NOT BUYING IT! 2015 - A consumer holiday

fairy3

Boborella - am with you on the NSD front, keep the money until you really need something that will bring you joy ; GQ has a great idea for 'extra money' given for presents which I am going to follow and have spare purse for said money - a sexy grubby purse with 'gobby cow' embroidered on it. Can't imagine why someone bought me that lol, I have slipped £20 note in there which I received today so have started already.
Aril - just remembered we made limoncello at the same time and mine is dynamite how did yours turn out? Am saving a bottle for a girls get together in March to make 'chocolate cake cocktails' and your day sounded perfect.
Am hitting me hammock as have to be up and doing tomorrow to visit aunt and uncle who is not well at the moment so lots of TLC to spread. Night maties xx

allybee101

Hope you all had a lovely day. A very relaxed family affair today, mum and I shared the cooking with a few glasses of bucks fizz. Halves the work and makes for a lovely morning for the two of us.
K9, thanks for the app tip. I'll have to do some research on that one. Have two family visits Boxing Day and Saturday so probably a job for Sunday.

thriftwizard

Merry Boxing Day, everyone! I've just deleted all the sales ad. emails (without looking - the last thing I need is more Stuff) and am planning a lazy day, with a good book this morning, a nice long walk by the river whilst some of our menfolk are off at the footie this afternoon, and a walk to our friends for a festive drink this evening. I'm not planning to cook anything; there's enough cold stuff in the fridge to feed a small army, and if any of the troops want something hot, they're quite capable of cooking it themselves.

Might have to stir my stumps enough to do a little spot of tidying up, though; I'm sure there was a floor in here yesterday! And I'll probably get dragged into a daft game or two...

115K

I have to admit that I was tempted by a clothes sale online and I did buy a few bits. I probably mentioned that I have been minimising my wardrobe but it is a bit too minimal at the moment. I needed a few bits like a pyjama top (well I bought a cheap men's t-shirt to wear instead) and a new skirt as one of the only two skirts I had stretched to a massive size around the waist for some unknown reason!

I didn't spend that much so I am hoping this will mean I will have to buy very little clothing in 2015 as I finally have a capsule wardrobe with lots of coordinating outfits.

I was up early today and had a lovely soak in the bath and was thinking about my plans for next year.:A

I am going to spend the day looking through some of the frugal/minimalist blogs people on here mentioned and then doing some housework and decluttering. The cupboard under the sink needs doing I think.

I think after that I will watch the rest of the Christmas films I taped and make something healthy for lunch and dinner as I want to improve my health.

skint_chick wrote: »

You should read this blog post on Minimalist Beauty to figure out the best oil for your skin type - this helped me get my oil cleansing sorted and my skin has never looked so good and the last person who guessed my age thought I was 28 (I'm 37 : D)
http://www.minimalistbeauty.com/one-year-using-high-linoleic-oils-exclusively/

Wow, she is gorgeous.:) I had a look at that and I will copy her idea of using oils. I used to use grape seed oil but then I ran out and switched to a "beauty" oil and it isn't half as good. Rosehip oil sounds nice so I might give that a try.

lessonlearned

Happy Boxing Day

well this is one lady who,will not be hitting the sales!!!! they csn go,whistle.

I sat down to watch my fave Downton Abbey and was appalled to see that just about every advert was for sales, plus of course, Downton has taken to heavily plugging their sponsors. Is there no escape from this brainwashing:rotfl:

I agree with GQ about keeping any money gifted to you.

I used to be a shocker for allowing money that was gifted to me to be subsumed into normal daily spending with nothing to show for it and I used to feel very guilty. I definitely don't do this now and yes I do treat myself.

My parents are elderly and frail and can no longer go shopping, so when they give me money I do buy myself something' and then I take it to show them what their money has bought.

Because my parents are probably not long for this world I now tend to buy something that I will be able to keep as a momento of them. This year I am going to save both my Christmas money and last years birthday money which I havent yet spent and put it towards a painting for my house. I have discovered a local artist whose paintings I really like and whose work, whilst very reasonable, is not exactly pocket money prices. This way I get something beautiful to treasure and remember my parents by. A couple of years ago I bought a special piece of handmade pottery with their gifted money.

So I agree if you can't think of anything right now then put it onto one side and allow yourselves a little splurge when you do see something you would really like. It doesn't have to be stuff, it could be a nice day out or a trip to the cinema or theatre.

I shall be visiting family today and will take my dad some Christmas treats. I bought extra with him in mind so I shall make him up a nice little food hamper today.

I shall of course be staying well clear of the shops and avoiding the sales mayhem.

tori.k

Same day on the cards here Thriftwizard it's my official day off a year
Penny seems have dropped with the family despite my idea of presence not presents the small gifts I received were practical..even from my mother a battle long fought

No food wastage as I brought just what I needed for a meal we were inundated with tins of sweets/biscuits from clients so I will pass them up to the food bank next week DH is diabetic so would still be eating them come Easter.

Looking forward to the New Year think many families will be glad to see the back of this one their is almost a tangible change in atmosphere with many feeling the burden of stuff I guess it getting harder to live in a consumerist driven society when housing is being built smaller and smaller.

parsniphead

Morning everyone. I hope you are all well.

After seeing the piles of stuff which others had brought for the 3 year old I know this path we are all on is the right one. Its never ceases to amaze me the tat people will send children.he is playing with a few bits but the stuff being ignored is going to be moved on quickly. I'm feeling like I want to get some stuff decluttered and sorted today but came down with a stinking cold yesterday so I will do as much as I can without wiping myself out.

I also have Christmas money giving to me weeks ago by mum to get a couple of jumpers but couldn't find anything I liked so I'm going to hang onto it and get some summer tops as mine we real thrown out a couple of weeks ago as they were full of holes.

Now I need to sort the garlic which I usually plant on boxing day.

Have a lovely day everyone.

Ali x

eandjsmum

No spend day here as well. It is not raining or snowing here so I have just fed the washing machine and I am thinking about tidying the greenhouse and cold frame then seeing what seeds we still have. I may even plant some.


I have already deleted a ton of sales e-mails. There is nothing I need.


I will keep the money gifted to me and buy something nice to keep with it thanks for the tip.

7_week_wonder

Today sees the start of my favourite part of the Festive break: operation left-overs!

We had my mum plus two other guests for lunch yesterday. The youngest of the three guests is 75 so we made sure we only did small portions as they all enjoy food, but they don't have large appetites. Despite us telling them not to, all the visitors turned up with presents and goodies: including the most enormous chunk of blue stilton. So it's broccoli and stilton soup (with the odd bit of left over cabbage and sprouts thrown in) for lunch, then ham with cranberry sauce and red cabbage for supper.

Today will be spent pottering and helping mum with her Christmas present. I've probably mentioned she was diagnosed with Alzeheimers earlier this year, so we got her a lovely photo album and we're helping her sort and label all her old photos. It is lovely helping her look through the old photos and jog old memories.

Effyb4 I'll join you in trying to grow more stuff in the garden. We've done it in the past but have slipped a bit recently. Rather than using books I tend to look stuff up on line. Plus the ship has its own resident allotmenteer (think buccaneer with a fork and spade rather than a cutlass) in the form of GreyQueen, who I am sure will keep us in order veg-growing wise.

Have a peaceful, restful Boxing Day everyone.

GreyQueen

Effyb4 wrote: »

I have been seriously thinking about using our garden to produce fruit and vegetables for us to eat. I have tried this in the past, but not very successfully. I hope in the new year to have another go at this. I have been thinking about buying some books to help me with this, but when perusing my bookcase today I saw a book about growing veg, so I don't need to go shopping after all.

I do think I am going to need some support though, as neither I nor OH are very green fingered.

Hi Effy, I'm an experienced veggie gardener, although each passing year adds to that experience. Have been grubbing away in the soil since a toddler and there are photos to prove it.

Firstly, veg and fruit need good light. If your garden is shady or overhung with trees you may have insufficient light to get crops, no matter how good your techniques. In which case, perhaps an allotment would be the way forward? I have one on the edge of town but live in a tiny tower flat in the centre.

This time of year is too early to plant stuff but you need to be working a little every weekend on your soil prep, I can't do anything after work at this season as the days are too short. I'm doing 2-4 hours per weekend on my 300 sq meters. Little and regular is the way to do it.

You want to be turning over soil with a fork to remove the roots of perennial weeds (anything with a tap root, like docks and dandelions, as well as the spiral bedspring roots of bindweed). A great little book is The Daily Telegraph Weeds. Another very useful primer is D G Hessayon's The Vegetable Expert. But you can get away with just reading the instructions on the back of the seed packets. Perfectly acceptable seeds are sold in Liddly, Aldee, Wilkos, £land. I would hang fire on buying vegetable gardening books (unless they fall into your hands for pennies) as there are many in the library system.

Top tips are; only grow what you and yours actually eat. If space is limited, avoid things which are relatively cheap such as spuds and ordinary old onions, and concentrate on veggies, fruits and herbs which are either very expensive, or seldom seen in the shops in decent conditon.

What you can do now is get manure into the soil. If you're going to be planting root veggies, don't use fresh manure, allow it to rot down for a year or more in a pile. This is because the nitrogen element is too strong and will cause the root veggies to grow forked and coarse.

The next few weeks are good times to drop your hands on onions sets in £land and look for fruit bushes in the same place or Liddly. Onion sets can be planted in a few weeks, just prod a row of holes in the ground and pop them in and that's it, apart from weeding. Seed potatoes will be appearing in the shops in Jan-Feb (I always buy mine mid-Feb) and can be sat up in egg boxes in a coolish but well-lit place to 'chit' - grow little shoots - before planting out about a month later.

Potato sowing is a bit nerve-wracking because you need to maximise the growing season but you don't want the leaves breaking through the soil before the last frosts, because they'll be damaged. Broad beans can be sown about Feb-March, as can early peas, but most things won't need to be planted until March/April.

I can't stress enough how important it is to get your prep done in these cold and unpromising days, as when Spring arrives, everything in nature will go VROOOMMM!!!! and you'll be running around like a headless chicken trying to do it all.

Oh, and dwarf french beans are excellent as they make little shrubby bushes about a foot tall, produce pods prolifically for a number of weeks and the pods only require topping-and-tailing for the saucepan.

Any specific questions, I'll do my best to answer and I'm not the only keen gardener hanging out on here. HTH.