Skint

How about some reusable nappies clue even if it's just for wee or overnight. Would save u money and help recycling a bit?

 

Free (my favourite price) alternatives to stupid prices at Starbucks, etc.

1) Free coffee/tea once a day at Waitrose, using a myWaitrose card.

2) Free tea/coffee after 2:00 pm at Debenhams with a Telegraph subscribers card (you get 2 cards per subscription).

3) Free tea/coffee PLUS CAKE at John Lewis once a month with a John Lewis card. Take out 4 subscriptions each, and it's free drinks and cake every week! (nice big portions).

4) Free tea & biscuits at your local Blood Donor Clinic.

5) I also have a lifetime card (before they made the charge annual) for my local garden centre, that entitles me to a free cup of tea/coffee on Wednesdays, when they also give 10% off plants, seeds, bulbs, etc. to card holders.

6) I think Dobbies might have some free stuff arrangement, but their membership seems rather expensive, even if using Clubcard Points to purchase.

 

That's the one, thanks.

All fine points, except that [Hypermiling] I would not be coasting and slowing down [braking] at the same time (except through friction) - for that I would engage gear to supplment braking [if necessary] with engine braking (although I appreciate that Highway Code doesn't anticipate that ), so the issue with brake fade etc. is not actually a practical concern. If I can get on a friction-free (when in gear) slope then I'm cushty - in gear, maintaining speed, using no fuel

I agree that gear selection, from neutral, could be an issue - might have to "stop and think" what gear I need for the current speed etc. and gear lever will have self-selected the middle position, which may not be aligned with the gear that I need to choose. However, in my defence My Lord, with practice you do get used to that

That could certainly apply, and I have seen Hypermiling videos where they take a corner at a ridiculous speed purely to have enough speed to then coast to the next junction / whatever. Ditto they "draught" a foot or two behind lorries to get a free tow. Each to their own, but I don't feel the need to make those savings because I balance my actions with safety considerations. Before I started this I was already driving at no closer than 2 seconds interval (and long before the "Only a fool breaks the 2 second rule" advertising campaign), so it wasn't hard to increase that to 5 seconds, but if I am cornering such that I need some grip I would be in gear - and use some gentle acceleration. But take your point that cornering on two wheels, in neutral, is not going to let the stability electronics do its stuff!

To a hypermiler the difference is that coasting has no engine-breaking, so you go further, faster, with the engine fuel usage at idle [compared to using over-run].

Very helpful description, thanks FC, however I think its out of step with what Hypermilers do in practice. What I really want is for my engine to shut down when I select neutral, whilst in motion - same as it does when stationary the lights - but still gives me power steering and power assisted brakes - and probably some engine noise for the benefit of pedestrians. Electric cars do that, surely? (if you take your foot off the accelerator) so why not Petrol/Diesel cars?

 

I run a magnet thru my ashes too, a tin full of old nails gets about 9p at the scrappy, over a winter I probably get about 30 tins full, depending on where the firewoods coming from. Saves stabbing the Dustmen in the leg too.

 

OK, let's have a look at the definition of skint poverty:

The Joseph Rowntree (generally accepted) definition is

Median earnings were £517 (before deductions) a week (£26,884 p.a.) last year. http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/dec/12/uk-median-weekly-pay-is-517-but-who-earns-that

These are also gross earnings so they don't take into account tax or any other adjustments.

So to be in 'poverty', you need to earn (before deductions) less than 60% of £517 per week/£26,884 p.a., which is:

£310/week
£16,130 per annum.

Cor, we're in poverty! (any contributions gratefully received). But not in terms of imagination and resourcefulness. We manage to have a whale of a time on our limited resources and do all sorts of stuff.

 

Just curious, but on what basis is your presumption that I haven't already got a well paid job? I don't recall saying anything about my job, just that at this present time, and really in a very narrow window of time, the balance of cash flow is not favourable, so I am faced with two options. Either borrow to get me through the next 2 or 3 months, and then have to pay that back, or tighten my belt now and not borrow to get me through the next 2 or 3 months.

To change jobs from a well paid one that I'm happy in to a better paid one where I might not be happy and might not be secure, would be extremely unwise if only for the sake of a couple of months of cash flow trouble.

 

If taken out individually, and also getting 'recommending a friend' bonuses cashback, you could potentially have also got around £400 ashback.

After cashback, our last car insurance policies were reduced to less than £100.

 

Bottoms dropped out the recycling market round here, nothing for paper or cardboard any more, and bean cans (and nails) and nails no longer worth weighing in.

 

I seem to be spending at least a fiver a week on coffees, now that I'm retired and participating in the coffee-based leisure lifestyle! So any way I can reduce this would be good. There's a Waitrose near me, which ordinarily I wouldn't dream of setting foot in - but if they would do a latte as good as Costa for free I would condescend to consider it.

 

If you can afford that, fair enough (not meant in any derogatory way)

 

Hmmm ... I hear of people that do that and then fall foul of some small print. I prefer to pay my broker and rely on him giving me a policy where the small print matches the brief I have given him for what I expect (i.e. that they pay up when I have a claim, and don't "wriggle"). Chum of mine recently told me that on checking the renewal of his shopped-around & best-price household insurance there was a new item in the small print "Does not cover falling branches / trees" - bit useless then in the extremely unlikely situation where a tree falls on the house :(

Waitrose will sell you a tin of Starbucks Coffee instant coffee. I don't think that their Columbian Medium is much to write home about, but I rave about their Italian Extra Roast. Definitely the best instant coffee I have ever had, and pretty much identical to the "real thing". A lot more Dear than Maxwell House, but compared to actually going into Starbucks and buying a coffee its dirt cheap. Same tax evasion though ... probably ... so put your morals to one side if you buy it