THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

Jazee

Good timing Mrs LW. Out of the blue this month we are going to have to look at and reduce our expenditure. We have had a meal out and a little splurge today though.

Tomorrow will be looking at finances afresh and living on the minimum possible and saving what we can while we can. Swings and roundabouts though, as we've had to buy me a car as part of our new 'journey' haha.

GreyQueen

I've long been pondering many of the same issues, Lyn.

The bits of my childhood which I was old enough to recall best were spent on an unremarkable 1960s housing estate. It was the norm to see dads & lads working on the family car. Yup, 1970s cars were a lot less reliable than modern motors, but they were mostly fixable by a semi-handy adult with some basic tools and a bit of know-how. Heck, I spent many an hour out on the street myself, doing creative things to some of British Leyland's finest (sarc) with filler and spray paint as I strove to keep my elderly car looking tidy.

About 20-odd years ago, I worked in the car parts factoring trade, and even at that time, it was no longer possible to replace a simple component in a defective light, you had to have the whole headlamp out and a whole new one in. Things made to be unrepairable by amateurs are obviously a great wheeze for manufacturers and retailers but are very bad for end users, particularly when money's tight and we cannot afford the services of the professionals.

Or when it'd be far far simpler and quicker to DIY it rather than have to hire someone to do it.

The trouble with sophisticated cars or appliances is that when they go wrong, you're stuffed. Perhaps we preppers should think about de-sophisticating some of our consumer choices wherever we can?

[Deleted User]

Absolutely sound advice GQ, the simpler things can be made then the less there is to go wrong. The more old fashioned the item is, preferably hand operated rather than using electricity, in general the sturdier it is and it is likely to be repairable with an inexpensive part from the hardware shop rather than thrown away because buying another one is cheaper than repairing a burnt out motor etc. Think gravy NOT jus, think cider NOT champagne and think rock salmon NOT monkfish and you'll get the general idea!

thriftwizard

Hahaha! Very timely... I've just had to tackle a commission on my old treadle sewing machine, because the job "killed" my very-expensive Pfaff "Pro" sewing machine. (Nothing a good service couldn't sort out, luckily. But quite a wait before that can happen, as I don't have access to the software...) Needless to say, I'm left wondering why on earth I ever started it on the modern electric machine, tough & fuss-free as it's supposed to be. It's a joy to sew on the treadle; I don't need complicated stitches, or even a 'leccy supply as I'm tackling this during the day. And absolutely no slower, either!

[Deleted User]

Same applies to gardening THRIFTY we have the use of a petrol rotavator that belongs to our 85 year old allotment buddy Norm, but in the shed here we also have a second hand 'wheel hoe' hand and 'brawn' operated with all the different 'blades etc' to fit on to it that is powered by muscles and effort should the petrol be not available or beyond our affordability at any point. Both do the same job, the ground looks and grows the same no matter which of them are used to prepare it for planting.

monnagran

Had a wry smile about car repairs. My first car was a 1935 Austin Ruby, bought from one of my brother's student friends for the princely sum of £20. They had customised it and and souped it up to such an extent that I could, if I hadn't inadvertently stalled and had to crank start it, leave Jags standing at traffic lights. The exhaust pipe had been replaced by a water pipe. The threaded tap end protruded from the back.
It had one windscreen wiper which moved fitfully from left to right at the top and in the middle of the windscreen causing me to have to drive with my neck extended at an unnatural angle in an effort to see where I was going.
The accelerator had one end of a piece of string tied round it with the other end round my wrist so that I could yank the pedal up again when it got stuck down.
When you went over a puddle you lifted your feet off the floor to avoid the water gushing up through the holes.
In really cold weather I drove with a hot water bottle on my lap.

Of course, this was in the days before MOTs, when motoring was still fun.

Everything was so simple then. You could, and I often nearly did, rebuild the engine at the side of the road when it broke down.
I'm sure you've heard of people replacing the fan belt with a stocking. Done that.

Petrol was 3/4d (17p ) a gallon.

Ah! The good old days.

P.S. If you lived in Coventry in 1964 and watched the Carnival Parade you may have seen me. I was actually trying to get OUT of Coventry but the police thought I was part of the entertainment and kept ushering me back into the parade. Crowds cheered from the pavement, children waved flags and my friend, who was 8 months pregnant, crouched on the floor and sobbed quietly.

fuddle

mardatha wrote: »

I think it's incredibly stupid. Because some politician wants to be seen as the saviour of the planet - while half the planet is still burning coal like mad - we have to all sit on our coal seams and pay through the nose for expensive heating!! It's ok for the politicians, they can afford it. But it's not moneysaving and it's not sensible! Look how many jobs were lost when the pits closed, how much tax income the govt lost, and how much coal India, China, and the rest of them are still burning daily. To me it's incredibly short sighted and wasteful... plus all our utility companies are now foreign-owned, we are paying through the nose for heating and the profits are going abroad.

I make a point of buying UK coal. I buy locally but know my coal isn't locally produced but comes from Lincolnshire in plastic bags and delivered by a driver in a pretty clean Hi Viz jacket. My local coal is just distributed by a local arm of a big distribution company.

Sad and ludicrous really, considering I'm heating an old pit house that is sat very near a coal seam.

[Deleted User]

It's another aspect of the utter stupidity of the supply system that firms here in the UK use. We were on holiday some years ago in one of the villages close to Penzance in Cornwall with a cottage on one of the small cliff top farms that abound in that part of the world and the farm next door were growing beautiful potatoes, cabbages and cauliflowers for T*sco supermarkets all smashing looking veg and we often found one or two of whatever they were harvesting dropped along the lane to our cottage which we used for our suppers. One day we got talking to one of the work gangs who were harvesting and asked when the produce would be in the local supermarket for us to buy and Oh how they laughed!!! not for some time apparently as ALL that they produced on that little farm had to be transported to a huge packing plant in Lincolnshire (I think) certainly somewhere in East Anglia to be trimmed and packed in the plastic bags and THEN and only then could it be loaded on to a distribution lorry and.....driven back to Penzance to be sold in the local branch there. Craziness but no worse than some seafood suppliers harvesting shrimps and prawns off our coasts and then flying them to Thailand for processing before flying them back here again to be packed and frozen and sold in the UK. No wonder it all costs so much!

DigForVictory

My Mondeo has a lot of big unit bits, but most scrappers will sort me matching/replacement chunks with change from £20. Then a bit of patience, YouTube & Haynes and I can fix the basics.

It's when I clobber the bodywork (ahem) I need professional help. Although it's fun how much can be distracted from by strategic wash & wax polishing. (That I *know* that is a bit embarrassing but ho hum.)

As for sewing machines, I have my beloved treadle, but we have to do some period stuff by hand. A knack which comes in handy for making school shirts verifiably ours, as running repairs are in demonstrably Saxon stitch. That I have found and been given at least four different fleeces means that I will have to get out & restring the Ashworth, then try to learn wheel spinning again. (I can hand spin, but my language gets deplorable.) Everything that goes wrong is leapt on by an embroiderer & felter colleague with glee.

GreyQueen

My first ever job (as a teenager still at school) was prepping the trade-ins for resale at a large dealership.

Even all these years later, I still find myself itching to reach for the T-cut whenever I see a sorry example of paintwork, such as once-red cars which have oxidised on bonnet and roof to a rose-pink hue.

Never underestimate the power of the Ts (T-cut and Turtle Wax).