Make do, Mend and Minimise in 2016

poppy811

Finally mended one of my husbands sweaters, it had been sat on the arm of the sofa for ages waiting for attention. Probably took less than 5 minutes to do! Sure the cleaning of the dreaded oven will take a lot longer today. Why oh why do I leave it so long when I know it makes the job so much harder?
Using up the last of the celery soup for lunch.

poppy811

Finally mended DH sweater yesterday, it had been sitting on the arm of the sofa waiting for attention. Probably took less than 5 mins to do unlike the job of cleaning the dreaded oven which I am going to do today, yuk!
Last of the celery soup for lunch and mushroom stroganoff planned for tea.

HOWMUCH

Good afternoon everyone, we've had one of my YS cheese scones and a coffee for lunch.
Minimised some recycling .
Mended some joggers that DGS had caught on something, repaired them straight away before the tiny hole had a chance to get bigger. So they are now ready for nursery again. I've been knitting and now on the button bands on my baby bunting bag.
The weather is not too bad today but much more cooler than it was last week. I've got to sort out the car insurance as its due on 1st April I usually go via quidco and get cash back even if we stay with the same company I don't renew. I always take a new policy out and as a new customer you get discount plus cash back. x

iamsalt

Last full day of holiday today, and my mind has been turning back to home. OH and I discussed and agreed on a number of board games that can go to charity shop when we get back, and I have mentally unpacked a kitchen junk cupboard of the things I know are in there, and most of that can go too.
I am halfway through the back of my jumper, I don't knit very fast, but I enjoy it for the sense of rhythmic 'flow'. Interestingly it was mentioned as a version of mindfulness in a podcast I was listening to, they were saying that it needs enough awareness that thoughts can't get stuck in your head for long which helps when stressed. I used to teach my old team to knit and crochet as it was useful distraction when the organisation was changing.

We get back late tomorrow so I have started a list of fresh food I need to get on Sunday to go with the freezer food I have and make lunches for the week as I am in the London office 4 days next week.
JackieO I think you asked what have we learnt while on this thread, for me it's the value of little steps. I used to want to make sweeping changes but became discouraged, now I am proud of the little things which seem to stick. I am also now a huge advocate of screen free evenings. I get much less tired, but sleep better and have loads of interesting conversations with OH or others if I am out.
Have a lovely Friday.
S x

HOWMUCH

Good morning MMMer's

S have a safe journey home and I'm glad that you are doing baby steps forward and feeling the benefit, it's the hare and the tortoise isn't it. If you do things in baby steps it's far better than jumping in with both feet and not succeeding.
Today I've got my last box of beef bourguignon out of the freezer and 500g of the very cheap YS shortcrust pastry and the same of flakey. I'm going to do a posh meat and potato pie again, it was a great success last time. The flakey pastry will become sausage rolls with some of that YS sausagemeat I got on 2nd Jan @ 20p YS at Sainsbobs, I add some sage and onion stuffing it stretches the meat out and tastes good too. So I'll get 10 good size sausage rolls for about 40p and the oven would have been on for the pie. So make the most of the electric. The pie will do us 2 meals and the last of the football Savoy cabbage will be used up.
I'm still doing the button bands on the bunting then I will just have the collar and buttons to put on. I'm not on DGS duty next week either so the next I'm on duty is when we go to the coast for 4 nights and he comes along. He loves it he says shall we go back to the caravan momma and grandpa. The following week he will be in the sunshine with mummy in lanzarote, this will be their last airplane holiday before the new baby comes.
The car is in for a service today it's a little earlier as I wanted it doing before we go off on our break on the 21st. Fingers crossed its just the service and no repairs the mot was done in December. I've got to do the insurance too before the 13th because the £60 cash back finishes on quidco.
Its foggy here today but the sun is trying to break through and its feeling milder.
Have a nice day and hugs to anyone who needs one x

savingpennies

Good morning everyone. Clear blue skies here today so I may venture into the garden to do some tidying up and sowing some more seeds for my little veg patch.
Had a lovely day yesterday in Skipton. The train journey over the tops had some lovely views and a beautiful sunset on the way home. What did strike me was how many coffee shops/cafes etc there were there. I really don't know how they make a living with so much competition. We had lunch in a pub that was advertising pensioner's specials: fish/chips/peas, bread & butter and tea/coffee for £4.99. And delicious it was too.
Make do: We toured all the charity shops and there were quite a few. I managed to find two of the books on my reading group list so saved myself a few pennies there. Tonight I'm using up some left over broccoli and a broccoli stalk to make soup with some leftover blue cheese.
Minimising: will begin on wardrobes, just the shelves on the top for now, as I can't face it all at once. As some of you have mentioned baby steps and the tortoise approach are sometimes best.
Hope everyone has a good day.

squeezedmillennial

Hello all

I've got a few days off before starting a new job. Today is an MMM day.

Make do: I've got some old single bed sheets in the airing cupboard, today I'm going to start turning these into a thermal cooker (yay, craft project!) to save money cooking stews etc.

Mend: bought a £10 Le Creuset griddle pan from a charity shop. Looked in bad condition, but it's cast iron so I'm reconditioning it- there's no reason it won't last a lifetime now.

Minimise: Planning to go through my wardrobe and put a few items on Ebay to make my life a little less cluttered. Cupboards are overflowing and I can barely remember half of what I own- I seem to need to keep clothes on the dryer / in the washing basket purely for storage.

wildthing01

Thanks HowMuch and Lyn for the YS tips. Think my problem is that I'm usually passing the shops in the am/early pm while travelling around for work, before they've done the big reductions, so it all still seems very expensive for saying it's on its last legs! My mum's local coop does reduce well and she only lives over the road so she can nip in at any time, and she often gets me bits of fruit and veg. Our coop doesn't seem to reduce well at all, even later at night. Will have to think creatively around how to be passing at the right times - we don't go out much in the evenings due to small children! Maybe Sunday pms and shc hols are good times to try.

Today our cupboards are nearly bare but have scraped together an arrabiatta with the very last of the pasta. No oil left so used butter to fry the garlic and chilli. Last night was naughty though and asked DH to pick up an asda curry bag on his way home as was in no mood to cook - but it's cheaper than a takeaway!

Good news is that DH's car only needs about £200 spent to get it through its MOT, so he doesn't need to buy a new one just yet - he's devastated!!!

HOWMUCH

Well it ended up being an absolute beautiful day even had the windows and back door open, we had a phone call at 2.30pm to say the car was ready. It just needed some sort of drive belt thing as well as the service but it was much cheaper than taking it to the main dealership. So whilst we was out nipped to Aldee and got bread n milk and some super 6 oranges and new potatoes.
All the cooking is done and tastes great so we're well stocked up with pastries and free space in the freezer even after I've put a loaf in. x

dND

iamsalt wrote: »

I am halfway through the back of my jumper, I don't knit very fast, but I enjoy it for the sense of rhythmic 'flow'. Interestingly it was mentioned as a version of mindfulness in a podcast I was listening to, they were saying that it needs enough awareness that thoughts can't get stuck in your head for long which helps when stressed. I used to teach my old team to knit and crochet as it was useful distraction when the organisation was changing.

I crochet for 'therapy' too When I first started the tension would be all over the place depending on how stressed I was. Now the tension is reasonably even and I let myself unwind while counting stitches and enjoying the fact that I am creating something.

I find it sad that we have been brainwashed into buying rather than creating. It's our creativity that made us and it doesn't have to be perfect; it's the action of creating more than the finished product I find. So maybe that is why MMM and NBI makes us feel better too