Put away your purse & become debt-averse

Dottles1

A few years ago I remeber a friend of mine being horrified at how long a branded cleaner had lasted me and assumed that I hardly ever cleaned. In fact I find that most things can be cleaned with hot, soapy water and occasionally a little help with something a bit stronger. Big companies have brain washed us into thinking that we need different products for different rooms in the house. the only thing that way of thinking helps is their bank balances.

Baileys_Babe

I started secondary school in the 80's, like Foxgloves my comp was progressive in the fact that both boys and girls did woodwork, metalwork, needlework and home economics.

We had to wear the giant blue knickers with the blue wrapper around skirt.
I detested hockey, netball, cross county, road race - a longer route along paths which encircled the school and surrounding properties. Over the years we had quite a range of sports. Some of which were at least tolerable basketball, trampolining, uni-hoc, swimming, athletics, keep fit, badminton. I would have liked there to have been cycling, lots of us girls wanted to do rugby, cricket and football but they were only for the boys!
Like most people we were not given enough time to shower and change. Occasionally the showers had curtains, most of the time they didn't. There was no privacy in the changing rooms.

Looks as if the whole thing was designed to put us off being active and give us hang ups about our bodies.

supersaver1000

Morning Foxgloves and everybody. Just wanted to delurk with the cleaning product discussion. I'm a recent convert to Method cleaner spray (the lavender one, although the pink grapefruit smells nice too). When I read all the different uses on the bottle I realised that all the different products I'd been buying were a con too.

As well as the one bottle of Method I've a homemade vinegar/water bottle spray that I use for the windows with kitchen towel, and I use a bicarb/vinegar for the grout occasionally. I've also a bottle of flash for the floor (just because it smells nice), bleach in the loo and a lovely smelling waxy wood polish for the bare wood. That's already way too many products without separate ones for bathroom, kitchen, stainless steel, plastic etc.

I'm trying my best to use up the old products before we move, but as I don't do much cleaning (or I use soapy water usually like Dottles) its a struggle. I gave up buying kitchen gadgets a long time ago (especially those meant to make cleaning or cooking easier - they don't you still have to put the effort in) not sure why it took me so long to catch on with the cleaning products though.

carrielovesfanta

Ahhh PE... I don't think much had changed by the time I started secondary school in 1995.

Red aertex shirt with black pelmet skirt for us. Red PE knickers with the white "go faster" stripe. We were allowed to wear jogging bottoms in the depths of winter, as long as we wore our netball skirt over the top. Because you have to wear a netball skirt for net ball.

All embroidered with your initials of course. Red on black and black on red.

Then for summer it all switched to white tops and white skirts!

I know what you mean about the regressive approach. they used to make us run cross country in t shirt and PE knickers only and part of the course was THROUGH THE TOWN :eek:
Being 12 and running through town part-naked was not how I wanted to spend my time. I also got detention for not being good enough at the bleep test *shudders*. They said I was just being lazy.

And showers... you could get out of showering if you were on your period and the teachers used to mark down when your period was you couldn't lie.

Fast forward to now (or at least before the recent illness) and I can't believe I'm in the gym, lifting, running, doing gymnastics 5 times a week and I love it! And when the gym did the bleep test, I was the 3rd in my class

foxgloves

Thanks for all the cleaning products comments......it does make for an interesting discussion. I am horrified by the cleaning product aisles in supermarkets. There are soooooo many different products. I hardly buy any of them. I buy Stardrops & dilute it in an old spray bottle. I use it neat if it's a tough cleaning job. One bottle lasts absolutely ages. I also buy washing-up liquid which is obviously used for dishes but is very good at squirting onto any stains on clothes or tablecloths, etc, as well as shifting hard to budge stuff on the hob if used neat. Then what else? Loo cleaner, obviously. And I have polish. I'm using up various ones I brought from Mum's house at the moment but when I buy for myself, I like the old fashioned beeswax polish in a glass jar or a tin. It makes furniture smell so lovely. And I buy own brand laundry powder & also those bags of soda crystals as they are good for soaking laundry when necessary as well as all sorts of other jobs. That's about it, really. The other bits & bobs in my cupboard are mostly stuff I've acquired rather than bought & won't be replaced when used up.
It's a myth that everything requires a different product & we are complete suckers if we fall for it in my opinion!
F x

foxgloves

CLF - Ohhhhhh, gosh yes, the Monthly Log Book kept by PE teachers. Horrible & demeaning. I can well remember being told "Foxgloves that is the third period THIS MONTH! GO & GET A SHOWER!!' We all thought this was a very discriminatory system because it was a system which assumed everyone's periods were as regular as clockwork. Mine were, as it happened, so I wasn't adversely affected by this mean system, but there were others who were. I had quite mature loopy handwriting & I used to be asked by girls now & again to forge a letter from their Mums saying they were excused from showers. I never got found out & I did quite a few over the years. My price was one cream egg.
Swimming lessons could be pretty bad. We used the municipal full-sized pool next door & for some reason, ALL PE teachers insisted we jump in. I couldn't jump in as I wasn't a confident swimmer at all. One teacher would get us all lined up along the length of the pool, blow her whistle & we all had to jump in. The ones that were left on the side after that had another chance (another lovely blast on the whistle) & if anyone was still left, she'd start at one end & walk along pushing them in! Thankfully, she always used to start at the opposite end & I used to quickly get down the steps & into the water before she reached me. I can't imagine that getting through a risk assessment these days. It shouldn't have been done then, either. It had absolutely no purpose other than the teacher enjoying being a bully.
F x

foxgloves

Now, I was just about to sign out & go & see if I've still got some tonic waters in the cupboard when I remembered I was meant to tell you about that Very Glamourous Item I purchased on our city centre trip the other day. We had tickets for a comedy night but I had some shopping to do so we drove in mid-afternoon so i could crack on with it.
Yes, i have to admit that I am now the proud owner of a Drain Weasel.
Had to laugh at Mr F. He asked me if I had much stuff to buy. I passed him my list & he cast an eye over it & said 'What does that say, Babe? It looks like "drain weasel" . I said that's exactly what it said & had to explain that the length of my tether has now effectively run out where our slow running bathroom basin is concerned. I'd read the reviews, done a bit of online research & decided that as even soda crystals have failed, I was willing to chuck £8.99 at this low-tech wonder gadget.
Later, were went for a coffee & a snack before heading off to the theatre & Mr F was laughing at me because my bag was near the door & I reckoned people kept looking at my drain weasel like they were jealous. We were back too late to try it out so I mentioned the next day that I intended to do so while I did my Friday cleaning. Mr F was off work that day but had to pop out & despite him thinking I was utterly tragic for getting so excited about a plughole clearing gizmo the previous day, he was horrified that I was even contemplating unpacking said item & trying it out without him!
So I said I'd wait for him to get back but he would have to do the worst plughole. Well, he inserted the rod thingy, turned the handle & then brought it back up & you would honestly think he'd fished out a whole rat, the amount of gunk that was down there! Of course this got a lively 'discussion' going about whether 'people with long hair' are more to blame for blocked plugholes than people with shaved heads. I said that he needed to factor into the argument that I do have much longer hair than him, but am otherwise not a very hairy person whereas he is covered in man hair which I'm sure pings off all over the place. He was quite offended, lol! Anyway, I shoved the new gizmo down the troublesome basin & it has improved matters a lot. I don't even know what the gunk was that came out....I didn't fancy doing a forensic analysis to be honest.......but there was a lot of it & the water is running away a lot better now.
The rods are supposed to be binned after each use but I have cleaned it up & dipped it in neat bleach for next time as I don't like single-use plastics.
Oh my goodness, how tragic to get so excited about a drain poker thingy. You know, back in the Spendy Decades, if I'd only bought boring things like this on a city centre trip, I'd have had to go & spend some money on something nice too, otherwise it would have been a complete waste of a shopping trip as far as I was concerned. Such different times!
Well, I must go & sort out my jacket potato.......it's use-it-up night in our house tonight, with a bit of a freezer dive going on for toppings.
Enjoy your Saturday nights all,
F x

Blackcats

What an interesting discussion on PE kit, PE activities and PE teachers. I'm now pleased that we didn't have shower facilities - it sounds horrific. I hope that nowadays the shower activities would be a better experience in every aspect.
As I'm still a bit spendy my immediate thought on hearing about your drain weasel was to hope that I might need one too. Do I have any slow running drains? I don't think so, but I did wonder if they might run even faster after a drain weasel had been let loose on them. Honestly, I'm really truly not hoping that I might need my own weasel.

maryb

I WANT ONE!!!!!

Two long haired daughters does not make for free flowing bathroom drains. You can only get so much out with a crochet hook.

Our bathroom drain empties into a gulley which we frequently have to excavate to get rid of the hair rats that form a thick mat. I hate to think what doesn't make it down the pipe

crazy_cat_lady

I hate the plughole cleaning and I think I would be physically sick if I saw that come out of a plug - dd has the longest hair (you may remember) and I hate seeing it starting to bunch up in the bathroom plug.
I am a big fan of a chemical reaction however, and love nothing better than chucking a strong dose of sodium hydroxide down a blocked drain. It reacts beautifully with fats (and the reaction is how you make soap you know). It's the main ingredient in all the drain unblocking stuff you can buy and it's fine down the drains as long as it's rinsed through with plenty of water. Although I know you're probably less fond of harsh chemicals than I am - you could always chuck a bottle of vinegar afterwards to neutralise it...