Preparing for winter II

redlady_1

That looks fab! I have a plastic box under the bed with all my stuff in, in the spare room.

I have just ordered a vulcan fan for the stove so fingers crossed it will be worth it.

DebtFree2012

That is very neat and tidy! Well done you. Loving the storaged items. I need to get mine sorted.

Also for the clean your house as if the queens coming - that should apply to my car - mine is normally ok ish and then one day it isn't someone asked me for a lift last minute - was so ashamed. Also been caught out by ppl dropping in just before i was about to clean and left me thinking I bet they think I am like this all the time!!!!

Justamum

DebtFree2012 wrote: »

Also for the clean your house as if the queens coming - that should apply to my car - mine is normally ok ish and then one day it isn't someone asked me for a lift last minute - was so ashamed. Also been caught out by ppl dropping in just before i was about to clean and left me thinking I bet they think I am like this all the time!!!!

That brought back an embarrassing memory! Years ago I was extremely untidy. My car looked like a bin lorry As I was the only person in it I used to dump all sorts on the passenger seat. One day I was going to work when I saw an old man (ex para regiment from the war by the look of his beret) looking quite distressed. I stopped and asked him if he was ok, and he said he was desperately trying to get to the hospital. I offered him a lift, then had to shovel all the junk off (including old banana skins, apple cores etc :o:rotfl:) before he could get in.

slm6002

That looks a great store of winter goodies. We are stuggling for pennies at the moment so cupboard items are being used at the moment. I hope things will get a little better soon so that i can start a few preperations for winter. I did pick up a winter snow suit for my baby at the car boot sale the other day for 50p. Very happy with that

DebtFree2012

That's a bargain for a snow suit! Well done, I need one for my son this winter and dreading looking.

Re the car/skip wagon - that was mine not so long ago lol. But you were doing a good turn so I am sure he would have been more than happy to sit on your banana peel

Rainy-Days

slm6002 - you don't need to spend a fortune to prepare for winter. Allot of stuff that I do is getting the freezer cleaned out in September which then gives not only more room, but it will run better not having all that ice in there until I next clean it out in Easter (I do it twice a year). Also when you bring in the Christmas stuff you have room.

I washed three of my winter coats today. Two of them are drying off and airing beuatifully as I type. The other one, which is so much thicker is a feather and down one. It's a beggar to get dry, but last year it kept me so warm when I walked the dogs twice a day in the perishing cold weather. I also washed all my scarves and sprayed a treatment on my suede gloves last week to make sure they are waterproof. It's little things like that, that get you preparing for winter. If you have a shed, clean it out and then you can put outside furniture away in it or even just draining and putting your hose in the shed is another good way to prepare for winter.

Not too sure if you live in a town or city, but we are in a village and the hedges are adorned with blackberries and these are free (take a couple or three of colanders as they are better at holding your berries) and those can be frozen into one pound bags and frozen for crumbles or just to put with ice cream.

I have been so ruddy sad this afternoon I have had my de-fuzzer out taking all the bobbles off my jumpers and cardigans so that when they are needed again, they are ready to use wihtout me looking and thinking well thats seen better days. I can pull it out of the wardrobe anytime and it's good to go.

I should write book :rotfl:

Rainy-Days

Cinny91 wrote: »

Heres an after photo. Although it's a dark doom, so looks pretty gloomy as it was getting dusky! I snapped a photo of the inside of the shelving unit to email my Mum. Which looks like this if anyone's interested! Plenty of tinned things: meats, veg, soup. Jars of sauces. Rice, pasta and noodles. Lots of stuffing when it was 10p a box as OH loves seasoned pud! A magically untouched Easter Egg. Plus enough hot chocolate and coffee to keep OH a happy bunny until the end of the year at least. The bottom of the wardrobe is filled with surplus cleaning products (I swear we have enough gifted laundry things to keep us going until 2013) and the secret cola stash too :A

I agree about having a lot to learn from the older generations. I take everything my Grandparents tell mo to heart. My Grandma always tells me to clean my house like I'm expecting the Queen and my Grandad was the one who drilled 'Buy twice at half price' into me. They're also generously paying for me to get double glazing this year, they're nothing short of amazing in my books!

It's good when you can do something like this because it gives you a real incentive to keep it up. We have a cupboard above our cloakroom (not a loo cloakroom but an actual big double cupboard that you can get into) and thats our stash. Netto had Nescafe Gold Blend on offer with 50% extra free a while back so that took it up to a 400gram jar and they were selling for £3.00 or thereabouts. I got six for us and stored them. That is roughly about a six month supply and we then stocked up on Dowe Egberts as well.

Yours is better than ours because I have to stand on a chair to see whats in there - you can just walk in and gawp :rotfl:thing is with a black labrador about I cannot guarantee the safety of the food at your level as opposed to out of big teeth reach on ours :rotfl:

slm6002

Thanks for the great tips. My dad has lots of blackberries at the top of the field as long as wicked step mother hasnt told him to cut them back again - i am sure she only does it so i cant go round and pick them. If they have gone i know a few place that me and kids can try. I have a lot of stuff in our quite small house and now i think is the time to make use of it all. We all have scalves and gloves that i bought in sales last year. Plenty of hand me downs to from other mums i know. We have too many (if possible) fleece blankets for beds and sofa.

Things i would really like to do are:

curtain pole and curtains at double doors in kitchen
Curtain on kitchen window
Winter coat for me - Have been living in waterproof for last few years and need something warmer - i do have one but its 2 sizes too small - perhaps loose weight should be on this list
get kitchen stocks back up

Cinny91

Rainy-Days wrote: »

slm6002 - you don't need to spend a fortune to prepare for winter.

True, true, true That is just things that we've got together over the past 2, maybe 3 months. Using change we had spare at the end of our food shop. We didn't use any money that we didn't budget for food on any of it. And cupboard food is what hard times are for, I'm sure once you're in a better place money wise it'll all come together. And that's a great buy on the snow suit!

Rainy-Days wrote: »

thing is with a black labrador about I cannot guarantee the safety of the food at your level as opposed to out of big teeth reach on ours :rotfl:

Thankfully I don't think our pets will do it much harm! We only have 4 goldfish That's a great buy on Nescafe. We got ours from the village shop when they were doing the jar for £4, and the refill bag free.

And thanks everyone!! I'm glad some people understand my 'crazy' extra food buying

Desperate_Housewife_2-2

crikey this threads moved on a bit!

some good bargains there with the snow suit, I agree that car boots can be cheaper than charity shops, its just that near us there are so many I think they have to remain competitive with their prices. I have noticed though that they dont seem to have as much good stuff as they used to...

My flannelette sheets came yesterday from Littlewoods and they are very nice. I washed them and will put them away for the winter.

So far I have....
- got new duvets for kids beds
- got new flannelette bedding for us all
- thermal linings for lounge, spare bedroom and DH1 bedroom
- new rug for kitchen floor
- sorted out all the hot water bottles ready in the bathroom cupboard
- bought a cheapo car sponge to stuff in the letterbox to stop draughts
- OH has cleaned out the drains!
- Sealed the drive as it was getting scruffy looking and needed doing
- laundered a pair of curtains from the charity shop I got cheap, ready to put up in the kitchen
- putting extra money in the kitty for gas and electric
- building up my food stocks in the garage wardrobe

Things to do....

- put the curtains up
- wash nets and windows
- defrost the outside freezer
- still got to wash jumpers, gloves and scarves


Keep it up everyone, so glad that this thread has got me organised thanks!