Sustainably living within our means.
It’s been three months since my husband was made redundant. We were lucky, having already paid off our mortgage, he’s been able to use the money from the redundancy to just live and not pay off any debts.
We had no car loans, and no loss of a car package with his role. We have savings put asside to run our vehicles. Moving to the heat pump and disconnecting the gas meant that redundancy payment is not being asked to do much.
Life is cheap. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a shock or that we didn’t take that deep breadth and question everything. Do we need that? Does that make our lives significantly better or safer?
We still shop in the supermarket we used to. We had already moved to making much of our food from scratch – this is so much cheaper than buying ready meals. We do not throw much away at all. We buy food that’s in season.
We walk into town as much as possible, rather than take a vehicle. It gets exercise in as well as saving money on fuel or electricity, tyres, and parking. It’s often quicker too. I’ve been reusing carrier bags since 1992 when our local Sainsbury’s gave you a penny off your shop for every bag you reused.
We’re saving money each month at the moment, to the point where we can take a holiday and get coffee in town when we go in, or a restaurant meal once a month.
And my beloved it’s searching for a new job. It is tough out there, for anyone else out there doing the same thing, good luck for your search.
Posted: January 18th, 2025 under 42.