If things get tougher?

Stephen_Leak

I have just started reading "Extreme Cuisine" by Jerry Hopkins. It has recipes. Be afraid, be very afraid.

Valli

But we've gotta catch 'em first!

sammy_kaye18

Hi All

Valli - Our freecycle has problems with this too although most tend to be pretty good - Ive gotten rid of a fair few things through freecycle and am set to get rid of a fair bit more in the next few days hopefully - am having a sort through of bens room - am in one of those decoarating moods now ive done and finished the hallway so am wanting to make a start on sortign his room before i decorate it.

Ceridwen and Church - good news (well for me) I did report it and have been told to keep them. so yey :j and they are going towards Xmas now. £30 saved in vouchers now.

stephen - Ive jsut started reading through 'Maw Broons scottish cookbook' and that has lots of shareable OS recipes too!!

Back on topic - we have always had clothes as presents and practical gifts. We always had pencil cases etc and thigns to fill it with, we did have presents but beign as our family was by no means well off we were given alot of practical stuff. My nan bless her heart always knitted the traditional dodgy christmas jumper for us too and seeing as there is 3 years between me and my sister they were always matching. I can remember a black one with rows of liqourice allsorts on them :eek: a cream one with peter rabbit on front, with back of the bunny stitched on the back with the pom pom tail:eek: :eek: and im sure there was a white jumper with a ninja turtle fo choice on and i think i had one with donald duck ona dn my sister had daffy duck too.:eek: :eek: :eek: oh how i cringe now at the thought of what i must of looked like but it was my fondest memory.:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: I can remember my dad havign a jumper too with a huge carp on it (fisherman for leisure) and the rule was if you got a dodgy jumper you had to wear it all day! :rotfl: :rotfl:

Im quite nerdy though in that i love things for my house/kitchen rather than for me. Quite glad i have a friend who is the same too and for her birthday i brought her some teatowels and a matching table cloth that had cupcakes on form woolies - she loved them but another materialistic friend complained she would never give tea towels as a gift.

ceridwen

Stephen_Leak wrote: »

I have just started reading "Extreme Cuisine" by Jerry Hopkins. It has recipes. Be afraid, be very afraid.

The mind boggles........er...you're not talking cannibalism are you? I'll just put my hands over my ears quick - as I'm a vegetarian:D

EDIT; Whew....just googled the book.....well, sigh of relief time (there aint that much meat on me - heh!). More like insects and iguana eggs......still yuk!

Yategirl

sammy_kaye18 wrote: »

Im quite nerdy though in that i love things for my house/kitchen rather than for me. Quite glad i have a friend who is the same too and for her birthday i brought her some teatowels and a matching table cloth that had cupcakes on form woolies - she loved them but another materialistic friend complained she would never give tea towels as a gift.

I have a friend like that too..... but she does have much more spare cash than me! Seriously... she was moaning that she was skint and they needed to cut back and then started listing all the holidays etc they were going on and how much it was costing! We can barely afford to even think about going camping than the hols she was having!


I need some new teatowels.... wonder if I could ask for some for christmas?!

Gigervamp

I remember one of my favourite christmas presents was from my nan when I was about 14. She'd got a cardboard box and covered it in wallpaper, then filled it with things like bathsalt cubes (do they still do those?), talcum powder, flannels, bubble bath etc.
She must have bought one item a week through the year. I loved it, it was like finding a treasure chest full of goodies!
She also knitted, so we got jumpers too. One time, when my cousin and I were punks, we asked her to knit us black mohair jumpers. She did too, but told us she was never going to knit mohair again (especially black) because it was too fluffy to see the stitches clearly.:rotfl:

sammy_kaye18

Yategirl wrote: »

I have a friend like that too..... but she does have much more spare cash than me! Seriously... she was moaning that she was skint and they needed to cut back and then started listing all the holidays etc they were going on and how much it was costing! We can barely afford to even think about going camping than the hols she was having!
?!

oh no my friend who didnt liek the idea of teatowels etc for christmas is by no means well off and she tends to fiddle the government alot which piddles me right off becuase here i am scraping by making an honest living in a job i hate and barely seeing my bf and she sat comfortably with rent,water, coucnil tax paid for her! and then her and her boyfriend have the nerve to claim tax credits, child benefit, job seekers (her bf) and income support:mad: :mad::mad::mad::mad: back to the point - shes still not rich by any menas but her and bf get more money coming into their house than me and bf do - (the girl in mentions bf also works on the side painting and decorating here and there) and yet she is still borrowing money left right and centre and then has the nerve to whinge that shes skint when she goes drinking every otehr night for a few pints.:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: sorry rant over - id of phoned them in a long time ago if i didnt think they'd be homeless afterwards.

lauren_1

We have a blanket ban on most plastic and convenience present, both given and received. Not beacuse im a eco activist or yoghurt knitter but beacuse we have no space and the kids just are not interested in most kids things.

All our family know we have space issues and we like to lead a bit of an alternative life style so we do ask for (bearing in mind our children have 7out of 8 great grand-parents left, great aunties and uncles, then regular grandparents and step grandparents......aunts uncles.......)

• Clarkes vouchers - usually get around 50pounds for them then we wait until the sales, last year we got 8 pairs of shoes for a fiver each:j , we got 2 pairs each in a half size bigger too so they would have the next size up, both have G/H width feet so very hard to get shoes for. I dont buy in to this 'they must be measured every 6 weeks' getting the next half size wont kill them.
• George vouchers (sometimes if the kids find something in another shop we use our grocery money for that and the goerge voucher for the food shop)
• Argos vouchers, usually contributes to bedding or another doll, last year we did put them towards bunkbeds and sent a thank you note to those who gave argos vouchers with a pic of the kids in bed
• Boots vouchers, goes towards clothes and baby things like nappies/socks/drinky cups and the things we forever keep loosing.... i know the vouchers are for 'presents' but we can only buy them so much stuff before it becomes needless and pretty much pointless
• Adams vouchers - then wait for the sale for the school uniforms and bits and bobs.

We do give thank you notes and get the eldest to write what she wants to buy with it

Primrose

Lauren - how pleasantly refreshing that you and your children write 'thank you' notes. In my experience so many individuals now just don't bother and it's really demotivating for the giver when people take their generosity for granted. It has happened so often in one part of our wider family circle now that we don't send them Christmas presents any more.

Yategirl

Gigervamp wrote: »

I remember one of my favourite christmas presents was from my nan when I was about 14. She'd got a cardboard box and covered it in wallpaper, then filled it with things like bathsalt cubes (do they still do those?), talcum powder, flannels, bubble bath etc.
She must have bought one item a week through the year. I loved it, it was like finding a treasure chest full of goodies!
She also knitted, so we got jumpers too. One time, when my cousin and I were punks, we asked her to knit us black mohair jumpers. She did too, but told us she was never going to knit mohair again (especially black) because it was too fluffy to see the stitches clearly.:rotfl:

We do similar hampers for our parents - neither set of parents actually "need" anything and if they do need/want anything.. we have not got the money to buy it. What we have taken to doing is making a hamper or even lots of individually wrapped items in a stocking/bag of little luxuries - some nice coffee or teabags, maybe some biscuits or chocolates, a book each, something little towards a hobby (i.e. fil is a gardener so this year I got a bulb planter reduced to 37p to go in the stocking), some smellies, maybe a bottle of wine etc... We set ourselves a budget and we try and find as much as we can for that budget.

Someone earlier in the thread said they do/did : 1 need, 1 want, 1 to read and 1 something to wear - I really like this idea and am thinking about what we can do for the children this year... We have already suggested that we do a project over the summer (the idea behind is to get them thinking about how much things cost and how we can choose how to spend our money / be careful with what we do - i.e. no leaving lights on!!) and I am hoping to move this into a discussion about budgets etc..