The life of the self-employed freelancer can be quite ridiculous. It’s been a quiet year at times – some months I’ve barely had enough income to cover the bills. It’s one reason the fleet has reduced in size.

For the moment, things are looking incredibly positive and I’m thrilled to be returning to the pages of Classic Car Weekly from January. After all, this was the title I joined as a fresh-faced features writer almost six years ago.

That was a monumental moment that changed our lives dramatically. I’d been trying to make a go of it as a freelance writer (with no contacts, this didn’t go too well) and was trying to supplement that income by setting up my own vehicle delivery business – which taught me that people who do that for a living are absolutely incredible. Easy money it certainly is not.

So, in March 2007, I embarked on a job which paid peanuts, but gave massive satisfaction. It wasn’t just me though. My wife had to quit her job teaching at Oxford Brookes university so we could move house and be closer to my new place of work. She became a research manager for a local charity and I while I bid to spread the word via the world of newspaper, she began appearing on telly to tell people how bad alcohol is for you. I did once appear on Radio 4 to talk about the scrappage scheme (still makes me very grrrr!) but preferred to do my communication via print.

This was the first time in my life that I had a job that I felt I should be doing. It came very naturally to me, but it’s worth knowing that researching the world of classic cars began for me at a very early age.

As a primary school-aged child, I would love going to visit my aunt. I’d read her classic car magazines with relish, getting very annoyed with dealers who put POA next to cars they had for sale. I wanted to know what they were worth! The stories of how rusty wrecks were turned into shining beauties fascinated me, as did the stories behind the people who built them in the first place. I began to lust after information and would spend hours reading reference books (such as the excellent A-Z CARS 1945-1970) so I could fill my head with figures. Her partner would give me brochures (usually Vauxhall) for new cars which I would equally devour. That’s why I know the difference between a Chevette L and GL. Door mirrors mainly if I recall correctly. The brochure was from 1982, in which year I was four! I’m pretty sure that even I couldn’t have read that thoroughly and remembered the fact that long, but I do recall still owning the brochure in 1988 when we moved house. In fact, I’ve had to cease blogging temporarily because I managed to find the brochure on Ebay and had to purchase it…

Here’s a book I was given by my classic-loving aunt in 1988. I was ten.

Essential reading for any 10 year old

I quite literally spent hours looking at this book. It wasn’t just a picture-fest, there was a lot of information about cars and the companies that built them. Some, like Duryea, I’d never heard of. This was a pioneering automobile manufacturer from the USA that by 1895 was beating Benz in races. Others, I knew plenty about and a certain page had a very strong impact on a young me.

It was this one.

This page may have had a profound impact on me. I own both cars today, though sadly not these exact ones.

Yes, it’s the Citroën page. You can just see where I’ve updated the information box myself, pointing out quite wrongly that the XM came in during 1990. Well, I suppose it did for the UK market and I must have known that as I’d already seen an XM when we went to France on holiday in 1989. It was quite a moment!

The shot of the 2CV was taken at Raddlebarn School, which we would pass every time we went to see my aunt and nan. The 2CV itself was then part of the mighty Patrick Collection – a lot of the cars from that collection were used in this book, including an SM on the previous page. I’m very familiar with this page as that shot of the 2CV just filled me with a massive desire to own one. Funnily enough, the SM shot didn’t have the same affect on me, though I love both cars today.

I was astonished to meet this 2CV at a rally some years ago, though I think it had been subjected to a re-shell, as I know it was involved in a major accident while part of the collection. I spotted that the wipers were parked on the opposite side of the windscreen…

It was that geeky love of detail that led me to create such a reference work in my own mind. Little did I know that all that childish reading would pay off one day, when I could put it to good use by writing about old cars.

I find it ridiculous that I didn’t stumble upon this way of making a living earlier. All the hallmarks were there. I had a massive love of cars and a deep joy from the written word – whether I was reading or writing. I still do and yesterday afternoon I read a 480 page novel by the excellent Karin Slaughter for a bit of downtime. Instead, my careers advisor suggested I studied for an engineering diploma, which is a bit like asking Audley Harrison to ballet dance. It didn’t go well.

Instead, I worked as a shop assistant (Kwik Save and Texas Homecare), a mechanic (four days, Mr Clutch), an admin assistant (about 4 times), a sales rep, a solicitor’s clerk, a van driver, a gas meter reader (4 days), an expert photocopier, an IT project administrator (twice), an IT support teccy (twice – I still know sod all about computers!) and a vehicle logistics technician (transported cars on a truck) on my way to finding the right job.

I got there in the end but am now all too aware that the good times don’t necessarily last. I’m feeling very positive about my work at the moment, thoroughly looking forward to new challenges in 2013, but to work freelance is to realise that the good times can end very abruptly. Quite a few of my friends are self-employed, so it’s a feeling we all have to live with. Here’s hoping to a successful 2013 for all of us!

Our life in Wales involves living as cheaply as possible. It means questioning every purchase. It’s not always fun, but overall it does feel good to turn our backs on consumerism. We’ve been programmed to buy as much stuff as possible, even when we don’t really need it. How it works now is that we only buy the stuff we really need. And yes, that does include tea and chocolate.

That means I have to run my cars cheaply and economically as well. I never used to be much good at this, having been seduced by the world of cheap (ha!) finance. I owned a lovely Peugeot 306 DTurbo back in 2001 which was a very good car, but definitely not worth the £10,000 it effectively cost me once all of the finance (including rolling in previous finance deals) were taken into effect. Do take time to sit down and look at the sums. It’s bloody scary. Think again. It only makes really horribly rich people even richer.

A time when I had less hair and less sense…

Then I met the woman who would become my wife, who had a rather different view of the world. Through lengthy and detailed discussions (finance bad, saving good. I got the message eventually) I learnt to curtail my retail therapy – to a certain extent. I never bought a car again with anything other than the actual cash I had to hand.

Since then, the most I’ve spent on buying a car is £2200, and I got £2050 of that back when I sold it. Splurges have been much restricted since we moved though, as we don’t have that sort of cash anymore. Of the three cars I own at the moment, the 2CV cost me £450, the BX estate £266 (free the second time) and the BX turbo £375. The BX turbo really does leave me questioning why anyone would want to spend more on a car. There’s not much it can’t do.

The 2CV has cost me a fair bit over the years to keep on the road, but while I’ve probably sunk £6000 into the bodywork alone, that’s over a 12 year period, which is £500 a year. That’s not so much is it really?

And that’s the thing, to REALLY run a car on a tight budget, you still need to be prepared to spend money. Sure, there are those who buy a cheap car and do nothing at all to it, just throwing it away when something big breaks, but I prefer to look after what I have. After all, if I keep my car going, it means I don’t need another one and I don’t have to throw away an entire car.

I now have the luxury of more spare time, so that means I can tackle more work on the cars myself. Naturally that helps but there are many good garages out there (they often take some finding) that will carry out work for a fair price.

Economical motoring means trying to do more work yourself. Even in winter.

The absolute fundamental of cheap motoring is this golden rule. Don’t think of what the car is worth. Cars can be bought so cheaply, that it only takes a few hours of paid labour to spend more than the car cost you to buy in fixing stuff. To look at the value of the car and the work needed is entirely the wrong approach, and is exactly what consumerism is all about.

Take my BX turbo as an example. Yes, I paid £375 for it, but I’ve since spent £215 getting the rear suspension overhauled, £50 on an MOT, another £40 on getting a balljoint replaced and £100 on a set of tyres (though I offset that by selling the alloy wheels it had for £80). I’ve still spent over £400 on my £375 car. Madness? Well, no – because I now have a car which is much better and safer than it was when I bought it, and which hopefully will be good for many thousands more miles. By buying cheap in the first place, I’m still restricting my exposure to financial disaster should a major catastrophe occur. My total expenditure is still less than £1000. For that I’ve got a car which is supremely comfortable, fabulously economical and a joy to drive.

Sure, I will admit that there’s a danger where one expensive fault is followed immediately by another. That can happen and it’s only experience that allows me to say “this car is a good basis, stick with it” or “nightmare. Move it on.”

I will also say that much more time is taken up with maintenance than with a newer car. Even if you don’t do the work yourself, you still need to make arrangements and be prepared to be without the car if someone else is doing the work. I try to combat this by having a minimum of two cars roadworthy at one time – another added bonus! Don’t have one expensive car, have several cheap ones!

Being economical is not just about not spending money. It’s about spending carefully.

If there’s one thing that really gets me down, it’s petty-minded, short-sighted opinions spouted by people who know nothing.

Nowhere is this more obvious than on some forums, where vehicles will get ripped to shreds and given a virtual mauling just because it has the wrong badge on the bonnet.

Some Land Rover owners are often very guilty of it, belittling anything that doesn’t have a green oval on it and sadly believing that Land Rovers really are the best 4x4xfar. Nonsense. I rate them in some departments, but they’re absolutely woeful in others. So are many of the Land Rover’s rivals. The perfect vehicle just doesn’t exist. To be honest, owners of non-Land Rover 4x4s can be just as petty. It can get very tiresome.

Possibly not the best 4x4xfar

Ford owners are also good at it, slagging off Subarus and other fast cars as hopeless, when it’s not like anything with a blue oval badge on it is really anything special. Then there’s the age old MG vs Triumph debate…

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t have a problem with people being passionate about the cars they own, but when it gets to football-esque slagging matches, I shall say NOOOOO!

Being involved with French classics is very refreshing. There’s a camaraderie amongst owners of French vehicles which is sadly lacking elswhere. You don’t see 2CV owners slagging off Renault 4s or vice-versa and the owner of an Alpine-Renault may take a strong interest in a Panhard or Peugeot.

I wish there was more of that in the British classic car scene. Tolerance doesn’t require much effort. We’re all in the historic movement together, so why not just be nice? Also, why restrict yourself to just one make? Yeah, I know I’ve got an entirely Citroën fleet at the moment, but that’s actually surprisingly rare. I happen to like the way Citroën used to make cars but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate other makes.

Just bear in mind how the wider world sees you if you start slagging off other cars. No-one thinks it’s clever and you’ll strike most people as the sort of person who’s brain cells are so few that they might start getting lonely. One car is not crap just because you happen to like another one. Now man up and let’s see more tolerance in 2013!

A Hippy.

I must apologise for the doom and gloom misery of last week’s Blog. You’ll be pleased to know I’m feeling a lot better this week, with a much brighter outlook for the months ahead. Mind you, it did feel good to have a bit of a whinge, and I got some lovely feedback from people so thank you for that. It did help ease my troubled mind.

There’s no point sitting around grumbling though so I did what I could to improve the situation and now feel much more positive.

Having leapt upon some super-short-deadline work, I did what any sensible person would do and had a cup of tea, drinking in the stunning views as I did so. We’ve had gorgeous weather today after a right miserable affair yesterday. To make the most of my burst of ‘can-do’ spirit, I parked the 2CV in the garage to await diagnosis of a failed oil pressure warning light. Bulb, wiring or switch? That is the question. Unfortunately, it is absolutely freezing (quite literally) outside at the moment, and barely any warmer in the garage. That’s a job for a milder day.

So, I set about moving the old BX estate. It was used to store our last load of wood for several weeks but we’re running low now. Another delivery is imminent, so the BX needed to move as the best place to have the wood delivered is right where the car was parked.

The BXs share an intimate moment.

The problem is that the alternator is putting out only about 13.5v and the battery is also goosed – perhaps as a result of this. I first discovered the problem in August when the BX needed jump starting before we could drive home from the International Citroën Car Clubs Rally. It is quite easy to bump start a BX, but jump starting is a lot easier as long as there’s another car handy! Thanks to Mark Smith for allowing me to use a few horses of his BX 16 Valves 160 to get my thundering 71bhp diesel back into life.

Pity my poor neighbours as they were treated to much diesel-cold-start rattling this afternoon, but my other BX proved up to the task of convincing the striped estate to fire up. It quickly rose on its ‘magic’ suspension and I gave it a run up the driveway to make sure the brakes weren’t too corroded.

Back to the timber. We are very reliant on wood, as it’s pretty much our sole form of heating. We have a wood burning stove with a back boiler which feeds an enormous storage tank (300 litres) which then feeds an underfloor system. It means we do burn an awful lot of wood – £120 worth was lasting a fortnight at times last winter. This year, we’ve improved things. We understand the heating more and realise that putting on a thicker jumper saves having to light the fire quite so early. We can just about cope with an in-house temperature of 14°C, but 16-18 is much more comfortable, and is about what we aim for. The underfloor heating runs at around 50°C, which gently heats the house from below.

What’s great about wood is that when the sun is shining, the hard work required actually feels quite wholesome and uplifting. Less so when it’s peeing down with rain or blowing a gale. Logs sometimes need to be split but even just bringing in enough wood for an evening is quite a good workout. Right. It’s getting cold now. I’d better go and get another log on.

There have been some dark times this year, driven mainly (but not entirely) I think by the weather. Therefore, this post is going to have a rather different feel to it than my usual car-related waffle. It’s also quite long. Sorry about that. It’s a proper random outpouring. I sometimes do this just for the release I get from pressing keys rapidly on a keyboard (80 words per minute when I’m really flying.)

So here goes, with a biggy. I’m slightly distressed to find myself feeling utterly fed up with cars. No, it’s true. I really do feel like that. I must be seriously unwell.

Don’t get me wrong – I really like the 2 cars I currently have in roadworthy condition, and I still like the one that’s rotten and needs some TLC. Both cars appeal to me greatly and do what I want. Sorted. Also, having only two cars on the road is a bit easier to cope with than 5. the To Do list is a lot shorter for a start, and tax and MOT payments are that much further apart.

But the freelance life can be a hard one, and worries about income taint the whole classic car experience for me. I’ve suffered with this for a few years to be honest. Going to car shows becomes less fun because you’re so desperate to get that all important photo shot that somehow sums up the event – though this did lead to me scaling some scary heights at the International Citroen Car Clubs Rally in a cherry-picker. The view was great, but my photos weren’t! I think I was shaking too much…

International Citroen Car Clubs Rally. So good it broke me.

Still, I got a report in Classic & Sports Car which helped towards the cost of what was our longest holiday in two years (five days!).

Actually, perhaps that event is the problem. It was so incredibly good that you wonder how any event could possibly top it. A field full of more than 1000 Citroens – with some of the rarest machines amongst them. Wow. Perhaps I’m still on a come-down.

Nonetheless, the magic feeling I get from classic cars just isn’t around at the moment. I went to the NEC Classic Motor Show last month, and it was immense. It is thought that more than 60,000 people attended over three days and I organised the first ever appearance of the BX Club at the show. It was a great thing to do and I’m very grateful to the other club members who helped make it happen. But I just didn’t have my usual desire to amble the halls and check out the incredible machines on offer. I never even got to the Metro Club stand and it wasn’t just because it was so busy. I took a handful of photos and I don’t think I’ve actually looked at them. How many slightly-orange photos of cars in a big hall does one person need? Apparently I have 1247 of them from NEC shows from 2005 until this year. I’m not sure why.

I can distantly recall a time when I used to enjoy reading motoring magazines, but that hasn’t really been the case for years. I’ve got magazines taking over the dining room/office but it seems a waste to have so many words that I’ve never read. I think I need a clearout.

In short, I think you can have too much of a good thing. Thankfully, there are other things for me to focus on, but they’re even worse at bringing in money than my main job. One of those is volunteer minibus driving. I always dreamt of being a bus driver and I can honestly say that while I may have failed to cruise the streets of Birmingham behind the wheel of a Daimler Fleetline with Park Royal bodywork as I really wanted to do as a child, transporting elderly folk around the dramatic, beautiful scenery of mid-Wales in a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter minibus is still pretty darned good. Not that it stops there, because I seem to also be Vice Chairman and a Director of the community transport group that I drive for. It is primarily voluntary work though, so it’s fun but doesn’t pay the bills!

The other thing is putting on gigs at our local hotel. This was another opportunity we never imagined would happen when we moved here in 2010. Since we took over earlier this year, we’re pulled in some of our favourite live acts (albeit our favourite live acts that we can actually afford!) and it’s been mind-blowing. Some gigs we’ve lost money, but we’ve managed to get through our first year with the cash balancing out by the end of it. More stress, but there have been some monumental good times.

The gigs and the transport hint at a developing problem I have. I’m becoming a bit of a recluse. Not trapped in the house, but in the locality. We’ve made many good friends here and we’re very fortunate that we can have a lot of fun without having to travel very far. That makes us more and more reluctant to travel far. For a start, travel costs money, even in a 54mpg Citroen, and pretty much all of the UK is now a long way away. But I think there’s also a deep desire to think more like people did before the advent of the bicycle, telephone, car and internet. We enjoy a MASSIVE sense of community here and it can lead you to question the need to think further than the immediate locale. Is there really any point worrying about the problems of the world beyond the nearest villages?

It’s strange really because in 2010 when our world was falling apart and we decided to run away, we considered joining a hippy commune somewhere to escape the wider world. We didn’t do that in the end, but it’s amazing how sometimes it feels like we have done just what we intended!

Yet whatever our dreams and desires, the biggest problem is still how to earn enough money to fund even our simple lifestyle. I have plans for 2013 but have no idea whether these plans are realistic or not. It will be interesting to find out…