.

Enjoy, and I’ll be back with some more posts on Financial Independence Planning next week!

TFS.x

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