Make do, Mend and Minimise in 2015

cheerfulness4

Thanks for that Ches. Just had a quick google and it turns out you can watch it online, on freesat and freeview, too.


http://craftdaily.co.uk/


I've just had a sneaky peek.

I_want_a_baby

Morning all,

Last night the wind was blowing and it was rainy and wet. I counted my blessings for our log fire, we were lovely and cosy and the residual heat gently dried two loads of washing while we slept.

We need to go to nearest middle sized town today to get:
A booster seat for my son who has outgrown his car seat. Considered reviews, different places we could buy, safety etc and chose one for £25 which when son is taller can have the back removed and be just the booster and will last for the next 8 years! Mindful spending.

Also need to get him a pair of trainers (he only has wellies or school shoes and has a sports birthday party to attend tomorrow). Plus a present for the friend who's birthday it is.

The aim is to go and spend only on these three items!

It is 1/3 of the way through the month and I am pleased to report that both cars have more than 2/3s of a tank of fuel, the food budget has over 2/3s of the budget left and we have been living exactly as planned so far. Making do with what we have, using up what we have rather than buying what we want and generally living frugally. It's been fab!

Happy Saturday everyone, have a fabulously make do and mend day xx

thefrugalflirter

Well done IWAB - just goes to show what a difference the Make do and Mend mindset can make.

Cheerfulness - That sausage dog pin cushion looks so cute! My nan used to have a draught excluder that was shaped like a sausage dog, I'm pretty sure she made it herself too, can't wait to see what it turns out like.

I definitely agree that you never really learn it all, I'm always seeing new ideas and inspiration from Pinterest, blogs and of course the OS message boards! I think it's because the 'make do' mindset means that we are constantly thinking up creative ways to fix things or find good substitutes.

Bobarella - I think that's great setting an example like that for your little boy, looking back on when I was at school, they never really taught us about finance, I left school blissfully unaware of what mortgages, credit card debts or overdrafts were! That was over a decade ago so things may have changed. I also think that food technology class didn't really 'inspire' - we were never really taught basic skills, and I remember a whole terms project was just to design a filling for a sandwich, what a waste of time!

naturaljazz

Thanks Ches and Cheerfulness4 the link to the craft programmes is great. I dont have a TV so anything like this is very welcome

GreyQueen

Morning all.

I enjoy the Frugalwoods blog, too. They're a DINKY couple, obviously in lucrative careers, as were Mr MMM and Mrs MMM before they took early retirement and had their child.

It's going to be easier to save shedloads before you start your family and if you both work full-time in well-paid careers (although we should always remember that most lucrative careers are preceded by several years of higher ed when people are ususally earning little or nothing and racking up student debts which have to be addressed out of the high salary).

But I know plenty of people IRL who are in the same positon, and planning to start a family in the next few years, who aren't using their unencumbered earnings to clear debt/ build a nest-egg. If you can't afford to run your life on two full-time salaries with no kid to support, how the heck will you manage on one-and-a-bit salaries and one or two kids? MMM frequently writes about their peers and how they live up to their income and then some and are constantly in financial trouble. Big earners are often big spenders and perhaps even big debtors.

I'n in the process of doing my personal accounts from 2014 (I use the calendar rather than the financial year, as just doing it for my own education, not to submit to the tax man, I am on payg taxes). And I have managed to spend under 50% of my very modest income.

I'm not going to achieve financial independance, given my age and my health problems, but I love the peace of mind of having some resources and no debt. When my washer died just before Xmas and I decided to buy a new one, I could pay for it outright without breaking sweat.

So, I would say that bloggers like the Frugalwoods and MMM have very valuable lessons to teach without feeling that because we don't operate anywhere near their income levels, that we can do nothing. I particularly enjoy MMM's robust attitude to 'in-sourcing' (not paying others to do things you can easily learn to do yourselves) and his pursuit of badassity in all things.

Today I will do one last check of the sewing supplies, to make sure that I don't have a suitable zip in the salvage, and go buy one if necessary, to replace the damaged one in a pair of trews. They're well-worn faves, I guess some people would bin them rather than repair, but I can see another 1-2 years' use in them once re-zipped.

Then I will do some batch-cooking and potter around the homestead, treating myself gently as still recovering from a bad cold. Weather is pretty rough, but I don't have to spend much time out in it.

good_advice

Good mornig make do and mend bloggers.
What a windy night last night. I was very thankful of being all warm and cosy in my bed.
Lots of wind and rain today. Thats ok as I do not plan to go out.

Today in making do I shall=
put the washing machine on and hang wet clothes up to dry.
give TLC to my conservatory plants. Each winter I bring in my hanging baskets of geraniums and stand. Some dead heading nees to be done and
pop the baskets on the patio for the rain to water them.
Need to wash breakfast dishes, then dance with Dyson. Mop kitchen floor.
Being a self cleaner must save a few bob. I think cleaners can earn about £10 per hour?

Always have computer work = surveys, fill out competitions and today i have to set up a new energy saving device that is computer based.
Yesterday I won x20 tea bags in a travel pack from Yorkshire tea. It was a prize draw win.

Sometimes, I think I am lucky that I can take photo's and print the special one's straight off the desktop onto plain computer paper. It has saves some £'s. We have alot of family photo's on the walls. Last year, I went to a supermarket and had about x20 photo's printed off from the photo machine. I was shocked at the price and the que I had to join.

Well now! better get started at the cleaning and tidying.
Back again!
Cut up an empty cereal box = can be given to small visitor for crafting or sometimes I cut up strips for shopping list.
The cereal bag washed out = very usefull food storage bags. i sometimes put Hm cakes in to gift to family when we go visiting.
Cut up empty plastic milk bottle to make a hanging tray. Have seen people use them to put plants or useful household items in.

Prinzessilein

Good afternoon all!


Very blustery day here...and quite a driving rain too....a day for staying indoors!


I am about to have lunch...homemade soup taken from the freezer....mixed veg and barley...just the thing for a cold day!


I managed to get the bedding washed and dried this morning - pleased to get that out of the way.


This afternoon I want to go through a pile of magazines I have on the table...there's a knitting pattern in one.....some recipes in a few of them...and I'm fairly sure one of them had a link to a website I wanted to check out if I could only remember which!....so I am going to settle down with a cuppa later and go through the magazines, take out the articles I want and then take the old magazines either down to the communal area for others to read...or for a few of them straight down to the recycling bin.


I had a box of Turkish delight for Christmas (I don't have a very sweet tooth..but love that stuff!)...it is all gone now, but I have the box left - a lovely bamboo-style round tub...I am thinking of covering the lid with a bit of sticky-back plastic and then saving the box to refill with home-made sweets as a gift later.


I think I might make some scones later too...use up some milk 'on the turn' and also a chance to use up some more of that jam I got for Christmas! (Mum's popping by tomorrow, she'll not say no to a nice fresh scone!)


So....a quiet afternoon all-in-all!

Bobarella

Grey Queen - that is such an excellent appraisal of the FWs & MMMs. I also think with all the bloggers you have to remember they are choosing what to show you. So its always good to have that take it with a pinch of salt mentality too. That is an excellent savings rate you must be very proud.

GreyQueen

Bobarella wrote: »

Grey Queen - that is such an excellent appraisal of the FWs & MMMs. I also think with all the bloggers you have to remember they are choosing what to show you. So its always good to have that take it with a pinch of salt mentality too. That is an excellent savings rate you must be very proud.

Thank you.

I've read the MMM blog from start to finish since I discovered it last summer and I like his style, although his fearlessness makes me gasp at times - somehow I wasn't surprised to find from some of the posts that his hobbies include mountain-biking like a maniac and snow-boarding hell-for-leather around the Colorado mountains.:rotfl:

MMM doesn't pretend to be other than a middle-class person who writes predominantly for other middle class professionals who are afflicted with the hamster wheel of endless life-style inflation. Y'know, where the good salary is eaten up and then some by all the must-haves, must-do etc. So you have to 9-5 til 65 because you can't control your lifestyle inflation.

I don't operate in that milieu, even though I see a bit of it on the sidelines with professionally-employed friends and acquaintances. I used to think that this was the sort of lifestyle I would aspire to myself, back when I was young and ignorant. My big plans got derailed by chronic fatigue syndrome since aged 20 (hey - I had it before it was officially recognised, anyone remember 'yuppie flu'?). And, even if they hadn't, I suspect I would have reached the slacker mentality anyway, as I am very disinterested in most of the things which consumer drones are supposed to be selling every waking hour to achieve.

One thing which MMM and the other financial indepenance bloggers do is that they will typically tell you about their screw-ups. He has them listed in his roll call of posts, plus Mr1500 days, when he does his regular interviews with other bloggers, always asks them what their biggest mistakes were, and they come forth with some doozies.

In the interests of full disclosure, my biggest mistakes were studying for an arts degree not something more practical and catching glandular fever (which triggered the ME) whilst doing it.:p

Florenceem

meritaten wrote: »

just read through this thread and couldn't help noticing how many people have a sewing machine they don't use!
Are you scared of it? Can I share how I was taught to use a machine? I was trained as a seamstress by a factory which made clothes for Sparks and Marks. in the olden days when their buyers were the fussiest people on the planet!
the very first day on the machines we didn't even thread it up! We were given a pile of scrap paper and told to stitch straight lines! two days later most of us had got the hang of that, and then we were told to sew the 'wavy' lines on the paper handed to us. only when we had the lines perfectly aligned with the printed lines on the paper were we allowed to thread up the machines! from there we went to circles and squares.
it taught us how to control the machine, how to control the line of stitching (even at high speed) and how NOT to put your fingers in the way of the needle! without wasting material and thread. I highly recommend doing this with beginners and with new machines (they all behave differently)
When I teach the grandkids how to use the sewing machine I do this .
btw - I hate sewing - but I can do it when necessary, and to a very high standard.

Snap - how I was taught to sew. Those M&S folk were always coming down to the factory and inspecting the finished clothes.