Put away your purse & become debt-averse

Kantankrus_Mare

Oh yes........scholl sandals.:eek: They were so uncomfortable! :eek:

My favourite fashion of the seventies was my cheesecloth top. Think everyone had one at the time. Least favourite was polo necks.

I had lots of Fair Isle knitted jumpers as well as my Nanna was a keen knitter. I spent many a happy hour sat in her kitchen (skullery as she called it) helping her to rewind wool that she was saving from some unused or tatty knitwear to make something new.

She always seemed well off to me as a child but looking back, she wasnt. She rarely bought any new clothes saying she had what she needed and I guess living through the war made her very frugal.

foxgloves

Kantankrus & Blackcats - Oh yes, Scholl sandals. They were hugely fashionable in the 70s, & I did have a pair. Actually I found them quite comfortable, but they were eventually banned in our school because a we had a couple of high blocks & a girl was coming down the stairs in a pair & someone accidentally trod on the back of them, sending her flying, so they were banned after that. One thing I do remember about them was the wood with the cream colour rubber soles. The rubber didn't seem to last five minutes & mine were regularly off to the shoemender for re-soling. You could tell all the girls at school whose parents wouldn't pay out for this, as they'd be walking around on Scholls which were down to about a centimetre of flat wood.

Cheesecloth shirts......we are really reminiscing now, aren't we? Agree they were so lovely & cool to wear & we thought we looked pretty cool in them too, didn't we? Mine was a cream colour with an orange & turquoise pattern - I have a photo of me wearing it aged about 13, with a hideous skirt on our back lawn at home. And of course it tied at the front, so you could show off your midriff if you wanted to, or not, if you thought you were enormously fat (like I did, despite being a weight I would give anything to be now!)
My Mum sewed & made us a lot of clothes, though mostly when we were primary school age. The dresses she made when I was in the infants were so short they barely covered my pride! And yes, no home stitched dress was complete without the obligatory ric-rac around the hem. As I got to the top of junior school, my only clothing desire was to own a dress from C&A instead of home made ones. I did get one,aged 11, which I wore with my denim platform sandals. Amazed my Mum bought me some platforms, but my friend & I had recently scavenged a pair out of a tip which we shared between us, until we were forced to bin them, so the sandals were probably a compromise!
F x

foxgloves

And here is some good news on the subject of my June grocery challenge! I've just done my usual Monday morning budget update, banking/funds shuffle, etc, & am pleased to report that June Week 1's grocery shopping came in below budget at £41-67. We went to Al*i for our main shop, with W*lko's for cat meat (defo still the best price locally for cat's brand of choice) & used the local market for most of our fruit & veg. I'm pleased with that for a positive start. I know I've been saying that it is probably rising prices which is leading to us overspending, because I haven't increased our monthly grocery budget for a long time, but I wanted to see if it's still possible. We didn't buy a joint or chicken this week - the only meat was a couple of bits & pieces for sandwiches & a 500g pack of mince. The mince did well though, as mr f made one of his lovely chillies which we ate on Saturday with jackets & yesterday with home made wedges & salad. We also froze 100g of mince as that's sufficient for me to make a tamale pie, which can go on next week's meal plan. We didn't need to buy coffee either, as we bought 4 packs a week or two ago when there was a good offer. I think I'll feel pleased with this first shop, but see how the rest of the month works out. I still maintain that £50 a week should feed two people & cat, plus allow for cleaning materials, etc, but there are certain things where I won't compromise, so if this amount is genuinely not enough, then I'd rather know & increase it a little.
Lovely bright day here. two loads of laundry already pegged out & another one about to join it. I'm sitting having my coffee at the moment so I can keep reaching over to stir the bucket in which I'm dying a skirt (deep violet in case anyone's wondering....) £3.50 for the dye, salt from stores & plastic gloves saved from my last hair dye box. Ooooh, the pinger has just gone off, which means it's had its allotted time & I can now wash it & peg it out. I'd gone off the colour of this summer skirt, but it had plenty of wear left in it (as my Nana used to say) so I thought I'd upgrade it & have a 'new' skirt t wear. Cheaper than buying a new one, anyway., eh?
Then I shall bash up my bread dough ready for its 2nd proving & have an early lunch, as I am planning a busy afternoon in the veggie garden planting out my climbing beans.
Cheers for now,
F x

foxgloves

Have put this morning aside for de-gunking the pond. Not my favourite job, as ongoing tadpole rescue makes it a slow process. Am trying to motivate myself by thinking how many free nutrients all that duckweed is going to add to our compost bins. And it will look lovely afterwards, as I will rearrange the surrounding pebbles, remove weeds & top it up too. Just need plenty of coffee first, & to mix up some bread dough before I get too pondy.
F

foxgloves

Yay!! Pond de-gunked. Three buckets of tadpoles & 5 whirlygig beetles rescued & returned. Just popped in for coffee & a cheesy oatcake, then am going back out there to tidy up the pond edges, add a few more pebbles & remove some lawn weeds where I think I might site our garden bench (when I get it.... can't really stretch to a decent one atm, & have found cheap ones just don't last). I've just got two more squashes to plant out, & the sweetcorn will be planted out this month, then it will just be a case of maintenance & my favourite bit.... picking stuff to eat!
Last night I made a pizza & served it with a big bowl of salad, & the only items in that salad I hadn't grown were tomatoes & the chopped pistachio nuts I sprinkled on top! The rest of it - lollo rosso lettuce, rocket, lambs'lettuce, watercress, radishes & coriander was all home grown. Mr F said 'This salad is lovely'..... I can only assume it is the very short space of time between picking it & eating it which makes the difference.
Well that's my caffeine levels topped up.... must get back outside before the next rain shower arrives.
F x

HairyHandofDartmoor

Well done on your pond degunking . I'm sure your home made salad must taste miles better than the limp leaves sold in the supermarkets.

foxgloves

Well, I'm really pleased I got the job done, HHoD, but I think I probably overdid it on the weed removal from the lawn around the pond. My hands are achey tonight - arthritis.... despite me telling the Dr I thought I was too young for it, he said x-rays don't lie & that he sees people with it in their 30s. So that told me! I'm supposed to carry on doing everything as normal, but to 'find a balance'. It's hard though, as I'm not very good at doing nothing. I do relax in the evenings, but I love to be productive during the day.
Never mind, pond looks great & the frogs seem happy!
F x

DawnW

foxgloves wrote: »

Well, I'm really pleased I got the job done, HHoD, but I think I probably overdid it on the weed removal from the lawn around the pond. My hands are achey tonight - arthritis.... despite me telling the Dr I thought I was too young for it, he said x-rays don't lie & that he sees people with it in their 30s. So that told me! I'm supposed to carry on doing everything as normal, but to 'find a balance'. It's hard though, as I'm not very good at doing nothing. I do relax in the evenings, but I love to be productive during the day.
Never mind, pond looks great & the frogs seem happy!
F x

I have arthritis in my hands too Foxgloves, and it gets worse in the evening after I have been doing lots of things. Ibuprofen gel helps.

foxgloves

Hi Dawn - yes, I'm noticing evenings are worse if I've been physically busy. I have some ibuprofen gel on prescription. I was relieved not to have any bad reaction to it because of my aspirin allergy. I can't take the NSAID group of drugs internally because my allergy can be a bit scary. I risked an 'over the counter' Ibuprofen gel & as I didn't get any adverse effects, the Dr prescribed a stronger one. Still no date for physio. I'm low priority I think because I'm neither working or a carer, but I'm learning how to manage it & can still knit & do all the stuff I like, though can't play the piano for as long as I used to be able to..... probably an advantage for our neighbours!

foxgloves

Morning Frugal Diary Followers,
I've accomplished a big garden clearing job today & have enjoyed planting up a small area of that particular border with some hardy geraniums I divided & brought back from Mum's lovely garden at our old family home, before putting it on the market. And it really got me thinking...........
Back when I was Very Spendy, I was a very frequent visitor at garden centres....probably most weekends I'd pop in unless I was indulging my other Sunday spending passion - antique & collectors' fairs. I've said before that I'd think nothing of spaffing £50 just on filling a couple of patio containers. It's easy to do, isn't it.....a fuchsia or pelargonium to go in the centre, a couple of trailing ivies, maybe another traily variety, then a selection of seasonal colour - then next season, out it all came & off I went again, same sort of spend, & that was pretty much on rinse & repeat for years........and I've only really covered what I'd spend on a couple of containers there. Both my gardens have been replete with ivy, so why it never occurred to me simply to pot up a couple of pieces to root them ready for the coming season, as I do now, is beyond me!
Anyway, so I'm on my kneeler earlier, planting out these two nice plants from Mum's garden, & it occurred to me that the plants I most treasure are actually those I've received as gifts or that have memories attached. I've had a walk round with my coffee looking at these & I have....
*Plants received from Mum & Dad for birthday gifts over several years.
*Plants grown from seed I collected with Mum on the last outing we took her on last summer.
*Plants from my sister.
*Plants brought from my little old terraced house, which was my first proper garden of my own.
*A beautiful teepee of sweet peas gifted to me by my best friend.
*A geranium grown from a naughty cutting taken from a historic house both of us love.
*A plant bought while we were on a fab holiday in the north east.
*A little potted Christmas tree I grew myself from a packet of free seed on a magazine I was given. Gosh, how I've nurtured that! I had five to start with & gradually they all carked it, apart from this one.
*A plant I bought on a family day out years ago when we met up to celebrate my Dad's 70th birthday.
*A bright pink geranium given to me one Easter by my nephews.
Of course I have plenty of plants I bought from garden centres too, but nice as they are, they don't have the same memories as the others. I suppose that much as it's nice to choose, buying a plant at the garden centre is just a transaction isn't it? They don't come with any back story & emotional attachment.
On my kitchen windowsill, I have a small maidenhair fern. It's small, because it doesn't like living in my house....too cold, I expect, & so every year, I revive it by giving it an extreme haircut & letting it start into growth again. This was a root cutting from Mum's maidenhair fern, which in turn was a root cutting from my Nana's cousin's plant, which she had got from an aunt whose mother had, had her at age 52! I don't know anything of this aunt (as Nana's cousin is almost 90) but it was the one fact that is always passed down along with cuttings from this plant........it would always go something like this......"Would you like a cutting of my maidenhair fern? It's been in the family for generations. I don't know its original owner, only that she was born when her Mum was 52!" So this bit of story gets handed on with the next generation of both our family & bits of fern.
52! That's a but scary, isn't it, as it was way before any of the private fertility treatment older women can occasionally access today........I was 55 this year, & I can't imagine having a 3 year old,.........Oh, shall have to sign off & rescue a huge bumble bee which has just flown into the conservatory &is now engaged in the sort of frantic headbanging I haven't seen since 6th form parties circa 1979......
Cheers all,
F x