From frugal beginnings....................

My parents were pretty traditional, in that Dad went out to work and Mum was a housewife. Dad started as a clerk in the Import Cargo division at B.E.A. and ultimately ended up as a Training Officer with British Airways before his untimely death at just 51. Mum sewed most of our clothes as well as her own, cooked from scratch, and like her mother before her, bottled fruit and made jam and pickles. I was lucky in that I grew up watching her cook and being allowed to help. She also taught me how to alter and cut out patterns and to sew. My Grandma D. taught me to knit, my beloved Auntie Judy taught me to read and write, starting when I was three.

Grandma and Grandpa D. and Aunty Judy lived next door and we spent most Sundays with Grandad and Grandma P. a few miles away. Grandad P. had been blinded and partially paralysed in WW1 and never really worked again, although he had been taught to read Braille and a number of craft activities as one of the first St Dunstaners. So Grandma had borne the burden of raising and providing for the family as well as stretching Grandad's War Pension as far as it would go. These lessons were passed to my Mum, who passed them on to me.
Somewhere though, in the following years and with an excellent salary from the oil company where I worked, all of the frugal, thoughtful lessons that I had learned went on the back burner and I became a pretty good example of a Material Girl. Every so often, I would have a twinge of conscience and by the time that Kevin and I married, I owed very little on credit cards, money was never really short and we both had reasonable savings.

The fire, Kevin's kidney cancer, the mess-up with another operation that left him with biliary sepsis and kept him away from the business for two months while we were fighting with the insurance company for our Business Interruption payments - all of this really messed up our plans and our finances.
Our production manager, backed (we believe) by a competitor, left with 6 of our staff, and set up in competition. He also told our customers that Kevin was terminally ill and that I was closing the company. Nevertheless, we battled on through; our son-in-law left his job to act as our production manager, we engaged a really good guy to manage the plating shop and began to get back on our feet again.

We had always had six months income saved up but that had gone during the period following the fire in order to keep our staff paid - the insurers had said that we could not lay anyone off or they would disavow the claim. So when we did finally reopen, we owed money to HM Revenue and Customs for PAYE/NICs and VAT; then we discovered that our landlord had received no rent payment from his insurers and was looking to us to pay £25,000 for the period that we were out of action. Although the Revenue were happy to help and make a deal, the landlord was not, so we had no choice but to put the company in to liquidation and make ourselves and the rest of our team redundant.

We suddenly found ourselves unemployed and apparently unemployable. We visited the Job Centre, applied for every job going, signed on with every temp and permanent agency, but we didn't get to interview stage and only two places had the courtesy to contact us to say that they felt that we were both too well qualified for the positions that we had applied for.

The final kick in the teeth was that we had signed Directors Guarantees on plant and equipment and the leasing companies wanted their money. Rather than go bankrupt, we remortgaged the little factory that we owned as part of our pension scheme, released the funds and offered all of our creditors a one-off payment as an Individual Voluntary Arrangement. 

So, debt-free apart from  the mortgage and with credit scores damaged for the next six years, we started to put our lives back together again. I had been given an Ashford Traveller spinning wheel and learned to spin just after the fire - it was the only thing that kept me sane during the weeks and months of Kevin's illness and the fight with the insurers. I had a good stash of fleece from my cousin who bred Shetland sheep and also a large wool stash, so it made sense to invest in an Ashford Rigid Heddle loom.

As for shopping, I would take the minimum amount of cash with me and go to Aldi (had to go to Tesco for cat food, they wouldn't eat the Aldi one :( ). I had always cooked from scratch and the internet became a valuable source of information on frugal living. I am ashamed when I look at what we used to spend on groceries and what we spend now! All of Mum's and Gran's old lessons have come back to me

We cancelled every subscription, changed suppliers for utilities where we were able, made sure that we only heated the rooms that we really needed to and got a water meter fitted when it was offered (that REALLY cut our water bill, because we were paying for what we actually used!). We were able to get the house insulated (cavity wall insulation) which has made a difference. 
We have made our own beer and wine, although we don't actually drink that much (Kevin, bless him, suffers with gout and alcohol aggravates my arthritis).

The move will finally see us mortgage-free - and living in a beautiful part of the world with a garden that should provide us with fresh vegetables and with access to farm shops and produce markets.

I can't wait :)

Well, I've decided................

I signed up yesterday to restart A230 (the compulsory module for my degree) and A215 (Creative Writing).

It was a no-brainer in the end - I hope to tutor students in English Literature and English Language and although Worlds of English looked fascinating, I felt that I would derive more benefit from Creative Writing and possibly enjoy it as a change from pure academic study.

So what am I doing now? Well, I deferred just before the need to submit TMA03 (Shelley) so have re-read that section of the course book and am launching myself in to Wuthering Heights. I will basically follow the module programme that I printed out from the StudentHome website before officially deferring, so by the October start date, I should have more or less caught up. I am hoping that by doing this, I might find running two modules in parallel less stressful.

I have a fair idea of what the Creative Writing module involves - the Facebook groups are incredibly helpful in this respect - it will be challenging but then, anything worthwhile usually is.

I could not be doing without the help of my husband. Kevin has always supported me in my decision to study, has put up with my occasional tantrums, my highs and lows, my exam panics and has never failed to tell me how very proud he is of my achievements so far. He has listened patiently to innumerable readings and re-readings of my assignment essays. When I do finally graduate some time in 2017, I really should share my BA with him - he will certainly have earned it!