Spending – Page 7 – Back on the road again

Doing just one thing a day in our frugal retirement

The Stretford End is usually packed for a match!

Now we are both here we are finding this retirement life pretty good. As with our pre-retirement life, we are continuing to live frugally [that is within budget], stay active, get out and engage with the world and generally enjoy our lives. We are also trying to remain relaxed and content by adopting a strategy of doing just one thing a day. So far we have slipped in to doing two things just occasionally but the policy mostly applies. Below is a list of our activities and spending on additional activities in the last week:

Day one – We attended a political meeting [free].

Day two – We bought day passes for the bus [£4.50 each] and went for a countryside walk.

Day three – We got free tickets for a play through the wonderful Show Film First and we went to the matinee because we can, walking there and back.

Day four – We walked in to Manchester to spend a book token Mr BOTRA had received for his birthday. While we were choosing books, the book shop had a fire alarm and we went for a drink while we waited for it to re-open [£3.30].

Day five – We joined a shared lunch with friends and drinks for a friend’s birthday in Manchester in the evening [two things]! [Public transport £13.20, drinks £23.60].

Day six – A guided visit to the interior of the lovely Ordsall Hall [£3 each]

Day seven – We went to see the Manchester United Reserves under 23 team play against Tottenham Hotspur. Entrance is free and the crowd of a few hundred [the capacity of Old Trafford is over 75,000] watched Manchester United win 3-2. We resisted the temptation to buy any of the over-priced refreshments.

So we spent a total of £55.10 [less than £8/day] on getting out and about this last week, this might be slightly unusual as we don’t celebrate birthdays every week [but we really enjoyed going out to the pub] and this amount is well within budget and has been so much fun. We have learnt more about our local area, met some people with shared political views, enjoyed some culture and sport and kept very active. Roll on more weeks of retirement!

Losing face over tyre valves

P1080760 — Our campervan in the lovely coastal village of Burghead

I not only write travel articles for MMM I also read it from cover-to-cover. Consequently, when I read the advice from Terry Acreman regarding fitting high-pressure tyre valves to your motorhome (August 2016), I marked the page and promised to do something about it when we had time. The weeks passed by and the valves remained on the list, until we eventually had time to tackle this. I contacted Tyresave, as recommended, and purchase five high-pressure tyre valves [one for the spare] and then booked our Renault Master in to National Tyres in Manchester for the fitting. The appointed day was sunny and as Manchester city centre is just a 15 minute stroll along the canal from National Tyres we thought we would combine the valve-fitting with a leisurely coffee and a visit to a photography exhibition we wanted to see.

We hadn’t even licked the cappuccino froth from our lips when the phone rang; it was National Tyres to say they couldn’t find the wheel brace. This wasn’t surprising as it is under the bed; feeling it was too complicated to explain, Mr BOTRA volunteered to walk back while I made a start on the exhibition. About 20 minutes later, while I was unhurriedly admiring the photographs, my phone rang again. Having arrived and retrieved the wheel brace, Mr BOTRA was on his way back to the exhibition and the tyre fitter was now ringing to say that the first tyre was off and he could see our ‘van was already fitted with good quality high-pressure tyre valves!

Re-united we both returned along the [now very familiar] canal to pick up the ‘van feeling somewhat shame-faced that we hadn’t realised what sort of valves Renault fit on their ‘vans. The National Tyre’s fitter was very cheery about the whole thing and, to make us feel better, explained that they had only recently started seeing vans fitted with these valves. National Tyres didn’t charge us anything and Tyresave took the valves back with a generous refund so only our self-respect was lost.

Springtime in Yorkshire

2017 Feb East Riding (20).JPG — The cliffs of Flamborough Head

Walking along the wide expanse of Fraisthorpe Sands was easy as we headed north towards Bridlington. I meandered along the beach doing a spot of beach combing, finding beautiful stones and shells, watching the oyster catchers feeding on the shoreline and a flock of sanderlings flying in formation. A group of three horses were ridden through the waves and wind surfers were enjoying the surf. We explored the old look-outs that had slipped on to the beach as the soft clay erodes. A beach is never dull. After hot chocolate in Bridlington we returned, now walking in to the wind and I was bent over to avoid the wind in my eyes. I found a discarded plastic bag in the surf and filled it with plastic bottles and other litter as we got closer to the ‘van.

Earlier in the day we had stopped at the village of Rudston to see the stunning tall Neolithic monolith in the churchyard and the graves to Winifred Holtby and the MacDonalds of Sleat. We had camped in an idyllic small site south east of York, no facilities or electric but a view of a small lake. We had watched a group of tufted ducks diving and moving purposefully as we had breakfast.

From Bridlington we walked to Flamborough Head, the path hugging the line of the cliffs. Showers rushed in as we reached the lighthouse and we sheltered in the cafe before going down to the sea. The white cliffs were shining and stunning after the rain and we watched two seals bobbing n the bay. Following the cliff path to North Landing we spotted elegant gannets flying in formation over the surf and guillemots, fulmars and kittiwakes lined up on the cliffs. Another shower came in and we were lucky to just catch the hourly bus back to our campsite.

After an evening of rain, clear skies came and we woke to sunshine. We drove to Pickering and Cawthorne Roman Camp. The ditches and banks of this vast site on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors are impressive. From here we followed paths through woodland, fields and moors on a nine mile walk, much of our route on the Tabular Hills Walk, an intriguing name that comes from their distinctive table-top shape.

Our trip had taken us through swathes of snowdrops and bright daffodils just starting to flower but it was a mammal that made me really feel like it was spring. It was the first day of March while we were away and that morning we spotted our first brown hare of the year gracefully lolloping around the field we were camped in. These fast-moving and beautiful animals came to the UK with the Romans and are always joyful to watch. For me the March hare always feels like a real herald of springtime.

What will we miss about being part of the working community?

There are not many things we will miss about work and there are certainly not many perks to working in the public sector that we will no longer benefit from. But there are a group of guys Mr BOTRA works with who we will miss enormously. His workplace workshop engineers have always been willing to use their technical and engineering skills to help us out with our latest DIY project [no matter how batty] involving the campervan or the bikes. When we needed a metal plate to protect the worktop from [further] damage in our old Blue Bus they found a suitable piece of scrap they had discarded in a corner, cut the metal to the size we needed and gave advice on how to fix it. In our new ‘van we couldn’t find anywhere to put the hanging knife rack we had used in the Blue Bus. It was this team who came up with the a foam knife rack design that fits neatly in to our cutlery drawer; again constructed from a small off-cut, this not only keeps our sharp vegetable and bread knives safe it is also lightweight. On another occasion we decided what we really needed was a small container that just fitted in to the narrow space between the end of the worktop and the back doors to use as a waste bin. Who did we call? Yes, you guessed it, a visit to the workshop with a rough sketch was all it took and a few days later a beautifully constructed box of precise interlocking pieces was created from some small and spare bits of perspex that would have just found their way to landfill.

There have been other examples over the years when these guys have helped us out and there are many things we couldn’t have done or we would have had to pay dearly for without them. As well as practical help they are also willing to give sound advice based on their workshop experience that is better than any You Tube video. When we were unsure how to deal with a mis-behaving screw in the ‘van they had a great solution and a seized up bicycle part is just a challenge to these colleagues, bouncing ideas off each other as to the best way to free the parts.

This team of engineers have the skills to come up with these ideas and access to materials and tools we don’t have. We are very grateful for their help and like to show this in some small way. We could spend money on chocolates or tins of biscuits for these saviours but as frugalistas we say thank you by doing something we do have the skills to do; to show our appreciation for their help we bake them biscuits and cakes. Every now and then Mr BOTRA will pop some homemade treats in to a tin and take them in to work for their tea break.

We will certainly miss their expertise and willingness to give any of our projects their consideration. In just a few weeks time we will be on our own [with just You Tube to help] with our DIY projects.

If we hadn’t blown a load of £s on a gap year would we be retired by now?

P1000920 — Two goats enjoying the sunshine

In 2009 and 2010 Mr BOTRA and I went away on a later life gap year. Gap years weren’t fashionable in the late 1970s when Mr BOTRA graduated and I went straight to work at 16-years old; taking a gap year wasn’t something that working-class young people did. So between us we had never really spent much time when we weren’t in education, working [or looking for work] or being the carer of our child. In 2009, after saving up loads of money, selling the house and downsizing and buying a campervan, we gave up our jobs and took off for mainland Europe for a year living in that campervan. We had a ball on what we called our ‘Big Trip’ and the fun times were recorded on our blog. The gap year refreshed us and we were lucky enough to find employment when we returned . Of course, if we hadn’t blown a load of cash on our gap year we could have been retired by now but I find myself wondering how important that year travelling was and if we would have made the leap into early retirement without the gap year?

What with one thing and another the gap year cost us a bit more than the savings for one extra year of retirement. If we had done without the year away and carried on working and saving, we would have reached our target last year and now be twelve months in to retirement. But that would have meant waiting seven years before getting the break and the truth is that I have an impatience to do things sooner rather than later and I worry that opportunities might disappear. This anxiety and need to take action means that I am not a procrastinator. When you have seen a parent die in their 50s you learn that putting things off can lead to regret and I prefer to take my chance. Mr BOTRA is always the more cautious one but when we returned from our year away we both felt pleased to have done it; we knew whatever happened no one could take that year away from us.

So the gap year was fun but I am sure that without the gap year we might not be about to retire now. Without the year away we would not have been so sure that retirement [still in our 50s] is the thing for us anyway. The year away from full-time work made us braver, stronger and more sure that we wanted to stop work as soon as we could. After spending a year away living in a campervan we knew more about what we were capable of and felt confident that we would be happy doing it together. The gap year helped us to formulate our plans for early retirement and financial independence. This clarity of the goal we were working towards made it more likely to happen.

Fingers crossed we will both have a long and happy retirement over many decades but if that isn’t how our story goes then at least we took an opportunity when it was there and had that year away. Now roll on retirement!

Reducing our use of plastic progress report

2014-06-24 2014 June Villeneuve sur Lot and Brantome 005 — French markets are the loveliest places to shop

Shopping has always been a minefield. We have tried to use our buying power [small though it is] as a force for good for a long time, balancing our desire to do as little as possible to damage the environment and workers rights alongside our need for quality and to save money for retirement. Recently we have been constantly reviewing how we can avoid plastic packaging as much as possible and I have blogged before on how we manage all our shopping by bicycle [even through the winter]. The cycling is easy, avoiding plastic packaging is the tougher call. For years we were part of a vegetable box scheme that supported a local organic grower and every week was a ‘Ready Steady Cook’ week as we ate whatever vegetable arrived. This is no longer an option and we have joined the masses trying to find supermarket vegetables that are not wrapped tightly in plastic.

The need to save money had taken me to Lidl and Aldi for all our shopping but these supermarkets lovingly wrap most of their fruit and vegetables in heaps of plastic; even the spring onions come in a plastic bag! Fortunately, I now have time to move around the supermarkets for different items. Our four local supermarkets sell lots of vegetables such as broccoli, carrots, potatoes, peppers and onions loose but only our local Tesco sells large bunches of coriander and parsley that are not in sealed plastic, whereas Booths [a wonderful northern supermarket institution] is where I can fulfil my desire for cherry tomatoes and gorgeous tasty large flat mushrooms. I take a cloth bag on my shopping trips to help carry these items home.

We have now not only given up shop-bought hummus we have also given up all those plastic wrapped meat-free slices for sandwiches and we do without. The only convenience food we buy is Linda McCartney sausages that come in cardboard boxes [no plastic and they taste the best, hurrah!] But there are plenty of things there are no alternative for; Mr BOTRA isn’t able to give up his need for packets of crisps, although he has reduced his consumption and, although we make most of our own bread, so no plastic there, we’re not prepared to do without hot buttered crumpets for occasional breakfasts. We are certainly not perfect; sometimes we splash out on expensive butter wrapped in paper, but sometimes we save the money and throw in to the bin the combination of foil and plastic the budget butter comes in. We don’t have the space or a supplier for bulk pasta and rice [and even in bulk these items come in a plastic bag]. For non-food items we try and keep the cleaning ‘stuff’ to a minimum; it is easy to buy washing powder in a box but washing up liquid still comes in a plastic bottle.

Looking at the spreadsheet, it seems that although we’ve moved away from the cheaper supermarkets for our vegetables, by giving up the [often expensive] convenience foods our food bill hasn’t increased over the last twelve months and so we can stay within budget.

Premium bonds, are they still worth it?

p1010259

We have a spreadsheet that tracks our savings [of course], where they are and what they are earning. One strand of our savings is a chunk of premium bonds and what this lovely spreadsheet reveals is that the amount of our winnings from these premium bonds has decreased [okay let’s be honest, it has halved] over the last three years. In 2014 and 2015 we received a return of around 1.5% from our winnings on the fluctuating amounts of premium bonds we held but last year our return was only 0.75%.

I was bought up in a rural post office and so have always been a little sentimental about premium bonds as before the internet it was the local post office where you bought your premium bonds. My parents were in a premium bond club, where a handful of neighbours pitched in every week and bought a premium bond for one member of the club, this way they received a premium bond every month or so. I remember the excitement at home when they occasionally won a few pounds. I have also long had a soft spot for ERNIE, the Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment that chooses the winners each month but it seems ERNIE doesn’t have the same loyalty towards me and it might be time to part company.

And yet, we will miss the excitement of the win. These days we receive an email when one of our premium bonds has been chosen by ERNIE and there is always much heart pounding and nail biting in the BOTRA household until we have checked our account, followed by inevitable disappointment when we find we have not won a life changing amount but just another £25.

In the Money Saving Expert article from October 2016 premium bond winnings are discussed. Apparently premium bonds are the number one saving product in the UK, with over 21 million people having at least one, although no doubt many of these people have forgotten all about the one or two bonds they own. Although any winnings are still tax free, the changes to tax on interest in the UK make this aspect of premium bonds less appealing today. The article describes much better than I can that, although the annual prize rate is currently 1.25%, this does not represent the winnings you are likely to receive and that with £31,000 saved in premium bonds each month one in 240,000 people will win nothing at all.

Premium bonds are really a lottery [after all there is a chance of winning anything between nothing and a whole shed load of money] but at least it is a lottery where you don’t lose your capital. Mr BOTRA and I have agreed that sentimentality is not always the best way to decide where to save and despite my childhood memories of premium bonds the numbers are pushing us to reconsider this aspect of our savings.

A lesson for minimalists: it doesn’t mean keeping nothing at all

2012 Nov Norfolk and Lincs trip (9) — The first thing we do when we park up the ‘van is make a brew

‘It will wear in’, is a phrase Mr BOTRA and I often use in our house and in the campervan for anything from a pair of shoes that pinch to a new bed that just feels strange after the old one. So when the oven door on our small Smev oven on our new Devon Tempest campervan was stiff to close, although we knew this wasn’t right, we thought it would improve over time. But it didn’t wear in, instead it got stiffer and more difficult to close until [you guessed it] the door refused to close at all [while we were mid-way through cooking some garlic bread since you ask].

Of course, by this time we were outside the Devon Conversion’s twelve month warranty on their conversion so I sought help. An internet search revealed that Smev is part of the Dometic group and I emailed them asking if they had any advice on how to loosen up the oven door. They replied promptly telling us that the warranty on their products is two-years [luckily for us the ‘van has not yet reached its second birthday] and sent a list of local service partners. One of these was a mobile service engineer we had used before and I arranged an appointment for a few days later.

I thought the problem was as good as solved but our difficulties were not over. Dometic, in their wisdom, put the model number required to order a replacement door on the side of the oven, meaning the appliance has to be removed to find this. Working in a small campervan is challenging and even the experienced engineer couldn’t work out how to remove the oven. A call to Devon Conversions provided some tips on where the necessary screws were tucked away but still neither the engineer nor I had thin and long enough arms to safely reach the required screws and he left us with the unyielding oven door.

That evening, feeling disheartened I decided to check through the pile of stuff we received with the new ‘van and had ‘filed’ at the bottom of an ottoman we call the ‘Treasure Chest’. I wasn’t really expecting to find anything useful but incredibly, there I found a small plastic bag with a screw in it and a label with the required model number for the oven. I was amazed we had even kept this and I am grateful that Devon Conversions had passed it on to us. I am also relieved that despite being minimalists with little spare storage in the flat we occasionally keep things ‘just in case’.

Once the engineer had the model number Dometic quickly provided a new oven door and the engineer fitted it, at no charge. We now enjoy its smooth action every time we are camping.

Caravan & Motorhome & Destinations Holiday & Travel Show Manchester 2017

The Caravan and Motorhome Show and Destinations Holiday and Travel Show is in town and I’m not going to turn down a chance to mess about in campervans and learn about new places to visit at an event that is right on my doorstep. This event has marked the start of the motorhome show season in Manchester for a number of years and this was my third visit and I have seen it grow into a busy and lively show. This year I found old favourites like Leather Genie, who buffed up my shoes for me beautifully and new ideas like the Moskito Guard Insect Repellent; a deet-free repellant that smells pleasant and is non-greasy. Time will tell if the latter works but with a trip to Scotland’s West Coast planned this summer it seemed a good idea to be prepared.

At the Caravan Club stand Matt Allwright was running question and answer sessions with members of staff responsible for different areas of the Caravan Club’s work. It was great to hear these experts in specific areas of the Club’s business speak; I had certainly never considered the complexities of running a club campsite before. I was interested to learn that around 50% of their sites are leased, rather than the land being owned by the Club, and how this can affect the club’s ability to invest in improvements. I also learnt about the complexities of acquiring planning permission for a new campsite. More information on the Caravan Club membership discounts was also useful as we’re always keen to save money. We’ve saved with the discount on the M6 Toll Road when we are travelling south and booked our ferries through the club but there are other benefits that had passed me by and there are future offers planned that sounded very exciting.

Watching Julia Bradbury, the Camping and Caravanning Club President, on the Food and Travel Stage was entertaining, Julia’s enthusiasm for walking in the British countryside and camping is infectious and she is a great ambassador for the outdoor life. I heard about her latest venture, The Outdoor Guide, a website where routes Julia has followed on her TV shows can be downloaded as well as other information about places to eat, stay and gear to wear.

There weren’t many campervan converters at the show, which was disappointing as what we hear is that it is van conversions that are leading the way in the increase in motorhoming in the UK. Our local converter, Leisure Drive, had a stand and I looked at their ‘vans nostalgically remembering the Leisure Drive campervan we owned. Leisure Drive make great campervans, the quality of their current conversions looked first-rate and in addition everyone at Leisure Drive is always friendly and helpful; I think they really do build their ‘vans with love.

It was a grey day in Manchester so spending so much time indoors wasn’t a hardship but after over four hours at the show I was footsore and desperate to see the outside world again. I came home with leaflets about campsites I wanted to try, places I wanted to visit and clean shoes; I think that all adds up to a successful day!

20170119_135936 — Julia Bradbury mostly talked while the chef did the cooking

Retired and loving it

I do like to mark occasions with a celebration and I also love bringing friends from different segments of my life together. Last night was my retirement party and I had a ball. Mr BOTRA and I hosted an informal drop in at The Lime Bar at Salford Quays so that those who were already retired and lived further away could come early and leave when it suited them or those more local and still working could come along after work and stay late. The Lime Bar provided a lovely selection of nibbles and I made a selection of cakes as gifts for everyone to eat or take away [like a party bag], so it wasn’t a party that took a big chunk out of our savings.

By the end of the evening my cheeks ached with laughing and grinning so much; the love and friendship in the room made me feel cherished and really should be bottled – its true to say I am still smiling today and the whole evening was like one very big hug. I was on my feet all evening, determined not to feel regret at not talking enough to someone after they had left but inevitably there were a few people who I didn’t feel I had caught up with enough. But I did re-connect with previous colleagues from Preston, many of my NHS Manchester colleagues, who are always game for a party, and mixed these up with local friends; I feel gratified that they were all willing to come out on a Thursday night to celebrate with me.

Despite my instructions for no presents my generous and loving friends bought gifts that were beautiful, useful and interesting. I received books, flowers, bottles of fizz, useful stuff for the ‘van, smelly stuff, a beautiful scarf and a fantastic mug that sums it up really, it says ‘Retired and Loving it!’