WHY are you old style?......

sammy_kaye18

well ive been out today so far and ive brought myself a slow cooker for £8 from the local market and brougth two more fleece blankets to cuddle in now its getting a little bit colder

woohoo iwill be warm this winter

carriel_2

I'm a new OS'er, so probably not qualifed to answer this yet, but i'm going to anyway so ner

Primarily for financial reasons, my husband works hard & earns a good wage, but so much of it gets spent on rubbish (mainly food) we have no savings & now that we have cut up all the credit cards & closed the overdraft, I worry about what would happen if something went wrong. So I started this to help to save money each month & to pay off our debt more quickly.

BUT its actually having a big change on the rest of our lives, instead of making the kids nuggets & chips, then feeing us later, we're all eating a healthy meal at the table together which is lovely. (not too mention much healthier) Our priorities are changing, instead of nipping to tesco on payday & spending £50 on junk for the weekend plus takeaways, we stayed home, I made a really nice Toad in the Hole & planned next weeks shopping.

My first big challenge comes tomorrow, I desperatly want to bring down my shopping bill, currently about £400 per month. I've planned 2 weeks meals & am going to shop tomorrow at Lidls & want to spend less than £100, lets see how I go!

wigginsmum

I'm O/S through financial necessity, and nostalgia. The financial payoff is what's needed, but the emotional payoff is very satisfying.

moggins

I was having a really good think about this today and I realise how much my parents made me old style, not because they were old style but because they weren't! They didn't have much money but would never have dreamed of going into debt. But they always bought cheap and when I say that I mean the cheap tat that looks shoddy and never lasts.

Mum couldn't cook and by the time she had come home from work she never wanted to anyway, so everything I do is more a rebellion against the way I was brought up. I want my children to remember a home where they had attention, good food, warm clothing that other children don't take the mickey out of, and a sense of achievement rather than of struggle.

Sujamjen

And when you are more solvent will you/have you gone back to buying ready made meals/flying to distant holiday destinations/buying a big gas guzzler/having the c/h on full belt etc etc??

I'll kick off if you like. When my kids were small and I was a stay at home mum I made everything from scratch and walked almost everywhere (although I did have a car). Now I'm back at work, I do buy ready made currys (on Friday night) and McDougals Chicken & Asparagus Pies (once a week as they are so much better than the ones I make). I'm still frugal with the c/h, make all my own bread, cakes etc and cook most meals from scratch. So I'd have to say that during the 32 years I've been married I've been predominately OS. Over to you now.....

BargainHunterCat

No way!!!

I've always been environmentally aware and the more money I have, the more I can spend on nice eco-friendly stuff!

I'm glad that people do get into good habits when money is tight and maybe they'll find they actually like using white vinegar (who can live without it!) instead of nasty chemicals!!

Vote OS! Vote Green!:D

kethry

i love cooking far too much to do the whole convenience food thing, that's something that'll never change regardless of how much money we have (or don't have). OH loves my home made food so i just don't see that changing. What might change is the amount we eat out - if we came into more money then i can see OH taking me out to restaurants a lot more than we do currently (which is zilch) and maybe having takeout a little more than we do now (which is zilch LOL).

as for the environment, i'd actually go the other way if money wasn't a problem, invest in things that cost money initially like the solar panels. If i won the lottery bigtime, for e.g. i'd build a house that was as environmentally friendly as possible - sacrifices don't necessarily have to be made for this to happen - and also put into place green practises like composting & gardening (which i can't do atm because the local yahoos vandalise everything and housing association won't put better fencing up). I'd also buy things like the mooncup and invest in environmentally friendly firms. I'd love to do more than i currently do, but finances just don't permit.. so i'm doing what i can, and building up slowly.

keth
xx

susank

We are in a much better position than we were years ago - we are now mortgage free (at long last), the little darlings are fledged long ago and I still cook from scratch most nights and buy as little convenience foods as I can although I work full -time - nothing like a large cook in once a month or so!. My car has died as I am in the process of buying a car which will give me over 60 mpg and cost me only £50.00 per year on car tax = I recycle what I can and we have solid fuel central heating which we get the logs for free for. I will try not to change from this to being a spendthrift and wasting money. I would also be interested in a windmill for the house if they become cost effective and make own electricity to save some money and the planet. I joined freecycle locally and hope to be able to offer things and get things in the future from them. All in all I hope not to change except be able to indulge myself now and again for a change!!

Like Keth I would like to be able to go out now and again for a meal - just the two of us - violins!!!

livinginhope

I have always been fairly OS,I was bought up to fend for myself most of the time and loved cooking,I have always made food from scratch unless I'm poorly (which is quite often at the moment) but then DH knows how to make an omlette so we have that.
I cannot see the point in eating ready meals,not enough and tastes yuk! they do not compare to home made,goodness knows what's in them.
No amount of money will make me eat convenience food,all it would do is allow me to buy better quality ingredients.
I would like to be more eco-friendly,saw some wind turbines in B&Q but then saw the price!!!!!!,if I had more money then I would invest.
Therefore I can honestly say,if I had more disposable income,the Livinginhope household would be MORE OS and eco-friendly than if I had less.

Mrs_Cupier

Interesting question. We started off hoping to reduce our environmental impact as a newly-married couple with two salaries, and I started old-styling it then. OH also loves to cook (I only married him because he was the only man I'd ever met who kept cream in his fridge, not beer), so it was relatively easy, but it didn't exactly save money - organic meat and so on, and a tendency to cook 'lavish' as well as from scratch. Seven years, three kids and only one salary later (including a recent drop in salary because he's stopped contract work), we're OS'ing it because it fulfils both criteria. I'd love to be self-sufficient one day, in terms of energy and most food production, but I can't see that happening within 25 miles of London! But equally, I can't see us being able to square it with our consciences to splash the cash on 'disposables' like ready meals and flights when things get a bit easier.