Swapped for a medium jar of sloe and ginger jelly with the friends in Rozel. I think this haul deserves a medium Rasberry Jam as well.
During conversation our Rozel friends produced 33 fulscap pages of St Ouen Parish records for my Husband to see.
This is better than going to the Archive for our Canadian cousins. The records there would be all over the place.
Our Rozel friends have made an invitatian to the Canadians (for coffee and cake) as well as a full geneology of their ancester tomorrow. So that's good value!
We didn't realise we were related to our friends in Rozel in the 17 Century either! Result!
Mmm pickled Beetroot! I will freeze some beans. Nice sandy carrots yum.
RT News comments today....
During conversation our Rozel friends produced 33 fulscap pages of St Ouen Parish records for my Husband to see.
This is better than going to the Archive for our Canadian cousins. The records there would be all over the place.
Our Rozel friends have made an invitatian to the Canadians (for coffee and cake) as well as a full geneology of their ancester tomorrow. So that's good value!
We didn't realise we were related to our friends in Rozel in the 17 Century either! Result!
Mmm pickled Beetroot! I will freeze some beans. Nice sandy carrots yum.
RT News comments today....
Well RT advice is to keep money in cash at the moment. This prompts me to write a bit about the conversation we were having with our Canadian 'Cousins' yesterday.
They were explaining that there is no incentive to buy anything in cash either in America, or now in Canada. You may as well buy everything on 12 months interest free credit, rather than pay cash as a shop will not give a cash discount.
I said that is ridiculous. We wait for the sales when everything is 50% off and buy cash. Most Europeans do this who are 'old school'. Either that, or we advertise our well kept used items in the newspaper or on the local trading website and sell second hand.
If I wanted something to 'make do' while I save up enough for the thing I really want I buy something second hand and re-paint it, or tart it up a bit.
This means those on low incomes can get good stuff of high quality second hand from the ones who just get fed up with it, and I don't have to go and take out interest free loans to buy cheap stuff that wears out before we have paid for it. You can also buy in the local auction rooms when there is a house clearance or Viscount sale, (that's banckrupt stock).
The local government vans and cars get sold at auction too, so that when they need to replace tipper trucks and heavy machinery that is coming to the end of it's road miles, it's a good place to get a garden van, or bit of plant if you are a sole trader doing gardening or building work. It recoups a bit of money for the local government to put towards the new ones that we tax payers have to pay for.
Besides, on an island we don't have anywhere to dispose of old cars, and it's more expensive to take them to be scrapped. Mostly if you can strip them for parts and then scrap them, it's a better way of dealing with scrapping costs.
That's why I think it's better to make good quality household white goods, and have someone who can mend them locally, then we don't have to find somewhere to dump the stuff. Or suffer fly tipping.
Also even if I was going into a shop to buy something new I would want to know what cash discount I would get, most of us expect 10% at least.
What I pointed out was that an interest free loan would add about 20-40% to the selling price of an item through the shop, as the extra added on would be the full price the retailer would want, so no 10% discount, plus the 20-30% (minimum) interest that is built into the price of the purchase, which the leasing company still get right up front, and the item is not technically yours until it has been completely paid for.
They could still come and reposess it if you missed the final payment!
Our Canadian cousins said that there was never any difference offered if you were paying cash, or taking out interest free loans. The retailer would never offer a discount!
Well I wouldn't buy from someone who wouldn't offer a cash discount, what's wrong with my money then?
So if you want to save a shed load more money start buying second hand in cash, it's surprising what a subversive little 'real' economy it creates. It's tax free, because the goods and services tax has already been paid on this item, and it's fun doing the bartering.
Everyone puts what they think they can get for something at about 25% over what they will accept and takes the best offer. Just make sure the seller has paid off the interest free loan on it, because it is not their property to sell unless they can produce the finalisation document, that matches the serial number on the item.
A nice storm is very good for the economy, think of all that new equipment you have to go and buy, remember your insurance policy is replacing an item you may not have completed paying for, and you still have to continue paying your leasing company for the old stuff that got washed away.
Try settling the 'Interest free' for the money, and wait until you have got cash to buy either second hand or new.
That's if you are insured...new for old. They might just tell you your stuff is pretty much worthless and give you 10% of it's value and then you have to go buy new stuff on interest free, and you still haven't finished paying for the old stuff.
Just go down to the self service laundry until you pay off the old stuff. Then save up for new stuff and get out of this debt triangle. I would rather wash my clothes by hand than get into debt.
Besides everyone washes their clothes too much, they wear out if you wash them every time you wear them. I am happy to wash smalls by handwash cycle once a week, and as I don't go out to work any more I wear the same T shirt and jeans round the house for a few days, You want to see what my garden clothes get like before I put them in the wash.
If you manage to wash your clothes after wearing them twice, you save half your electric and your washing powder... and your clothes last twice as long!
If it's a house scruffs wash, and you don't wash them for 3 days you are saving 66% on electric and washing powder. The powder works realy well on dirty clothes... like it's meant to!
Whats the point of washing cleanish clothes that just got put in the laundry bin, because the little darlings in the house won't wear them again.
Then you have the cost of everyone in the house taking a bath or shower every day. Try working out the cost of heating bills per person per shower/bath then multiply by the people in your house.
The simplest way to cut costs is to put the plug in the shower tray or bath. Then put a line on the bath/shower tray. You get to use that much water!
So don't stand there with the shower running while you try to wash. You get wet, turn off. Lather up so you don't use as much soap, then shower the soap off. The whole idea is to get clean without it costing an arm and a leg in electric and metered water! Think of the environment.
Tish, think of the extra ironing.
Us Europeans like cash! So do the Russians by the sound of it! The reason Governments want to do away with cash is so that this bartering trade can't happen. That's not a problem though, because us lot then revert to 'swapping'.
These lovely Canadians came bearing gifts yeasterday, Home made, Cloudberry Jam in a very funky Jar. It has a handle on it. I have never seen a 'Drinking Jar' before, what a good idea. We opened it for breakfast this morning and the cloudberries started to bubble up out of the jar, so we decided it had probably got a dose of altitude sickness. The Jar is lovely, and will be a prize in our collection to keep for ourselves.
They also brought us some Cloudberry syrup. They promise us a large Maple syrup in the post... Yum, very pricy here.
We 'swapped' a small bramble jelly, medium rasberry jam, medium sloe and ginger jelly (for savory with lamb and meats, or on bread). And a litre of Sloe Gin!
We have got too much to eat, and if we drink all the sloe gin we have right now we would be drunk for ages! It goes off colour if you keep it too long.
Himself just got a phone call to say a friend has a bean monster in his garden, and do we want some beans. The friend opted for the Sloe and Ginger jelly as a swap.
New York didn't get the bashing it deserved then, that was nice of God.
There is an old schoolboy tale of how to boil a frog. If you put a frog into hot water it jumps out. If you put it into it's normal pond water, and then raise the temperature very slowly, it falls asleep in the water, and then you turn up the heat a bit more to get the water to simmer for a minute.
I don't know I have never tried either of these methods, and I don't eat frogs, they rip their legs off while they are still alive you know. It put me right off Frogs Legs when I found out.
I just like this as an analogy. I just ask myself if I am being 'boiled alive'.
People in America need to wake up a bit I think.
I was told by our new friends that the Canadians think they are becoming too Americanised. Don't let their vandal economy get anywhere near you!
If there is one solvent person in working middle income America without any loans, or debt to pay off, I would recant, but I doubt this is the case! I was watching the News, and I couldn't believe how many bags the Americans had in their shopping trolleys on the way out of the supermarket.
I wonder how much of that gets wasted and has to go into the dump. At least they get nice strong brown paper bags to put their stuff in, they are useful, we like to put our potatos in those. I wish all supermarkets would do paper bags instead of plastic ones. You can't do anything with plastic supermarket bags that you buy loose stuff in.
We were talking about using log burners with our Canadian cousins. We said we saved all our newspapers, and then made fire bricks out of them. They were intruiged.
We told them the brick maker is about £30 to buy and is very sturdy. You rip up all the newspapers in the summer, and put them in a clean dustbin full of water and let them soak for a couple of hours. Then you line the brickmaker with a sheet of newspaper and stuff the papier mache in the middle. Then you close the brickmaker and stand on it. Then you take the brick out and leave it somewhere to dry in the sun for a few days, and you keep them in the supermarket cardboard boxes until winter.
We can make about 150 bricks in a day between us (thats a couple of hours of brickmaking, and the rest of the day scamming about doing not a lot).
A brick will burn in about 1-2 hours and takes two local JEP newspapers. We have My Mother in Law, and Elderly Aunt who each buy a newspaper, and us. so thats 312 nwspapers each x 3 = 936 newspapers, divided by 2 = 468 bricks. I would say a brick in a woodburner burns for about the same time as a 30cm log at 3-4" diameter. (depending on the damper setting)
A cord of wood is 1m wide x 1 m high and 5m long so approximately 5cubic meters of wood. However as wood is round and has gaps between it in storage, I will multiply this by the calculation for a cylinder. This is actually 3.92857 so I will call it at 4 cubic meters of actual wood, as I am buying a lot of space in my cord.
A cord of wood in France has gone up to about 500 euros. so that's 125 euros for an actual cubic meter of wood.
A fire ready brick is usually .07 x .07 x .21 cubic meters = .1029 C.M
1 cubic meter = 971.42851 Bricks call it 978 bricks, (to compensate for the gaps) so my 468 bricks are worth 0.1278118 euros each.
So the value of my bricks to me is 59.8 euros. Or a minimum of 468 woodburner/fire hours. Although we use these to augment the wood, not as a complete replacement.
And I have already read the papers!
Of couse what you do is import some kids for the day and let them do it, they love it. Provided you give them home made blackberry ice lollies, some cake, and a few sandwiches they just get on with it. Then you give them a minimum 10% bricks to go sell to their parents for pocket money!
Wait and see if they negotiate on the bricks and then explain that there is going to be a shortage of newspapers, so the value of the bricks will have to rise soon.
Then if they keep their bricks until the price goes up in wintertime, they will get more money! Nothing like teaching kids how economics work from the time they can make bricks.
That would be the little tease part to see if they can work out the next part! No I wouldn't be that mean!
I would offer to store the bricks for them, and charge a handling fee like my bank does with my money and any shares!
I would say I need to charge you insurance on your bricks as well, just in case there's a fire and your bricks go up in smoke.
For instance it costs over 5% of the income from my bricks and mortar investment to insure the building, and thereby to insure my income from it. This is just being responsible to my tenents. I expect them to insure their contents, and want to see their policies each year. I also expect my private dwelling let to take out Landlords fixtures and fittings insurance, and this will be manditory for my next tenent as the previous tenent trashed the flat. Hence having to do all this work on it.
I would want to know if the Kids can work out if this is a good deal or not though... because I like kids who can think for themselves. I would expect some discussion and a decline in offer of making bricks for this.
However I would then make a new offer of very good quality bricks for an extra 5% of the brick trade... Provided they took the bricks with them and dried them at home!
Keeps them out of mischeif, but the child labour market is a bit thin these days, as parents give them too much pocket money and haven't a clue that they aren't doing their kids any favours or teaching them how to spot a bad deal, or work out unit cost!
Schools don't teach them how to do it... Or if brickmaking is a good way to get pocket money.
They were explaining that there is no incentive to buy anything in cash either in America, or now in Canada. You may as well buy everything on 12 months interest free credit, rather than pay cash as a shop will not give a cash discount.
I said that is ridiculous. We wait for the sales when everything is 50% off and buy cash. Most Europeans do this who are 'old school'. Either that, or we advertise our well kept used items in the newspaper or on the local trading website and sell second hand.
If I wanted something to 'make do' while I save up enough for the thing I really want I buy something second hand and re-paint it, or tart it up a bit.
This means those on low incomes can get good stuff of high quality second hand from the ones who just get fed up with it, and I don't have to go and take out interest free loans to buy cheap stuff that wears out before we have paid for it. You can also buy in the local auction rooms when there is a house clearance or Viscount sale, (that's banckrupt stock).
The local government vans and cars get sold at auction too, so that when they need to replace tipper trucks and heavy machinery that is coming to the end of it's road miles, it's a good place to get a garden van, or bit of plant if you are a sole trader doing gardening or building work. It recoups a bit of money for the local government to put towards the new ones that we tax payers have to pay for.
Besides, on an island we don't have anywhere to dispose of old cars, and it's more expensive to take them to be scrapped. Mostly if you can strip them for parts and then scrap them, it's a better way of dealing with scrapping costs.
That's why I think it's better to make good quality household white goods, and have someone who can mend them locally, then we don't have to find somewhere to dump the stuff. Or suffer fly tipping.
Also even if I was going into a shop to buy something new I would want to know what cash discount I would get, most of us expect 10% at least.
What I pointed out was that an interest free loan would add about 20-40% to the selling price of an item through the shop, as the extra added on would be the full price the retailer would want, so no 10% discount, plus the 20-30% (minimum) interest that is built into the price of the purchase, which the leasing company still get right up front, and the item is not technically yours until it has been completely paid for.
They could still come and reposess it if you missed the final payment!
Our Canadian cousins said that there was never any difference offered if you were paying cash, or taking out interest free loans. The retailer would never offer a discount!
Well I wouldn't buy from someone who wouldn't offer a cash discount, what's wrong with my money then?
So if you want to save a shed load more money start buying second hand in cash, it's surprising what a subversive little 'real' economy it creates. It's tax free, because the goods and services tax has already been paid on this item, and it's fun doing the bartering.
Everyone puts what they think they can get for something at about 25% over what they will accept and takes the best offer. Just make sure the seller has paid off the interest free loan on it, because it is not their property to sell unless they can produce the finalisation document, that matches the serial number on the item.
A nice storm is very good for the economy, think of all that new equipment you have to go and buy, remember your insurance policy is replacing an item you may not have completed paying for, and you still have to continue paying your leasing company for the old stuff that got washed away.
Try settling the 'Interest free' for the money, and wait until you have got cash to buy either second hand or new.
That's if you are insured...new for old. They might just tell you your stuff is pretty much worthless and give you 10% of it's value and then you have to go buy new stuff on interest free, and you still haven't finished paying for the old stuff.
Just go down to the self service laundry until you pay off the old stuff. Then save up for new stuff and get out of this debt triangle. I would rather wash my clothes by hand than get into debt.
Besides everyone washes their clothes too much, they wear out if you wash them every time you wear them. I am happy to wash smalls by handwash cycle once a week, and as I don't go out to work any more I wear the same T shirt and jeans round the house for a few days, You want to see what my garden clothes get like before I put them in the wash.
If you manage to wash your clothes after wearing them twice, you save half your electric and your washing powder... and your clothes last twice as long!
If it's a house scruffs wash, and you don't wash them for 3 days you are saving 66% on electric and washing powder. The powder works realy well on dirty clothes... like it's meant to!
Whats the point of washing cleanish clothes that just got put in the laundry bin, because the little darlings in the house won't wear them again.
Then you have the cost of everyone in the house taking a bath or shower every day. Try working out the cost of heating bills per person per shower/bath then multiply by the people in your house.
The simplest way to cut costs is to put the plug in the shower tray or bath. Then put a line on the bath/shower tray. You get to use that much water!
So don't stand there with the shower running while you try to wash. You get wet, turn off. Lather up so you don't use as much soap, then shower the soap off. The whole idea is to get clean without it costing an arm and a leg in electric and metered water! Think of the environment.
Tish, think of the extra ironing.
Us Europeans like cash! So do the Russians by the sound of it! The reason Governments want to do away with cash is so that this bartering trade can't happen. That's not a problem though, because us lot then revert to 'swapping'.
These lovely Canadians came bearing gifts yeasterday, Home made, Cloudberry Jam in a very funky Jar. It has a handle on it. I have never seen a 'Drinking Jar' before, what a good idea. We opened it for breakfast this morning and the cloudberries started to bubble up out of the jar, so we decided it had probably got a dose of altitude sickness. The Jar is lovely, and will be a prize in our collection to keep for ourselves.
They also brought us some Cloudberry syrup. They promise us a large Maple syrup in the post... Yum, very pricy here.
We 'swapped' a small bramble jelly, medium rasberry jam, medium sloe and ginger jelly (for savory with lamb and meats, or on bread). And a litre of Sloe Gin!
We have got too much to eat, and if we drink all the sloe gin we have right now we would be drunk for ages! It goes off colour if you keep it too long.
Himself just got a phone call to say a friend has a bean monster in his garden, and do we want some beans. The friend opted for the Sloe and Ginger jelly as a swap.
New York didn't get the bashing it deserved then, that was nice of God.
There is an old schoolboy tale of how to boil a frog. If you put a frog into hot water it jumps out. If you put it into it's normal pond water, and then raise the temperature very slowly, it falls asleep in the water, and then you turn up the heat a bit more to get the water to simmer for a minute.
I don't know I have never tried either of these methods, and I don't eat frogs, they rip their legs off while they are still alive you know. It put me right off Frogs Legs when I found out.
I just like this as an analogy. I just ask myself if I am being 'boiled alive'.
People in America need to wake up a bit I think.
I was told by our new friends that the Canadians think they are becoming too Americanised. Don't let their vandal economy get anywhere near you!
If there is one solvent person in working middle income America without any loans, or debt to pay off, I would recant, but I doubt this is the case! I was watching the News, and I couldn't believe how many bags the Americans had in their shopping trolleys on the way out of the supermarket.
I wonder how much of that gets wasted and has to go into the dump. At least they get nice strong brown paper bags to put their stuff in, they are useful, we like to put our potatos in those. I wish all supermarkets would do paper bags instead of plastic ones. You can't do anything with plastic supermarket bags that you buy loose stuff in.
We were talking about using log burners with our Canadian cousins. We said we saved all our newspapers, and then made fire bricks out of them. They were intruiged.
We told them the brick maker is about £30 to buy and is very sturdy. You rip up all the newspapers in the summer, and put them in a clean dustbin full of water and let them soak for a couple of hours. Then you line the brickmaker with a sheet of newspaper and stuff the papier mache in the middle. Then you close the brickmaker and stand on it. Then you take the brick out and leave it somewhere to dry in the sun for a few days, and you keep them in the supermarket cardboard boxes until winter.
We can make about 150 bricks in a day between us (thats a couple of hours of brickmaking, and the rest of the day scamming about doing not a lot).
A brick will burn in about 1-2 hours and takes two local JEP newspapers. We have My Mother in Law, and Elderly Aunt who each buy a newspaper, and us. so thats 312 nwspapers each x 3 = 936 newspapers, divided by 2 = 468 bricks. I would say a brick in a woodburner burns for about the same time as a 30cm log at 3-4" diameter. (depending on the damper setting)
A cord of wood is 1m wide x 1 m high and 5m long so approximately 5cubic meters of wood. However as wood is round and has gaps between it in storage, I will multiply this by the calculation for a cylinder. This is actually 3.92857 so I will call it at 4 cubic meters of actual wood, as I am buying a lot of space in my cord.
A cord of wood in France has gone up to about 500 euros. so that's 125 euros for an actual cubic meter of wood.
A fire ready brick is usually .07 x .07 x .21 cubic meters = .1029 C.M
1 cubic meter = 971.42851 Bricks call it 978 bricks, (to compensate for the gaps) so my 468 bricks are worth 0.1278118 euros each.
So the value of my bricks to me is 59.8 euros. Or a minimum of 468 woodburner/fire hours. Although we use these to augment the wood, not as a complete replacement.
And I have already read the papers!
Of couse what you do is import some kids for the day and let them do it, they love it. Provided you give them home made blackberry ice lollies, some cake, and a few sandwiches they just get on with it. Then you give them a minimum 10% bricks to go sell to their parents for pocket money!
Wait and see if they negotiate on the bricks and then explain that there is going to be a shortage of newspapers, so the value of the bricks will have to rise soon.
Then if they keep their bricks until the price goes up in wintertime, they will get more money! Nothing like teaching kids how economics work from the time they can make bricks.
That would be the little tease part to see if they can work out the next part! No I wouldn't be that mean!
I would offer to store the bricks for them, and charge a handling fee like my bank does with my money and any shares!
I would say I need to charge you insurance on your bricks as well, just in case there's a fire and your bricks go up in smoke.
For instance it costs over 5% of the income from my bricks and mortar investment to insure the building, and thereby to insure my income from it. This is just being responsible to my tenents. I expect them to insure their contents, and want to see their policies each year. I also expect my private dwelling let to take out Landlords fixtures and fittings insurance, and this will be manditory for my next tenent as the previous tenent trashed the flat. Hence having to do all this work on it.
I would want to know if the Kids can work out if this is a good deal or not though... because I like kids who can think for themselves. I would expect some discussion and a decline in offer of making bricks for this.
However I would then make a new offer of very good quality bricks for an extra 5% of the brick trade... Provided they took the bricks with them and dried them at home!
Keeps them out of mischeif, but the child labour market is a bit thin these days, as parents give them too much pocket money and haven't a clue that they aren't doing their kids any favours or teaching them how to spot a bad deal, or work out unit cost!
Schools don't teach them how to do it... Or if brickmaking is a good way to get pocket money.
RSS Feed