NOT BUYING IT! 2015 - A consumer holiday

maria3104

eandjsmum wrote: »

Evening Shipmates


(hugs to Suki- take care)


A NSD here, But Aldi tomorrow.


I have taken loads of pic of all the clutter in the house. I intend to clear it. Lots of it's mine, but not all of it. This evening I have tidied 3 shelves in one of our bookshelves. The trouble is OH is a worse hoarder than I am. I brought A very large box home from work today and I intend to fill it with stuff for the CS. We have piles old books and loads of DVDs that we will never watch
The trouble is that a lot of them are not mine. OH still has piles of his toys at his parents house and that will have to be cleared in the not to distant future. I think he thinks that he can bring them here. oH by the way his parents are hoarders by the way. I think that he has learn't his behaviour from them, but that wasn't the way that I was brought up. When we married my hoarding got worse partly because I was trying to lay claim to my part of the house. I thought, wrongly that if I bought things he would have no where to put his stuff. He doesn't criticise me for this, he just buys more. right now we have a large 2nd hand Record player sitting on the floor of our living room. He brought it on e-bay they must have seen him coming. Now I am going to please myself and start to de-clutter in earnest. May be he may see the errors of his. ways.


On a brighter note spending is vastly down and all excess has been stashed safely away in an ISA.
I am working on cash only from now on. If I haven't got
it I cant spend it.

I think we may be married to the same man! Yikes:rotfl:

I began last autumn decluttering and began with my stuff, that was easy, then after XMAS did DH clothes, he started it by saying he did not have any trousers, he had 20 pairs. I got rid of 30 and around 50 other items.

Then books, over 1000 charity shopped, 10 amazon traded in and 2 sold on ebay. Still have hundreds but the real dross is gone.

I still need to do 2 wardrobes and one DS grown up left home bedroom. At that point I will start on other areas, like dvd drawers etc.

Good luck, my children and I can really FEEL the difference, house is finally easy to clean and DH moans but I am moving stuff around before throwing so if he misses something I can produce it like a rabbit from a hat. Then I dump it!. Over 100 black bags and 85 shredded paper bags GONE in jan. It feels good.

Good luck. Maria p.s. I love Mellon you tube clips, more love less stuff, he has kept me going.

vulpix

I agree about the massive choice in supermarkets.I worked in the states and canada in the 80's and was overwhelmed by the choice of products but thinking about it we have caught up !

I shop in aldi with a trip to supermarket a few times a year to source things they don't sell,stuff like brown rice etc

so far this year we have spent £45 on food and I haven't particularly been trying to cut back .It's a similar shop every week,creatures of habit.

Blumin wardrobe!!!!!!!!!!!!! wardrobe 1 Vulpix 0

pliers related incident resulting in a very sore thumb which keeps bleeding.

We are forecast a lot of snow.

take care shipmates. Vx

[Deleted User]

I needed to buy a small electrical so went on amazon, germany because the euro is so low. I got the item 25% cheaper than on amazon uk, which was already cheaper than anywhere else uk I already have a maplin euro adapter

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/euro-two-pin-to-uk-three-pin-adapter-white-mw44x

Maria that is a fab result, I can just imagine you being like a whirlwind

[Deleted User]

Good morning everyone just sitting here reading through the posts and it reminded me that I have a small red hard back notebook that I kept from the summer of '67 when I was pregnant with my eldest DD.We were particularly broke (nothing unusual there ) and I had started listing every penny I had to spend and sketchily writing the first of my many menus here is an example of one page

12 x large egg 1s/4d ( 7p)
3lb x onions 9d (4p)
3x Camay soap 1s/6d ( 8p)
Large box x cornflakes 2s/4d (12p)
6 x oranges 2s/00 (10p)
Large tin Nescafe coffee 8/6d (43p)
2lb sugar 1/4d ( 7p)
Cooking oil.Mazola 3/7d (22p)
spring onions 1/- ( 5p)
4 rashers bacon 2/3d (12p)
2 x pork chops 3/- (15p)
1/2/lb butter 1/6d (8p)
1/2lb cheese 1/8d ( 9p)
Radio Times 6d (3p)
Sunday joint (leg of lamb) 17/- (85p)
Braised Beef 4./- (20p)

these prices seem absurd to today prices but my late OH was earning basic of £15.00 per week plus overtime so for a 50+ hour week which he often did he would bring home around £25-8 per week.Out of this I had £10.00 for housekeeping we paid 4 guineas rent and around ten shillings (50p) for gas and another 10 shillings for electric.(50p) I also bought 1 hundred weight of coal at around 12/- (60p)The milkman delivered and that was normally around 16/- (80P) and when the baby arrived I also had milk tokens for extra milk.There was no allowance for the first child only the second.

I cooked from scratch as much as possible as there was very little frozen food avavilable and my table top fridge only could hold a tiny pack of peas or a flat pack of fish fingers (never liked them much anyway )

My OH used the car to get to and from work, but before we had saved up and bought it, he went on the bus and would walk to the next bus stop every day as it saved another shilling.We fed fairly well (Ostermilk was 4/-(20p) a tin ) and my nappies were hand washed or boiled on top of the stove as I had no washing machine or spin dryer, I had a tiny mouli-grater and what we ate was mushed up for my DD as she grew big enough to eat solids food. Our TV was our own, so we didn't have to rent it I saved stamps up to buy the t.v. license Think it was about £4.00. Water rates and council rates came in with the rent .We would take the baby out to the park at weekends or on the bus out to the countryside with a picnic if we were flush.

We shared a toilet with two other families and had no bath at all I would walk 5 miles each way to my sis-in-laws on a Wednesday so I could have a proper bath along with my DD in the pram.My sis -in-law was also producing babies around the same time so we exchanged baby clothes between us .Times were hard but what you don't have you don't miss.

I used to streeetch the leg of lamb until it squeeked at times when my OH had very little overtime:) as it did
roast on Sunday,
sliced in gravy Monday,
Tuesday was shep'pie (extended with a tin of baked beans mixed in )
Wednesday chunky odds and ends made a curry with rice
any scraps at all that were left were made into rissoles for Thursday.
By the time next doors dog got the bone it was scarped almost clean.
Friday night was fish and chips but these were HM as a big bag of spuds that my OH brought home now and again from a pal he knew would sit in the dark on our outside landing and last us for ages.

There was a nice wet-fish shop near to us and I would get some 'tail ends' off cuts of cod or what ever and make them once floured and egged and breadcrumbed into our fish and chip supper.I could get a decent sized bag for about 3/- (15p).Nothing ever was wasted and we lived well and always had fruit in the bowl on the table

Clothes were sometimes a bit of a problem, but what I didn't knit I would scour the shops for or take a long walk with the baby in the pram to the other side of Croydon where it starts to get 'posher ' There I saw my first charity shop and bought some smashing bits for my DD.I remember buying a lovely aran cardi for her for 2/- (20p) and it lasted both her and her little sister when she came along two years later.

I walked everywhere with the children pushing the pram 9Was a size 10 in then and Croydon in those days had a very good street market so fruit and veg were cheaper that a supermarket .

Sainsburys was the big supermarket in Croydon then in the Whitgift centre but I rarely went in there.

In South Norwood where we lived there was a lovely David Griegs shop and you could buy 'Kensington Cake' by the pound for 2/4d (12p) and my OH loved a chunk of that in his packed lunch. Today near to where I live is a mammoth Tescos with aisles of tinned stuff and I really hardly go there as to walk around it and see everything would take up too much of my valuble time

At the end of the day a tin of beans is just that, and I don't eat the tin anyway. Superstores don't appeal to me at all as I just think that they are just too over priced I shop now, as I did then, by cost not looks .I have spent a total of £23.69 this month so far and I have a £5.00 voucher that my friend gave me for Aldi's to use up by close of business tomorrow I shall go and have a look and if there is enough stuff there to tempt me then I will buy and use my voucher but if not I will give it to someone in there to use I like to spread the happiness :):)

Live_laugh_love

Wow Jackie O,times were certainly different then. As a child in the 70s my parents weren't very well off, but it's really only now that I realise how much they had to scrimp and save to give me and my brother a lovely childhood. Mind you back then green shield stamps,buying things from catalogues for Xmas was all normal to us and we had the same type of freezer box. And ours usually had fish fingers in it too!!!

It's very windy here and raining at the mo so while I would normally have a pleasant 20 minute stroll up to the high street, thought stuff that and took the car!! Used 30p I found in the bottom of my bag for parking so felt like free!!!

Stay safe if you get horrendous weather!

[Deleted User]

I was born in the 60s and remember the 70s well. 3day weeks, powercuts. We had a big old Victorian house
My parents couldn't afford to heat every room so my mum used to walk round in her coat and boots to keep warm.
We had night lights in the firegrates in the bedrooms as they never heated the bedrooms. And the hallway upstairs was long and narrow so when we had baths the oldest went first and my mum would bang on the ceiling for the next one to come up with the metal saucepan she used to wash our hair with...

[Deleted User]

I still have, and use my first and only ironing board which I got with my Green Shield stamps from the shop in Dartford after we moved there in 1971 to our first house (a.k.a.money pit) I had saved for ages to get it, and it is rather heavy, but quite large If I had a pound for every bit of ironing I have done on it over the past 44 years I would be rolling it in :):) My eldest DD says when I shuffle off she is going to nab it as its so sturdy.Before that I just used a blanket and an old sheet on the dining room table. :):)

Live_laugh_love

My mum still has hers too, and that weighs a ton. I hate to think how many ironing boards I've had!!!As the eldest I'm having first dibs on hers!!!(in many many years time I hopex)

skint_chick

Haven't been on for ages and has just taken me almost an hour to catch up with the thread. I switched to Santander recently and am happy with the 123 account and credit card, I am still with Halifax too for the Reward current account's £5 a month. So I'm getting about £20 a month just for paying direct debits, buying groceries and paying in wages.

When I went to get my hair cut it was only £20 not the £25 I'd been expecting but I did get myself a new cardigan to replace a very old worn out one - although it was from Primark and cost £9 so I'm doing well on the NBI front. I got fresh veg to top up the freezer stocks and spent £12.71 but will need to do a big shop on Friday and am estimating about £50 to cover the next couple of weeks. I also have to get a new fridge freezer as a friend checked ours and confirmed replacement parts would cost almost as much as a new one.

I need one with lots of veg storage and fresh meat as this is most of my diet. I'd like to have 2 litre bottles of water (and Coke for OH) in the door but also space for my coconut milk and sauce bottles. Then we have cheese and meat for OH's work lunches. I've been struggling to find a 55cm model that has deep enough veg drawer/s for broccoli/cauliflower/cabbages but are also big enough to store our rabbit's greens. They all seem to have really small veg compartments that would only hold a handful of carrots! I've seen some lovely family sized fridge freezers with big veg compartments then a fresh meat/fish section above but they are all too deep or too wide for the space we have. So I may have to buy the biggest small one I can find and then customise it with plastic tubs myself. I am getting ridiculously stressed over buying the 'right' one because it's a long term purchase

edwink

I don't use an ironing board but I do actually own one though!! I do not iron unless it is for something special or an item that needs to be extra smart for going out. I always buy clothing items that do not require ironing or hardly any ironing!! I hate ironing anyway. :eek:


Just think of all the electric my hubby and I have saved over the past 26 years of marriage. :rotfl:


Edwink x