A Simpler Life 2018

claire1a

Anyone one to join in please. I’ve spent the last week reading though! Ima long term Lurker and ver occassional contributer but I am craving a clutter free, simpler life! Through a career change and now, hopefully temporary unemployment, the last couple of years have been very frugal for me. I really need to start selling (all) my unwanted possessions but I too really struggle with letting go. It’s hard to know that I have spent £1000s on random crap over the years and that money is needed now so I can’t just donate to charity or get rid but at the same time really lack motivation with my anxiety to photograph, write description and sell these items!!
One thing I am pleased about is through my lack of funds I have been working through my stockpile of toiletries, cleaning products and food!
There’s has been some fantastic advice and tips already on here, thank you very much!
Sorry about my rambling though, trying to type this on my phone and it might not make sense lol

Very quick question... I have found a massive box of washing powder in my garage. My machine only seems to like liquid (usually the powder is left in the draw or doesn’t wash out of my clothes (40 for clothes, 60 for bedding, towels and underwear due to dust and pet allergies). Any advise to use the powder?? Not sure whether to mix it into a paste with water and put straight into the drum with my washing?

westcoastscot

Hi Claire, I'll be the first to welcome you, even though I post rarely and am just back on the forums after quite a while away!
It can be really hard to part with things - so don't be hard on yourself. Try and find one thing, photo it and list it - when that sells try another. People are very appreciative of the things that they buy and that can spur you on! Remember you are in charge, you don't *have* to get rid of anything you don't want? I live a very simple life, but have many possessions in a busy house, even though I now live alone. I'm fairly self-sufficient in terms of clothing, repairs, hobbies, books and generally in enriching my own life to be meaningful and uplifting. I've come from a very self sufficient life, growing food and meat, fuel etc in a very remote area to where I live now, rural mainland Scotland, and although I now purchase food and fuel, I live a relatively simple life that suits who I am right now.
Just take it one step at a time, work within your comfort zone and take pride in each little step.

Edited to say.......... soap powder, use quite a bit less, flush the drawer with warm water when the soap has in theory gone, that should do it!
WCS

Cottage_Economy

claire1a wrote: »

Very quick question... I have found a massive box of washing powder in my garage. My machine only seems to like liquid (usually the powder is left in the draw or doesn’t wash out of my clothes (40 for clothes, 60 for bedding, towels and underwear due to dust and pet allergies). Any advise to use the powder?? Not sure whether to mix it into a paste with water and put straight into the drum with my washing?

I usually add a little water, then when the drawer is being flushed at the beginning of the cycle I open the drawer a little and use a small spoon to jiggle around and dislodge the powder so it goes into the drum.

Bluegreen143

Not been by in a few days as I discovered the KonMari threads, read the book and have been purging my wardrobe. It’s eye-opening as I was already operating a capsule wardrobe (albeit with an extra box of out of rotation clothes) and thought it was pretty well decluttered. But there are bags of stuff to go now I really look at it!

Off to read the last few pages of the thread ☺️

Cottage_Economy

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

I don't see anything that the 'Joneses' have that would add to our happiness or comfort, we're fine just as we are and happy to have baked bean soup for lunch as a treat because it's delicious. I think we're lucky and I feel sorry for those poor 'Joneses' chasing their own rainbows and never finding them!

We feel the same. My parent are the very opposite, which has caused clashes over the years. They say: "Why have money unless you are going to buy nice things?" Security and peace of mind mean more to us.

How do you make baked bean soup?

GreyQueen

I find a simple life in a tiny rented flat fiendishly complicated in many ways, my kitchen only has a few square inches of usable work surface (the whole room is only 6 ft square) and it is stressful juggling things around. I would have a simpler life if I bought one microwavable ready meal from the little supermarket on the way home from work, nuked it and ate it straight from the packaging.

Simple and clutter-free but darned unhealthy.

There are similar trade-offs in other areas of my life and a few things lying around requiring attention, like lengthening a pair of chazzer trews, which have been postponed due to lurginess.

I am trying to use my brain to save my back, as the old saying has it, trying to think hard about finding easier ways to do things. Having ME and no transport concentrates the mind wonderfully, I find.

I'm in my early fifties and am letting my reddish-brown hair change colour naturally. The bits around my face are about 50% white, the back is darker. Redheads often have hair which turns a bright white colour, and this can look spectacular. What other women choose to do with their hair is their business but I read, as long ago as the 1980s, reports in the L@ncet or the BMJ (can't remember which) about some deaths due to liver cancer being attributed to the long term use of black hair dye.

One you know that a dye put onto your scalp saturates your bodily tissues so rapidly that you will be excreting some of it in your urine within minutes, you start feeling a tad uncomfortable about the idea of exposing yourself to unnecessary chemical burdens.

Anyway, my semi-white hair looks like the most expensive highlights you can imagine, and it's free-free-free.:rotfl:

My attitude to Stuff is that I like quality and I can recognise quality when I see it. As the purse isn't deep, I select good quality things from mainly used sources like chazzers and bootfairs (and the occasional bin, if truth be told).

The trick, for me, isn't to go overboard with rescuing unregarded trifles, or home will become less than joyous to live in.

Righty, off to try to defenestrate my kitchen. As in, if I lose my rag, I may have to chuck some of it out of the window. GQ x

suki1964

Wednesday2000 wrote: »

I stopped colouring my hair in 2009 and have my natural colour now. I always used to dye it blonde or very dark brown. I probably have saved a lot of money.

I'm not sure what will happen if I go grey as I'm 41 and haven't got any yet. My natural colour has some red and we are supposed to avoid going grey for a long time so I hope that it is true.

Not that I think grey or white hair looks bad as it suits many people, I'm just not sure how it would look on me.:)

Embrace the grey If after going grey you don't like it, then colour it again

I've been totally grey now for a year. Took three years to get here. I started to go grey in my childhood, needed dye to cover rather then fashion in my 20's About five years ago I was talked into going lighter and adding highlights, that was majorly expensive in both money and time so I said sod it, I'm going grey. Sure the young girls pay a fortune for a colour like mine :rotfl:

I simplified my kitchen when installing a new one five years ago. A full height larder with pull out shelves so I can see at a glance and no rummaging required. Corner cupboards that have pull out shelves so no losing Tupperware lids to the back or needing to shift 100 things to get to the slowcooker. And best of all, all my dinnerware is plain white. All from different shops, nothing matches, but it all does because it's white. And I was one of those people who had to go and buy 4 more dinner plates when we had extended family staying two weeks

Claire, I know where you are coming from. Need to sell but the stress of actually doing it makes you not do it. If you have FB , sell on there. If you don't have FB, join. I sell everything on there. No listing fees, no major discriptions, no posting and packing. You take a picture, add the price, and buyers pm you. If you don't want people coming to collect from your home, meet them at Tesco car park. In fact someone is calling tomorrow to pay and collect something I listed early last year and forgot clean all about Its been stashed under a spare bed all that time

[Deleted User]

Baked Bean Soup

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion chopped
200g cooking bacon cut up into small strips
2 garlic cloves crushed
2 x tins baked beans
1 x tin tomatoes
salt and pepper
300ml chicken stock
2 x tablespoons Worcester sauce

heat the oil in a heavy bottomed pan and gently fry the onion and bacon for as long as it takes for the onion to soften and cook, add the crushed garlic and cook 2 minutes more. Blitz one tin of baked beans with a stick blender (I find it works in the tin) and leave the other whole. Add all the rest of the ingredients to the bacon and onion mix in the pan, stir well, bring up to the simmer and cook for 20 minutes.

Cottage Economy, I hope you like this if you decide to try it, it's one of those recipes where the sum of the parts in the recipe is very much bigger than the parts when you read the list. We love it, real comfort food for cold weather and despite being made from the most humble of ingredients it's delicious!!!

dolly84

Welcome Clare.

Finding a happy medium is key I think. My Dad died last year and it turned out he had a small fortune in the bank that even my mum didn't know about. His clothes were tatty despite having a wardrobe full of brand new ones that my sister had bought him as gifts, he wouldn't spend money on the house, no hobbies, no holidays or days out, he never bought a gift for anyone or gave them money at birthdays etc. I do not remember him fondly.

WartimeScrapingofMarmite

GreyQueen wrote: »

:)One you know that a dye put onto your scalp saturates your bodily tissues so rapidly that you will be excreting some of it in your urine within minutes, you start feeling a tad uncomfortable about the idea of exposing yourself to unnecessary chemical burdens.

:eek:Well, that's definitely given me food for thought! Here's hoping that my grey streaks will just look like highlights then:rotfl:

Wednesday2000 I've never grown out the grey before either, so I don't know what it will look like. It's just strands of grey at the moment but I also have a sort of reddish tint to my natural colour (from what I can remember!)....we shall see anyway.