Simplify It 2013...

Well April's challenge for this "Attack the Unexpected Places" fell a bit flat - and instead our focus has largely  been on decluttering the freezers ready for our upcoming purchase of a whole lamb. We've done remarkably well on that front - at the time of writing Freezer 2 has been emptied and defrosted, and freezer 1 has been run down to about half full - the lamb arrives imminently! We started by working through the freezers and picking out things which needed using up sooner rather than later - the bag of leaf spinach which had been in there for ages - the texture's not great as a straight vegetable, frankly, so it had got left. A last piece of the fish bought yellow stickered a while back - abandoned due to not having enough other stuff to go with it to make a fish pie. A third of a bag of frozen prawns, and a very cheap pack of Pitta breads were among the finds. The spinach has been dealt with simply by adding it to other meals - so a beef curry - throw in some spinach. The fish pie that I did eventually cook to use up the fish and the prawns - yep, that had some spinach thrown in and a couple of hard boiled eggs quartered up too, to bulk it out still further. I made the sauce for that using a fish stock-pot stirred in as I added the milk too - to give a more fishy flavour allowing for the shortage of marine-dweller actually contained in it! The Pittas got used up for lunches - saving us money on making bread or rolls. Working to a meal plan has really helped as it's meant we've targetted the things that needed using first.

So, the question is, what next? Do I revisit clearing out places like the airing cupboard, storecupboard etc for my May challenge? Well, no - with our holiday rapidly looming, I'm going to make May's challenge mainly centred around that. So I will:

Toiletries - sort out as many sachets, samples and mini-bottles as I can to take and use up while we're away.
Clothes/packing - get everything which I intend to take with me sorted out and separated from the rest of my clothes to avoid those last minute "It's not clean!" panics
Memory cards - Clear down 2 memory cards of shots well in advance - I use my cards as backup so "good" shots remain on there, as well as being downloaded to the computer and (eventually) backed up to external drives.
Repair - anything that needs it - my Camera Bag could do with a couple of stitches - thanks to British Airways, and my older waterproof coat also needs a bit of velcro reattached and a pocket sewn up...I bet MrEH has socks that need darning, too!
Finances - Check through our holiday budget and ensure that enough money is available to cover what's needed
- Arrange to get our bagged change paid in to the building society then transferred to the Holiday account
- Avoid spending anything unnecessary between May 1st, and when we go (We've already started this one!)
Prepare - once I have got my Broadband Dongle back from the friend who borrowed it, I'll get credit loaded onto it ready to use while we're away for updating this 'ere blog
- work on one room at a time around EH Towers to get the place marvellously clean and tidy ready for both the cat-sitter (Well you don't think HRH roughs it in the cattery, do you now?!) AND for it to be a pleasure to come back to at the end of the holiday.

Putting a bank holiday to good use!

The Bank Holiday weekend was the perfect chance to give the tent its first outing of the season - and after a bit of debate we loaded the car up on Saturday morning and whizzed off down to Kent. As usual we'd used the ukcampsite.co.uk website to pick our campsite, it's a great site because the reviews generally give a really honest impression of what you can expect to find on the site, and also help you to find out the little bits of information that come in handy. (On this occasion, that the shower cubicles are a bit small, so take a carrier bag for your clothes!)  We ended up at a site just south of Herne Bay - Southview camping - and were extremely impressed - friendly, lots of space, and every pitch has its own picnic bench which was a really nice touch!

We're well practised these days so setting up didn't take long, and just an hour later we were headed for Westgate On Sea, along the coast. We started by wandering along the seafront to Margate - a good old fashioned tacky seaside place with all the trashy arcades you could want! We found a very odd Air-Hockey table - a sort of curved one, which was a bit odd, but did make for a couple of excellent and close games - we're ferociously competitive and as a result have to make sure there are no small children in the vicinity first - it could be dangerous otherwise! The other machines we can never resist in the arcades are the "penny falls" - the ones that take 2p pieces - we allow ourselves £1, and then see how long we can play for just recycling the winnings - as we usually average about a 60% return that can last us quite some time! The walk back to Westgate was a little brisker as it had started raining - but the prize at the other end was a good incentive as we were planning to visit a "Micro Pub" - yes, that is precisely what it sounds like - look...

...I posted this picture on Twitter and lots of people all asked the same question - was it in someone's front room?! No, it wasn't, this is a real, proper pub, listed in the current issue of CAMRA's Good Beer Guide, and serving excellent beer! It has seating for around 18 (standing space for a few more), and is one of the nicest, friendliest pubs I have ever visited.We thoroughly enjoyed our visit and would happily return if we're in the area again. (or we might even explore some of the several other Micro Pubs in the same area - who knew, eh?!) Saturday evening was completed by fish & chips eaten on the seafront - can't beat that, eh?

Sunday dawned beautifully hot and sunny - which fitted in perfectly with our plan of heading to Dover to get some value from our National Trust Membership. We parked as planned at the "White Cliffs" car park - right at the very top, as it turned out, it was rather busy! Once we got down onto the main level (a long walk down!) we set out to walk East along the coast to the South Foreland Lighthouse a couple of miles away. The harbour was as busy as ever - you can get an idea of the scale from the picture above by checking out the size of the cars! There was a huge cruise ship in too - you can see it in the background of that shot.

It's a beautiful walk along the cliffs - especially with the weather we had for it - there are several paths you can take - one quite level along the top and then a couple that involve a bit more huffing and puffing up hills and sliding and skidding down them - yes you've guessed it we didn't go for the level option!

 There is a constant stream of shipping going in and out too - ferries, containers ships, and even that big cruise ship left while we were walking along.  Eventually after a couple of miles of walking (and constant stopping for photos to be taken...but that might just be me!) you see this just ahead...

South Foreland Lighthouse - built in 1843 to safeguard ships from running into trouble on the infamous Goodwin Sands, this was reckoned to be the first Lighthouse in the UK to be changed to operating on electricity. It was also the Lighthouse where Marconi received the first ever ship-to-shore radio message (hence the radio masts to the left of the picture!) They run guided tours of the lighthouse every 20 minutes or so when it's open - lasting half an hour or so you get to explore thoroughly and get an excellent view from the top of the tower too - look...

Once the tour was over we decided it would be only right and proper to do some more exploring - this time of the tea and cake possibilities...

...yes that apple cake did taste every bit as good as it looks! All served up on beautiful mis matched vintage crockery too - all sourced from local charity shops apparently! The tea room is in the old Assistant Lighthouse Keeper's cottage and is fantastically decorated in 1950's style.

As we walked back the weather suddenly took a dramatic change...from the blue skies and bright sunshine to a sudden sea-mist descending. By the time we got back to overlooking the docks it was really starting to close in...

Thankfully we were just a short (ha ha!) climb back up the cliffs to the car - and by the time we got to the top we were back above the fog again and the sun was shining!

Robyn

Frugal Friday

Frugal Living is becoming more and more popular as either belts have to be tightened to make ends meet as costs rise and pay stagnates, or as people see the advantages of cutting back on money spent unnecessarily to fund a better life further on. There's no need to feel deprived either - there are masses of blogs out there detailing different people's  takes on cutting down, and cutting back, and their reasons for doing so. One of my current favourites is Saving For Travel which details doing exactly what it says in the title. A refreshing take on the subject - this frugality is to feed a definite wanderlust, and it's great to see all the adventures they've got planned!

Trees...2007

An alternative take on "Frugal Living" is "Simple Living" - the same sort of idea, but with a definite "less is more" slant to it as well. Thinking about what you need, as opposed to what you want, is a great starting point. I try to at the very least acknowledge when something is a "want" rather than a "need", and it does make you look at your life differently.

There are all sorts of ways you can frugalise, or simplify your life:

- Cut down on consumption of electricity, gas, water. This can be as simple as turning lights off in rooms you are not in, or hunting down items which are on "standby" and turning them right off. it's cheaper to just put a mobile phone on to charge until the battery is full, and then take it off again, than to leave it on all night, for example. If using the oven put several things in at once. If just reheating something I usually use the Microwave/mini-oven on combination or convection rather than heating the big one. Turn the tap off when cleaning your teeth and if you have to run the water though to heat for face-washing anyway, use that run-through to rinse the brush. If you are on a water meter, and run a dehumidifier, then the water from that can be used for toilet flushing.

A good example of something best bought seasonally...

- When grocery shopping plan in advance what you are going to cook, and only buy what you need. Check the fridge before writing the meal plan and work out what you need to use up - then work those items in to the plan. It's often better to buy a smaller amount of better quality meat - maybe not organic unless you feel strongly on such things, but look for British, as this gives a higher quality of welfare as standard than meat imported from abroad. The red tractor mark is a good indicator. It's not all about the animals either - the meat will taste better (Yes, it does, really!) and there are stringent guidelines over here on such things as the use of antibiotics, too. The same with eggs - free range aren't that much more expensive now and you get a much nicer egg! You can also Bulk-Buy meat - buying a whole lamb, or half a pig, for example if you have the freezer space to do it - can really drive the cost per-kilo down.

- Frugal Fun - Something Saving For Travel has mentioned is choosing a town or village in your region that you've never been to before and simply going and exploring. Find out what exhibitions or museums there are, many of these have free admission, as do cathedrals and churches. Others simply ask for "A Donation" so you can choose for yourself what you can afford and think it was worth. How about walking a coastal or county path? We fancy The London LOOP and may well make a start on that this year. If you take with you a flask and packed lunch, then it can be done simply for the cost of the fuel to get to your starting point, and, if not doing an "out and back", the cost of travel back to the car. If you have membership to English Heritage, The National Trust or the RSPB, then make the most of them.

- Downshift - if shopping, buy Shops own brand instead of branded or premium, or "economy labels" instead of own brand, and see where you notice the difference. (We hold fast on branded coffee & loo rolls, but are quite happy to buy value fruit and veg, for example). Booking a weekend away? How about a B&B instead of a hotel, or camping rather than a B&B? Primark rather that M&S? Superdrug rather than Clinique? You get the idea....

'Tis the time of year for tulips...

- Clothing - Go through your wardrobe and clear out anything you don't like any more, or that REALLY doesn't fit. In a charity shop out there somewhere there is someone who will love your cast-offs and will really appreciate the opportunity to get a brand new (to them) outfit! If there are garments that you no longer wear currently, but aren't sure whether you may do in the future, fold them tidily and pop them into a box, seal it with tape and write the date on the lid. Write a reminder on your calendar for 3 months hence. If in that three months you've not thought or, or looked for, any of those garments, send the whole lot to the charity shop without even opening the box.

- Make small changes - if you buy a coffee every day on the way to work try making it just a friday treat instead. Likewise turn the weekly friday-night takeaway into a payday only treat, or knock them on the head altogether and perhaps go out for a meal once in a while instead - £15 per week on takeaways translates to £180 a quarter, or more than £700 per year - had you realised that? You can Downshift there, too - Chinese usually works out cheaper than Indian, and near us, good quality Fish & chips can be had for even less!

Who can resist colours like that?

- when booking travel, planning ahead is usually cheaper than doing things on the spur of the moment. Booking our train tickets ahead of travelling and then collecting from the station might only make a tiny saving each time, but I'd sooner that money was in my pocket than someone elses! Likewise if you're travelling any distance by train, it's worth working out when the really cheap advance tickets are released and trying to book then - we got MrEH from London to Doncaster for £9.35 last year like this, and then of course there was our sleeper tickets for our Orkney trip which was travel AND accommodation for a night, all in one, and cost us just £38 each...the full price standard tickets would have been over £100 each! Don't forget the bargain travel sites too, although for booking advance tickets well ahead the operators own sites often beat RedSpottedHanky. It's worth checking what fees they charge though - RSH charge none, and so can still be cheaper. If you're using the car, then plan to combine journeys where possible, or better still, think about whether you need to use it at all or whether in fact walking or cycling would be better for you, the environment AND your pocket! When buying petrol or diesel give thought not only to where is cheapest, but also to whether there is any particular supplier's fuel that your vehicle runs better on, than another. MrEH's car for example does less miles per gallon when using BP, than on Shell, or better still, Morrisons fuel. If you can combine cheap fuel (use www.petrolprices.com) with loyalty schemes to save you money on groceries of fuel further down the line then so much the better.

My "Simplify It" challenge is very much about making my life more streamlined and simple, and to that end I'm dividing it into sections to attach one at a time. Clothes, books, email inboxes, kitchen items, and even the food cupboards - nothing is going to be safe this year! I've already started looking at everything with a mental question-mark - do I need it? Do I use it? Do I have more than one item doing the same job? if the answer to these questions suggests that the thing in question is surplus to requirements then it's leaving my home, and my life! I've realised how much I like having spare space on bookshelves, in fact on ANY shelves! Books that I have had hanging around because I feel I "ought" to read them will be winging their way to the charity shop, and the sort of clutter good for nothing much more than gathering dust will be a thing of the past!

Robyn

Hebrides Countdown 2013...

Well there had to be a sunset shot in this year's countdown somewhere, didn't there! This one was taken from the garden of our new "Hebrides Home" last year on our first night there - it was taken at about 10pm and as you can see there is still a lot of light in the sky. It always surprises us a bit just how big the difference is in daylight between here at home and up there - at the time of year we were there last year it was pretty much dark by about 9pm here in the southeast, whereas by the end of the holiday it was still pretty light at close to 11pm! You can certainly see why, over the years, so many people have made good cases for the UK being split into different time zones!  It certainly plays hell with your body-clock as sunrise is also far earlier than we're used to - poor MrEH did struggle with it rather! Not too many problems for me - I sleep through pretty much anything! (I slepot through the 1987 hurricane, for a start!)

Robyn

Orkney Trip Part 3...

On our final day in Orkney we decided to take the ferry across to Shapinsay - one of the smaller Islands. Ferries leave several times a day from Kirkwall, and you can just walk on if you're on foot - the chap will come round and find you in due course and get your money. The crossing is a short one, taking just under half an hour, but the views are spectacular and on a bright, sunny day like we had it's fabulous!

Balfour Village was formerly known as Shoreside, and was built to house workers from the Balfour Estate.

We chose to walk up to the RSPB Reserve at Mill Dam - although there is not much in the way of facilities here there is a fantastic hide with panoramic views, and it comes fitted out with lots of pairs of binoculars and even a spotting scope on a metal frame - giving you excellent views across the reserve. We were astonished - this is not something you'd ever find just left for people to use in your average reserve in England! nothing particularly exciting to watch, but we did strike up conversation with a chap who wandered in after a while - he's lived on Shapinsay for a few months now and recommended a walk for us to try on from the reserve. (He also mentioned that he'd managed to lose his glasses a few days previously - more of that later).

Following our new chum's directions we wandered on along the road until it petered out into a track, and then followed that around a corner and soon afterwards we spotted this ahead of us...

...Old World War II Gun emplacements and associated buildings! We reckoned just about anywhere else these would have been behind fences, with "KEEP OUT" emblazoned in red on official looking signs, but not here - we were able to wander right up to the buildings and explore thoroughly! The new background on my Twitter homepage was taken there - it's the metal numbering on one of the gun emplacements which was used to line the gun up at the correct trajectory. Having had a good poke around that bit, we wandered on a bit further to this:

The "Ranging Tower" which would have been used I believe as a lookout - to give early warning to the gunners of anything they needed to be aware of and then to confirm to them what bearings the guns needed to be set to. The tower has three storeys and the steps were still in place up to the First Floor - needless to say we wandered up for a look! As the structure is made almost entirely of concrete it was perfectly safe, but again we found ourselves thinking that down in the South East where we live, such a building would have been barricaded up just for the sake of it. Great fun to wander around, but it did make up think how remote and lonely it would have been for those working on the site in the war, and also how different the place would have looked 70 years previously.

We decided to head back to the village in pursuit of food - we were hoping the tea room in the old Smiddy would be open, but seemingly they only open in high season and we were too early in the year, so we had to settle for a visit to the "sells almost anything" local shop instead, where we found locally made Water Biscuits, and a piece of "Orkney Cheese" - a slightly odd thing, a little like a cross between feta and Mozzarella, quite tasty but with the sort of texture which convinces you it would bounce if you dropped it....

While we were in the shop we spotted these...

...and to the lady assistant's surprise were able to explain to her who we assumed the owner to be...I do hope he got them back!

Having found both tea & cake at a rather fab quirky cafe back in Kirkwall...

We returned to the Flowers homestead before heading off with Fay & the Dogs for a stomp at Yesnaby just as the sun was going down - beautiful cliffs....

...and a stunning sunset to see them by. A really wonderful end to the trip!

We had an absolutely fantastic time up in Orkney, and definitely want to return!

Robyn

Frugal Friday...

Squint carefully...that's a small blue car just to the left of Tigh Alasdair...!

...it happens to us all, you're trotting along nicely, minding your own business, and then all of a sudden something comes along and socks you one square in the wallet! In this case it was my car - which has for a while been making a slightly odd squeaking noise from the front end. I thought at first it was wheel-bearings, but the noise didn't seem to be following the right pattern for that. The garage had checked it out and found nothing to worry about, and it didn't seem to be getting any worse - just a squeak at slow speeds - people knew when we were coming along the road, but nothing worse than that....then, on the way to Ipswich for speedway earlier in the month, it suddenly got a LOT worse - the squeaking became rather more piercing, and was actually rather uncomfortable on the ears. Hmmmm. Then, on the way home, it stopped. not altogether, but more or less back to where it had been - for some bizarre reason this worried me more than the louder noise had done! The following week was the first time I noticed the sort of metallic rattling/grinding noise. Again, not all the time, and it seemed to be worse on braking, and on turning left....it was definitely present though, and not being a fan of driving cars which are making untoward "metal on metal" noises, I decided that it needed to go back to the garage.

Gracie the Clio & MrEH waiting patiently for a ferry...

The garage called me on Saturday morning having had the chance to take a look. It seems that the alternator bearings were worn (that'll be the nearly 80k miles she's done in the past 5½ years then!) and that squeaking was them making that fact known. The metal-on-metal rasping was them finally giving up the ghost (so I was certainly right not to drive any distance in her after first hearing it!) and a new alternator and tensioners were required. £493 - ouch. Never being one to make a snap decision when £493 is involved, I said I'd call them back, and set to a bit of research. My poor little car is a bit Friday afternoon-ish, so I wanted to know whether the fault was fair for the mileage - although I had a feeling that, in fact, I'd probably done quite well with it, and so it proved - mostly these faults develop at about 5 years of average mileage - and mine is well over that. I also wanted to check that the price I had been quoted was reasonable, and whether there was anything else I ought to be asking. Research completed I called back and spoke with the mechanic dealing with it - who clarified a few points, and agreed with me that yes, for the additional cost involved (parts only) the auxiliary drive belt might as well be replaced too - the existing belt was coming off to carry out the repair anyway, so it made sense to me to think of the long-term and replace all the bits at once and start afresh. the belt proved to be another £22 - and I decided to get cheeky and asked whether - for a regular, returning customer - they would do the lot for £500, which they agreed to. Not much of a discount, but everything helps, and I had already checked that the price they'd quoted for was right anyway. We use a local independent garage who we've always been very pleased with and they know us quite well. This faith was borne out when, having run into some problems with the job and not got the car back for a couple of days longer than planned, they very kindly increased the discount still further, and carried out another small job that they had noticed needing doing as a goodwill gesture as well. From our perspective, we'll continue to take both cars to them for any work that's required and will happily recommend them elsewhere.

As you know we budget carefully for all things to do with our cars in any case, putting aside an amount every month to cover insurance, tax, MOT and servicing. Thankfully we also budget a bit over the odds - meaning that the cost of this repair is already covered. The service on the Clio will be put off until after we have been on holiday - although technically due on time, it's a few thousand miles off needing done on mileage yet - and that will give the car account the chance to replenish a little. All this makes me glad all over again that we work like this - that sort of bill could be a huge shock and a complete budget-breaker to a family without any contingency savings of this type - this is exactly why the experts in such things recommend you have an "emergency fund". We can all budget for the planned spends - insurances, car servicing and car tax are all annual expenses, we know when they will be arriving, and have only ourselves to blame if those expenses cannot be met when they are due. Christmas, and holidays again - we have time to plan and surely only foolishness would lead to not budgeting for these. Our holiday will be our next "big spend" but once we have returned, and paid (from the designated savings) the credit card bill for the diesel etc, there will be NO debt remaining for this whatsoever - we don't borrow money from anywhere to allow for our annual fortnight away, if the money wasn't there, then we simply wouldn't go, or would go somewhere different, or for less time...hearing of folk taking out three-year bank loans to pay for the "holiday of a lifetime" terrifies me - far more sensible surely to delay the holiday until you have set aside enough cash to pay for it? Personally I wouldn't want to take out credit for a car-purchase again, either. Yes there are some excellent 0% finance deals available, but these usually require buying brand-new (which is rarely cost effective thanks to the depreciation as soon as you drive the car off the forecourt) and usually come with some pretty nasty clauses and conditions attached...also we are working hard to become completely debt free - with our mortgage being the only debt we still have to get rid of - and 0% or not, these arrangements ARE debts - we none of us know what is round the corner and I'd just as soon not have monthly repayments hanging over my head in the current economic climate.

How do you cope with the unexpected bills that rear their head from time to time? do you budget to pay insurances etc annually, or pay in monthly instalments to make them more affordable for you?

Robyn

Robyn

Thinking...

I keep reading things at the moment that are making me think. I know, don't you just HATE it when that happens? Don't panic, it's likely to be a while before it occurs again...

The first "thinking thing" is assorted blog posts relating to this year's Live Below The Line Project - for those that don't know, this is a 5 day challenge to spend just £1 a day for ALL your food and drink. Tea, coffee, everything. I'm not taking part in this myself but have been interested to read what others have had to say about it. I also noticed on Twitter earlier on someone had retweeted something from someone else regarding a blog he had written - in which apparently he will tell the world why "Live below the line is a load of patronising s**t" - I've not bothered reading that one though - if he can't describe his blog post in an articulate manner without using what my old boss would have called "industrial language" then I'm sure I can't be bothered to read it either - it'll probably just be more of the same anyway.

So, going back to those blogs that are well enough written for me to want to read - one blogger in particular commented on the humiliation they felt when shopping on their very limited budget - they were shopping at independent shops and market stalls - a great way of ekeing out a small amount of cash - and felt really awkward buying based on "what they could afford" rather than "what they wanted to eat". The feeling from many is that the challenge of shopping like this made them feel poor, and they didn't like it. Now the interesting thing for me on this one is that it surprised me that people genuinely hasn't experienced this before as part of everyday life. Some years ago when MrEH and I were first together we spent some months living on a very restricted income - meaning that for a whole, after everything had been paid, rent, bills etc, we had around £10 per week (That's a WEEK, NOT £5 days!) to spend on food. At various times I am aware that my own parents have had to do similar, too. Oddly enough when you have to do it you feel very little of the humiliation that bloggers have described - it's just the way life is, and you quickly adjust to what you can afford and how to make that limited budget stretch. It was the point at which we started discovering cheap cuts of meat - neck of lamb, or the diced Mutton from our then (thankfully excellent) local butcher, both of which made excellent stews. Market stalls were also a lifesaver - as they get used to seeing you and get to know you your pennies stretch further and further and we often got a bit of extra "bruised" fruit or veg thrown in for nothing. £5 spent on the market stalls would net us several huge bags of fruit and veg - often the challenge was not avoiding being hungry, but managing to use everything up without waste! It was at that time when I learnt how to stretch a very small portion of minced beef a surprisingly long way, and that shopping seasonally, and buying what is plentiful, and cheap, really pays off. Oddly enough at no point during that time can I remember actually feeling as though I was going hungry, and at times we actually ate really well (Chicken Kiev's bought on reduction in Tescos, which were also on a BOGOF offer so we got paid to take them away, effectively, spring to mind!), and more importantly to me, it gave us skills that we could take forwards to ensure that our food spending even now is pretty low, and yet we eat excellently.

The other thing I have come across is a couple of bloggers attempting to live their lives without using Supermarkets - "A Year without Supermarkets" (@teampughblog on twitter) and "Eat My Pig" (@eatmypig) are both trying this experiment - the first for a year (although I have my suspicions that they will keep going for longer!) and the second as an ongoing thing. This provoked a conversation between myself and MrEH about just how tricky it would be for anyone in our local area to do something similar. The big Supermarkets have our town pretty much sewn up - and as a result the smaller independant shops have, one by one, all closed down. We DO have an independant local Bakery, whose bread is pretty good, and of course we have our truly excellent local Artisan Bakers - Mayfield Farm - too, who are a joy to shop with. For day to day bread and rolls we usually make our own in any event, but in order to make these anything like cost- effective we need to use Supermarket flour - we love the flour from local Millers Marriages, but at 4 x the cost of a bag of Supermarket stuff, it's an occasional treat rather than a regular purchase. We have nowhere we can buy local milk. We have no greengrocers - and although there are a couple of decent farm shops around the best of these is about 12 miles away - as against 2 miles for our nearest big supermarket. We do have a new and very good butchers opened up recently and we have started to use him for meat products - we've tended away from buying supermarket meat for quite a long while (other than bacon and sausages occasionally) but until recently all our local butchers have been extremely poor. It's frustrating - we'd love to be able to make less use of the big Supermarkets, but in practical terms, round here it's not just inconvenient, it's damned close to impossible. We probably do use them less than a lot of people - our Grocery account gets "fed" with £150 per month and over the course of the last year we have amassed about £900 of that as a credit balance - ALL our Tesco spending comes from this account too, so that's a reasonable indication of how much we actually do put through their tills - that also covers pretty much all our household cleaning items, dishwasher tablets and laundry stuff. I can make a conscious effort to buy more of our veg in the farm shop - and in the summer months we buy eggs and potatoes from our friendly campsite up in Norfolk, when we're there. This is something I want to explore in more detail though, so expect to see more discussion and maybe even more thinking in due course!

How much of your weekly or months food/household spend goes to the big players? Are you blessed with excellent local shops or, like us, are you tied to the "big 4"?

Robyn