This web site is aimed at people in the UK. OK if you live somewhere else in the world you are still welcome but this site is by and for people in Britain. The idea is to help people reduce the cost of living by tightening their belts and finding ways to reduce expenditure. Managing the household budget includes using a price book for grocery shopping so you can build a well stocked larder or pantry. Making the Pounds Meet the Ends is about saving money by developing the skills required for economical home management. Others call it developing a frugal life style.
There are lots of similarities but lots of differences between life in the UK and the US. For example dumpster diving is a legal activity in the US. The equivalent activity i.e. taking items out of skips is seen as theft in the UK.
We are also divided by a common language and use different words for the same things as the words dumpster and skip show. A British person would have to sit and think what on earth is a consignment shop. Eventually it dawns that it is a nearly new shop that takes in second-hand items and resells them giving part of the proceeds to the person who brought the items in. Over here the most of the clothes sold in such a shop would have originally have cost a fortune rather than be every day clothes sold in high street shops. Then what on earth is the American equivalent to the charity shops that seem to be found in every British town no matter how small and on every street in larger towns.
The name really says it all. The aim is to be a place where people from the U.K. can come and get advice on how to Make the Pounds Meet the Ends. How can the pounds meet the ends? One of the biggest areas of everyday spending is on food and of course the other household items we buy at the same time. It's also an area where it can be very easy to see where changes could be made if people are prepared to make some small sacrifices.
Where does the name come from? I thought about lots of different names. I wanted to include the idea of being economical, frugal, thrifty and even miserly. I thought about the housewife who wanted to make economies, tighten her belt cut food costs and just generally live for less. Then there was the idea of learning to become tightwad, cheapskate, skinflint or pennypincher. When I thought about the content the first topic was going to be food storage so that the larder or pantry were full and that the canny housewife could learn simple preparedness ideas. Another early topic domestic cleaning and working out a budget.
There is of course just an outline of the area covered by How to Make the Pounds Meet the Ends. There is a lot more but I need to leave something to be write about when I get around to writing the book.