Make do, Mend and Minimise in 2021

Floss

@Laura_Elsewhere I think you can still buy school pumps / plimsolls, the black slip-on ones with elastic and they're less than £20!

Laura_Elsewhere

Floss said:

@Laura_Elsewhere I think you can still buy school pumps / plimsolls, the black slip-on ones with elastic and they're less than £20!

Those are exactly what I mean - I buy a pair most years, and when they wore a bit too thin for walking far in them, I didn't want to throw them out so was puzzling over what to do with them - now I wear them to swim in  
(EDIT to add: they do have to be lace-up ones, though, as the elastic ones won't necessarily stay on when swimming, and the elastic wouldn't like repeated cold-water-no-detergent machine-rinse cycles...!)

I used to buy the cheap £3 Primark ones, but now buy the £10 Sainsbury's ones as they are better-made, support my feel better and they last far longer... eventually no doubt I'll be swimming in them too!

YorksLass

More minimising    Bit by bit, it's going!

Two books donated to the Little Free Library
Two hairspray aerosols in the recycle bin - there were just a couple of squirts left in each of them to use up first
A bath & pedestal mat set in the CS donation bag
A child's pictorial dictionary in the CS bag (DGS is too old for it now)

Yesterday I emptied the kitchen cupboard containing cleaning stuff, washed down the shelves and put everything back.  There was nothing to dispose of but at least I know what's in there and it's tidy.  I found a full roll of black bin bags that I didn't know I had, so that's a few more pennies saved.

mandy47

Old computer gone to be recycled. 
DDs prom dress off to charity.
2 old pairs of glasses returned to shop for recycling.
Unopened paint given away on Olio.
A good tidy of my ottoman bed resulted in a large shopping  bag full of stuff for the bin. 
A good week of clearing out unwanted stuff.
Next week I'll do my wardrobe.  

Laura_Elsewhere

Minimise: Two huge boxes of books awaiting collection tomorrow by two different second-hand-book-buying apps... 

Make do: lots, as I had some major dental work and have been out of action longer than I expected so Mr E has been scrabbling about for meals to make himself!

Mend: er, me Nearly back up and about... but also having five days in bed has made me really keen to get going on things like the mending pile! 

MrsCD

Took 3 vegetable boxes and a bin bag full of old baby type bedding, handbags, clothes and bits & bobs to the Salvation Army shop this morning. Now we can get along the bottom of the bed without tripping up!

YorksLass

Two more paperbacks donated to the Little Free Library, just four left to go over the next two weeks.

A hand knit finished, so that's another 400g of 4-ply gone from the stash.  This is a jumper, long raglan sleeves, round neck, in plain stocking stitch but jazzed up with a star pattern panel down the front.  Despite all the knitting patterns I have, I usually find myself using the same two - one for 4-ply and one for DK - since they fit well and are ideal for TV knitting.  I think I need to let go of some of the knitting magazines!     

Laura_Elsewhere

Minimise: Thirty kilogrammes of books collected from our home this week by two of those apps.... about fifty quid incoming once they've been checked, but it was less about profit and more about trying to ensure they don't end up pulped or in landfill... so we're selling what we can to the apps (they only take ones with |ISBNs and only some of those); we're giving a huge batch to a small independent second-hand bookshop we care about; there will be a few boxes left, and those we will give to one of the charity bookshops, although we expect they will send them for pulping... we're tackling all the stuff left at my parents' place (my parents are fine! We just are tackling some of the stuff...)

Make do: lots! I had dental surgery on Wed 28th, expecting 2-3 days out of action but it's turned out differently... so we've had a lot of very scratch meals as I haven't been up to cooking for ages! On the mend now... 

Mend: the usual endless mending-pile of hems to stitch up, buttons to sew back on, etc., etc... 

MrsCD

Minimized a huge pile of knitting, crochet and craft magazines, via the coffee morning and friends. They'll end up at the charity shop eventually.

florianatwobob

Mended my work rucksack. Whilst still structurally sound the material covering the strap had started to pull away. It’s by far the best laptop back/rucksack *ever* so worth fixing.