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

Justamum

seasalt wrote: »

Not so good is that i put diesel in the car today and it has gone up AGAIN! £1.52/L :eek: Apparently it is £1.64 on some islands so we are not the worst off by any means but it is still scary how fast it is going up.

I thought ours was bad at 139.9p/l. I am on the Isle of Man - whereabouts are you?

NualaBuala

(((((Kezlou))))) so sorry about your OH's job. Times are tough but you WILL find a way to manage.

I've really enjoyed all the posts about using old containers etc - I hate throwing things like that out but feel some stuff is gathering dust now so might try to give them away somehow. I think I had notions that the old sweeties and biscuit tins could be reused when I go all Nigella and start baking as gifts. But the truth is I am not a good cook and would be too embarrassed to give away what I make and in any case I would probably be greedy and eat it myself.

kezlou

No worries clare, :D
thanks nuala:)

love your mantra by the way, thats what we try and live by!
Our candles are going on tomorrow, going to sit eating pasta by candleight, we all love it, so cosy,

Can't wait till the weather warms up so i can sow some peas and beans. Saw a robin today, i was so chuffed. I screamed at my OH to come and see. Luckily he indulges me and says i'm sweet, daft but sweet.

I use old milk cartons as containers pots, last year all you could was milk jugs covered with salad leaves.I got the strangest looks. The boys use old tins and tubs to store lego and toys in. Save buying storage boxes.

I know it sounds silly but were trying to see as a positive thing, its making us reassess our lives and seeing where we go from here. The current plan is spend the weekend discussing what were going to do. We have a few plans up our sleeves. Never know we might even move depending on OH getting a contract elsewhere.
Oh and i managed to collapse on Wednesday, so i'm back on crutches and my leg is in a splint again. So perfect excuse to carry on with my sewing and laze about the house:p.

seasalt_2

Please can someone remind me how to do the multiple quote thing. I clicked the bubbles but can't "retrieve" them. Thanks.

Kezlou, I'm sorry to hear about OH's job. Was it fleece jumpers you were making? Is there enough material to turn them into bodywarmers instead - it's amazing the difference they make even without sleeves.
Kidcat, I am going to borrow your idea and put a bit of cardboard behind my compost container (lidded casserole dish that's too tall to be useful in the oven) until I get round to tiling the wall!
Justamum, I am off the west coast of scotland.
Chocclare, I really like that list - and have shifted our cookie cutters into a biscuit tin too. Thanks. Just have to find a place to keep the tin now as it won't fit in the drawer with the baking tins. Up until now, every time I made a cake I had to tip all the cookie cutters into the next cake tin down! We have got fewer than we used to have though as made tree decorations/small presents out of some this year - added a loop of ribbon to hang them by - and had considered storing the rest by hanging them all together from a cup hook on a length of string (tied into a loop before threading and then threaded through double with both ends of the loop over the hook - unhook one end to remove cutters - bit like a curtain tie-back) but still haven't done it and much less palaver just to bung them all in a tin. Plastic ones have been saved for playdough.
Nuala, it probably doesn't sound it from all of the above but I AM gradually decluttering. I don't save everything but I do have a box under the bed with a few useful tins, boxes etc that I think will come in handy and then when I need something to keep something in and give it a proper home, I can look there.
Just thought of something else, kitty. Those presentation cylindrical boxes that malt whiskies come in make good knitting needle holders - I save them for friends who knit.

ETA It's OH who gets given the whisky!

ChocClare

Thanks, seasalt.

For the multiquote, you click on the bubbles for each person you want to quote, and when you get to the last on your list, click on the ordinary quote button. It then retrieves all of them. Took me ages to work that one out!

[Deleted User]

kezlou, sorry about Ohs job. You have a good attitude, when one door closes another opens. It happened to my dd and she turned the corner after redundency

Just got live iplayer on and Mary whatsitsname is looking at making/buying a wedding dress for< £10. It gave me a flashback to 1970 when I made my wedding dress and it cost me under 50p. I kid you not. See, os was ingrained then but I didn`t recognise it as such, I just got on and did stuff like that. Not bad for 22. I also made 4 lovely bridesmaids dresses, the 3 tiered cake nd the wedding breakfast which we had in my widowed mum`s house all set up on 2 wallpaper tables. It was the best wedding ever but it is only now that I shudder at the amount of work and responsibility on me

ceridwen

kezlou wrote: »

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

Sorry to hear that kezlou.

(((Take care)))

mama67

kezlou wrote: »

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!

((((Kezlou)))) , so sorry to hear that about dh.

Jumper?, do you mean pullover but made from fabric?

charlies-aunt

Large plastic milk bottles with a handle on the side - make good mini shovels/sccops if you cut the top off at an angle:)

Also by cutting out the flat sides so you have four sheets - you can make brilliantly durable stencils for walls or craft by drawing a design on with marker pen and then cutting out with a stanley knife

In the recent bad weather, I used to fill a large milk carton with hot water and put it in the footwell of my iced up car about an hour before setting off for work - it helped soften the ice on the inside and by the time I was ready to set off, it was tepid and came in handy to swilll the windscreen with en route (washer bottle was frozen solid for weeks) Small ones were filled with hot-ish water immediately before setting off and tuckd under my coat to keep off the chill! Not a look that's likely to get me on the cover of Vogue but effective at helping me stay warm!

We store left over emulsion in ours too - you can see the colour easily and it seems to keep better than in the bottom of the original tin

We still buy our milk in glass bottles from the milkman so we always hang onto any plastic milk bottles that come our way :rotfl:too precious to chuck in the recycling bin! :rotfl::rotfl:

bellaquidsin

ChocClare wrote: »

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 Do sprouted seeds count?
harvest something as above
preserve something would be marmalade if I was on my feet, will have to be DS old trousers for this week
prep something vegetables for soup making
learn a new skill I have some fabric and paints at the ready to make embroidered pictures for presents
manage resources can't be specific on this but think I do it on a daily basis - turning lights out, saving peelings and stalks for soup etc.
nourish community again nothing specific, unless visiting an old folk's home counts.
cook something new I used the wrong flour (gf instead of buckwheat) for blinis. They were quite different and nicer so I guess 'new'
make something doing this on a daily basis with knitting and crochet, at the moment it's my 'ripple' blanket.

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.

Awsome list this and proves what I've always thought, the only thing OSers don't have a lot of is time.

Bella.