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Make and Save Money in the Country

Enjoy country living...

...without breaking the bank

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Whilst country living offers a great lifestyle - many would say better than in a city - you can sometimes feel at a disadvantage when it comes to getting the best deals. Moneymagpie wants to show you that even if you’re miles and miles from a big city, there are still plenty of ways you can get some super savings,and make that all important extra cash!

Making Savings

Get something for nothing

There are always all sorts of interesting items offered for free on sites like Gumtree, Craigslist and SnaffleUp. It's a question of 'first come first served' with these sites, so keep looking through the day if you want to furnish your home for free.

However, if you live some distance from the nearest large town it’s not always a feasible option, as the free stuff on offer may not be near enough for you to collect it. But you can use the same principle to find things for free by heading to your local dump.

Although you’re not allowed to pick up anything that has already been dumped, you can try approaching people who about to chuck things. One man's trash is another man's treasure and all that…

Some dumps also resell the best of the dumped items, so keep an eye out for these bargain sales too.

Trade skills rather than money

You’d be amazed at what skills you have to offer if you really think about it, so try to make the most of them. Local Exchange-Trading Schemes (LETS) have been set up all over the country to help people swap their skills. They work by creating a unit of ‘currency’ which can be collected when you use your skills, and then used to ‘buy’ the skills of others.

So if you’re a naturally-gifted cook for instance, you can bake someone a birthday cake, and then use your credits to get another member to mow your lawn. Check out LETSLinkUK for loads of information and to find your nearest scheme.

Free energy

If you’re lucky enough to live somewhere where logs are readily available for free - and don’t come pre-packed in bags at the petrol station - make the most of it. You can save money by using a wood-burning stove to help heat your home if you’re clever about it.

Try to scrounge as much wood as you can for free, from wherever you can get it. If there are any overhead cables nearby, you’ll find the council come round every so often to chop the trees around them. They will usually let you have the off-cuts for nothing. Larger land owners in your area are very likely to have logs either for free or for a small amount of cash, and you could even try just keeping an eye out for anything fallen at the roadside.

Whilst it’s not a foolproof solution, if you use the stove one or two days a week over the winter period you could save about 10% of your energy costs. Even if it only cuts down the time you have your heating on for it'll be a saving.

Cost cutting

There are hundreds of easy ways to save cash on a daily basis without very much effort. For loads of great ideas have a look at our Smart Spending section. It's also a lot easier than you think to reduce your outgoings - find out how here. Also check our Best Buys pages to make quick comparisons and be sure you've got the cheapest and best deals on all your financial products.

Save money and the environment

You can help the environment and your wallet by being more energy efficient in your home. If you really mean business click here to find out if you’re eligible for a grant to insulate your home. You could save yourself as much as £670 a year.

Saving water can also save you a packet, so think about getting a water meter, particularly if you live on your own. In most cases your local council should be able to install one free of charge.

If you’re concerned about doing anything too radical, remember that even little changes can make a big difference. Anything from using energy saving lightbulbs to turning off the tap when you clean your teeth can save you money on your utility bills.

For loads of inspiration have a look at 50 Ways to Save Money and the Planet and our Green Living section.

Oil-fuelled central heating

If you live in one of the 1.5 million homes in the UK that use oil for central heating, it’s probably stretching your finances by now. With our disappointingly short summer already drawing to a close, it’s time to start thinking about those dreaded heating bills.

Help is at hand however, in the shape of two great websites; Boilerjuice and Fueloildirect.

Both offer a free service which allows you to enter your postcode and then search all the suppliers in your area to come up with the cheapest quote. You can order online and because they buy directly through the supplier, you stand to save even more.

Boilerjuice also groups orders in the same postcode area together to obtain a bulk discount. They therefore encourage you to get together with your local friends and neighbours to order at roughly the same time so you can save as much as possible - brilliant!

Share the load

If you travel a fair distance to work every day, or live in a more remote area you should consider car sharing. We’re all feeling the pinch as petrol prices rocket, but it's particularly tough for country-dwellers who are dependent on the car. So sharing the load is a great way to save money and the environment, and of course share the driving!

The Liftshare website gives you the opportunity to find yourself a car sharing buddy for free, but you can just as easily make your own arrangement with friends or neighbours. For more information on car sharing and alternatives to owning a car, click here.

Grow your own

If you have a bit of space, growing your own fruit and vegetables can save you money, give you something rewarding to do in your spare time, and produce scrumptious results! We all know how much better home grown produce tastes than anything you can buy in the supermarket.

It’s really quite easy to do. Have a look at BBC Green which has good advice on how to get results without too much hard work! There are dozens of websites where you can buy yourself some seeds to get you started; for example, try Marshalls and Thompson & Morgan.

Natural Ingredients

You can make all sorts of things from jam to cordial with various fruits found in hedgerows and along footpaths just about everywhere. Collect blackberries for jam and pastries, or why not try picking sloes and making some delicious sloe gin.

From Spring right through to late Autumn, there's plenty to collect; from elderberries to mushrooms. Have a look at the FSA website for lots of information and ideas

Do a good deed

For just 50p a bird, you can adopt battery hens, save them from slaughter and get some free eggs.

Get in touch with the Battery Hen Welfare Trust for information on how to do this. Once you have bought the hens your only expense will be feed and a run or hen house for birds. You will need to be aware of exactly how to care for them, and prove you will be providing them with a good home in order to be allowed to buy them.

After the inital few months in which they adjust to their new home, you could be getting about 4-5 eggs a day from 10 hens. For more information about battery hens, have a look at our article about keeping chickens and check out the Battery Hen Welfare Trust.

Making a Bit on the Side

Growing Items for Sale

If you grow enough fruit and veg you could easily sell a some and make yourself a bit of extra cash. Sell all the usual fruit and vegetables either from your driveway, or at a local market. Also, have a look at the VegExchange website where you can find people in your local area who want to buy your vegetables! There’s also the option to simply exchange some of your veg for theirs, so you can swap to get exactly what you want.

If you’ve really got green fingers, you could get ambitious and grow some specialist ‘deli-veg’; like asparagus, artichokes and spinach. These could make you even more money at a farmers market or somewhere similar, or could be swapped for all the regular vegetables you’ll ever need.

Rent out your Garden

On the topic of growing things, if you have enough space, and aren’t particularly green-fingered yourself, you could consider renting some of your land as allotments for others to grow their fruit and veg.

Privately owned land can be let for use as allotments, and since there are always huge waiting lists for plots, you stand to make yourself some easy money pretty quickly. To find out exactly how to do this, check out the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners and have a look at our article; hiring out your garden as allotments.

Keep bees

Our article on Beekeeping for Money gives you tips and advice on how to make money from the honey and wax that your bees produce. Bee-keeping is only for those who have a lot of space for hives so, of course, it's best for people living in the country.

Your home as a film set

You could make around £2,000 if your home were used by film or TV-makers for a day. See our article on Renting your Home as a Film Set here. You don't have to be lord of a country pile to make money either (although that helps!). Series' like Heartbeat or Where the Heart Is use quite ordinary farmhouses and cottages for filming. Even Hollywood films will sometimes need a remote house in the middle of the countryside for a particular part of a script. Register for free with locations agencies (see the Film Set article for a list of them) and then wait for them to call!