The Frugal Life: Frugal travel

Travelling light

Fri, 02 May 2008 07:59:06 GMT

I met up with an old friend of mine last night I haven’t seen for ages as she’s been travelling all over the world, learning to scuba dive in the Philippines and caring for pandas in China no less! All very glamorous!

And now she’s well and truly got the travel bug – something which has never really affected me. Whenever I think I want to go somewhere exotic on holiday I am quickly reminded when I go that I rarely travel long distances because I get car sick, sea sick, motion sick, air sick, sunburnt and of course am usually ‘sensitive’ too, shall we say, to the local cuisine. The second week of my last exotic holiday two years ago to gorgeous Central America was largely sponsored by Imodium, but I digress…

Of course, one of the problems with travelling is that it tends to cost an awful lot of money. Air travel isn’t cheap, even if the cost of living and accommodation in your chosen destination happens to be fairly low. And if you’re volunteering or simply bumming around taking in the scenery, it’s unlikely you’ll be earning any money. When you come back you’re probably broke as you’ve spent a fortune while you were away, and earned nothing and yet – as seems to be the case with all the people I know who’ve been travelling – you’re dying to pack your bags and do it all again. But, instead, suddenly you have to get a job and find somewhere to live, at least until you can save up the money to hit the road once more. And even if you can easily find work, it’s the rent that eats up all your money, especially in London where my friend lives.

But she has come up with a novel solution to the problem, which I think is really inspired. Instead of finding somewhere to rent, and spending a small fortune, she started staying on friends’ couches for a little while until she began worrying about outstaying her welcome. Then an opportunity to housesit for a mate came her way. They were grateful for her to provide the service for free – looking after their pets and generally ensuring the place looked lived in and the lights were on etc. to deter burglars, in exchange for a roof over her head. Anyone who has pets knows how expensive it is to put them in kennels/cattery etc. and a professional house-sitter doesn’t come cheap either at anything from £25 to £44 a day or more.

Now she’s booked up for the next month or so with free house-sitting sessions, while she freelances in London, and living rent free. The only downside is that she has to live out of a bag, but she’s used to doing this anyway having been travelling for six months. And she’s never in the same area of London twice. But on the plus side, she’s saving a lot of money each month, yet not irritating friends or her parents by looking for a free ride. I think it’s a great solution! Have a good weekend. xxx

How did you save money for travelling? Have you ever done any house-sitting?

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Petrolheads

Thu, 01 May 2008 07:41:37 GMT

Practically every time I visit a petrol pump now I gasp when I see the prices. The psychological barrier of £1 a litre has been well and truly breached, with some forecourts flogging it for up to 119p a litre. Ouch!

At least there are a few internet gadgets out there to help. Petrolprices.com is one of a handful of websites I've stumbled across which help you track down the cheapest petrol prices in your area. All you have to do is type in your postcode and a number of possibilities come up. Although, to be fair, they're not always that helpful. Apparently the cheapest petrol pump near us is at an Asda supermarket, which currently charges 106.9p a litre. Great. The only problem is it’s over 4 miles away and it’s not in an area that we tend to visit anyway, so I’m not sure it’s worth the journey. Perhaps instead it’s time to adopt some fuel efficient driving techniques.

Luckily we drive a 1.3L Micra which is pretty cheap to run, if not the height of driving chic. The older 1.0L version we used to have was even more efficient but just couldn’t cope with the hills where we live. Oh…and there was the small matter of my driving it into another car in our station car park and ruining the entire passenger wing, but I’m sure you don’t want to hear about that.... This model is better, well, as long as you don’t have anybody too traditionally built sitting in the back and we rarely have anybody else in the car anyway, not having children or relatives nearby. And it’s surprising how much stuff you can fit in the back – something we discovered while doing up our house and spending lots of quality time in B&Q. While you won’t get a shed in the back of one, we’ve managed to fit pretty much everything else in there.

The Micra does have air conditioning, though, which eat fuels so we should stop using it. After all, it’s hardly needed in this grotty weather anyway! And I also need to stop driving like an Essex boy. Accelerating and braking hard, as er…I tend to do sometimes, apparently uses up lots of petrol. And the best top speed to do is 45 to 50 miles an hour because anything over that is less fuel efficient. Despite all the hard braking and revving, I’m not a speed freak and tend to drive at about 50/55 on national speed limit roads anyway, much to the annoyance of the big black SUVs that always seem to be driving behind me. I should also turn off the engine while stationary for long periods in heavy traffic as experts say this helps prevent wastage too. Not a problem, as I already stall for Britain…

Adopting the right gear for the right situation also promotes fuel efficient driving. Hmmm…something else which needs work. I often blame the Micra’s sticky gears for being in the wrong gear – fifth instead of third, etc. but I think the problem is really down to user error. And make sure you keep the tyres properly inflated.

Of course, the best way to save on petrol is not to have a car at all! Ultimately a car is a lousy investment and eats money. And the revelation by the Times newspaper yesterday that the government has abolished a tax exemption on certain older cars, making them virtually worthless, is another kick in the teeth for motorists. But where we live it just isn’t practical not to drive. Frankly I’m impressed by a couple I know who have a child but simply refuse to buy a car and they do fine, although I think they have their groceries delivered or get a taxi home from the supermarket, which is what we used to do before we succumbed to being petrolheads.

Do you have a car? How do you save on fuel? Or do you think owning a car is a waste of money? Leave a comment and let me know.

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Frugal on the road

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 19:33:49 GMT

It’s not easy being frugal. Especially when you’re travelling.

I’m visiting my parents, who moved to Ireland four years ago to retire – partly because of the affordable property prices there back then (now you have to fork out £450k for the pleasure of a small hole in a peat bog). Essentially I’m on holiday but was also hoping I might pick up the odd money saving tip from my mother. Frugality is in her blood – for years she’s been feeding us 6p tinned tomatoes and rationing toilet roll supplies in an effort to save money. "We’re on an economy drive!" was her frequent war cry during my childhood years. She even used to make us reuse teabags in our tea. Certainly, someone has to keep my father in check who has no frugal instincts, and if he had had his way, would have sold me and my Mum off to the white slave trade long ago and spent the proceeds on cowboy boots and Western DVDs.

Thankfully the wonder of cheap air travel, despite possibly polluting the environment, now means instead of paying over the odds for a ticket on British Airways to see the folks I can get across from Stansted to Belfast for the reasonable sum of £60. Although admittedly an open return ticket from Liverpool Street on the Stansted Express set me back a princely £25.50. I’m sure it used to be much less than that but the ticket office has closed and now you have to buy straight from a little machine at the station while four other people stand behind you tutting at you to hurry up.

But I can’t say that so far the trip has been particularly frugal. Foolishly I decided to travel the day after my leaving do from work, so couldn’t face much breakfast before hitting the road, cursing that I’d ever thought it was a good idea to fly Easyjet on a hangover. So of course by the time I got to Liverpool Street en route to Stansted with my grubby pink case stuffed with what felt like concrete slabs I was starving. With only four minutes to go before the train to the airport left I thought I’d best grab something to eat and fancied an almond croissant. But there wasn’t enough time to shop around so I ran to the nearest daylight robbery kiosk (DRK) on the concourse. What would normally be a £1 croissant was £1.69 there. I winced as I handed over the cash to the sullen assistant. At least there were about 20 real almonds stuck to the outside of the still warm croissant, perhaps they were even worth 2.8p each. Mmm…perhaps not, I thought as most of them ended up down my jumper as I took it out of the bag. But the real shocker was waiting on board for me on the train. £1.70 for a cup of tea. I ask you! It didn’t even taste of anything! I thought of those reused teabags of my youth and felt sick to my stomach.

But besides the annoying (but yes I know for our safety) regulations which mean you have to throw away a perfectly good bottle of water that you’ve just painfully exchanged an arm and a leg for at the DRK before you go through airport security, and then have to buy another one (although, on second thoughts I missed a trick there and should have simply poured the water away and then filled it up again in the loos – but my hangover meant I didn’t have the brain power to think of it), the worst thing about airports from a frugal standpoint is that they’re designed to make you haemorrhage money. You come through security, bored, hungry and impatient for your flight to leave, into what is a miniature Oxford Street. You’ve just had the humiliation of having your smalls x-rayed and having to remove your shoes in public. Now you’re suddenly surrounded by the sights and sounds of a glamorous shopping paradise. There’s a miniature Harrods for God’s sake, and debauched looking characters sitting in the middle of the airport eating oysters and quaffing champagne at a seafood bar. Who in their right mind does that before getting on a plane?!!

Walking calmly past the French Connection and a slinky shoe shop crammed with gorgeous looking boots on display in the windows, I calculated that it’s safe to risk a quick browse in the bookshop as long as I don’t go too far in. But even there the overwhelming feeling that I should be spending money assails me.

"Maybe I should buy Jordan’s new novel," I find myself thinking seriously for the first time ever in my 31 years without the help of hallucinatory drugs, even though I don’t actually want to read it or even use it to prop a door open. But the book shop proffers three for the price of two drivel lit. "This must be a bargain," says my confused brain. "Put the book down," my frugal angel says, coming to the rescue. I take her advice and instead go and buy the Times for 70p and find somewhere to sit down as far away from the shops as I can find.