Make do, Mend and Minimise in 2016

This is a great and timely thread for me, and I find it so interesting and motivating to hear what sorts of things others are doing.

Ive been reading a lot about de-owning stuff and buying less, making do, minimalist living, decluttering, revamping etc and I realised that a large portion of each of my days is taken up with housework instead of things I actually WANT to do.
Ive already decluttered and re-decorated 2 rooms last year, and it has worked - they are so much easier to keep tidy and require only 5 to 10 minutes of housework a day. So this year I'm aiming to get every room to this point.

Over new year I sorted all the paperwork piles and had a few bonfires, and got all of everybody's paperwork into one filing cabinet. GOAL = to always keep paperwork in the filing cabinet, NO MORE PAPERY HEAPS!

And I darned a few pairs of my socks! I didnt get any thick woolly socks for xmas so decided to reinstate some holey ones.

Ive just asked everyone to pick out 2 mugs that they want to keep, as we have far too many and it makes so much washing up. So now theres 2 for the rubble skip at the tip, 4 for charity shops, 4 spares [that were quite new] to go on a top shelf to replace breakages, and one that will go up to my DD's room to hold pens [she says].

We are going to do this with plates, saucepans, baking tins and bowls, too.
In my house we don't have matching crockery - everyone has their own plates and bowls and mugs, all different designs and styles but all in blue and white. It makes dishing out meals and drinks so much easier, and replacements only need to be the right colour scheme! hehe

Evening Everyone,

I have minimised my figure recently and all my clothes are too big, i am going to try and alter some of them with the help of you tube. i am definately not a dressmaker! I also have a very modest budget to replace some of them but i am going to scour the local chazzers.

regards

I'm trying to de-clutter each room as we re-decorate but as the whole house is a renovation project that can be difficult-just as you get one room tidy we have to shift stuff from another room into it to start that. For many months the front room was used as a storage area for copper piping, bathroom suites and tiles!

However, we were given some outside Chritmas lights to pass on to someone who couldn't have them in the end, and rather than skip them we put them on Facebook and a friend snapped them up in seconds!! One less pile of stuff in the spare room-yay!

My niece is moving house and needs some curtains. I've given her some nets and curtains that have been hanging about in the airing cupboard. I've also found some hand towels and bath mats to give to my daughter who's just moved into her own place.

We've just finished our new kitchen and utility room. I wanted some laundry bags to separate the different types of laundry to save having to sort it out every time but they cost a fortune!! Bright idea time-use different coloured pillowcases, as I've got loads in the airing cupboard-money saved.

Our Christmas aprons are not required back at work this year (they are changed to a different style every 2 or 3 years) so I've suggested that we give them to local schools and nurseries for the children to use as painting overalls. So that's another good idea for any company that's changing uniforms; shirts are good painting overalls for kiddies, put them on backwards and there you go!

Hello All

I have been following last years thread and this new one but have not posted before, may I join?
I am hoping to be more frugal this year in all things and hope this gives me some extra money to treat the kids during the summer holidays as money is always a challenge during the six weeks break!
I like the idea of a screen free day, however do likes to have the telly on, but maybe I could have a computer free day as I sometimes spend so much time online looking at nothing when I could be getting on with some knitting.
I am keeping a spending diary this year so that I will (hopefully) think twice before buying anything.
I did keep to menu planning last year which helped greatly with my food budget, plus food wastage.
I am also trying to loose some weight so I should be able to get into the clothes that I already have.
I have a Christmas note book that I mark anything we need or don't need, which helped me not to buy any wrapping paper this year (I shan't need any this year either!)

Hello everyone!

I'd love to join if I may, I've been reading a lot about minimising and re-prioritising over the past few months. I look forward to lots of tips to help clear out the huge amount of 'stuff' we seem to have accumulated over the past two years (since we moved). I have promised myself that 2016 will be a year of change - no more buying things we don't really need or want. I'm going to start sewing more often on my poor machine that's been gathering dust and hopefully make as many of the gifts we give as possible rather than buying them off the shelf. I have a shameful amount of fabric that I need to start using up too must resist buying more before I've used some of that up!