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

msgnomey

A very interesting question OP

When I was growing up money was tight and my mum was very OS, I learnt a lot from her

When I left home I went a bit mad, got a credit card etc etc, it is a hard habit to break spending whenever and whatever you like, i wish I hadn't got into it

I think that there should be an element of 'put the waiting back in to wanting' to coin a phrase

Now in my 40s I live within my means, am comfortable but not wealthy, and I am OS because I like to think that I get value for my money!!

Rikki

With regards OS cooking, I just prefer the taste of my home made food over shop bought. I know whats gone into it and make a simple meal from not a lot. Am I a food snob? Yes.:p

As for make do and mend, it just comes natural to me and my hobbies are practical too.:o

caroline1973lefty

It's been great reading through this thread! I guess my original motivation for being OS was, like many others, saving money and living a more natural life.
As a kid i actually liked it when my mum said (as she frequently had to) 'right we're going on an economy drive'. To me, that meant tasty home-cooked food (especially puddings!) rather than supermarket pap, it meant feeling like we had made a positive choice to have some control over our finances, rather than being stuck in a cycle of splurge and panic.
As an adult i did exactly the same as the OP ie get over-excited by having money of my own and get caught up in that same splurge/panic cycle. I lived like that throughout my 20s but now i'm in my 30s i know such a lifestyle isn't good for my soul. I'm also more confident in myself so whilst I like to look nice, I'm not so worried about following 'fashion' or having the latest lipstick shade. In fact I have realised that people look far more attractive in classic natural fibres or quirky charity shop gear, and with a healthy glow from enough good food, sleep, water and love – but of course no-one makes millions advertising THAT in the magazines!
I do still like shopping and find I have to stamp on my weaknesses one by one – just recently rejoined the library which will save me a small fortune. I also try and stay away from the magazines they just made me feel inadequate (though it took me 20 years to realise that!). When I do splurge now I at least try and buy stuff that might actually be more expensive in the short term, but will be good quality – like my le creuset saucepan – finally I can cook without burning stuff!
I love learning from the experiences of other OS-ers. I think maybe some is finally rubbing off, though i've been a lurker/armchair OS-er for ages! For example i have just had home made veggie chilli for the 2nd night running and it is so tasty i think i'll be fine to have that for another couple of nights! (I don't have a freezer cos i can never be bothered to defrost things).
When I first came on MSE i hung out on other boards and thought OS wasn't for me but now its the main one i look at. Some of the other boards on MSE just inspired me to spend more money on 'bargains' that i didn't really need! This board has inspired me to go out into my local community and meet people who are trying to pursue a less consumerist, more socially and environmentally friendly way of life. i have met some lovely people and have found places to go to learn OS skills like chutney making and knitting and gardening, which are so much more enjoyable ways to spend a Saturday afternoon than shopping, as someone else said. I'm less stressed about my job now because I feel I could survive on less money, if I needed to.
So thanks OP for kicking off a great thread (even if i wonder if you might be a journalist?!)

Siberia

Thank you very much for all your really useful and interesting posts. I can see that there's a really diverse range of reasons for doing things the OS way, and not just out of necessity like my mum. I am a research student so I suppose that that style of writing has bled into my post, but I'm not doing research for an essay or anything, so please don't worry that I'm trying to exploit your experiences and opinions for anything - I'm not. I'm just personally interested in what makes people reject a consumer lifestyle that has become the norm.

To answer your questions and give you a sense of my financial background, where I am now, and explain why I'm a bit conflicted about whether going OS is the right decision for me:

I'm the eldest of four children that my mum brought up on income support. My parents are divorced. Managing on a budget that small meant that she had no choice but to do things the OS way. This meant only buying clothes from charity shops, walking everywhere instead of taking the bus, waiting to get home to eat if you were hungry when out and about, cooking everything from scratch and spending every evening going from supermarket to supermarket to stock up on "reduced to clear" food.

As moanymoany puts it, it was a "mix of familiarity and need". But my oldest brother is 12 now, and I can't help but wonder if she would have been a lot better off getting a job when he started school, rather than carrying on doing things the OS way. She's very sure in herself that her way of doing things is the right way, and thinks that because she would lose so many benefits by working, that she's better off this way - in the short term that's almost definitely true. Like ubamother, she is perhaps also a bit "live free or die", she would be horrified at paying full price for anything, and would rather have the free time to pick up bargains. To be honest, its amazing what she did with the little cash we had, and as far as food was concerned we always ate much, much better than friends of mine who were relatively well off. She also sees doing any low paid work as being exploited. She went to uni but didn't graduate and has been out of the job market for such a long time that only low paying work would be available at first, and part of me thinks that she reckons most of the jobs she could get are a bit beneath her. I think that, had she started work or training 12 years ago, she would have been able to work her way up a career ladder and ultimately be in a better financial position now, and if not now, then in the next ten years. In my mum's case, maybe sticking to the OS way of doing things has kept her standing still financially rather than making her better off?
I have a good relationship with my mum. I don't criticise her way of doing things, and she doesn't criticise mine (well, she doesn't criticise it much). I also have to say that she hasn't really enjoyed the OS lifestyle, most probably because it wasn't really a choice, and really resents the "life of drudgery" she's had to put up with. I should point out that I would never ask her to support my student lifestyle, and as soon as I had my own income (even borrowed income) have never asked for a penny (its just not there to ask for), have helped her out financially on many occasions and always pay my way when I come back to live at home for a while.
As Pitanepiglet says, my way of spending has perhaps been an age thing. I think that when I moved out, I was rebelling against being brought up thriftily by overspending. Never again would I sit in a hairdresser training school for three hours watching my hair get gradually shorter and shorter! I paid £40 for a haircut and walked out happy that it a) looked much better and b) took 40 mins. But treats like this gradually became the norm, and my tastes crept up as I became accustomed to them. I didn't have to rummage through charity shops anymore, and started going straight to primark - then to txmaxx - then to topshop. When I was 18 I would never dream of spending more than £5 on a pair of jeans. By now I spend £10 on a mascara, £20 on a Neals Yard moisturizer (albeit with a very guilty feeling)! Being brought up on great bargain home cooking, I was used to pretty good food as well. But I didn't have time to do the bargain shopping - so I bought it at full price instead.
I was also very much encouraged to put aside my present financial needs for future prospects. I wanted a saturday job at school so that I could go out with my friends and so on, but was never allowed to get one because my parents though I'd be better off putting that time into school work. That paid off and I got into the uni I wanted. At uni, my time was balanced between doing as well as I could academically, getting work experience in the sectors I was interested in, and making the most of my time at uni, having fun, picking up new skills and travelling. This was a pretty hectic lifestyle. I tried to put what tips I'd been brought up with into practise, picking up bargains when I saw them, not buying ready meals and so on, but when it came time for finals literally every second counted: I blew a crazy amount of money on take aways, supermarket snacks / bits and pieces to cheer myself up / the odd wild night out to let off steam. Shoving it all on the credit card "shelved" my financial worries and let me put 100% of my time and energy into getting the results I wanted. Would I have got the same results if I'd been frugal? Possibly - but the hours of work experience, charity volunteering, social connections and the degree supported by debt all ultimately contributed to a strong application for a scholarship to do an MA abroad - which otherwise would cost £30, 000. I guess I've been lucky and that debt has (so far) worked out ok for me. Now I have student loans for £16, 000 (which I'm not too worried about as its a controlled form of debt), an overdraft of £2 000, (interest free), and a credit card bill of £1000. Excluding student loans, this works out at an overspend of about £60 a month, which is not too bad when I consider that I've been able to travel to Africa and China, had a lot of really great experiences, and enjoyed my degree. I appreciate moanymoany's point that the economic climate has radically shifted and that a lot of people are in for "a nasty wake up call as will so many that think a degree is going to guarantee them a profitable future". A lot of my friends who went to uni have found that they are only able to get jobs in coffee shops and so on - jobs they could have gone into straight from school. A lot of them also really watched the pennies as uni and graduated (unlike me) without any commercial debt at all. But I'm fairly confident that at some point I'll be in a position when my total debt equals or is less than one year's salary - so one year of work supported four years of student living, which seems fair. But as I said, I've been lucky.

My concern is that, as a lot of you have pointed out, if I'm living beyond my means now, how will I cope when I have financial commitments like a mortage, a family and so on - along with all the additional spending that goes along with a full time job? I'm not proud of the way that I spend money and I really want to change it. My first wake up call was moving in with my boyfriend. Even though he's from a far more affluent background than me, he was shocked at the way I blew money on things like lattes, magazines, expensive treats for dinner. Though I do have to say I think some of that is just down to priorities and personality. He would rather walk home in the rain than break a tenner for the bus. He'll go without lunch rather than buy an overpriced sandwich. But then he'll splash out with the money he's saved on something that he really wants like an XBox, or a holiday (he's not in any debt). For my part I'd rather write off expensive things like an ipod or a holiday as out of my league, and spend the money on little things that make me comfortable in an everyday way, like a nice bit of cheese, a bottle of wine and so on. But I'm especially ashamed of my financial habits because money I spend on "because I'm worth it" treats, is money that could go towards helping out my mum, or chipping away at my overdraft.

At the same time, I'm a research student and the sooner I hand in my final projects, the sooner I can get on the job market. If I spend half an hour walking out of my way to pick up cheaper groceries, that's half an hour I could have spent doing research. If I spend saturday doing batch cooking that's a whole day I could have spent redrafting my work. I can see that the little savings here and there all really add up, but so do the little hours and evenings. If I spend an extra hour a day, or one day a week, cooking from stratch or comparing prices, then over the course of my two year research project, I've effectively lost a month's future wages. Also, as I'm attached to a university, its easy to pick up work teaching, tutoring or taking on extra research projects that pay reasonably well. For me this extra work means there would be less pressure to forgo my "treats" and would help my future job prospects more than spending time doing things the OS way would - you can't really put making moussaka on your CV. Or I could be spending that time getting work experience in other sectors that I'm considering moving into.

Despite that I do see the real need to change my ways. I keep on bumping against my credit and overdraft limits resulting in those awful bank charges - and that really is money down the drain. Also, if I hadn't got into the habit of going out for expensive meals, buying soap from lush and all that nonsense then I *could* have graduated without any commercial debt. A few months ago I decided I wanted to get out of my cycle of overspending. My boyfriend supported, in fact was instrumental, in this decision and agreed to pay off my credit card bill on the condition that I cut it up. I now owe him £1000, and not the credit card company - but I no longer have the comfort of knowing that if I run out of cash, I can't just stick it one the credit card to tide me over. So I'm going to have to strip back. I also want to start repairing my bad habits now, so that when I do begin to earn a salary, that money won't be wasted. My problem is that growing up frugally means that I associate treats like coffees, sandwiches and the brand of shampoo I prefer with comfort and financial security. I realise that this is an illusion, so I need to change my mindset more than anything else and that ultimately, downshifting isn't depriving myself - it's taking care of myself.

And yet as lis545 says, I am in the position where I hope that a "huge investment of time now will pay off financially later". Going into law or a phd will be taking on even more debt. I don't want that debt to get out of control, but I don't want to be compromising on my options either.

One other thought is that, as a lot of you have pointed out, at some point I may want a family life. If I want to manage a house and a family without the pain of debt, I need to start learning how to manage my finances now. I'm interested in the fact that a lot of people on this board are women. If we're thinking of the money we save doing things the OS way as money earned, that means that time is money. We're not doing these things in our "spare" time - it is labour. I'm interested in whether or not OS is a bit of a gendered economy: is it another example of relatively low paid "women's work"? I'm just throwing this out here, but as far as I can see one of the main reasons that a convenience lifestyle, buying ready meals and getting clothes from primark instead of mending what we have has become the norm, is that women entered the labour market and so had less time to spend doing things in traditional, sustainable ways. Your perspectives on this would be really interesting.

My initial thoughts are that I am going to give a few OS strategies a go, taking Bunny Zoo's advice: "baby steps all the way". I'm going to try cooking double portions and freezing - in fact that just makes so much sense that I can really hardly believe that I've never though of it before. I'm also going to give up on my beloved take away coffee and take a flask, and I'll start bringing my own lunch too - not bothering to make my own really is just laziness, pure and simple. I'm also going to cut out expensive cosmetics - this is a really big area of unnecessary expenditure - I really don't need honey soap from lush or face masks from neals yard or expensive body scrubs - I just got gradually used to buying "nicer" stuff and the costs creep up.

Thank you again for all of your insights and advice!

lil_me

Looking at your replies Siberia, you're intelligent and resourceful but just enjoy luxuries, I try to combine both. My OS ways are used to save money to spend it if I am entirely honest. I don't currently NEED to be OS but I've come to enjoy it and miss it when I can't bake and make. I prefer to be more OS because I like to know what goes into my food, what I clean with is safe etc. I am very much a food snob, my OS ways help me afford to be, good cheese, meat etc is 'normal' for me but I cut back elsewhere to allow for it, not put it on plastic.

Have you thought of making your own beauty products? It can be good fun, a great excuse for a girly night in aswell if you like socialising. There are oodles of recipes on the internet depending what you want to make eg http://www.spa-living-for-health.com/homemade-facial-recipes.html

Living outside your means is something people have got far to used to, my parents are a nightmare for it so nothing learned there, I did as they did and got oodles of debt/credit cards, thankfully have got myself through it and seen the light at the other side.

champys

For me, the OS lifestyle means freedom. I have had a high-flying career for many years, worked very hard and could spend whatever I liked on whatever I wanted. I did not get into debt, because I worked as an expat in less developed countries - there simply wasn't that much you could spend it on.

I had my lightbulb moment one day just before my 40th birthday - I worked in Lithuania at that time and I couldn't go back to the UK to throw a birthday party because big bosses from the States were coming over. As always, work came first and private life second. WHY was I doing what I was doing? Moving from one assignment to the next, always living in furnished rented flats, I also suddenly realised that in spite of having 'done well' in my career,real life had passed me by. I was about to be 40. I had no OH, no kids. Just a very good job. My parents could be proud of me.

It was then that I decided to change - probably too late to have kids, but I could still maybe find a partner, someone to make happy, and build some sort of a home. In early life, I had always loved cooking, knitting, sewing, crafts - and then never had time for these things again. I was missing them. The worst thing was, I didn't even love my work. I merely did it out of a sense of duty and 'doing the best you can'.

Well, the rest is history. I went part-time, moved back to the UK, and found that the freedom of only half a job and having time to to things for myself made me happier than any promotion, holiday or shopping spree ever had done. I remember having a permanent smile on my face those first few months. No wonder I did meet an OH not too long after! Living on half a salary meant of course adopting an OS lifestyle, but it was just a matter of dusting off and re-discovering old skills. With the UK becoming ever more expensive and our wish to be even further from the rat-race and more self-sufficient, we moved to France where we now try to hedge against the financial crisis by growing ever more potatoes and adding more elements to the smallholding as we go along. OH has given up work altogether and runs garden and livestock, I still have my part-time job. We love it. It really is a lot more fun than a morning in Harvey Nick's. And having this forum with like-minded friends is just wonderful - it makes me feel I am not an odd-ball, but there are many others just like me and as this thread proves, all OS for very good reasons.

And as a side-effect: now that I only do my job for half the time, I find I enjoy it a lot more than before......... :-)

caroline1973lefty

Siberia wrote: »

My problem is that growing up frugally means that I associate treats like coffees, sandwiches and the brand of shampoo I prefer with comfort and financial security. I realise that this is an illusion, so I need to change my mindset more than anything else and that ultimately, downshifting isn't depriving myself - it's taking care of myself.

hi siberia just to say i feel bad now for suggesting you might be a journalist! sorry bout that. i totally relate to this bit in your post and also your questions about the extent to which it is worth spending time on OS stuff vs working towards a better paid job. I am not sure what the answer is, be interesting to see what other people have to say. For me it is all about balance - a neals yard moisturiser when i need a new moisturiser is just being nice to myself (i love neals yard!), a heap of petromchemical filled beauty gunk just cos its on special offer / i need a 'pick me up' isn't, really. It's not about feeling deprived, either - the other thing i realised when i kept a spending diary was that the days i was happiest were days i had spent hardly anything (but had enjoyed the company of friends, rather than shopping out of boredom).

champys

Siberia wrote: »

If we're thinking of the money we save doing things the OS way as money earned, that means that time is money. We're not doing these things in our "spare" time - it is labour. I'm interested in whether or not OS is a bit of a gendered economy: is it another example of relatively low paid "women's work"? I'm just throwing this out here, but as far as I can see one of the main reasons that a convenience lifestyle, buying ready meals and getting clothes from primark instead of mending what we have has become the norm, is that women entered the labour market and so had less time to spend doing things in traditional, sustainable ways. Your perspectives on this would be really interesting.

Siberia - that is always an interesting point, but it is (for those who have this choice), the time vs money argument. You need to assess how much money you actually need to live the way you want. Right now lattes and expensive cosmetics make you happy, so you need lots, but that may change.
My bosses would be over the moon if I accepted to work more hours. If I would accept this, I could pay a cleaner instead of cleaning the house myself, which is 'labour' as you say. But I would be giving up part of my freedom. And I don't mind cleaning at all - when I do it, I am my own boss and set my own standards. In our household this is not only a women's thing - my DH could earn far more in an hour as an IT engineer than for digging potatoes as he does now. But as an original biologist, he likes growing things much better than saving up to buy an X-box. If you could work out what really makes you happy (but I know that is not easy!), then you can set your earnings target accordingly. But don't forget that one person's 'labour' could be another person's pleasure. Many people enjoy gardening. My mother hated it: having grown up as the daughter of a market gardener, she considered this 'hard labour' and could never understand why others did it for fun........

2cats1kid

Siberia, first off I found your last post interesting and well reasoned, so hats off to you.

I think your problem (if I can call it that) is that you are associating being OS with deprivation. For some people here it is a necessity, but for just as many it is a choice. I'd sooner cook from scratch than eat ready meals - I think home cooked food is healthier and tastes better, quite apart from being cheaper. And I don't spend "all day Saturday" cooking. I have a slow cooker, put it on before I leave for work and the meal is ready when I get in. And/or I cook double/triple quantities and freeze some, so you effectively have a ready meal to pop in the oven or microwave, but you cooked it.

And although I am careful with the money in some ways, I treat myself in others. We have a holiday in the US every other year, during which time the amount we eat would make my hair curl at any other time. Like Bill Bryson once said, one meal in the US could feed Lesotho! But we look forward to that holiday for 2 years, save up for it, pay it off in instalments, and love every second while we are there. Even while we are there we are saying "next time, we'll do such-and-such". So you *can* be OS and treat yourself, just do it in a way that has you living within your means and making whatever changes feel appropriate to you.

Maybe you could start by cooking a meal a couple of times a week and cooking double of it and freezing half (spag bol or chilli is a good one to start with) or buy a breadmaker so that you know exactly what is going into your bread and can get a great wholesome loaf for half what you'd pay in the shops. Take sandwiches to college if you'd normally grab a packed sandwich or something. And then at the end of the month if you have money to spare and want that lippy or moisturiser then you can do it with a clear conscience.

You may even find yourself doing it from choice, rather than necessity in due course.

buxtonrabbitgreen

This has been very interesting reading. My ex oh said I had a jumble sale mentality. I have always been very unmaterialistic. The things that give me pleasure are simple things, like foraging for fruit that I make into jam. And the satisfaction I get from my kids ignoring bought cakes and pouncing on the home made. But I see why you feel like you do siberia. I have 5 kids and had to be frugal. My eldest ds is like you. I think he felt a bit deprived and went mad when he started earning money. He has over indulged his children. Borrowed on he mortgage to fund a lifestyle that they cannot afford. Anyway he too has come to realise that he cant continue like that. And is now taking pleasure in growing tomatoes, making pickles and spending less on xmas etc. If you really like buying nice cosmetics etc go on the grabbit board and on the Boots grabbit thread. They will show you how to make the most of your money, and buy lovely stuff too.