It isn`t tough for us. We are OS and we COPE

[Deleted User]

more great ideas seasalt. I think I`ll be having a go, good as presents. Re shelves, lol me too the plank and bricks. Also orange sofa and old table painted lime green and round paper lampshades and tea chests with a cloth on the top as tables

mardatha

SS, I once took the kitchen door off because it opened the wrong way to the rest and I kept walking into it. Then I placed it on 4 tins and painted the whole lot deep purple. It was being a coffee table and I had my stereo and telly and transistor and phone on it. Until one night at about 3am, it's tins collapsed LOL and the whole lot slid onto the floor.

GreyQueen

kezlou wrote: »

Aw charlie you've cheered me right up!
Nobody ever gets it say we used to have council pop when we had our tea. Haven't heard that saying for ages..

When i was younger we always had a table cloth. We don't now, don't see the point as it would be covered in cat hairs.

I only went to secondary school for a year before i dropped out, and the only i learnt was never use a sugar spoon to stir your tea.:o

Instead i've learnt to cook, sew completely from scratch.

:)I'm going loopy with curiousity, what is/ was this "council pop"?

weezl74

GreyQueen wrote: »

:)I'm going loopy with curiousity, what is/ was this "council pop"?

tap water

kidcat

Another one for tins that have no sharp edges is to paint them nicely and use as a bowling type game with a beanbag, we had a few sets when I was a kids worker and they were great, stood up and stacked beautifully and made lots of noise falling over (plastic skittles never stand right).

Cardboard - I have taken to standing a large piece behind the bin - as OH and kids are extraordinary at missing the bin and the wall looks awful, this way I can throw the cardboard into recycling bin when its too bad and keeps my wall clean.

Plastic milk bottles can be cut down and make great funnels too - fed up of OH losing his for oil and stealing the kitchen ones - I now just hand him scissors and empty milk bottle!!

Katyroo62

I know it was a while ago that energy monitors were mentioned but I've only just got round to reading this thread. I got my energy monitor for free from my energy supplier. (I had to apply for it but it didnt cost anything!) Also someone I know borrowed an OWL from her local library.

stiltwalker

I used all the empty tins from DD's formula for planting stuff out in - just banged a few holes in the bottom with a big nail and filled them up with compost. Produced salad leaves, spring onions and even baby carrots! And when I was a child my dad made stilts for me out of formula tins by making holes and attaching string handles.

Got the seeds and the veg books out on the coffee table at the moment trying to decide what to plant and where to get the most out of the garden space this year. The garlic is already in and got some brill bargain seed potatoes from Poundland yesterday. The thing I need to decide is what I can get best value out of so as to save me the most money once I'm harvesting, no use planting something which will be cheap in the shops when I could be planting and harvesting things that will be much more expensive to buy and also have to decide what we actually want to eat!

kezlou

Good old "council pop", thanks weezl for answering:).

Well its tougher times for us in the madhouse, OH lost his job today:(.

Unfortunately we had to go shopping. But happy to say, sainsbugs price of 500g basic pasta shapes has dropped to 29p:D. So got four bag happily stashed in the cupboard.

I know useless information but thought it might help people out.
Tinned tomatoes are still the same price, chopped 33p , whole 31p. But i heard the shop assistant saying to his mates that packaged bread will be going up from £1.59 to £2.10:eek::eek::eek::eek:

So another notch will be tightened here. Attempting to make coddy and snips a jumper but failed miserably. I em realised i didn't have enough fabric:o. Ah well at least i had a go!

ChocClare

Most of our cardboard seems to go as firelighters; particularly loo roll middles, which I stuff with shredded paper to get the fires started. I did use to use them for sweet peas, but I found that they wicked the moisture away from the plants and always ended up covered in mildew.

I have just filled one of my Roses Christmas tins (I had 3 :eek:) with all my cookie cutters. I can't tell you what a joy it is to be able to look for them all in one place instead of in a choice of whichever of the 4 drawers in my kitchen the kids had bunged 'em in.

I also have a formula tin full of marbles and two full of felt-tipped pens for the Rainbows.

Other than that, cardboard boxes tend to be flattened and used as floor protectors for when the kids bring the wood in - always makes a HUGE mess.

I am SO impressed by the myriad uses you've come up with - you put me all to shame!! :T

In other news, I read something on a site somewhere a couple of years ago (I always try to be precise, you understand :rotfl:) which had what I thought was a great mantra for OS'ers so I thought I'd share - each week (or month if you like), you should try to:

sow something
harvest something
preserve something
prep something
learn a new skill
manage resources
nourish community
cook something new
make something

They are mostly self-explanatory, I think; obviously preserving can be as simple as freezing an extra meal - I'd like to be making marmalade at the mo but CAN'T find any Seville oranges :mad:

Prepping something can mean building up a storecupboard; making sure you have a wind-up torch or candles/matches or torches plus batteries etc.

Nourishing the community could be sharing seeds; bartering skills or "things"; supporting your corner shop. My example is that I drive past a free-range chicken farm on the way to work: I put up a sign at work saying free range eggs £1 per box, and I now supply the people at work. They benefit from cheap, yummy eggs from happy chickens; my neighbour benefits from the extra cash! I sometimes make some pin money by selling my own eggs if I have extra ones (shh, at my own gate, obviously).

I think the hardest is "learn a new skill" - I feel I'm a bit busy to be learning a new skill every WEEK, but I have learnt a lot of new things since I've taken this up.

Anyway, something for you all to ponder - I found it really useful on the road to self-sufficiency. Hope it's helpful.

ChocClare

kezlou, big hugs to you about your DH's job :grouphug:

You obviously posted while I was typing my one above, so really sorry if it seems insensitive straight after yours.

Hope you get some good news soon - rather than horrible news about jobs (and bread :eek:).

Will light candles :A