Watch The Pennies

Written 10th June 2025 We are living more and more in a cashless society. It's quite often that I go into a shop and there is no longer the option to pay with cash. This means that in all likelihood you have a bank account, or multiple bank accounts. Current accounts will accept payments from your employer, pension, investments or benefits and from there you can withdraw the monies via a cashpoint or your debit card etc. The money that is in your account, the bank provider will be using it to lend to others in the form of loans or mortgages or they'll be investing it themselves. This is one of the ways financial institutions generate their income, basically from your money. Some current type bank accounts are free to have and provide you with safe storage for your money, a card to access your funds and facilities to pay your bills by direct debit or make one off or regular transfers to elsewhere in the form of standing orders. They will also offer overdraft facilities for em...

Written 9th June 2025 I had to buy loo rolls this week. I always buy the largest multipack of Asda own brand loo roll. A few years ago they stopped making the 24 roll pack and started doing a 12 pack but with more sheets per roll. I assumed it would still be the most economical way to buy them until last week when I just thought I'd check compared to the 16 pack they do. So I'm stood in Asda with my calculator out, madly tapping away, feeling like a bit of an obsessive weirdo because of course the big 12 pack with 'BIG SAVER' printed on the packaging was going to be the best buy. But I just had to check. I'm quite good at maths so could easily work out the price per sheet and I was flabbergasted to calculate that the 16 pack is actually cheaper per sheet. Flabbergasted and annoyed with myself for never checking this before.  That's several years I've been paying more than I needed to. A bit of me wants to say 'shame on Asda' for that misleading packa...

Written 8th June 2025 I mentioned previously I'm away at the moment, we're staying in a caravan in the west country. We booked 4 months ago and got a very good price of just under £300 for the caravan for a week. Friday to Friday was cheaper than a Saturday start date so we did that. We bought loads of foodie bits from home and planned our menu for the week before we left. We bought coffee, tea, wine, beer, salt, pepper, mayo etc with us. We bought the margarine to make our sarnies each day and drinks bottles and flasks for our drinks. Does it sound dull? Too much effort? The campsite charges nearly £10 for 1 toastie if we eat out (as an example), yet with a small amount of planning I'm hoping my son and I will spend less than £100 on food and drinks for the week. It would be infinitely more if we were buying all our meals and drinks out. Yes, I know, you're on holiday, you deserve a break from making food and washing up, and if money is no issue for you, then s...

Written 7th June 2025 I've come away on holiday with one of my oldest friends and our kids. They've grown up together and we've known each other 25+ years. She retired this year at 60, with only £17k left to pay on her mortgage. She told me the other week she'd started overpaying it every month after I paid off my mortgage early and was explaining to her the savings in interest charges by overpaying as much as you could afford / the mortgage would allow. I was really pleased to think I'd helped her. She has become thrifty like me over the years (though definitely not as tight as me) and she often jokes she thinks to herself 'What would LF think if I buy this?' when making a purchase and will often talk herself out of mindless spending. She's been able to retire early on a small pension because she's now got low bills and modest spending habits and is careful with what she buys, regularly looks for the best savings rates, uses vouchers at the supermar...

Written 22nd May 2025 I've just driven to my partners to see him for the evening, about 40 miles. Have you ever actually taken a hard look at the amount of cars, vans and lorries on the major roads these days? It is staggering. And it wasn't even rush-hour. Think about not only the amount of vehicles, but that each one has at least one person in it, doing their thing, going wherever they're going. All different but intrinsically the same. With the same basic needs, but an endless possibility of wants amongst us all. I listen to music via YouTube on my phone for the journey. The ads are annoying. Really annoying. And repetitive. No, I don't want a hotel room or a holiday. No, I don't want a pizza. No, I didn't buy a car on finance after 2006. No, I don't want to invest in crypto. Yes, I'd love shinier hair but no, I'm not going to buy your product because of an annoying advert. Yours will be different but unless you pay to go ad free, the likes of mos...

Written 21st May 2025 Some things are always free... manners I've noticed a lot lately that manners seem to be disappearing. Maybe it's just me and how I was bought up. A 'please' and 'thank you' go a long way, and cost nothing. Anger and depression, anxiousness and rudeness seem to be more common these days. I get it, life IS hard for most of us. A repetitive cycle of work, bills, cleaning, kids, sleeping, with not a lot of spare time for the nice stuff we all want more of. But surely we all would like to be respected, appreciated, thanked for our efforts. It makes us feel better, if only temporarily, a few more moments like that each day and life could seem a bit brighter, more positive, less monotonous. I sell a lot of things online and I'd say less than half the people I converse with online say 'please' or 'thank you'. It really gets my goat. How long would it take to type a few extra characters? A friend of mine is a bus driver. He says...

Written 19th May 2025 I live a simple life, with simple things and have a simple outlook on life. No longer do I have to sit in traffic on my commute, put up with office politics, lazy colleagues, bureaucracy, manager meetings, emails, deadlines, pressure, stress or boredom. I've never earned megga money, or been given lots of the stuff, all I've done is be careful with my expenses and outgoings, eaten leftovers, turned off taps, reused things that would otherwise be binned, watched my energy usage, used discounts and vouchers, accepted hand-me-downs and pre-loved items, driven sensibly and fixed things or made do whenever I can, put spare money into interest paying accounts, not borrowed (except the mortgage and my 1st car at 17) and paid for everything in one go instead of monthly. All simple things anyone can do and more importantly a sustainable, low impact way of life that is easy to maintain once you realise that you don't have to keep buying things, or frivolously us...

Written 30th April 2025 I've just watched a Netflix documentary about global warming. It was presented by Bill Gates so I'm fairly confident the information is credible. Apart from the situation with our planet being in a terrible state to leave our descendants with overall, one thing I took away from the program was the fact that 40% of the food we buy gets binned and mostly ends up in a landfill. 40% That's a phenomenal amount of waste. For one second think about the energy used to grow that food, the fuel, the fertiliser and pesticides, the cost to the supermarket, stacking the shelves, keeping it cool and then to you to buy it. Forget the impact to the environment (though that's a travesty), just imagine your weekly food bill is £100 but you're binning 40% of it. That's £40 a week, or roughly £2000 a year. Every year! Stop! Buy less, make menu's and stick to it. Store things properly to keep fresher for longer. Save leftovers for a bubble and squeak, or ...

Written 29th April 2025 This last weekend I had to dig over my veggie patch in the garden. It's not big, around 12ft x 6ft. I've got runner beans, courgette, lettuce, onion, parsnip, spinach, beetroot, basil, garlic and radish to go in. It took me hours to remove all the flower plants from the soil. To turn all the soil over with a fork and remove as many old roots (to go in my compost heap) and all the stones from the patch. Then I dug in some manure and soil improver to give it some extra nutrients for the plants. It was back breaking work but wonderful to think of all the organic veg I'm going to grow this summer. It was good for the soul to get my hands in the big clumps of clay and break them up. To smell the earth. To see all the worms. I'm genuinely excited about my little plot and what culinary delights will come from it in the coming weeks and months. The time just flies by and it's very relaxing and just wonderful being outside and at one with mud. Remembe...

Written 3rd April 2025 Today's the day I've got around to putting all my ramblings onto the website.  Would you believe I actually bought the domain in 2014? Have never used it, just kept paying to keep it and thinking 'one day I'll use it'. I wasn't really sure what for, what I had to say worthy of sharing with anyone. But now, I don't really actually mind if anyone reads it, or more importantly, actually likes what I have to say. My motivation is pure. To help people understand that you don't have to have everything to be happy. That if you invest a little time and thought into looking after what you have, be that belongings or your money, or that if you go without things, whether you can afford them or not, you can save enough to live a comfortable life and not feel like you're missing out. Or maybe like myself, be effectively retired by 52. It's a glorious spring morning.  I'm sitting down the garden with my cup of redbush tea, listening ...

Written 27th March 2025 My son is 21 and has managed to start saving a bit towards a deposit for his first home. I'm wonderful so I've no idea why he's so keen to move out 🤣🤣🤣 Just kidding! Of course I understand why he wants to be independent and have his own space. My job has always been to raise an independent human being so I'm pleased he wants to go his own way. And I've been nagging him for ages to open a savings account to earn some interest on his savings. It's taken over 2 years to get him to open one and it's now got all his spare cash in it. An important point, there is no point having a savings account but not using it and keeping spare cash in a non interest paying account, even for a day. Move it to an interest paying account until you need it, then just transfer what you need to the other account to cover your expenses / bills as you need to. So then I started nagging him about opening an ISA account so the interest earned is not liable for...

Written 19th March 2025 I did a house clearance job on the 5th March. I got a really clean, good condition single trundle bed. Hardly used as it was in a spare bedroom. I've been advertising it for free on Gumtree since the 6th, and for £1 on Ebay since the 7th (as you cant advertise items for free on Ebay). It's now the 19th March and I've still got it. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. I can't believe not one person in a 5 or 10 mile radius of me doesn't need a single bed. For free. It's just easier to go to Argos or wherever and buy a new one, whether on credit or with cash. As someone else might have slept in it. Yes, with sheets. It's come from a nice clean house in a respectable neighbourhood. I'm sure all of us have stayed at a friends house on occasion on their sofa or a spare bed... what's the difference? When I started out in my first home everything was 2nd hand. And I was glad of it. Function over form. Buying cheap items or a...

Written  9th March 2025 I was in a Tesco express yesterday.  I saw someone shoplift a packet of minstrels or such like. I didn't say anything. There was only one member of staff on the shop floor at the time, who was quite young and didn't look like the sort who'd confront someone with that accusation. No point calling the police as it was, after all, only a relatively cheap item. I didn't confront the guy as 1, he had an accomplice in the store, and 2, I don't want any trouble. Who knows whether they were carrying a weapon? It was a man, much stronger than me. 3, yes Tesco make a fortune but at least legitimately. I wonder what their acceptable level of theft is from a store to make them financially viable? It's a sad old world we live in. It wasn't nappies this guy stole, it was a treat item. He did actually purchase 12 big 2l bottles of water. Why not drink free tap water and pay for the treats? Or, just go without if he couldn't afford them? Every ti...

Written 18th February 2025 I had an email from my water supplier last week.  Telling me they are increasing prices from April. Understandable as everything seems to go up in April doesn't it bills wise. The email stated that their prices had only increased 0.5% since 2014 (11 years). Yet they did not state how much % they are increasing their prices by specifically this year. Yet they wanted to put my monthly payment up from £30.33 to £41.18... according to my maths that's over 33% increase. They also wanted to increase my direct debit amount starting in March.... 'to keep my monthly amount as low as possible'. Not one to take this increase at face value I checked my last bill which is covering my usage and then I got on the Southern Water customer chat.... a challenge in itself getting through to a non-bot. After going round the houses with the bot for what seemed like an eternity (no way to know as they've deleted the time stamp so you don't know how long you...

Written 13th February 2025 It was grey, miserable and raining all last weekend so we tidied my garage. We found a few things we no longer use to sell on, we binned some bits that I'd been saving just in case, like old fence preserver paint pots washed out, old wicker hanging baskets that had perished, old cement that had gone hard (so annoying). It was fun, it was quality time with my partner and free. It was fresh air and exercise.  I can now find things so the garage is much more user friendly as I know where everything is. We also fixed a stopped working wood chipper shredder thing, a shoe cupboard that had a busted hinge, a laundry basket with the same issue, the waterbutt overflow that was leaking and rehung a cupboard that was coming off the wall. Yes, we weren't doing anything exciting by todays standards, though personally I prefer doing stuff to just watching other people's lives or their views online or on TV. More importantly though, we didn't spend a penny t...

Written 12th February 2025 I've been looking at Cash ISA and Lifetime ISA accounts for my son recently. One of the better interest rates is Moneybox. I must confess even I was interested given their high interest rates. However I still have yet to open any accounts with an app only provider as every time I do my due diligence on the company by looking at Trustpilot reviews, I'm always shocked by the number of low star reviews some of these companies have. I'm not saying other financial institutions don't mess up sometimes, because I know first hand they do after transferring a sum of money by CHAPS payment last year that 'disappeared' for 10 days because the staff member actioning the request had not double checked the bank details and had sent the payment to the wrong bank. I didn’t leave a negative review for the bank as it was a rare occurrence and the matter was eventually resolved. However, when you read lots of poor reviews about a company I wonder why mor...