Make do, Mend and Minimise in 2016

Treasurequeen

Weather is finally nice today so spent this morning out in the garden weeding and cutting things back ready for winter. Green bin and compost bin are now full to the top. Finished off two bread rolls with some soup for lunch. Tea tonight will be YS sausages, HM wedges and tinned spaghetti. Going out tomorrow morning for coffee and cake so that will be my breakfast sorted. How's everyones days going?

mumto2monkeys_2

I hope it is okay to join in... again!

I did a few months ago, but illness has seen me make too many excuses and drop back into bad habits. Now I have no choice. I am off work and facing a huge drop in income. So, I have to get myself into gear. I need to cut spends, bust debt and save, and get my home in order.

Today:

Mend - alter school trousers for DS. Crochet projects.

Make-do - I am boiling my first ever chicken carcass! This is very exciting . I have never done anything with one before. I only started eating meat after 26 years of being a vege this year, so I'm still getting to grips with it all. I've also boxed up leftovers. Today's leftovers mean stew tomorrow and I've saved a meal that can roll over onto another day. Feeling quite pleased with myself .

Minimise - I am embarking on yet another declutter and have a pile of clothes, DVDs, CDs and other bits. I am deciding whether to sell some of it, but I will most certainly be putting some out for the charity collection tomorrow.

I also minimised the apples off the trees in a local picking day. I have a massive bagful that will make flapjacks, crumbles, pies and tray bakes for a couple of weeks. £3. Just had a rather lovely crumble with some old ice cream after our cheap chicken dinner. Best meal we've all had in ages!

[Deleted User]

dND it is very hard to pin down estate agents in France as I know from my late brother who lived there.When he first bought a place out there he actually saw it advertised in the Exchange and Mart paper in England. Like most things in France ,especially rural places things are done at their pace .No where near as quickly as our busy way of life. There are several agents in Chef-Boutonne who specialise in Ex-pats wanting to return.Can't remember the name of them off the top of my head at the moment .
My late brother lived about 20K from there.
It is a very long slow process though.When he bought in 1995 it took him the best part of a year and his place was virtually falling down and he rebuilt it completely.He sadly passed away in May of this year and his son doesn't expect to be able to find a buyer for a long time yet as the market is pretty slow at the moment. I do hope you have better luck.

JackieO xx

Prinzessilein

Morning!

I have knitted a bag as a gift, and have just started knitting a hat to go with it. ...if there is enough wool left over I will do a small purse too. I cut up an old dressing gown (fleecy sort) some months ago to make linings for a couple of jewel boxes, and had a piece left over that was big enough to make the lining for the bag. Mum has agreed to crochet some flowers to sew on the bag.

Food today will be leftovers...veggies but a little cheese and egg will make an Auflauf/Frittata/Spanish omelette type of thing at lunchtime...last slice of gammon will be served with more veggie bits tonight, and a quick parsley sauce....I have a spoonful or so of joghurt left, so will look at what fruit I have and make some sort of pud for tonight as well (banana and joghurt with a few walnuts on top?????)

I have a pile of magazines to go through too...I clip any coupons I want to use (sometimes the local baker does a coupon for a free sandwich...I've had a couple of free lunches from those!) ...and also recipes/patterns...then the magazines can go downstairs to the 'communal table' for others to read.

mumto2monkeys....hope the chicken carcass went well!....So much goodness on that, and so many people don't know what to do and just bin it!...My favourite is an old, old, old family recipe we simply call 'chicken rice' - rice cooked in chicken stock (thinned a little, so it is like a thick soup) with scraplets of chicken in it (as children the giblets were cut up into the rice...delicious!)

cafelady

Hello. I've been catching up with this thread and really enjoying it. I really like your community of like minded people on here and would like to join in if that's ok?

I'm not really into 'stuff' and in the past couple of years have minimised a fair bit. Recent minimising has included about 6 bags of stuff to CS and about 40 jam jars on freegle.

I also grow some veg in my garden, both because I love doing it and it's good for the finances and the family. We normally have a veg box delivered but am able to cancel this for around 2 months in the summer when the plot is in full production, thus minimising spending! I also make my own jam and chutney, mainly from garden produce.

I am a demon for YS goods and for making do with what we have in. I've also been inspired by Jackie O to start an actual physical cash food budget for the family instead of a nominal one in my head do we'll see how that goes.

Make do - used up slightly gnarly pears from our pear tree yesterday making chutney, along with 50p marrow picked up on recent holiday. Got around 11 jars which will last us a year or two. Cost around £5 to make and will be really nice.

Mend - didn't mend anything.

Minimise - minimised pears as above and some of my current courgette glut in a YS pork steaks casserole for last night's dinner. Also minimised some of runner bean crop and home grown onions in meal. Also this helped to minimise our food spend as total cost of dinner including homemade Yorkshire puddings came in at around £3 for four of us.

I enjoy reading everyone's posts and am looking forward to hanging out with you all if that's ok?

culpepper

I have spent the last week mending 2 camp chairs and a camp bed liberated from the rubbish at the last camp site we visited.
The camp bed had a leg bent terribly out of shape but with the aid of some blocks of wood to make the bed level it saw me through the last night of our camp when my blow up mattress got a puncture .
The chairs needed some sewing where the material was frayed which i did at camp with the sewing kit and hubs mended the wonky arm with a bit of stick and some parachord.
At home they got a bit more attention and the bed leg is cut off and reinforced with a bit of old gazebo frame and is very strong and sturdy now.
Of course we also mended the punctured mattress with a bike inner tube repair kit when we eventually discovered the hole.
I love doing that sort of repair and it reminds me of being a child back in the 60s and 70s and mum or dad getting out the mending stuff when something was apparently on its last legs, only to give it a few more years of use after all.

mrs-moneypenny

Morning MMMers
Hope everyone is well, hugs to those who need them.

Over the weekend I used 3 good but wrong sized sheets to make a valance for our bed base - really pleased with how it's turned out. Think that covers all 3 Ms as its made do with something I had, minimised unwanted items in the linen ottoman, and I handmade it.

Tonight tea will be quorn and veg pie using all the sad looking veggies in the fridge along with some quorn from the freezer I can just cook it all and make a pastry top.

Minimised the old tatty foam back carpet from our room and fixed a couple of squeaky floor boards over the weekend -sleeping on the mattress on the floor till the new carpet is fitted tomorrow.

Better go and do some housework before work I suppose.

Have a good day all.

[Deleted User]

culpepper and mrs moneypenny you are true MM&M's I love to hear about folk fixing things rather than binning them.Its surprising what people chuck out without thinking. If I can mend something, rather than chucking it, I feel I have achieved something useful. often its something really simple to do as well.An old bike puncture kit fixed your blow-up mattress how great is that and saved the cost of a new one Well done

I too try to reuse things as much as I can, a worn out sheet last year was cut up and hemmed into cloths for cleaning with I now have about 2 dozen of them that I use for cleaning an dusting and when I have enough mucky ones I chuck them all in a pillow case and knot the top and bung into the washing machine with the bath towels when I do a hot wash, no kitchen roll for me just a couple of dozen lavender checked cleaning cloths :):)

True I had to spend a couple of nights stitching round the hems by hand (no machine ) but they have been so useful and saved me a fortune.

Today I mended a folder that my disability badge is in on my car dashboard, the clear plastic was starting to split so a few bits of sellotape sorted that out before it got too bad , I am making do with left overs from last nights dinner at DDs that I came home with ,so only have to make some gravy and zap the rest in the microwave.

I minimised some magazines to a friend on the way home from book club as they had been passed onto me, I had read them, and passed them on to her. Good day for frugling, as I had a bag of apples given to me at book club so they will be made into a crumble later today.

Onwards and upwards chums

JackieO xx

poppy811

I did post a couple of times earlier in the year but sadly my husband became very ill and died in July. I have always been old style in my approach but at the moment I am lacking motivation. I do need to be careful as my income has dropped dramatically but I am sure it is doable if you lovely people can help me stay on the straight and narrow.

mrs-moneypenny

Poppy my deepest condolences to you. Any help and support you need just ask on here and we'll do our best. Make sure you take things at your own pace and be gentle with yourself on difficult days.

Beyond excited new carpet is being fitted this afternoon (we did get our money's worth out of the last one it was about 20 years old and the foam back had disintegrated to dust.) we can then start putting the room back together. Hopefully minimising lots to the CS S I want to revisit clothes as part of my kondo journey as they get sorted through on their return to the room from the various places in the house we have crammed things.

Got work then plan to minimise the ironing pile.

Have a good day mmmers