OS living -a moment of self doubt

taplady

I have really enjoyed reading this thread so thanks Purple:T I agree with you all and think there's lots of ways I can improve on what I already do.
Zippy - I especially liked your long post:):T you've all given me renewed enthusiasm and motivation as I've been slipping a bit lately:o:)

My Mum made me smile once on this subject - she told a friend she that "Susan makes everything herself" proudly:) I was ever so pleased that she had noticed.:T

Now DS2 who is nearly 18 has shown a little interest in cooking so I'm hoping to teach him to make some cakes to start with. A late start I know but its never too late to learn new things:) he's going to find a recipe he wants to make and we'll take it from there.

thanks again to all who posted.

midnightraven3

so we have all came up against comments, and "looks" regarding our lifestyle
I think we are all glad we are not the only ones
Reading this thread has made me wonder though....... maybe sometimes its through a feeling of inadequacy? Who wouldnt really want to tuck into a bowl of HM soup, or lasagne? especially in this day & age where we are all so aware of how many additives etc are in our food.

To critisize someones lifestyle, has to have a reason. We can all state the reasons why living on covenience foods, maxing credit cards etc is wrong, but I cannot find a negative to living OS.
Perhaps to other people we seem to be a cross between Wonder woman, & Martha Stewart with wonderous magical powers that turns a bag of flour & some butter into a cake with a secret chant:D

OS living is gaining in popularity, again. Like the poster up above, my student daughter, having been brought up like this, has shown others, and they love it, my children automatically make up a bottle of kitchen cleaner if its needed, the know how to cook almost anything & experiment. I cannot keep my daughters friends going in homemade lipbalms, they cant get enough of it, they ask whats in it, they ask to watch me make it, they want to know, and i do hear "i wish my mum......."
I find that quite sad, i think of how much fun we have had over the years cooking/making/baking/growing. and they have missed out on all of that

We started OS living to cut out chemicals etc in our lives, not through financial reasons, and from that it grew, now, apart from health i do :eek: at prices of things, and think, i could make that so much better for a quarter of the price, WHY "throw" money away on garbage? THATS what i dont understand from people who dont understand our lifestyle

Justamum

ruthber wrote: »

Hello again, I was talking to a friend yesterday about the need for some potato recipes as i was lucky to find a big bag of potatoes (7.5kilo) in Tescos being sold for 79p. She said she would not have bought them as they were best before the same day, and that she could not have used so many. She also throws away fruit if it is past its best before date. To me those dates are just nonsense. if I keep the potatoes cool and in a dark place they will keep for weeks still. I am going to a bring and share lunch at the church on Sunday, guess what will be the main ingredient of my dish? (haven't decided on what to cook yet but the bag of potatoes will certainly come in handy). Any suggestions, please?

The other day I went into the Co-op and saw that they had some 1.5kg bags of new potatoes which were reduced to 25p each, so I picked up a couple (BB yesterday). As I was waiting in the queue the lady came along and reduced them to 10p - so I bought the rest of them too .

Last time I went to my mum's we were going to my brother's wedding and were going to be away for one night, so my mum started chucking out perfectly good stuff from her fridge! :eek: I couldn't bring it back with me because I was flying. When I was growing up my mum would never have bought a ready meal, wouldn't have thrown out perfectly good food, and made the vast majority of clothes for her and my sister and I (she would even buy jumpers from a jumble sale, unravel and reknit them for us). Now she buys ready meals, seems to think that a use by/best before date is sacrosanct, and buys tons of clothes for my children - most of which never see the light of day (I've told her to stop buying so much).

In a way I suppose I can understand why she's changed - she went through the war where everything was rationed, struggled to make ends meet when we were growing up, and spent years running a hotel where she had to do all the cooking. My gran was very OS (probably through necessity too) and always made her own bread, jams, pickles etc, grew most of their veg. As she got older she started buying them in though. It's really nice going back the other way!

foxgloves

I know I've said this before in a post on a much older thread, but for me, being OS is almost a 'political' act.......fighting rampant consumerism & all its immoralities through mince & lentils! Every time I manage to save for something & not chuck it onto credit, I see it as a small victory for us against all the people wanting us to borrow more, more, more, regardless of whether we can pay it back or not. I was a lot more politically active when I was younger. Now I'm more disillusioned with that, I concentrate on living my life according to my ethical beliefs & I feel much happier than when I was part of the consumer-treadmill. I love cooking, preserving, gardening, crafts, etc, so it's not exactly a hardship & it was so worth it initially to see those debts reducing. I enjoy being a bit different. Spending money like water is hardly a 'lifeskill' (& always comes back to haunt you!) whereas all our OS skills definitely are lifeskills & as well as being satisfying, will help us out of many a tight situation we may encounter in the future. So I'd say. 'We are OS & we are PROUD!' x

Winged_one

OS for me is about enjoying my food, my growing, my crafting. It saves us a lot of money, we eat better, we are warmer, and I have things to do when not at work.

I am not completely OS. We do enjoy takeaways occasionally. We do buy the odd M&S ready meal. I do keep a supply of jars in the cupboards for busy times (so that I will cook a reasonable meal rather than depending on the takeaway). I buy a fair few clothes and have a nice shoe collection.

But I do still amble around the charity shops. I grow a fair bit of veg on our allotment. I knitted facecloths for all my siblings and DH's siblings for Christmas this year (which I presented with a nice soap/shower gel each, which were bought). We got our bins bill yesterday - the "waste" bin got lifted twice last quarter, and the glass once, we tend to put the recycling bin out every second time (so every 4 weeks or so) - with plenty also going in the composter. We throw away very little food as we shop wisely, and use up leftovers imaginatively most of teh time. I roam the hedgerows in the autumn for the damsons and sloes near MIL, the crab apples near my mum, the blackberries near both of them...

But at the same time, I hold down a fulltime job which can be very busy. Dh also has a fulltime job which can keep him late or working weekends. DD goes to the creche every day, and I do use certain convenience foods as part of our packed lunches (like packets of crisps, or DD's "dunkers", or buying pre-packed portions of cheese rather than cutting a chunk for the lunchbox).

I do what I can. When I have time, I do more than when it's busy. When we have less money, we are more vigilant than when we have plenty - although we never really lost sight of the frugal and OS way of doing things. But it has also meant that we've built up a nice cushion for retirement, changing circumstances, a chance to break out of the "rat race" before we are too old to enjoy a greener life (I regularly send myself to sleep planning our smallholding!!).

I may be an imperfect OSer, but I am still a proud one!

elf06

Winged_one wrote: »

I may be an imperfect OSer, but I am still a proud one!

I agree - I am not perfect but very proud of what I do!
Actually not so sure there is such a thing as a perfect OS - we all do what we can

Loadsabob

:j What a lovely thread!

The only thing I get embarrased about with being OS is the fact that I currently have so little time to devote to reading and contributing to the forums. I'm not giving all of your posts the attention they deserve, due to a combination of working full time and studying for my masters But I think of this place all the time, and it's a welcome distraction from the studying sometimes - I have to discipline myself!

I'm only 33, and have always felt innately OS. Whilst a student it just got ingrained, budgeting, always cooking from scratch, recording every spend. And I left Uni with only a modest debt (waaaay back in '97!)

To me, what matters in life is quality. Quality of enjoyment, quality of living , quality in your existance on this planet. And I think that really, that's something we all seem to find in the OS way of life. Knowing the quality of the food we prepare and eat, and the quality of enjoyment of the time we spend on OS activities.

I get such a kick out of my OS ways. I made stew the other day with a couple of stewing bones included when I bought half an organic lamb a year or so ago. The stew was, needless to say, gorgeous (and served on my late Granny's old stew plates, which makes it even more special for me), but the meal was really enhanced by the knowledge that I had used these bones, and that my boyfriend and I had had a modest but delicious portion of meat each from them, where other people may have wasted them. I love that there are two chicken carcases and plate scrapings in the freezers waiting for treatment into stock. I love that finding three frozen eggwhites in my freezer audit was like winning a bit on the lottery and meant a weekend of delicious macaroons! And I love that whilst the temptation was there to replace my breadmaker with a Panasonic because the pan has exposed metal which leaves grey marks in my bread, instead I have ordered a new pan and paddle for £15.32 to keep the 8 year old machine going and not cause unnecessary retirement of a working product.

My Mum always says she wishes she was more like me - funny, because when she was bringing us up, she often cooked from scratch. But these days she does it less, and never bakes.

But had anyone ever had someone turn up their nose at their homemade cake or soup??? No one thinks the outputs are weird, so why they think it's weird that people spend time actually making those things is beyond me!

I was laughing recently, hearing people debate whether or not climate change is man-made. Some were really angry to think that if it isn't, then we're all being asked to change our lifestyles for nothing! For nothing?!! I thought, if we all start living a less selfish and resource-intensive, grabbing lifestyle of pointless over-consumption, waste, over-production, driving a few minutes down the road and thoughtlessness, and we find out that it doesn't help with climate change, then...? What? Then we'll all be happier, healthier and the planet will be left in a slightly better shape for those who come after us? Tragedy!

I feel quite queesy sometimes in the supermarket, looking at all the produced foods. Honestly, they do make me feel ill. I can't help but think of them as food-type substances, because they're really a potion containing some food, with all kinds of other factory-produced additions :eek:, and the thought of fuelling my body with it is not pleasant.

And the people who think it's 'easier' and 'quicker' to just buy everything - I feel sorry for them, as I think they go through life in a much more 'surface' way. And all these people who think they're saving time with readymeals and driving everywhere...time for what? Fine is these people have hobbies, but so many don't. Saving time to watch TV?...to go shopping?...

Good on you, everyone, I really enjoyed reading this thread! Even if I did descend into judgemental generalisations about the non-OS word at the end

CCP

Loadsabob wrote: »

But had anyone ever had someone turn up their nose at their homemade cake or soup??? No one thinks the outputs are weird, so why they think it's weird that people spend time actually making those things is beyond me!

Actually, a few years ago I did meet someone who turned his nose up at homemade cake. I took a HM chocolate chip cake into work for my birthday and one of my colleagues was distinctly underwhelmed. He took a very small slice (obviously trying to be polite) - and was back for seconds before he'd finished chewing his first mouthful. He ended up polishing off most of the cake, and spent the next few weeks asking when I was bringing another cake into the office.

Sorry, that's rather off topic, I know, but the memory still makes me smile!

Ambersuccubus

In my last job, I did have a colleague who would only try home made goodies if he "trusted" the person in question re: their food hygiene - don't quite know what he based it on, as our work never involved any cooking etc...

Loadsabob

CCP wrote: »

Actually, a few years ago I did meet someone who turned his nose up at homemade cake. I took a HM chocolate chip cake into work for my birthday and one of my colleagues was distinctly underwhelmed. He took a very small slice (obviously trying to be polite) - and was back for seconds before he'd finished chewing his first mouthful. He ended up polishing off most of the cake, and spent the next few weeks asking when I was bringing another cake into the office.

That's funny! And your experience, Ambersuccubus.

Interesting you say this, though, as sometimes I see HM cakes that I want to devour, and other times, when there's a charity cake sale at work, I do look at some and think "hhmmmm....maybe not..." Possibly I am a baking snob, and I know just how my stuff tastes, and I know what goes into it. But if it's a friend or family member, somehow I'm generally pretty comfortable with what they offer.