Winter 2011

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FairyLights

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ok, heres the picture. its May and sun has been shining and the grass growing,but i sit here typing with a fleece blanket on my knees and fluffy slippers on,its gone cooler and i've had to turn off the heating after half an hour as the oil is just too bl***y expensive! So, with all this in mind I have decided to put money by to make sure my horses are afordable this winter to come. Read in yesterdays paper that next year will be tougher than this:eek:
Diesel is already over £1.40 a litre where I live and the oil for the heating has gone up 46%. Fertilizer for our paddocks is up too ,straw has nearly trippled in price. I could go on. So, i thought I'd start a thread so we can share ideas about money saving. Ideas please!
 
Not really money saving ideas but I have really cut down on how much I am driving. Now it is just basically to work and the horses and back. Our local petrol station has diesel at £1.45 a litre :eek::eek: That is so ridiculous, but the cheapest in the local town is £1.40 so a bit of a saving but still so expensive, especially when diesel used to be so cheap.

Problem is that round here, in the town, at least, all the garages sell at almost the same price and if one puts theirs up then all the others do too. So you can't even really shop around.

Sorry for the rant but it is very frustrating, as I imagine it is for all of us.

FDC
 
There are many money saving advise websites google moneysavingexpert, or frugal living for example.
 
Dont be sorry to rant! let of steam,its the same here. I live in a rural area and its costing us a fortune. OH needs a car to get to work which is 15 miles away over a couple of steep hills. a 30 mile daily round trip is no joke and he has no overtime anymore. he's just had his p60 and has earned less than last year,which in itself was less than the year before. I have a 20 year old car which i need to get to my fields and yard which is a 5 minuite drive from the house. I could walk,the hill is too steep for a bike. i do walk sometimes but can get nervous down the lane on my own and anyway I need the car for shopping and collecting family from the train station. my son is learning to drive but he earns minimum wage and wont be able to afford insurance even when he passes. its a nightmare. hes looking to go into the armed forces. theres nothing round here at all except cafe,pub pr cleaning work,all minimum wage and by the time you have driven to your place of work................its a vicious circle. our income is down by a third on what it was 2 years ago when you take into account price rises. I need to do something to enable the horses to be ok this winter. we will be making our own hay and chaff [i have a chaff cutter] instead of buying hi-hi. i am putting a bit of money away each month for winter feed and am seoiusly considering feeding only sugarbeet and chaff. I think the farrier will have to call every 8 weeks instead of every 6 too. cant think of anything else. but need to be doing stuff now ,maybe I can buy straw off the field as its baled?
 
Consider...
pulling shoes, could your horse just have fronts on, or go barefoot (with boots if necessary, they last ages).
how much feed your horse really needs - many will do very well on just forage. If not, then look at the economy brands - we sell lots of Hilight cubes and mix, which is Baileys economy range. Also, why feed chaff - many people still feed it just to bulk out a feed, does it have a nutritional value for your horse, or can he go without it? We sell a lot of mixes, cubes etc, but also have customers who feed rolled barley, sugarbeet, and Mollichaff, their horses hunt hard, and look well on it. A mix these days is £10-£12 for 20Kgs - we still sell rolled oats and barley in 25Kg sacks for £6.50.
Buy early for winter - ie get hay off the field if you have somewhere to store it, buy HW TO rugs in summer sales, keeping your horse warm means feeding less, so maybe clip less or not at all. Buy clothes for you too - insulated boots and ski stuff in summer is often cheap.

Oil is a fortune! I rang for a price today, and was told 60.44p, and that everyone is hanging on to see if the price drops in the summer. If it does, top up your tank. Consider how often you really need the heating on - our chilly 3 bed semi has it on for one hour morning and night, as soon as we get home we light the woodburner. Buy wood, or start gleaning it, now - also coal merchants will give you a better price in the summer, and you'll certainly get a better price if you buy a tonne, just be prepared to lift and stack the bags! The best investment we've made over the last couple of years is an electric blanket - ours gets to 'toast' setting in ten minutes flat, and can be left on all night, a God send when it was -15. Don't underestimate the benefits of thermals underwear, and I've even got the point these days of having a nice warm blanket over me when I'm on the sofa in the evening!
 
Thanks Spot the Risk,good post,thats just the sort of thing I'm after,what to do NOW. will definately be looking into getting wood and coal in over the summer for the wood burners. will see what we can scrounge as well. i hadnt thought of an electric blanket,must look into it. I am going to stop buying chaff, I have a victorian chaff cutter,its hard work,but you just feed thehay in and it chops it up. mixed with a little dilute molasses and a few oats. i am going to feed this and sugar beet this winter. will be much cheaper than last winter . Pink powder instead of balancer should be good too. I wonder if thermal underwear is cheap at the moment? i have some but need more. oh the joys of life.
 
dont know about saving money for winter, our local hayman has been dooming and glooming about the lack of rain and that hay will probably be short again this year!(and expensive naturally)
 
With oil, when you ring, there is someone on here that worked for one of the oil companies and was advising me on the best price ie the lowest their firm woudl sell at - it was around 10% less than I was being quoted, so I would say to the 60p firm 'ah I was looking to pay no more than 54p' and see what they come up with then.
 
Good idea Dubsie. I have been thinking about chaff.I buy 1 sack of Hi-Fi lite per month. its £11 at my agri merchants. thats £132 a year. I make my own hay. an average small bale weighs 20kgs. thats one sack of chaff. I have a victorian hand worked chaff cutter. Its a no brainer, my hay costs me £1 a bale to make, so thats a saving of £120. so,later I am off to oil the chaff cutter. I will also be feeding sugar beet,unbranded and a few straights or merchants cheaper own brand nuts or maybe just chaff and sugarbeet and pink powder. I dont think i'll be buying balancer. Meanwhile I have opened a horsey savings account and am putting some money asde each month to spreadthe cost of straw,fencing renewals,fertilizer,lime and so on.
 
Well the obvious one is SELL the horses... but I do understand that in most cases this is not an option! :)

keep horses out 24/7- saves on bedding
Ride a bike
Look in charity shops for blankets/duvets for the ponies.... much cheaper than the latest Rambo
 
This winter x2 of mine will live out barefoot and well rugged, with a shelter so im hoping that they will be pretty cheap to keep, I have already brought/repaired rugs ready for them by selling unwanted rugs/tack on ebay to off set the cost.
Im having my colt cut now to get the vets bills out the way for winter-hopefully.
I will only have 1 horse living in this winter but I should imagine he will just wear front shoes due to not riding alot etc.

I would suggest stocking up on things like rugs etc now.
Am lucky because my dad is a farmer so he will help me shop around for better deals on hay/feed and bedding etc.

At home (living with parenst) we shop online grocceries etc as it always works out cheaper and have a pot that we all chip into for milk/bread etc.
Centeral heating is a big no no in this house and we use the wood burner instead!
I have recently taken a huge pay cut at work and am soon to be jobless so having a huge clearout and EVERYTHING is going on ebay so I have some money incase i dont find a job. Its rubbish and sometimes I just want to give up horses all together!!
 
We haven't had any rain for weeks and my hay field is looking very sparse. Only got half the haylege I needed last year off it, had to buy extra, year before was double crop.
Mine live out with shelter and only have minimal feed as both are fatties, but with all the extra costs of diesel etc it is starting to get tight.
 
Use brewers yeast instead of Pink Powder, does the same thing and much cheaper especially if you buy from Charnwoods and also their linseed too; perhaps get a friend to share sacks with you, would be well worth it and it keeps well. A 25kg sack lasts me well over a year (7 horses) whereas a 1.5kg tub lasts a month, tub is £9.50, sack is just over £40, a saving of over £100. http://www.charnwood-milling.co.uk/mail-order/Horse_Food.html Feed straights instead of mixes although a cheap nut is a good fall-back sometimes.
Bedding, think about wood pellets or semi deep littering, both will save you a huge amount of money.
 
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