From Headlines to Hard Times: I watched Ed Mitchell tell his story

This week, I went to a conference for Money Advisers working in the charitable advice sector, at which one of the speakers was a former tv journalist, Ed Mitchell, who, because of alcoholism and debt, became homeless for a while. It was very interesting to hear the perspective of someone who was well-educated, and successful in his career, but despite this lost his home and had to file for bankruptcy.

Mr Mitchell, who told his story eloquently and in places humorously, identified one of the reasons for his situation as being a dislike for personal finance generally, and another, a belief that life would be 'all boom and no bust'. Therefore, he never saved money from his high salary and so when he lost his job, was forced to depend on frighteningly accessible and expensive credit to survive.

He has now recovered from his alcohol addiction, and has a flat, thanks in part to a documentary - 'Saving Ed Mitchell' and also to sales of his book 'From Headlines to Hard Times', which describe his experience. (I will now read the book!)

It seemed to me that this story is an answer to those who think that earning a high income - especially life as a television celebrity or sports person - is in itself the route to financial security.

De-cluttering the larder

I have been reading the recipe book "Economy Gastronomy", by Allegra McVedy and Paul Merrett, from which we've cooked some good recipes lately, and have been rather horrified by the figures on the vast amount of food wasted in the UK. Although we are fairly good about using up things in the 'fridge and freezer, sometimes packets or tins get forgotten about at the back of the cupboard.

I'm going through our larder at the moment, finding those things which should be used up before they need to be thrown away, and working out what to do with them.

Amongst various other bits and pieces, I've found the following:

Two packets of barley - there's a great barley salad recipe involving goats' cheese in Economy Gastronomy (p.199), but an even simpler meal is barley cooked in stock with some vegetables or salad and grated cheese. (The barley needs to cook for around half an hour, but needs minimal preparation.)

The end of a bag of couscous - also good with cheese or bacon and vegetables or pesto.

Red lentils, nearing their sell-by date - 4 oz can be made into lentil soup with a tin of tomatoes, an onion, and about a pint of stock. (Again, extremely easy, to make and takes about half an hour to cook.)

Green lentils - with onions, stock and garlic, could be made into a mush to accompany sausages.

Half a pack of walnuts - will be used to make a lovely coffee and walnut cake - a normal victoria sponge with a dash of strong coffee in both the cake mixture and the icing, and decorated with the walnuts.

Nuts, seeds and dried fruit - I found quite a few ends of packets - could all be added to homemade granola. (By the way, I've found that keeping all small baking supplies like nuts and cooking chocolate in a small box in the cupboard helps to reduce the chance of my buying duplicates.)

Public libraries are wonderful things....

I am not the most patriotic of people, but I do greatly appreciate the UK public library system. I have always visited my local library regularly, to stock up on general reading material; I enjoy reading greatly, and can get through several books each week. However, until fairly recently, I felt somewhat limited by the selection of books in my local library, which as I live in a small town, is not huge, and I would be tempted to supplement the books I borrowed with online purchases.

However, when I lost my library card a few months' ago, and went to sign up for a replacement, I found that the library now offers online reservation services. If you are not already using these, then I strongly recommend investigating them. You can search your county's library catalogue, find out where any copies of the book you are interested in are held, and if the book is not held at your local branch, summon it to you.

This service costs 85p, at least in my county, but will have the book delivered to your local branch within a few days, if it is not out on loan. I find that using this means that there are many books which I do not now need to buy, and am changing my book-buying approach. Now, I buy those books I have read and decided it is worth owning, as well as those which I strongly wish to read, and cannot find through my library catalogue. (This is sometimes the case for US personal finance or business books, for instance, though most fiction I am interested in is available.) I find that many books I read I may enjoy, or get useful information from, but I really do not need to possess a copy.

Another advantage of the system is that if I feel the need to do some online shopping, as well as other spending-deferral techniques which I will discuss more later, I find that reserving books via the library catalogue is a good, and wholesome-feeling, alternative to buying them.

As well as books, libraries can be a good source of DVDs as well as audio-books on CD. I recently hired, for little over £1, an audio book which lasted for most of a trip to the Lake District and back.

While I am in the library, I may take the opportunity to flick through the magazines they subscribe to - yes, I enjoy Good Housekeeping, especially the recipes - and the various newspapers held there.