Make do, Mend and Minimise in 2015

Lynplatinum

Hiya Folks

I ve not done too much today - a bit of Making do tho!! Had new recipe for a tuna based salad with potatoes and grilled/roasted peppers. Thought 'Oh dear I have no cans of tuna in but I need to use up those spuds and those peppers' then the MM&M spirit kicked in and I thought 'you dozy twit!!! You ve got tuna stakes in the fridge - use one of those!!!' so I used up the peppers and the pots!! The salad was yummy!

It goes:

Boil potatoes - steam fresh green beans on top of these; put peppers on a flat tray - sprinkle with olive oil and salt and pepper - grill till charred at edges; arrange salad leaves on plate (I added some chopped tomato too); grill tuna stake or open can of tuna if using; make salad dressing - in to a jam jar with a lid put - 1tablespn red wine/cider vinegar, 4 tablespn olive or sunflower oil, 1/2 tablespn lemon juice, 1/2 teaspn Dijon mustard, salt, pepper, 1 tablespn finely chopped tarragon (mine is doing v well in garden in a pot and needed trimming so it bushes out!) - shake ingredients together. Layer warm potatoes and peppers and tuna on top of salad - top with dressing.

It is a warm salad and the dressing will last in the fridge for about 2 weeks (tho its so nice I cant see it hanging around in anyone's fridge for long!!)

Vulpix - sorry to hear your scars are not healing yet - sending good vibes
Cheerfulness - yeap I m so thrilled with my little tomato plants & pepper plants - I keep on talking to them!! Thanks for inspiring me to try growing them!
Nurse Maggie - I ve been reflecting on what you said about being on here because you need to be. 1) Although I teach (not full time or formally) I have always felt that nurses should be paid more - on a par at least with teachers - there is no way I could do what you guys do - you work over your hours and way beyond your remit - if I always thought they (nurses) are living saints my view was confirmed when I broke my leg last year!! 2) I too am on here because I need to be - it might not sound like it from my posts but thats because I try to keep positive. This thread has made me realise why I keep on not making ends meet - I have always been frugal (I hate wasting food/petrol - I am a passionate environmentalist!) so why was I always skint? Answer I keep on going out and enjoying me self!!! Also I work as a freelance teacher - employed on the home teaching circuit (elective withdrawal from school) and those excluded from school ( and not in a PRU cos they ve been thrown out!). My work is therefore sporadic and non existent during school holidays - so I need to learn to be a lot more careful and stop assuming it will get better! LOL

Also I was owed £10,000 for work I did for a company that dissolved itself (owners moved abroad) from 7 years ago - I am almost recovered from it - be Nov 2015 I will (if things go on as they are) be debt free!!! YEA! :T

The good news is that by being on here I really am saving and can do SOME (but not all) of the stuff I used to do by saving for it and therefore enjoying it with a clear conscience!!
I would be very interested in hearing why others think this thread helps and (if they dont mind) why they joined in the first place!

Sorry - bit of a long post but what with recipes and reflections.

[Deleted User]

Bit late by hiya chums,I noticed on my washing-up bottle (huge Fairy ) I started it on 2nd January:) and its only half empty.I am really pleased,but then I only usually wash up last thing at night before going up to bed.As there is only me, I have found one good squirt does a bowlful:).

Tonight for dinner I had one plate knife and fork,one small plastic bowl from the freezer that had mash in(straight from freezer to m'wave ,and one pyrex jug which had freezer mixed veg and a plate from lunch and one from breakfast and that was it for the day.Doing it once a day saves water and work,both of which I am in favour of
Just off to bed now for a read,I can hear little Lottie next door wailing, bless her she is teething and cutting two at a time,poor little lass.I saw her this afternoon and her poor Mum looked exhausted and Lottie 's little face was red and cross looking.Teeth are a nuisance arriving and departing aren't they
She is a lovely lass next door and I guarantee she will knock and always apologises if the baby cries.Doesn't worry me as having had two of my own and seven grandchildren the noise just washes over me :):) I do feel for them both.If the weather is better tomorrow I will offer to take the little one for a walk so her Mum can get a rest.Her OH works nights at the local hospital so its hard for her at times.

Election day tomorrow so I will be off to make my X, I'll be glad when all the hot air and nonsence talked by the politicians is over
Still not spent anything on food yet,but will probably go on Friday for a few odds and ends
Cheers chums
JackieO xxx

nursemaggie

I retired nearly nine years ago. My shortage of money has nothing to do with my former job but more to do with societies former prejudices which would still probably be around if it was not illegal.

After the birth of my second child I spent the next 15 years trying to get a full time job and being turned down because I had children. I had another late baby when I was 48 and I did manage to keep my job because by then it was illegal to get rid of me because of my child.

He was only twelve when I retired and we have been on our own since shortly after. You did not get a stamp credited when caring for your kids until the late 70s so I only get half a state pension and I have only worked full time paying for a pension for 20 years so I just don't get much just £1.53 too much for pension credit.

Since leaving collage 2 years ago my son has been out of work. We moved from West Sussex to Greater Manchester last year because rents up here are much lower here. My son was sanctioned for moving house. He has been sanctioned over and over again for not being able to afford a mobile phone, not being able to be in two places at once and various other spurious reasons.

He is not entitled to any money because he is still living at home. How can he do otherwise if he has no income? I cannot have any more money because he is over 18 so two of us have to live on one persons pension.

Actually we live quite well on that. I am surprised how we do manage to live on so little. I came across the government website which is supposed to do what MSE does. All it taught me was how to stop spending on, takeaways, eating out, mobile phones, credit cards and a million other things we have never been able to afford.

Luckily a few days later someone forwarded the MSE newsletter to me. I joined the forum a months later and saved all the useless government site promised to save me. I had already done the reducing the bills stuff so I tried the down branding of our groceries. Moving my grocery shopping to Ald! did wonders plus lots of things were switched to value brands. I now buy all my meat in our local market, It is good for fresh fruit & veg and a frozen food section too. My biggest saving is fresh chicken pieces at £5 for 1.8kg. They are all sorts of odd shapes but there are no bones and very little fat so no waste. It tastes just as good as chicken fillets as it is all breast. We occasionally have a whole chicken because that feeds us for 5 days but we do get bored with all that cooked chicken.

We don't have a TV because of the cost of the licence. We do watch things on iplayer etc. There is masses of both entertainment and educational material on You Tube. I do not end up watching rubbish because there is so much more I just switch off and try something else.

I watched the C word tonight it was very good. Those who have not watched it iplayer is very easy to use.

We rarely go out, last year we went to the cinema once for the first time in years. Our last holiday was over 6 years ago and I won that.

vulpix

I have never been wasteful as my Mother taught me well.

I married and had 2 children and my husband ran off with someone young enough to be my daughter that he worked with.He got away with never paying maintenance and I worked as a teaching assistant because of the school hours and holidays.He had run up a lot of debt which I paid off and I managed to buy a house.He has not been in the kids lives and has another family and is bankrupt.

We were very hard up,if the kids got invited to a party buying a present for a fiver was 1/3 of our food money.I cut the kids hair and all clothes and christmas presents were second hand or home made.All furniture,carpets etc were second hand.All food was homemade.We didn't have a telly,I never used the phone to keep the bill low.I did however have the heating on when it was cold.

As the kids got to be 13 they got a paper round and that funded a mobile for themselves.As they got older they worked more and had a bit of money they paid for us to have the internet.We went camping for holidays for weekends,a week was too expensive.

I realize now that I isolated myself for 15 years.I was so heart broken and ashamed to be divorced.My kids were the ONLY kids in their school to have divorced parents,imagine that now a days!I never socialised with people from work.Very nice people but no clue about being hard up.They were all married to professionals too and money was no object.

Things carried on,they both went to uni.The eldest got a first from Oxford and won prizes,he teaches English,the other as you know is just finishing and will be a speech therapist.She has also won prizes.

I could have not bought a house and had more in my pocket but I had a house before I got married(I was a social worker)and it was important to me not to rely on anyone.

Then I met Mr V.
I was in bed at 8pm on a Saturday night having declined an invitation to a colleagues house party on the grounds everyone but me was a couple.The house phone rang,I ignored it.My mobile rang(kids cast off)I ignored it.Then I got a txt from my neighbour."I know you are in I can see your light on,OH gone to Silverstone come for a brew"So i went.She told me he had gone with his friend and had a light bulb moment! "he is nice,a widow,got a little girl,will fix you up".no,no,no,no.Then she got sneeky"ooo you got a phone ,let me see,is this the camera,oh taken a photo and sent it to husbands friend oops!Sunday he phoned when he got home from Silverstone,Monday we went out ,6 years later here we are.

I joined the forum as I had had cancer was not enjoying work,coming in and going to bed so i could do it again the next day.I gave up work and felt that there may be some tips how I could save money as I don't financially contribute.And here I am wide awake from about 2:30 telling people my life story.

I am going to phone the estate agent when they open and withdraw the bid on the house,something just does not feel right.Vx

misstara

I joined MSE due to having over £10000 debt, mostly a leftover from student days when I had absolutely no concept of money and the rest from using credit cards to pay bills when OH was off work. I had read lots of debt free diaries and decided that I wanted to start one myself. Keeping the diary has had a huge effect on how I view money and keeps me generally focused on paying off debt.

I stumbled across this thread and thought it would help motivate me more towards becoming debt free never thinking I would become part of a wee community. I always enjoy reading and posting here, it's the first thread I read when I come on.

camelot1001

vulpix, glad you are going to withdraw the offer, your earlier post didn't seem as enthusiastic as it should have been! Well done for selling yours though.

Be back later.

vhalla1478

Morning Everyone,

I've read all your stories with sympathy, having been there myself; working too hard, going without, making sure the children were ok, laying awake all night worrying about debt and being too proud to tell anyone I wasn't ok if they asked.

My second husband drank all the profits from my business and then ran up so much unknown to me debt that we had to sell the house. Why did I stay as long as I did - because I didn't want a second failed marriage and I was on a treadmill of working, paying for the car and mortgage, keeping my customers happy etc. He didn't work at all because he had a 'bad back', and I found out too late had a long history of mental illness which he omitted to tell me about until after I was married to him. In the end I was told by my GP in no uncertain terms that if I didn't leave him I was likely to be dead within the year.

I've been single for six years now and although, in spite of my Caribbean adventure two and a half years ago, I had to start all over again, I have managed to put a comfortable home together, with hardly anything new at all. However, although I had been managing there was never anything left over for entertainment (unless I did it at home) and holidays. Having, like lots of you, stumbled across this forum, I hoped that I would find ways of saving and (I have) and maybe all the little tricks and economies I have learnt along the way might help other people who are struggling. The biggest unlooked forplus of all has been that we now all support one another - long may it continue.

Vulpix, I agree with Camelot, I'm relieved you have withdrawn your offer; you need to be in love with your home.

Sorry I didn't post a recipe yesterday - after supper with the tribe and then going shopping I had an early night.


So looking forward to putting faces to those of you who can meet up at Jan's.

Have a good day. I'm going to tackle the ironing!

Viv xx

vhalla1478

oops, sorry, forgot to say, thank you for the info on fabric conditioner, Cheerfulness and also others' input. I'm beginning to suspect that it's one of those things that I buy automatically, so shall try a few washes without it, especially now, hopefully the washing can go outside. In fact I seem to remember reading somewhere that you shouldn't use conditioner on towels - maybe a build up of something in the conditioner?

Viv xx

janb5

I am amazed that amongst all the stories that we have such a lot in common. I empathize with a lot of you feeling ashamed to be divorced and bringing up three boys on my own. My husband left me for another woman and also managed to get sacked from his job shortly after we split up. So he only paid for their upkeep for about three months!

I remember very clearly shopping around for solicitors and feeling as tho it was like the Three Bears to find a solicitor I trusted. My ex also managed to intercept the letters in between his solicitor( where he worked ) and mine which was crazy as he delayed the divorce.

I was very upset that my marriage didnt survive and am quite wistful when I see other couples who did stay together. However I remember that my parents didnt celebrate 25 years together because my father died young and one of my best friends lost her husband at 48.

Looking back, no one gives you a blueprint to cope with a divorce and you just have to muddle through on your own. I made loads of mistakes and am still making mistakes! When I was first on my own I was working `bank`(temporary Health Visitor) jobs and was struggling ++

I joined this site quite by chance having watched Martin on tv. I go to this thread first because it is friendly and supportive and non judgmental. I am looking forward to meeting new friends at the MSE South Meet which is likely to be Friday 12th June now.

cheerfulness4

Conditioner is supposed to make towels less absorbant. Ironically they are the one thing that I really noticed a difference in softness.
I try to watch them on the line in the hot weather as they can become almost hard baked, even my lovely Christy towels. The obvious advantage is that if you do leave them to dry out too much they do buff your skin smooth when you dry yourself, a win, win really.

House to myself this morning so going into Super Woman mode as DH has 4 days off after he does his shift tonight. That always means lots of gadding around and neglecting the housework. :whistle:

JackieO, I kept meaning to say, reading about you saving the blue toggles from your daughters little coat reminded me that I did it from the other angle.
Mum gave me her button box I loved to play with as a kiddie, and I saved this big pink button with tiny little teeth marks on the edges.
It was from a coat that mum used to wear when I was little and I still remember sitting on her knee hiding my face in her chest and nibbling on the pink buttons when I got shy when we were in public.

My story off why I needed this thread is in the first post. I realised from rezding these boards that there were many instances of ones who had successfully become debt free but who later went back in debt.
I know circumstances can throw us back into it in some cases and thats so sad but in others it might have been through lack of changing old habits.
I felt this could easily be us if we weren't careful.
I suppose I realised that if we didn't get our mind set right it didn't really matter how much money we had put by as savings, we would still get through it. I wanted to protect what we have now hence guarding our spending and planning well ahead for expected and unexpected expenditure.
Its been likened by others to running a business and I really do agree with that.
I take my job as Chief Housekeeper very seriously and love the role I play in stretching our budget. I can't do much with my arthritis do bring money in but you can betcha I'll do my level best to stop it going back out where I can.