Coping With the Credit Crunch
In the last issue, I vowed NOT to mention the you know what. Sick to the back teeth of hearing about it, I wanted a more upbeat tone to my little magazine...
However, I can't deny that there has been an economic downturn or whatever you want to call it and people are clinging onto their jobs for dear life. Some have found themselves out of a job, many have had to take pay cuts and most of us have had to adapt our family finances in a fairly major way. Here are some of our suggestions on how to save some money or even make some money.
Change your food shopping habits
Shop around for bargains, buy own brands, BOGOF if you have the storage space and stick to your shopping list. I've temporarily stopped shopping at Waitrose every week and now do my basic weekly shop at Tesco. It's not that Waitrose products are more expensive, the problem is that there are just too many temptations for me on their shelves such as chargrilled artichokes, top of the range pizzas and gorgeous cheeses (sigh) and all sorts of delicacies that the family doesn't really need to eat every week. Tesco is more basic, functional and frankly it's less inspirational for the weak willed shopper. It doesn't give me the same opportunity to deviate from my shopping list, and it probably saves me £20.00 per week on average. I've also started to use my local farm shop to top up with fresh vegetables, it's an enjoyable shopping experience and the root vegetables come complete with mud for extra flavour.
Go grey or do your own hair colour
Now this isn't for everyone, including me, as firstly I don't feel ready to go grey and secondly sitting with a head covered in foil squares and a glossy magazine is a piece of me-time that I want to keep. Having great highlights or hair colour can put you in a positive frame of mind, helping you to cope with whatever life throws at you! However, I have friends who have great hair colour minus the expense, instead of spending upwards of £55 they are spending closer to £4 and swear by products like Clairol Nice ‘n Easy Root Touch Up and L'Oreal Excellence - home hair colouring kits have come on in leaps and bounds. You may be lucky enough to have found a mobile hairdresser who comes to your house - this will definitely save you money.
Spend quality time "credit crunch style" up a ladder with your other half
Having had two very different quotes to decorate the ground floor of our house i.e. one for £1000 (seemed suspiciously cheap at the time for all the work involved) the other for £10,000 (seemed absurdly expensive; the decorator spoke about his Knightsbridge clients and this quote definitely came with a Knightsbridge price tag). The true figure was probably somewhere in the middle, so we decided to do it ourselves. Decorating is a messy and disruptive business that takes lots of time, effort and energy - we have had to learn to become patient. Luckily my other half is an ace decorator, having worked for his mother's painting and decorating business for many years, so I'm in good hands. We sing along to the radio, have a good laugh and remind each other that we are saving thousands of pounds.
Do your own cleaning, ironing and car valeting
If you clean your own house and car, you are probably wondering what I'm going on about, but a large number of people have help in the home. You and yours truly may be working all the hours and find that you simply don't have the time or energy to keep your house clean, so some home help may be top of your list. Employ your children if they are old enough - one of ours is saving up for a school trip later this year and is keen to earn cash, so we pay him to vacuum the house, wash the car and rake the leaves. Doing our own cleaning, ironing and car valeting saves the family £35.00 per week. Advice: wear rubber gloves and invest in good hand cream.
Spend less on your holidays
Many more families will be holidaying at home or in the UK this year, but after last August when the weather was pretty grim you may have promised yourself a holiday in the sun, whatever your finances. If you've been spending your holidays on Necker Island every year you may find this is the year you have to trade down and find yourself a self catering apartment. There are lots of websites offering self catering accommodation across the globe such as www.ownersdirect.co.uk and www.holiday-rentals.co.uk.
If you are staying at home this year, there are plenty of things to do on our doorstep, just make sure you don't get bogged down in DIY and gardening projects and that you head out for a few days and give yourself a break. Take a picnic up onto the South Downs, go to the coast or if the weather looks dry try a few nights of camping with the kids (a good starter campsite on the South Coast is the Bay View site in Pevensey Bay www.bay-view.co.uk), check out our website for things to do or visit your local tourist office in the Pantiles. A friend of mine has booked a bargain £9.50 week for her family in Camber Sands with The Sun!
Be bothered to look at your finances
We've all been guilty of being blasé about our finances when times are good and the money is flowing. Do you really know precisely what goes in and out of your bank account every month, or is it all a bit of a blur? You can make savings by being bothered to look at your house and car insurance when it comes up for renewal, there are lots of price comparison websites out there e.g. www.comparethemarket.com, so use them! Have a look at your utilities bills and consider joining the Utility Warehouse www.utilitywarehouse.co.uk (call Annie Watsham on 01580 720559 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 01580 720559 end_of_the_skype_highlighting for more information). Draw up a detailed list of your monthly outgoings and include everything from the kids' pocket money to the mortgage, then do something about it, look at where you can make the savings.
Swap stuff or sell your stuff
Swap toys and games with other families, swap favours like car lifts for baby sitting, exchange skills such as clothes repairs for computer repairs. Swap your house for a holiday. Stop storing your stuff out of sight and forgetting about it, make time to sell it. I've successfully sold bunk beds on the Groombridge Post Office notice board - kids' bikes, a beloved Cello and a house in Ireland were all advertised at the same time! There's always good old Ebay, car boot sales or you could try www.primaryschoolstrader.com or www.schoolstrader.com. This concept of "school community trading", pioneered by the Schoolstrader team in East Sussex has really taken off.
Okay, so the list could go on and on and I'm not really telling you anything new...grow your own eggs/meat/fruit/vegetables, give up smoking, alcohol or even your Sky TV subscription, give up your gym membership and work towards an event like the Moonwalk or a 10K run instead, take a lodger or paying guests, re-train/get a job/go back to work/start a home-based business, whatever it is, but there's no doubt that families have had to become much more creative and imaginative with their finances just to get by....
Please get in touch if you have any tips/experiences that you would like to share, we need all the help and inspiration we can get!
Article written in March 2009 by Caroline Smith
