A frugal life is an easy life!

I would normally post this in our supermarket section, I decided to place it in here, as it could have gone in our gardening section also.
Supermarket domination of food sales is well documented, but what I witnessed today in our local Asda, summed up perfectly problems that British people are facing.

I nipped into Asda, to pick up some bread as our local garage (which sells our bread cheaper) had sold out.
Whilst I was waiting at a checkout, on the conveyor belt after me, was placed the traditional ingredients for a sunday roast dinner by the couple after me.

Broccoli - Wrapped in polythene to stop it from ripening (more landfill) from the chiller cabinet (more CFCs and carbon emissions)
Rooster potatoes - Wrapped in polythene again, for a longer shelf life (more landfill) out of season, so must have been chilled (more CFCs) and transported from Holland (carbon emissions)
Carrots - Washed and wrapped in polythene (more landfill) costing the customer more money, they were also chilled (more CFCs) and transported from abroad (more carbon emissions)
A small chicken - A battery farmed, "no frills" chicken, packaged in a white tray and covered in polythene (yet more landfill) transported from god knows where (carbon emissions) and out of the chiller (more CFCs)

All this was then placed in two non biodegradable carrier bags.

Without casting any aspertions on anyone, this is precisely why the country's people are facing huge bills for landfill, for waste collection, for carbon emissions and polluting the environment.

Financial pressures are coming from targets that those in charge of the country have signed up to in recent years.
It's a struggle for each household to reduce what they throw away, so pay more for local services to get rid of waste packaging.
It's expensive to buy fuel, as the country tries to meet EU emissions targets, or face billions of pounds in fines.

Everyday expenses are going up and are a burden on each and every household, I'm struggling to name another business that generates so much waste and emissions.
Everytime petrol goes up, the price of supermarket food goes up as well, as it is often imported and has to be transported to a central warehouse and then transported again to the shelf.
What if our food was grown in the UK?
Would our emissions not fall?
Would our landfill/burning waste not reduce dramatically, if "fresh" foods didnt need storing in chillers or came packaged in paper bags?

I shop locally from independants, who are disappearing fast. Someone or some official body needs to get a grip of supermarkets, in turn this has to reduce our emissions and carbon footprint thingy and reduce the need for landfill, saving all of us money in the long run?
The only progress I see from various news sources, is that the powers that be and supermarkets are continuing to pass the increasing costs on to each and every household!

I came across this problem last week, when I was fitting some kitchen units, which I picked up for a frugal fee of moving a sofa (cheers Sarah!)
The kitchen units we had in, were made up of former council fitted units that were being ripped out and replaced with new kitchens.

At Hoovertowers, we had all our kitchen stuff in tubs. Sick of going rooting for things, I got wind that the council homes on our estate were all to get new kitchens. I found out where they were working on next and visited people the day before and asked if I could remove some of their old units that were to be thrown away. I only needed to do this at three house to have enough worktops and cupboards to fully fit out our kitchen - total cost of a fully fitted kitchen was a frugal fee of £18 (this was for a replacement cooker hose).

Unfortunately, most of the houses on our estate have narrow kitchens, so the units were good, but also very narrow along with the worktops.
So when our neighbour came round and offered us the full size units of a kitchen coming out of a house, I was more than happy to take her up on her kind offer.

One thing I haven't done before was fit wall cupboards on to plasterboard partition wall. As it turned out, this was relatively easy to do (touch wood it stays up hehe).

As with all wall cupboards, there are really two types of fitting - a catch fitting or screwed into the wall - as this is going up on plasterboard, I didn't want to chance the catch fitting, so chose to screw the cupboards into the wall, using the wood behind the plasterboard.

A good tip: Whenever screwing a wall cupboard on to a wall, ALWAYS screw in a piece of wood directly under where the cupboard is going!

This allows you to rest the cupboard on the wood whilst it is drilled and screwed up to the wall.
The problem I had with my plasterboard wall, was how to find the wood behind the plasterboard?
Once the full length batton was securely in place and level, I used a thin wooden drill bit and drilled above the batton, where the cupboard would cover it.
Once the wood was located, I lifted the cupboard and sat it on the batton, sprog1 held it against the wall, whilst I was able to drill the corners and secure it to the wall.
Relatively simple the job was, just make sure that if you are putting a cupboard up on plasterboard, have your screws long enough to have an inch of it in the wood behind the wall.

As for the kitchen units, a very frugal £65 (for a new 10 foot worktop) is the total cost for three quarters of a fitted kitchen, only the doors to replace on the remaining old units and one more new worktop and it will be complete.
What's the average price for a brand new fitted kitchen? Around £1500?

Reuse, refit and recycle!

Weeks after registering a complaint in writing, via the Charity commission's own website (charitycommission.gov.uk) we finally have a response to our complaint, regarding Little Treasures Children's trust - posting collection bags and returning to collect them on our street, without having a valid license to do so.

"Thank you for your email.  Although it is some weeks since you sent this to the Charity Commission, I would like to assure you that your concerns have been brought to the attention of the Commissions Compliance team about the manner in which the charity is operating.  We have received a number of complaints about this charity and are currently in the process of looking into these matters. 
Part of the our role is to evaluate causes for concern, and if substantiated, ensure they are rectified, either through the use of statutory powers or by providing regulatory guidance and advice to the charity trustees.

At this stage, I can only advise that it is up to you to decide if you should support this charity in the future."

"We have received a number of complaints about this charity and are currently in the process of looking into these matters"
According to charity commission telephone advisors, no charity complaint is investigated unless the commission receives around 3000 similar complaints.
I was advised that if I submitted the complaint in writing it would go "on file" until such time as a sufficient number of complaints were received, then and only then would it be investigated.

Should it not be the case, that it matters not wether it is one person making the complaint or three thousand people. If the complaint can be substantiated then it should be dealt with?

"Part of the our role is to evaluate causes for concern, and if substantiated, ensure they are rectified, either through the use of statutory powers or by providing regulatory guidance and advice to the charity trustees."
"Evaluate causes for concern?"
This charity are making collections for clothing illegally. Is this not cause for concern enough?
"If substantiated?"
One simple phone call to the chief licensing officer of my local council - which I provided with the complaint - would substantiate my complaint instantly. The licensing officer at my local council would confirm that both Little treasures children's trust and East London Textiles (ELT) that collect on their behalf, have never applied for, or been granted a license to post bags or make street collections in our licensed area.
On the collection I registered a complaint for, I even gave the name of one of the five staff working at Little treasures children's trust, who told me a catalogue of lies about what was going on and the same person who ADMITTED that it was one of little treasures children's trust's own vans that carried out the collection, without a license!
"Ensure they [charity complaints] are rectified, either through the use of statutory powers or by providing regulatory guidance and advice to the charity trustees?"
In this case, we have a complaint substatiated by a chief licensing officer for a local council, the neighbourhood police officers, a member of the charity staff themselves.
Other cases up and down the country, even have trading standards in other areas advising not to give to this charity's collections and local councillors in other areas refusing license applications on the grounds that the company making collections on behalf of the charity are making excessive profits for the collection to be deemed charitable.
Which begs the question:
If the charity commission have statutory powers, why are they not being used to stop this practice?

"At this stage, I can only advise that it is up to you to decide if you should support this charity in the future."
Is that it?
That's the best the charity commission can do?

After the stringent cuts in funding for public bodies/quangos that has just come into force, it might reassure you to know that this year's funding for the charity commission, that comes from taxpayer's money, is £29 MILLION. This falls gradually to £21 MILLION by 2015.
I don't believe that the charity commission are doing what they were put in place to do.
Yet another "talking shop" who discuss and market their own importance, yet don't actually DO anything.

The law clearly states that advertising for doorstep collections (leaflets/collection bags) and visiting areas with a van making collections, without a license, in a licensing area, is illegal.

It is worth reiterating, that charities that collect in this way without a license, are taking away vital funding opportunities from legitimate charities and misleading the public, making people less inclined to donate to charities in the future. Harming charitable causes as a whole, is supposed to be one of the charity commission's priorities?

This complaint is a perfect example of there being in place a simple piece of law, designed to stop pushing leaflets/collection bags through our front doors and visiting our areas without a license, stopping companies collecting on behalf of a charity, whilst making excessive profit using a charity's name, which is not being enforced by the police, local councils, trading standards and quangos set in place to protect the general public.

Related posts:

Little treasures children's trust - clothing collection scam

Little treasures children's trust threaten frugal ways with court action

Sprog2 has turned 16 months old today, developing all the time, something happened just now, that made me wonder if I should change direction in her development.

We have a "pen" for her, other names include "baby prison" "baby play area" etc, you get the idea.
It is now the only place in the house where she can be left whilst something is done, wether it's the hoovering, washing up, or just for a well earned cuppa.
All attempts at opening the gate to the baby hexagon, have failed, from brute force and smashing it with a pan (I let her have it to pretend to cook her farm animals) to the more subtle attempts, such as swinging off it like a monkey.
It's the last real barrier to her being 100% free to roam the house.

Today she picked up my van keys, just one big key with a little key for the fuel cap attached to it.
In an instant, she walked over to her baby pen gate, inserting the small shiney key into the join of the gate fastening!
Wedging it in the join she attempted to turn the key to release the gate!

Combine this, with her ability to hold a pen properly and scribble only only on paper for the past month, her success at recognising most of the basic colours and open zips, clasps, bags and press studs.
Recognising the english flag then mimicking a barmy army song (from the cricket) is another favourite, as well as shouting "Goal!" whenever football scores are on the television, or watching a game is not bad for a baby of her age I think.

I am wondering if I should change direction as regards her development?
We practise words every week, she can say keys, tree, fish, etc and recognises them on the television and pictures. She knows where to find a starfish in her books and can place all the shapes in her shape ball, of varying colours and sizes from square to hexagon.
Customary greetings and saying goodbye have been mastered for a few months now, she can shout sprog1's name when he's upstairs. Recognising people isn't a problem either.

We don't have a "routine" as such, we eat when we are hungry, we sleep when we rub eyes, we play in between. We dance to music often and recognising songs from disney films is helping with general words, like doing the actions to "let's go fly a kite" from mary poppins.
I've introduced a couple of basic books so far, but using these whilst she's free to roam is proving hazardous, as the temptation to turn pages is far more attractive than listening to me droning on.
Still, that said, pictures are proving popular, thanks to pingu on BBC2 every morning and a picture of a penguin drawn for me by a good friend being blue tacked up on my desk, for example.

My dilemma is, where to go from here?
Do I continue with the hands on approach, or go towards books?
The problem is with books, these cannot be left with sprog2, turning pages in excitement means ripping. I am tempted to go with a bit of both, but any things you can suggest would be helpful.

I have been kicking around an idea for a while now, so I thought I would share it with you, regarding protecting myself and my family on major purchases, in effect, home made consumer protection.

We had to purchase a car a couple of years ago, with two criteria in mind.
1 - It must be comparable with our old car (ford focus 1.6 basic) as regards petrol use
2 - It must be reliable, as her indoors, works alternate shift work and would be driving at various hours through out the night/afternoons and early mornings.

We stressed this to the salesman on numerous occasions during our several visits, for paperwork, viewing, advice, etc.

We were assured that the seat leon 1.6 basic, was comparable to the ford focus as regards petrol use and mileage. We were consistantly assured that before we picked up the car it would have more than 100 point check done on it and would be fit to go.

Now had I drawn up my home made consumer protection idea, I would have been safeguarded against the comedy of errors and scandalous flouting of the law that was to follow.
The seat leon went back to the dealers several times.
Faults became apparent within a week of collecting the car.
The dealers had missed the recorded fault on the lamda sensor, simply choosing to wipe the chip memory clean, rather than fix the fault showing, which of course came back.
The windscreen had to be replaced and left the seal damaged, so the passenger footwell became flooded after heavy rain.
The wheel cylinders were causing excessive road noise, after two weeks of examination and testing they changed only one, saying they would call it back in when the other wheel cylinder was instock - they didn't call us back in over the following 11 months and just forgot about us.
They blamed bridgestone for the tyres making a loud road noise inside the car, but did not change them - a fault that seat dealers have known about for more than two years!
For the last two months we had the car, it never moved from our street, as the internal fuel pump had packed in, leaving us with a bill for more than £400 to fix, because the warranty that came with the car was worthless and hardly covered anything.

Anyways, you get the picture... the car was clearly unreliable and not fit for purpose, so it was returned.
The petrol mileage difference was not negligable at all (say within 20 miles difference per full tank of fuel) the focus and the leon had identical capacity fuel tanks, yet the focus on short trips/around town clocked up 430 miles per tank, the leon only managed 310-320 miles per full tank around town.
When this major difference (5200 miles less for the same amount of petrol per year) was brought up with the dealership management, they dismissed it as "you didn't ask the right questions when you bought the car!" and "we are not in the habit of telling you any negative points when trying to sell a car!"

Now for my home made consumer protection idea:

Before all major purchases, I ask about features and the things I require. In the example I gave above, I should have spoke with the dealership, getting them to clarify what they said several times over, then gone home and drawn up a simple consumer contract for THEM to sign!
A simple printed out form, made on my printer, that specified the two main things I wanted from the car they were recommending, is the car reliable? Can the mileage it does on a full tank be compared, within around 20 miles, to that of the ford focus?

Before signing anything or paying any deposit, I should have nipped in with the home made contract and got the salesman to sign up to show this advice was correct.
This way I would have a signed copy that what I was being advised, was accurate.

Those that say there are laws in place to protect the customer when things go wrong with a business or sale, etc, I agree, but the process is long, drawn out and more often than not ends up with pot luck, as you have your word against the business' in front of a magistrate.
It can take months of letters, phone calls, reading up, etc.
Don't forget the hassle and stress this all causes. You would be hard pressed even by employing a solicitor to fight your corner.

Now if I had my home made consumer contract, I could write two letters to the business, to give them a chance to put things right, if they disagree, which they almost always do concerning major purchases, then I could walk down to my local court and book a slot, for them to appear before a magistrate.
Armed with my home made consumer contract, signed by the salesman concerned, on my two main points, I could easily prove what they said/signed for was not applicable.
Saving myself constant letters, harrassing phone calls, denials, etc.
It would simplify the whole process and protect me into the bargain.

I took my family on holiday a few years back to America, after a week in San Fran, we wanted 5 days on the beach of LA, the travel company sold us a holiday over an hours drive away from the beach, so we had to spend £800 of our spending money and lost a day of our holiday, on a replacement hotel, close to the beach as we had requested.
On our return, it took over 6 months and 3 lower offers just to get the £800 back they promised they would refund upon our return and sending them receipts.
If I had a home made contract, posted out to them, signed and returned, specifying that we were "close to the beach" then there wouldn't have been a problem. The travel company would have been more inclined to refund our money as promised, in full, in a timescale less than the 6 months it took them.
Failing this I could have presented the home made consumer contract in court and watched on as the magistrate would surely have found in our favour.

So from now on, with any major purchase, such as a car, holiday, computer, etc, I will be filling out a home made consumer contract, to protect me against all the businesses that tell me anything to get me to buy.

Businesses twist the law to suit themselves and protect against refunds or returns. It's time the consumer protected themselves against business!