make do and mend for tougher times

[Deleted User]

shegar wrote: »

Well ive got a great crop of runner beans, each day more are getting longer, ...

grhhhh, dh went to pick the beans yesterday, I was busy all day and he was faffing around. He came back with two big bags full..........of 4" beans :eek: no wonder I do most stuff myself

sprouting seeds thread. Alfalfa is best and easiest

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/134746[/url

talking about seeds, they are very much part of my standard stockcupboard and go into my hm bread and hm granolas and muesli. linseed, pumpkin, sunflower, chia.

rosieben

your link isn't working kittie,
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/134746

SpikyHedgehog

prepareathome wrote: »

Thanks grandma you have made them seem very simple for making window quilts. I have been looking at instructions on the web but they all seemed so complicated to me, not that some were just me. I have plenty of jars including kilner jars so next thing I dehydrate I will do as you say.

Right have just used a good part my shopping money left from hubby's wages to buy a good selection of seeds for next year - not all of them, only had £40 left for shopping after bills but concentrated on ones that will grow in cooler wetter conditions like Kale, parsnips, turnip, peas - they seem to grow here no matter what the weather does......I will just have to get off my bottom and tend seedlings, rather than spend money on buying them, although I don't regret my constant garden I bought for this year and if I can afford will buy another one, but I used to grow from seeds in pots till last year it was only because I wanted to grow more I didn't do many this year.

Next year I will have some in ground(hopefully the constant garden) plus go back to some in pots/bags etc in back. Not as much room out there now as fruit bushes take up a good part of the space but can still squeeze quite a few in.

I have been very lazy this year over preps apart from buying extra for store cupboard so Kittie you have given me the kick I needed.

I loathe kale as I loathe all cooked cabbage but as you say if its all the veg we have I can cook it and hide it in stews. I got kale with the constant garden and gave it all away, along with most of the cabbages except white ones as I can eat those raw. Apart from potatoes I prefer vegetables raw - love turnip that way but can you eat parsnips raw?

DS2 doesn't eat cooked parsnips - his favourite bit is any peelings as I prep them!

Popperwell wrote: »

That Bread Maker has sold out:mad:at Amazon and John Lewis...that didn't take long...I don't really want to spend a lot on one so am debating whether to carry on with handmade loaves and then use the ovens or perhaps occasionally use one like this though the Panasonic models seem to offer 25 programmes this only has 12...

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/4231174/Trail/searchtext%3EBREAD+MAKER.htm

Pops, I picked up a teeny weeny bread maker in Mr S earlier this year, & it jump started me back into making bread, but is now taking up room in my kitchen as I find it easier to make from scratch. & I can make whatever size I want too.

mama67 wrote: »

DS2 has one of these 2 part quilts which snap together.

What I did was buy an extra cover in a contrasting colour and the thinner part is in that during the winter, the cover is never next to the body so only needs freshening once in a while, but he has the choice of a thicker warmer quilt which can be split if he gets hot during the night.

What a good idea! I think I'll do that ;-). DS2 has 3 duvet covers anyway, but DS1 & I only have 2 each, so I'll keep an eye for another for each of us.

DS1 is a confidante for several of his friends, but they always start to tell him things in the late evening so he talks them over with me till late & then thinks about them till the early hours. I'm letting him sleep in for a bit while doing the washing up he didn't do last night while his friend was talking to him, then going to get ready to take the boys to town for the Maritime weekend - lots of free exhibits :-)

Popperwell

SpikyHedgehog wrote: »

Pops, I picked up a teeny weeny bread maker in Mr S earlier this year, & it jump started me back into making bread, but is now taking up room in my kitchen as I find it easier to make from scratch. & I can make whatever size I want too.


Then going to get ready to take the boys to town for the Maritime weekend - lots of free exhibits :-)

More than ever bread seems easy to make and so it may be worth making my own again(Especially, if I make smaller loaves)then I don't throw away what I don't use.

If I use the combi microwave/halogen oven I may save on energy but even if I pay a little extra on the electric perhaps i save on less shopping trips and the price of bread in the shops...so it evens out...

If I cannot do it by hand I probably can use a hand mixer but the recipes on here for 5 minute bread and Fuddle's success suggest it is easier than the bread I used to make...

But if I do invest in a bread maker, they don't seem to bad price wise if I don't go silly and pay near £100 for it...

Your weekend sounds lovely...

Popperwell

Been looking around the Aldi site and in particular the stores in other countries and some seem to have better special offers and though it is aimed and promoted as a low priced supermarket some of the products seem quite expensive elsewhere...

I don't know if that's because the culture elsewhere is different but it is quite interesting comparing things...

[Deleted User]

I also get the rolling eyes and armagedon comment but only when dh is showing son and daughters, in private he thinks it is all such a good idea but tbh I don`t bother discussing it now, I just `sneak` in the crispbreads and so on and they go into cupboards straight away. I reached a point when I tell no-one but just get on and do it. I have always been the decision maker in this house but I don`t shout it out, dh knows that even if I ask him something Ooh and I have handled all finances since 1971

Possession

kittie wrote: »

I also get the rolling eyes and armagedon comment but only when dh is showing son and daughters, in private he thinks it is all such a good idea but tbh I don`t bother discussing it now, I just `sneak` in the crispbreads and so on and they go into cupboards straight away. I reached a point when I tell no-one but just get on and do it. I have always been the decision maker in this house but I don`t shout it out, dh knows that even if I ask him something Ooh and I have handled all finances since 1971

Kittie I also handle all finances, and DH is a chartered accountant!;)
Pops in continental Europe I don't think Aldi and Lidl are thought of as bargain basement at all.

Popperwell

Possession wrote: »

Kittie I also handle all finances, and DH is a chartered accountant!;)
Pops in continental Europe I don't think Aldi and Lidl are thought of as bargain basement at all.

Aldi is all over the place including Australia and the US...they are simple games but on the Aussie website they even have some free online games...

Having a bit of a wobble today...can't pin it down to anything in particular, just a strange day...

If I go out it's horrible and can only walk around the same few shops and may spend un-neccessarily. If I stay indoors there's nothing happening. Besides my main shop is planned for tomorrow at Aldi's even if that adds more taxi fares...I wish that was put towards the goods instead...they still say November for our store to open, I hope it has as good a range of goods as the one I have found in the neighbouring town.

I fear getting used to having an even more limited income in the future and being even more thrifty...though I am sure I can do it...

mcculloch29

I've lived in Germany and shopped at both Aldi and Lidl. Lidl wasn't particularly 'bargain basement' back then, (70s/80s/early90s) but Aldi certainly was, although the chain worldwide has upped its game since those times (I last went in a German Aldi in Dec 1992).
BTW Pops, my daughter Trudi works in the B.A. Aldi, which is the one you use, I presume? She's been there some 6 years now, started at the store when it used to be in the bus station. I miss it being there, though my son takes me through when an Aldi shop is needed. But like you, I can't wait for ours to open. It really is taking shape now!

Evie74_2

Afternoon all

Just a quick post as I dip in from tackling Mount Washmore... Very warm and quite unpleasantly humid here today, but hopefully everything should dry.

Just done a fairly heartbreaking tour of the veggie garden, it's all just been eaten or rotted . Even the raspberries look like they're dying back now (not grown them before: is it normal for them to start dying off now or have I got some other hideous blighty thing to contend with? Apologies for stupid question, but I know that many of you are much more experienced gardeners than I am!).

I still get the eye-rolling "zombie apocalypse" remarks from the wider family; I just don't bother talking about my stores any more. DH used to think it was quite odd but he's come around to my way of thinking now thanks in part to his job loss and the various crop failures around the world (and in a small scale in our own garden). I've sold it to him as an alternative savings scheme - buying things which will keep while they are affordable as insurance against a time when we might not be able to get them so easily, either because of money problems or supply problems.

I wish my grandparents were still around; they lived virtually self-sufficiently until well into their eighties and taught me such a lot (although there was and is always room for more!). I wish I had written down more of what they told me as then I wouldn't have to ask daft questions on the internet about raspberry canes! My grandad lived through two world wars and a great depression and he was such an amazing, resourceful man - they don't make 'em like that any more!

Anyway, wistful post over. Better get back to the laundry (am starting to feel like a Victorian washerwoman!)

Evie xx