Make do, Mend and Minimise in 2016

Living_proof

silvasava wrote: »

Evening All. Nothing done today!!! Met up with some friends late this morning and only got home a little while ago. Had a good day yesterday though, a large bag of odds and sods to the CS and a bag of clothing to the Sally Army. I was also very lucky, my Godmother gave me back my sewing machine as she can no longer sew but when I got it home I didn't have the foot control and she lives 200 mi!es from me! I asked in my local hospice craft shop as they sometimes have machines donated if they had any spare and the manageress found one for me. I was really pleased as I didn't want to bother GM as she is getting frail now. I will now be able to complete some heavy duty mending

Karma! Well done and happy sewing.

Lynplatinum

Evening all

I am now back from my hols with DS1 and my beautiful DGD (now 6 months old) no internet there so am behind with e-mails as well!! So have had to deal with some of them first!

Had a brilliant time at Northampton's Umbrella Fair - all run by volunteers - at the end there were only 8 fellas left to get down 6 huge markees (sorry dyslexic and cant sort out this word ) such a shame - they need more folks if 10 people gave half an hour the problem would be solved. but had a fun time anyway - the poetry and story telling tent was wonderful - as was the sitar playing in the multi faith tent! Didn't get to see everyone I wanted to - so many great performers I just couldn't! :rotfl:

Also went to London for a friend's 40th and was v glad I did. He had invited 30+ of whom only me, my other friend who came with me and two others turned up But those of us who were there had a good laugh and chat about old times and have made plans to meet up in October when next I am up that way.

mrs-moneypenny - what a horrid injury! Jackie O sounds like you really had a rough few days! And anyone else who has been ill/injured hope you are all getting better!

As for me: well, like Jackie O, I overspent on holiday but am going back to the frugaling ways. For example, have been hunting down Chick Peas to re build my store cupboard (all though am determined not to let it get so out of hand again! for those that dont know - prior to my house move I lived on the stores and £5 a week for about a year!) 65p in M&S; 60p in Co-op; none in local Lidil (weird cos my one in MK ALWAYS had them in) so walked today to the furthest supermarket - Ald! and they were in their for 35p - so bought 2!!! Am trying to keep below £10 for next few weeks and under £10 for treats and hopefully underspend so that I save some monies too!!!
Minimise - Yesterday had to go out to do some business stuff and minimised a large bag of files and similar at a Charity shop and took a half boot load to the tip. So pleased with that.

Mend - well kind of - since I have been here some swine has been chucking stuff in my bin (which I have to keep outside of my property) so minimised the weeds outside my house and then scrubbed out the wheely bin (into which we are supposed to put one black sack) have put notice on the bin saying that if they need bin space to come and see me - otherwise - if I find out who is dumping stuff into my bin - I will return their property to them through their letter box!!! :mad:

So bin is clean and hopefully situation is also mended!!

Great to catch up on all of you Nite all!

misstara

Lyn glad you enjoyed your holiday. Can't believe your DGD is 6 months already, doesn't time fly?

Good luck to everyone who is refocusing on being frugal. I definitely need to join in, it just seems to be spend, spend, spend at the moment.

We've painted the living room in the new flat and put up curtains. OH wanted to buy a drill for this but luckily I managed to borrow one so that saved some cash. We picked up a couple of bedside cabinets and a chest of drawers that we found on freecycle, keeping a close eye in case anything else we need comes up.

We have been mostly eating from what's in but I will need to go to the shops today as I'm running dangerously low on coffee. I've got a sight test and a contact lens appointment to look forward to today and I'm meeting a friend for a catchup before. Looks like it's going to be another lovely day so will see if OH wants to go for a walk in the afternoon.

[Deleted User]

Hi chums had a nice free night out last night at the library The Medway towns libraries do lots of 'meet the authors' type talks and last night it was David hewson who wrote The Killing for TV .He actually wrote the TV version before he published the book.Really great evening with lots of free coffee and nattering with fellow book lovers It was peter James last month.Often if you look on the local council websites you find all sorts of nice events that are either free or very little cost.My kind of night out :)
I minimised my ironing and washing yesterday so I can 'play' for the rest of the week No shopping bought since last Friday when I got home from my holidays, fingers crossed it will stay like that if I can .More than enough stuff in stock anyway :):)
Will have a freezer rummage shortly to see what I can find for dinner tonight
have a good day chums what ever you are doing


Cheers JackieO xx

silvasava

Morning All - big list of jobs to be done. Hopefully most of them will be completed today. I power washed our drive on Tuesday and DH resanded it yesterday while I had my last acupuncture on my bum! I can finally move first thing in the morning now
We had fajitas for tea last night and neither of us could finish it all so I'll chop the remainder a bit smaller and put it in a big omelette for brunch. Not sure what to do for tea tonight will see what DH fancies!
Hope everyone has a good day x

Lynplatinum

Evening all

Well, at the other end of Hayle there is a real butchers and I spent £7 ish in there and came home with 8 big sausages; 2 large own make fagg*ts (which were delicious!); 8 thick rashers of smoked back bacon; 4 thick slices of a large black pudding. Several meals there!! More than sufficient for the week - will form a large part of next week's food too!!
Also drifted into the Co!p this eve - looking for a potato to jacket alongside sausages (always cook these in oven - otherwise I burn one side and leave huge white stripes down the side dunno why - along with English bread its one of the few things I dont cook well ). Hit the reductutions time - got a bag of salad for 35p + hosin and duck wrap for 85p. Am trying not too eat too much sugar in an attempt to loose weight - so wrap formed a snack while waiting for my tea to cook so that I didnt hit the biccies!! There was more reduced bread but I left that for someone else as I already had a reduced loaf and a wholemeal loaf in freezer!
So that's a kind of Make Do.
Minimised 2 more books today - one I flicked through - it was poetry and I thought my Mum was in it and so I had kept it and while it was quite good - it was not good enough to keep. The other book is one I finished reading but again, not good enough to keep.

No mending done but plants need tidying up tomorrow!!
Am keeping to my walking for an hour a day and end up often doing more as it is so lovely round here! :j
Nice fairly free event tomorrow is a cream tea in aid of Cornwall Wildlife trust - donations are asked for so will go along to support this excellent charity and walk the long way so the 2 hours walk should walk off the cream tea a bit!! :rotfl:
Am also determined to get to the library this weekend.
Nite all

iamsalt

Wow that's good value Lyn. I use my local butcher too, I love the sausages from there and it's always friendly and we have a good giggle when I go in there. The cream tea event sounds great.

Managed to get my entries into the village show in time. Not had a lot of time this week, so I am not hopeful on how I will do, but OH is thrilled to have the job of eating the lemon meringue pie trifle that I decided wasn't pretty enough for the show!

I am still plugging away at the old compost heap, it seems to go on forever. I am losing a little motivation to get through it, but I did spend sometime yesterday drawing a design for the little secret garden style seating area I want to create once it's done, so I hope that will help me find my compost heap digging out mojo again.

Tea is using up from the freezer, my lovely new fridge freezer arrived yesterday, and I found some unidentifiable meals in the old freezer which I don't want to transfer over, so I will use them up.
Have a lovely weekend
S x

savingpennies

Hi to everyone.
I feel like I have been away from ages I have been so busy We had DD2's boyfriend's family over from Italy, so we've had days out and meals to prepare. We had a great day out with all my family at Cartmel races. We agreed on how much to spend for the day and came back in pocket thanks to one or two races. We made the big mistake of not taking food with us (yes, yes, I can hear you all tutting, I should know better) - never again. It was expensive and not very tasty. Next year will be different.

Make do: I made roast lamb for Sunday lunch and had loads left over so made a lamb and lentil curry. The recipe I found in a Lidl mag, and it was delish made in the slow cooker. I'm always looking for recipes for leftovers when I cook roast on a Sunday so this is definitely in my recipe file.

Mend: It's all still there looking at me.

candygirl

Ooh Cartmel races! We love it n are very lucky as friebds own a cottage directly opposite the racetrack, so we stay there a lot.Agree about exorbitabt food prices though :eek:

Siebrie

DH has decided it's time to empty the freezer we have already had our first strange combo when we thought we had taken out bolognaise sauce and it turned out to be chili con carne!