Is frugal the new normal?

[Deleted User]

<<<sheesh, the world is full of silliness.>>>

You are spot on there GQ, and the older I get, the sillier it seems. Where I live there is a junk shop (now called the Vintage village )

No, its a junk shop full of second hand cast off junk. Basically stuff that looks as though its come from the tip and had a splodge of paint slapped on it.

The prices are certainly not junk shop prices though and I am amazed at how the 'I saw you coming' customers are flocking to the place.

I too have old much loved furniture which I would be loath to part with.My stuff would probably be thought of as 'vintage' but then again I am getting a bit on the vintage' side myself :):)

I sometimes have a mooch around a boot fair, and if I see something I can recycle with a dollop of paint and an even bigger dollop of elbow grease then I will buy it

I got my DD a very nice little bathroom sit-on cabinet for 50p which I rubbed down and repainted and fixed a new cork tile on the seat. Little bit of effort but it looks good in her top floor bathroom.Her house, having had five children, gets pretty battered at times so I don't think she has ever had brand new furniture ever bless her,but the kids are happy ,warm and well-fed which is more important than smart furniture.

Plus as she says I'll have time enough to get smart stuff when the children are grown and gone ( I didn't ,but then I like my own style too much anyway and my house is more ...homelier I think :):)

Good luck to those daft enough to part with their cash for over priced junk, I too am more on the 'peasant' side

I am at the moment knitting my DD a pastel shaded 'blankey' from recycled wool collected from here and there.It won't cost me much apart from the time and effort of making it .

All of my grandchildren apart from Henry have had 'blankeys' made for them by me. Henry's is the next one to be made when Dds is done His will be in scarlet and white for his beloved Liverpool football team. With luck it will be done by Christmas.

My eldest DGS still has his West Ham one which I made for him when he was 10 He is now almost 25.(claret and blue were horrible colours to knit though )

Looking around my little computer room I can see so many second hand bits and stuff I have found another use for in here.

My desk was one a neighbour was taking to the tip. Nothing wrong with it so I was happy to relieve her of it.My desk light was a cast off from someone else because they couldn't get it to work .A new fuse in the plug sorted that out

I hate waste of any description and if I can re-use or recycle it I will.failing that I will fine a new home for things.

But I was born and brought up in an era where everything had some sort of value and things ,whether food, clothes or furniture never were wasted.

JackieO

lessonlearned

I have been upcycling furniture for years, long before it became fashionable. I used to do all the grotty dirty prep work, sanding etc outside in the summer - in full view of the neighbours. I think some of them thought I was nuts - until they saw the finished results.

They then started asking my advice on how to do it.......;)

You can still buy good quality real furniture, by that I mean solid wood. Try the YMCA, Lighthouse, Mind and the British Heart Foundation - they all have furniture in their charity shops.

The thing is it takes time And patience to find the right pieces. You can't just say I'm going to buy a pine dresser today, you have to keep popping in and checking them out until you spy what you want. When you spot it, pounce. When it's gone, it's gone.

If you live in a city then check out the less salubrious areas for proper back street junk shops. Avoid antique shops and trendy "retro" shops - especially in pretty market towns and tourist hotspots. In a proper inner city junk shop will have to wade your way through a lot of dross - ie chipboard etc but there's always a gem lurking somewhere.

If you visit the same places regularly they will get to know you. Chat to them, tell them what you are looking for - often they will have something "out the back".....that they haven't the room to display.

Always take cash, it costs the retailer money to process plastic. You can haggle in junk shops, but it's bad form to try it in Chazzas.

Good hunting.;)

kboss2010

GreyQueen wrote: »

I know what you mean, kboss2010.



And gussying up lentils with a lot of expensive ingredients isn't being frugal, it's just being silly.

Jamie Oliver, I'm looking at you!!

His recipes are ridiculous in both the number of ingredients and the cost of said random things that you'll never use again. And this "buy a really expensive joint of meat/whole salmon... I know it's expensive but it'll last a week!" is just rubbish. What these chefs spend on one or two ingredients from a 'frugal' recipe, some families spend on food for the whole week!

fuddle

I'm putting my little paw up in support of TV chefs doing their thing 'frugally'. I have learned a little by watching, essentially it's been how to use herbs and what goes with what.

And dear auld Kirsty Alsopp? I have her to thank for my now life long craft of crocheting. After I watched her trying to crochet some string into a basket shape I decided to have a go. Here I am a number of years later in the last stages of crocheting myself a 100% (drops quite reasonably priced) cardigan.

I think Kirsty was faffing about with odd bits of tat long before it became fashionable.

With everything in life, watch and observe those things that interest, store what's canny and disregard the rest.

VJsmum

Good post fuddle.

I have just started to up cycle the furniture. Not because it's trendy - I didn't really know that it was - but because mine is well made but dated. I can't find anything that is the same quality and no one I this house would treat it well enough to justify buying quality new stuff.

Also I was looking at dining furniture in j. Lewis and I liked the painted up style but couldn't believe the price. Thought that I could do it and so I have been learning. I am about to do a G plan nest of tables bought from *bay.

Re food i quite like the idea of showing that lentils can be exotic? One of my favourite things is puy lentils and green beans with sausages on top. I had this in Le Puy en Velay in France and it looks v posh but is a fairly frugal recipe.

Teacher2

Caterina wrote: »

Ah, don't start me about the trend on "poor" food! I have the hysterics when I see the price of "polenta chips" (polenta being the staple of the poorest people of Northern Italy) or rocket (a weed!). Or offal! Not that I eat it, being vegetarian, but at one point offal was really only for the poorest people, now you get it served, in minuscule portions, at ridiculous prices, in the fanciest London restaurants!

This week my husband was charged £17 for a tiny portion of liver & polenta (peasant food) in Venice!

Teacher2

I have lived a very frugal lifestyle since I had my children and needed to retrench. I have never got into debt as it costs! I don't have a fancy phone and my TV was bought in 1990. I plan my meals and only buy what I need so I suppose I am an accidental 'greenie' too. I holidayed on Tesco's Clubcard points while it was still possible and my husband and I have a 'no presents' policy for Christmas. Some time as the kids were growing up the budget started loosening up so we had a bit more as a family but I wasn't tempted to splash out. Instead I paid sums off the mortgage and kept going with the frugality. When teaching became a nightmare which was making me ill I was able, due to all the retrenchment, to retire early even though I lost a quarter of my pension by so doing.

It seems to me that money is all about freedom and choices rather than 'stuff' but you need to be in control of the money rather than the other way round to make the most of your financial prudence.

As for the attitudes of other people I have been caught between the contempt of all the rich people (like my children's friends' parents) for my meanness and the envy of less prudent souls who think my comparative prosperity is down to 'luck'. You can't please others so you might as well please yourself and live as you will.

Teacher2

On the subject of recycling and upcycling furniture I have noticed that genuine antique furniture is now much cheaper than modern two-by-four, slap-it-together artifacts. A really nice Georgian chest of drawers will cost about £400 and you would pay £600 for an equivalent in, say, John Lewis. Amazing. The old stuff has just gone out of fashion but, of course, is still much nicer.

GreyQueen

Teacher2 wrote: »

On the subject of recycling and upcycling furniture I have noticed that genuine antique furniture is now much cheaper than modern two-by-four, slap-it-together artifacts. A really nice Georgian chest of drawers will cost about £400 and you would pay £600 for an equivalent in, say, John Lewis. Amazing. The old stuff has just gone out of fashion but, of course, is still much nicer.

If I was buying furniture, I'd be after the Georgian stuff, have seen examples in excellent condition at about the prices you quote. Can't understand why anyone would spend several hundred on new stuff when they could get the old.

I was very taken by a Georgian chest-on-chest for £600. Darn thing was taller than me!

ETA; gas engineer (am down to just one atm) likes the bread wiv herbs innit. Because of where I live, I did have to qualify to him that it wasn't that kind of smoking herb.

fuddle

Your blanket story always makes me smile GQ and the perfect example one man's trash is another man's treasure. I would love to see that blanket!