As The Workhouse Approaches....How To Do Everything To Avoid It, the Old Style Way

GreyQueen

cat_smith wrote: »

coolcait I misread it as well. Was feeling very sorry for the poor mole :rotfl:

Thanks ladies, I'm killing myself laughing and have nearly spat tea across the keyboard.

I'm a big softie when it comes to wildlife, even the more annoying kinds like moles, and can assure you I'd NEVER.......:rotfl:

BTW the little beggar had moled-up on the other side of the bean patch. Pass the next bramble, nurse!:D

Memory_Girl

YOu have inspired me GreyQueen - even though I can't get out in to the garden because have hurt my back, my seedlings are popping though a treat ................. and I was pondering how DS1 was going to able to water his veggie garden as its up about 10 steps which is not easy for a ten year old and a bucket o surface water.

So I've looked at what "scrap" we have. We are using UHT at the moment. DS2 is old enough now for semi-skimmed and by stocking up I am saved the three-times-a-week trip to buy milk that always ends with more stuff IYSWIM.

So I am using UHT milk cartons - with holes punched in the bottom and sides. I have cut some old garden hose and attached it to an old funnel. When the cartons are buried almost all the way then DS1 can walk along, pop the hose in the hole and fill up from his bucket. The advantage being that he can do that right through the day instead of us having to wait until the sun goes down before we can water - pace himself through the day.

I'm off to text my friends to find out who uses milk bottle and wh uses cartons and to get them to save them all for me.

A real Blue Peter Solution - many thanks

MG

GreyQueen

Softstuff wrote: »

Unfortunately it was one of the council services that got cut last year, when the rates went up... :mad:

They're "Kerbside Collection Days". The council used to allocate a couple each year. You put your big heavy unwanteds on the pavement in the morning, and the council collects them in the afternoon. It was the unwritten rule that you could go round in a morning and pick out what you wanted. Now it's stopped, and flytipping has gone wild. Flytipping is worse here because there's so much national forest idiots can choose to do it in. So chances are clean up is now costing the council far more than the kerbside collection was.

I miss car boots more than anything here though. People have garage sales, and it really isn't the same. You have to drive around hunting for them and when you get there there's nothing you want anyway. Whereas a good car boot is like a treasure trove. I structure every trip to England to include the maximum number of Sundays to guarantee me a good carbooting :rotfl:

With the carbooting (for clothes and gifts), buying sunscreen at 1 pound from asda, 10p toothpaste from tesco, toothbrushes from homebargains and a variety of other things, it offsets the cost of my flight considerably :rotfl:

Hey, Softstuff, last time I was in Auckland NZ, they did that over there as well, only for a whole week, twice a year, if memory serves. My local connection told me that people would make a point of cruising the kerbs to get the most useful stuff.

A pal who grew up on a UK army base in Germany told me that the nearby town had this custom, too, but that his Mum felt that as an officer's wife, she couldn't be seen to help herself to other people's discards, so she'd send the kiddies out to collect pre-selected items and sneak them back home! I think they've still got that lovely coffee table......

BTW, Tesco Basic's toothpaste is now 17p (I know cos I use it).

Know exactly what you mean about boot fairs. I don't get to go to as many as I'd like as I have only a pushbike and they're mostly miles away out of the city but the folks know me well. At Easter when I was over theirs, we didn't have time to go to our regular bootfair as we'd got company coming but they'd found me one in town. I got (read this and weep) 72 brand new Guterman 100 m threads for £3.50 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND they're in colours which match my clothes! Happiness.......I know anyone likely to be on the OS board will know the price of thread and the joy of my acquistion.

flowertotmum

Morning ladies..thank you all so much for your words of support and comfort..made a real difference to me.Had a lovely afternoon with oh and tots..we put more guttering up and sorted out water butts..exciting stuff lol..
OH did tea,salad as predicted with icecream for pudding and he and son washed up.When tots had gone to bed we snuggled up on sofa and watched a film...he told me i do far too much for all of them and from now on if i say no then he will back me all the way..he also told me to ease up on the lotties.he and ds will do it from now on..so thats a load of my plate..the only reason i took over was because of his hips and back but he thinks if he does a bit at a time he will be ok..i got breakfast made for me this morning,,waffles and maple syrup,he is currently in kitchen getting the joint ready to go in the oven...i feel so refreshed this morning.I didn't realize how much i have actually done over the last few months,so now the house is in order and garden sorted i can relax and just potter about...looking forward to pottering.As for my dd's..well lets just say it will be on my terms from now on..i love them all very much but they are demanding and get upset if it seems i am spending more time with one than the others..daft really.So from now on they come when invited and i will not be babysitting for a while..i want to enjoy the 2 tots i still have at home and i think they forget this...
Ferns leg is looking soo much better today,the anti-biotics make her feel drowsy and taste bloody awful,so she gets a sweetie when she has had it..blackmail is an ugly word lol,i prefer friendly persuasion...
Got to go and get dressed lol,still in my pj's..lazy sod.
thank you
love
ftm

Softstuff

GreyQueen wrote: »

BTW, Tesco Basic's toothpaste is now 17p (I know cos I use it).

I think I can cope with that increase, over here it's $2 a tube for the value kind, which is about 1.20 in pommie pounds, so it's still a heck of a saving to grab a few. I always prefer value toothpastes, they tend to be less dramatically foamy.

GreyQueen wrote: »

I got (read this and weep) 72 brand new Guterman 100 m threads for £3.50 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND they're in colours which match my clothes! Happiness.......I know anyone likely to be on the OS board will know the price of thread and the joy of my acquistion.

I am green with envy. I have 5 different colours of thread for repairs and rely mostly on tiny stitching to avoid seeing a mismatch.

Went to the supermarket deliberately to check for reductions, given that tomorrow they're closed for a public holiday. Walked out with a heck of a haul, veggies at 83% off, cheese at 83% off, a large choccy cake for 75% off. Tomorrow will be a bit of a cook off to preserve and store everything for the coming month. We'll be having a luxurious month this month all told thanks to their excessive reductions.

Oh, and I cashed the scratchcard win of $7, pocketed $2 and bought another $5 one, and promptly won $10!! I think I may have to stay indoors for the rest of the month, I've had more good luck in the past few days than in the 3 months prior!

jackieglasgow

Softstuff your run of good fortune has been making me smile all morning, then I came in from pegging out the washing and to have a cuppa and read your latest post! :j wow, fortune is smiling on you today

valk_scot

Bambywamby wrote: »

The only "new" thing on that programme I had never seen before was the young lady who cut a neckline and two arm holes out of a pillow case and wore it as a dress. Fabulous idea for students and youngsters but I can't see many of us ladies fitting into a pillow case - the cases must end up being all of a dress size 6.

I could try this with a duvet cover I suppose...:rotfl:

valk_scot

My latest trick for keeping track is to count up what I don't spend as well as what I do. I've got two empty catfood boxes with slots in the top for "moneyboxes" and a pile of small slips of (recycled) paper. When I find a bargain on something I would have spent money on anyway...ie a £2 whoopsied chicken instead of £4.50, I wtrite the difference down on a slip of paper and pop it in Box One. Similarly when I manage to tear myself out the garden centre or book shop or even the supermarket having resisted spending £5 or £10 on something I didn't need...even £2 for a magazine...I write that down and pop it in Box Two.

Once a month I empty out both boxes and count the totals up. It never fails to amaze me the sums involved and it reminds me how much money I could waste if I wasn't constantly paying attention to what I'm doing with the pennies. Try it and see. Sometimes when you're going along being frugal and eeking out every pound every day it can get a bit depressing, as in there's no real reward or positive feedback. (Apart from the red being not so red...) This is just one way to give yourself a pat on the back and get a metaphorical gold star on your metaphorical star chat.

alec_eiffel

valk_scot wrote: »

My latest trick for keeping track is to count up what I don't spend as well as what I do. I've got two empty catfood boxes with slots in the top for "moneyboxes" and a pile of small slips of (recycled) paper. When I find a bargain on something I would have spent money on anyway...ie a £2 whoopsied chicken instead of £4.50, I wtrite the difference down on a slip of paper and pop it in Box One. Similarly when I manage to tear myself out the garden centre or book shop or even the supermarket having resisted spending £5 or £10 on something I didn't need...even £2 for a magazine...I write that down and pop it in Box Two.

Once a month I empty out both boxes and count the totals up. It never fails to amaze me the sums involved and it reminds me how much money I could waste if I wasn't constantly paying attention to what I'm doing with the pennies. Try it and see. Sometimes when you're going along being frugal and eeking out every pound every day it can get a bit depressing, as in there's no real reward or positive feedback. (Apart from the red being not so red...) This is just one way to give yourself a pat on the back and get a metaphorical gold star on your metaphorical star chat.

I do something similar only I use money not just the receipts. If I buy something and it's on offer I stick the difference into the piggy - e.g if something's a pound cheaper than usual I stick a pound in. It's not a painful saving as it's something I was going to buy anyway. I really like your idea about non purchases though, sticking a reminder of something I thought I wanted but decided against would be a good boost at the end of the month when I reviewed all this stuff I didn't really need. Think I might try it. :T

Softstuff

jackieglasgow wrote: »

Softstuff your run of good fortune has been making me smile all morning, then I came in from pegging out the washing and to have a cuppa and read your latest post! :j wow, fortune is smiling on you today

Aww that's so sweet

It seems in my life I get runs of bad luck, then runs of good, not so often the even uneventful keel.

Now a query to all you OS'ers. We've seen a house. Now, we'd always thought that we'd stay here in our little 1 bed unit, just finish paying off the mortgage and that would be that. Downsides to this are we pay about $6000 (nearly 4000 pounds) a year in "body corporate fees" (they maintain the building, the grounds etc), we have no garden for food growing, we can't have pets and we're restricted what we can do with the place. In 4 1/2 years we've paid off a lot of our mortgage, and about $75k remains (property is also a lot dearer here...).

The house we've seen seems pretty undervalued. A 3 bedroomed brick built house only about 12 years old. Huge garden, garage. It's at the end of a very quiet cul-de-sac with a peaceful parkland behind (which heads through to another quiet cul-de-sac. We'd have to borrow an additional $100k to buy it. Which means that mortgage wise we'd owe what we owed 4 years ago on this unit, but we'd have a 3 bed house.

We could install solar power, water tanks, fruit trees, a vegetable garden, chickens and we could potentially get a pet. We could also host overseas students in a spare room and get some extra income that way. All just ideas at present, but valid thoughts.

Even though I'm currently not working, we could afford that mortgage easily since we've been paying a similar amount for a few years now and when I've worked we've overpaid by my salary. But it would mean instead of being mortgage free in about 5 years with regular body corporate fees, we'd be paying our mortgage a lot longer, but be a bit freer otherwise.

So, do we maintain our status quo.... or aim for a huge change?