Frugal luxury

I have recently sold my large American washing machine and matching drier, plus a mobile phone and some handbags on ebay and with the money I bought a new, economical, miserly with water and electricity modern Bosch washing machine with a three year warranty. It's the first new electrical appliance I have bought in over five years and was needed as we want to have a water meter and our old washer used five times the amount of water of a dinky European washer. It arrived, with great fanfare at ten this morning and has been on ever since and consequently my house looks like Widow Twanky's! Frugal dearly beloved has moved my wirly gig today, to a sunnier part of the garden so the washing would be in the sun for longer, although the sunlight did little good and the laundry is now hanging, as usual on three clothes horses in front of the fire. However, we will make massive savings on our water bill as currently, our South West Water bill is £1500 a year!!!! Yes , you heard right.....we have the highest bills in the country because of the disposal of the tonnage of tourist poop!

My clever buys last night meant that we had a luxurious and yet frugal start to the day with a bag of coissants for 15p and a bag of oranges for 30p meant that we had warm coissants and freshly squeezed orange juice for breakfast this morning, which were a real treat after the usual toast and jam we have every morning with a cup of tea! This weekend has been tinged with sadness as we have discovered that there is no way we can move as the building society has turned down our mortgage application even though it is half the size of the one we have and the cottage we wanted to move to is a third of the size we live in now. Our debts have rendered a new mortgage 'unaffordable' (even though we pay them) according to the Abbey's calculations as they base the application on our currents bills and finances even though they will be halved when we move. We have been truly saddened by this and felt that we could simplify our lives by moving and are stuck with a four bedroom detached house that we no longer need now the children have moved on. We are also saddled with an inaffordable redemption fee which prohibits us from switching to another mortgage compary, even if they would look at us if they too use the same 'affordability' calculation. We know we will get on with life, enjoy where we live now and keep admiring the view!