John Large – Technology & life Blog

The technical Musings of an I.T. guy

The Ultimate Saving – Moved to Scotland

Jul 3

Posted by John Large in A Year Without Spending, Frugality & Organisation, Personal | No Comments

Well the year of not spending kind of took a nose dive. I did replace a laptop with a shiny new Samsung N110 and I did by the Land Rover I was saving for when starting this year without spending, however I do consider each purchase a lot more carefully before committing to buy. To continue the trend of saving and not spending, Vicki & I decided to move to Scotland. luckily we have a family owned property with space available to us, so we have moved into it. This means we pay no rent, and very little in bills. Also the Insurance is all taken car of, so the savings in living costs are around £900 a month. We are putting this, and any spare cash we make towards paying off our debt.

We are also saving like mad to buy a camper van for touring round Europe in 2010. Hopefully going to spend at least a year on the road, and it should be a once in a lifetime kinda gig. There is a motorhome dealership a few miles away from our new home, and we have already tried and tested a few. Exciting times.

Well we have been living the good life since moving up to Scotland over a week ago. Walks on the beach in the evening, and even strawberry picking this morning. Love it. Checkout the pictures below for a taster of our latest shenanigans.

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A Year Without Spending – Day 54 – Still not bought anything

Mar 2

Posted by John Large in Technical | No Comments

As anyone who follows the blog will have realised, I haven’t been posting much on the blog. This isnt because I have forgotten about it, its just that when you spend every day not spending money, you do very little that’s worth discussing in a public forum. Sure we go on a daily walk in the countryside, and we keep the business ticking over, but now I’ve made all the cutbacks in spending I can, and tend not to buy anything, even food most of the time, there is very little to talk about. I’m glad I’m still carrying out the experiemnt, but with the exception of the odd free daytrip I’ve been like a hermit, working alot from home and saving money to pay off my numerous student debts.

I’ll try to come up with good stuff to post, that won’t bore the pants off you, I just need some time to do something notable :)

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A Year Without Spending – Day 31-41 – Ten Days off from the blog, much to report.

Feb 17

Posted by John Large in A Year Without Spending, Frugality & Organisation | No Comments

Well like I say, it’s been 10 whole days since my last post on here. I’ve had loads of stuff to do over the past few weeks which has included saving heavily for our Landrover (we got rid of our spanking new car at the beginning of the year in favour of getting a quality used car). This was for two reasons, firstly the new car thing just wasn’t us, whilst we had no trouble with it, and it was great to drive, it just didn’t suit us, and the depreciation was becoming sickening. Secondly, we are planning on travelling around Scotland this summer, and we need something a little more rugged than a VW, so the Land Rover it is. The not spending has allowed us to put a lot of money aside for the Land Rover and it will be great to buy it eventually (note at the start of this thing I Stated that we would buy a car this year, and it was exempt from the experiment).

well what have I been upto. On Friday we where in Manchester to see the Defenders of the Faith II tour and one of my favourite bands Lamb Of God. It was an amazing night, but a punch in the guts in many respects. For one, the train cost a fortune. As we couldnt get a return to manchester from St Helens (go figure) we essentially had to get 4 single tickets. This cost us £30 for a 30 mile journey. To put it in perspective to go 30 miles in the other direction to liverpool would have cost us £7 return. After going days and days without spending a single penny, this cost was excessive, and almost enough for me to write it off and come home without going to the gig, but hell, we work hard we deserve a night out.

So into Manchester, and what a shock. It was like venturing into a parallel universe as opposed to the city we lived in for 7 years. The people where all about the fashion, it was so overcrowded, and the money being spent was insane.

The cost of everything got to me that day, the cost of a 2 minute taxi ride and entry into a club to meet our friends £10, a light snack £4, a pint of beer £3. The cost of city living has skyrocketed and it’s only when you step back and away from it you realise how absurd the whole thing is. We both hated the city for that day we spent there, we have either outgrown it or it has outgrown us! The only saving graces where that the bands where great, and Lee & Rachel where awesome, and their appartment was superb. Lee also grabbed us meal deal vouchers for Pizza Express so we all had starters, main courses and beer, and the total bill came to £40 for 4 people. Awesome.

I’m still not spending, and now I’m 41 days in give or take, it feels no different. I was almost tempted at the prospect of building a media centre PC. I resisted, dug out my old xboxs, and a few old Hard Drives and set them all up with XBMC. So now I have 3 working Media Centres, all networked and ready to go. Result & recycling!

I’ll start posting again properly for the next few weeks, just been a crazy busy time of late.

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A Year Without Spending – Day 28-30 – Liverpool trip & Podcasts

Feb 7

Posted by John Large in A Year Without Spending, Frugality & Organisation | No Comments

Thursday saw us taking a train to Liverpool to see some ‘capital of culture’ culture. When we lived in St Helens when I was younger and more handsome we would take the train to Liverpool all the time, but since moving to Scotland & Manchester for the better part of 7 years Liverpool fell out of favour with our more ‘Cosmopolitan’ tastes in cities. Vicki & I both remarked on the train that it must be 6 years since we took the train to liverpool, which is a long time for someone who used to spend every day in the city.

We where pretty shocked that the train fare hadn’t chaged in all these years, and was still £3.60 return which is excellent. On arrival at Liverpool lime Street we quickly moved out of the cold and into the Walker Art Gallery. I was really impressed with the collection they have, but can’t help feeling a lot of the stuff in there has been sent to bolster the collection for the capital of culture crap. Anyways we saw the really famous painting of Henry VIII which was a highlight to me as I always remember that iconic image from History texts. They had some pretty good sculptures in there too.

Next we moved onto the Liverpool Museum which was amazing. All the time Vicki lived & went to University in Liverpool, the museum was behind a shroud of scaffold and wood. It has now re-opened with a pretty amazing collection and an equally impressive building. Notable parts of the museum where the aquarium and the insect house. All in all it was a good museum and on par with anything we have seen in London r New York.

After the museum Vicki treated me to a chicken ramen at a noodle bar. She has a chicked curry and we had a great meal and a nice relax before jumping on the train and heading home. The whole day including the meal cost us £25 between the two of us. We took our own snacks and a ton of water in our Sigga bottles which saved us a fortune on the usual expensive snacks.

Today, my friend Steven Almond drove me upto his workshop. The workshop is a couple of miles from where we live and is located on a working farm. The workshop is looking pretty damn impressive with a terrific array of machinery and materials. Ste is starting a furniture restoration & manifacturing business, so it was great to see where everything will be made. I feel a website coming on! Anyway the trip out was good, and it was nice to relax in a tranquil agricultural setting for a while. Check out the pictures below, taken on the iPhone so not the highest resolution, but still good. That was another free trip and made a nice change.

Right enough for today. i’m still not buying stuff, and its actually getting easier. If I hit any bmps int he road you readers will be the first to know. Now the pictures.

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A Year Without Spending – Day 25-27 – Free Activities to keep me occupied

Feb 4

Posted by John Large in Technical | No Comments

Hall Street Depot - Transport Museum

Hall Street Depot - Transport Museum

Well I’m as good as a month into the project and it’s already getting a little tough. I need new socks badly, which I should have bought before starting the project. I’ve read most of the books I had backlogged so it’s a library job for them. We are also getting a little bored not spending money. Vicki by default isn’t spending, probably in sympathy, but as a result we have become like hermits, only leaving the house to go for a walk or to grab groceries. There is our daily journey to the post office to post out orders from Koolbadges but apart from that we do nothing. We where going to start going swimming as we live oposite a huge park with a leisure centre in the middle, however they have a problem with the filters int he pool and refuse to fix it so that is out of the question.

We also spotted the St Helens Transport Museum when we went to the walk in centre a few weeks back. We where going to go along today to see the old cars and buses ad have a small day out, but alas the website says they only open at the weekend so that will have to wait. If you want to check out the museum it definitely looks worth a visit.

In other news, the not spending whilst boring and not ideal, has improved our bank balance no end, and whats more we seem to be earning more money now we aren’t spending than we ever have. Our balance seems to be staying well in the black as they say, and I really do attribute this to the not spending. The money seems to be snowballing now which is positive, especially for me the eternal student :)

Also, after reading about my escapades and the running out of DVDrs, My cousin Adam donated 25 blank discs to me. I’m using them wisely at the moment as I don’t know when the next batch will be donated/stolen/borrowed.

We have a day out to Liverpool planned for tommorow which should be good. Go and see some free museums, Tate (the free exhibitions) and enjoy a picnic down by the docks. Will post up some pictures tomorrow. Also, if you not already on Twitter, get your arse over there and sign up! I’ll be closing my Facebook account shortly as it has come to my attention that they are selling data to third parties. So sign up to Twitter and follow me at http://twitter.com/jodsclass

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