A Simpler Life 2018

dietdemon

Grey queen

what a great story and such a good idea. Now my family have moved out it's just DH have to contend with!:rotfl::rotfl:

VJsmum

I am one of the last of the baby boomer generation (though only a year or so older than GQ if I remember rightly). My working class parents had very little and divorced when I was 5 leaving less still. I had to queue separately for lunch at school because I was on free school dinners :eek: Strangley there were so many of us that we didn't really worry about it. No one had much where I grew up so I never felt that we were hard up.

It was when I went to 'middle' school aged 9 (1973) that I began to see that there were girls who had posh holidays, cars and colour televisions And then started to realise that we were less well off. But at that point there were five children in our family so I understood that we couldn't afford those things. I had my first proper family holiday (pontins holiday camp, in term time as it was cheaper) in 1977, when I was 13 and didn't go abroad for a holiday until I left polytechnic in 1988.

Now, in some things we are the Joneses - eg we have had some spectacular holidays; in other things not so much - our cars have never been the latest thing, our phones ditto, we don't have huge tellies or Alexas or what not. For some of our friends and family these things seem to be important, but that's fine, they can spend their money as they choose. We choose not to.

jackyann

ITA Salad Dodger, in doing a little of what we can. I have 2 regular sayings that slightly contradict each other, but I make them work in my life:
Better to light a candle than complain of the dark
We can only do today, what we can do today

That means doing the small things such as the ones you suggest. My arthritis meant I had to stop regular volunteering at the library, but I bake cakes and make craft items for their sale.

Cottage_Economy

GreyQueen wrote: »

A simplying trip for those with a houseful is something I learned about from a friend of my mother's. In brief, a remarriage led her to be chatelaine of a blended household of many teen boys, her own offspring and his. In order to stop mugs, plates, glassware etc disappearing into nooks and crannies all over the house where they would be left growing science experiments, she did the following;

Removed all but one example of each from general circulation and kept the spares under lock and key. Lost your mug, junior? Tough, better go find it or no cuppa for you.:rotfl:

That is genius!:rotfl:

suki1964

When I was a kid things were tough for everyone. My first home was a shared house, we had downstairs and another family had upstairs. They had the bathroom but the kitchen was a cooker on the landing. We had a kitchen but the loo was outside and the bath was hung behind the back door

We got moved by the council as part of the slum clearence to a three bedroom semi detached in which is now one of the most expensive areas of London And that was it for mum , Mrs Jones came out in force. She spent money on herself and the home like it was made on trees. Us kids had to make do with hand me downs and jumble sale clothes whilst she had fitted carpets, a car, brand new furniture bought on HP etc etc. When she left she left all the debt so as I said previously , our childhoods were pretty awful

When I got given a studio flat of my own aged 20 and homeless, I had nothing. A neighbour gave me a bed and some bedding, another some saucepans and crockery. Wasn't until I got a job that I managed to get a cooker, carpet and a fridge, all second hand from a house clearence. I had to work three jobs to afford to live there. Then I got transferred to a one bedroom flat miles away. I still only had a few bits of furniture. The flat was filthy and running with cockroaches. I was alone ,knew no one, became extremely depressed and started a drink habit that I've been battling ever since

My lowest point was having to go to the bank manager with a carrier bag stuffed with unopened bills and letters of eviction, begging for help

I got loaned £1k, my account was put on to a basic account, I was allowed no more then £50 a week for living expenses. I paid back that loan in 12 months and since that day I've always kept £1k in savings

When DH moved in,we had his income as well, not a lot, but it meant we could decorate the flat and furnish it. For the fist year we slept in a single bed till I managed to nab a double in the sale for £99 , we got a 3 piece suite from a skip, but we managed to decorate and get carpets. I still had the old cooker and pots and pans and crockery and we managed. Clothes and food were bought from the Sunday market, the washing was done once a week at the launderette, I trundled down pulling the shopping trolley.

Our first home was a doer upper, and I mean a complete doer upper. Once again we went into living in one room at a time whilst we gutted and rebuilt around us. Mum walked in the first week we were there and first words out of her mouth were ' what did you buy this s**thole for? '. Two years later, most of which time we lived with no kitchen and the back of the house open to the elements, we couldn't keep her away. Now I had a home that was acceptable to her and her standards

When we moved over here and her and step dad moved in with us, she was finally in her element. She now has the big house in the country with the big drive, the double garage, the ensuite, the everything she and aspired to. Only it's not hers it's ours lol. Oh how she's enjoyed lording it over her old friends and relatives. And complete strangers.

Mrs Jones is my mother , only as we say , it's all fur coats and no knickers


Yes me and mr s have been extremely fortunate that with hard work and the luck of buying the right house at the right time and selling at the right time, got us here where we are. We are still frugal. We still make do and mend, we still hunt out deals and bargains. We save for what we want. We don't just buy for buying sake. Most of our money now goes to support our grandchildren as their parents are struggling as so many young couples are. There's no pockets in shrouds and the kids need help now, not when we are dead. So we ensure they have a car ( needed over here as public transport in non existent outside the cities and major towns) we ensure there's heating oil, that the grandkids have good shoes and coats and decent clothes. The vouchers I earn doing surveys I pass on so they can fill the freezer so there's always food on the table. I don't want my grandkids to have the childhood I had where a meal was often a red sauce sandwich

So a simpler life for us means the next generation doesn't have to struggle as we did. In a way I look at our daughter and think, wow, when we were your age we didn't have a big tv or a car or a mobile, we had nothing, but that's how things are nowadays She's very frugal herself but her husbands work is determined by the weather and when it's bad, his income is non existent so they struggle to get through the winter without getting into debt. She too has seen where HP has led in the past and has wised up. She too has learned to refuse invitations which are going to wipe out any savings and prefers now to invite friends to hers for a social night whilst we have the grandkids over with us

Cottage_Economy

Pooky wrote: »

We used the insurance payout to pay a huge chunk off the mortgage and make ourselves future proof and we laugh at those who say we should have spent it on a holiday of a lifetime (he’s not well enough to work, a holiday of a life time isn’t and never was an option). Yes you only live once but with owning a house comes the responsibity of upkeep and we know that we’re going to need major adaptions made in the next couple of years.

I know someone that got a £40k payout about 15 years ago after an injury. At the time they rented, as her and her DH didn't earn enough to save for a deposit on a house.

They spent the whole £40k on stuff over 18 months. Thousands of pounds on sofas. Expensive beds. Clothes. TVs. kitchen gadgets. She retired at 65 still saying that her and her DH had never earned enough money to save for a deposit on a home. They were being forced to move from their rented home as their landlord was selling up.

Most of the stuff she bought is probably broken or down the tip by now.

suki1964 wrote: »

We got moved by the council as part of the slum clearence to a three bedroom semi detached in which is now one of the most expensive areas of London

My paternal grandparents were in the south London tenements and were moved as part of the clearances. Nan and grandad in one flat with seven children.

I suspect that is what shaped my father's attitude to material possessions. He is very materialistic and puts things before people.

Brambleberry

Charis wrote: »

Funnily enough I was reading about the reaction between bicarb and vinegar only yesterday. I was surprised by what I read :eek:

Shame that particular link doesn't work at the moment Charis, I often wonder how many folk are persuaded into spending money making up cleaning solutions that are little more than salty water and use a LOT of elbow grease!
More unnecessary work is not conducive to a simple life, but used correctly, some of the simpler chemical compounds used in cleaning are great - sadly there is also a lot of well-meaning, but ill-informed nonsense out there to wade through.

GreyQueen

When I look at some books/ blogs with tips about how to make your own cleaning products I laugh like a drain at the idea that this is money-saving. Putting essential oils in anything isn't moneysaving, as these products often advocate. And have these people never seen the price of lemons?!:rotfl:

I manage to clean everything with the following staples; w.u.l, basics cream cleaner and soda crystals for really vile greasies. I use bicarb to soak the teapot from time to time, but it's relatively expensive to go sloshing around at random..

I've just cleaned a bike chain with WD40 (another household staple) and re-lubed it with 3-in-1 oil. You don't need a lot of stuff for cleaning, it's just basically detergent in various formats.

SimpleLiving

GreyQueen wrote: »

When I look at some books/ blogs with tips about how to make your own cleaning products I laugh like a drain at the idea that this is money-saving. Putting essential oils in anything isn't moneysaving, as these products often advocate. And have these people never seen the price of lemons?!:rotfl:

I manage to clean everything with the following staples; w.u.l, basics cream cleaner and soda crystals for really vile greasies. I use bicarb to soak the teapot from time to time, but it's relatively expensive to go sloshing around at random..

I've just cleaned a bike chain with WD40 (another household staple) and re-lubed it with 3-in-1 oil. You don't need a lot of stuff for cleaning, it's just basically detergent in various formats.

Agreed. I use cream cleaner for bath & sinks, bleach for loo, and washing up liquid for floors, worktops etc.

GreyQueen

Ooops, sold a slight porkie-pie, I use a limescale remover type loo cleaner (exceptionally hard water area here), under £1 from Liddly.