2022 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Gem-gem

Oh wow! I have a flannelette sheet that was my nannies and my mum remembers it on her Mum's bed as a little girl.
 I also have my duvet set that was on mine and my sister's bed when we were little but no clothes from my mum / Nan. 

I have an engagement ring (around WW1) that was my DH's grans. DH mum was born 100 years ago today. Sadly, she died six years ago. 
When she died, DH and I inherited her old Pyrex dishes ( they are much thicker), old fashioned blankets that were made in this country, lots of old cotton flat sheets, and her old ladies hankies. We also gave some old pieces of furniture that their neighbour made. I love hand-me-downs of all sorts. 

Liverpool_Anne

Hi all, I have several jumpers, cardigans and sweat shirts that are at least 28 years old that I am still wearing and 1 cardigan in particular that I wore on Christmas day still looks like new. I have a couple of Italian mercerised cotton dresses that are 34 years old and still look great though I hardly wear them now as I usually wear trousers.

PipneyJane

Gem-gem said:

@Laura_Elsewhere Thank you. 

Most of my jumpers/cardigans are Merino wool - this is my favourite type. 

I also have an alpaca wool jumper and cashmere. I have seven merino roll neck jumpers, all different colours, I've had them for more than 10 years 👏 and they are still going strong. (H0bb$ and Laura A).

Happy birthday @Fizz2015, thank you for the cake. It is great being able to sit round the fire with like minded people.

MoneysavingmadGem, I work on the same principle as you and your DH when it comes to clothes. Fewer items - better quality - look after them - last longer. 

PipneyJane, I ever since I bought my first house, I have always set budgets for different areas of expenditure including clothes and have stuck to them. It means that I don't feel guilty when I go and buy 'said items' plus it is my choice how much I choose to spend on each want/need. This challenge is fab because only having a set amount of vouchers really focuses your mind on your needs. So, in a way it is budgeting 😁

What is the oldest item of clothing people have in their wardrobe? 

I have a pair of pj bottoms that finally gave up the ghost - wore thin and finally ripped from about 30cm - had them between 25-28 years. Now, my oldest thing is a coat - about 15 years old. 

 @Gem-gem,  how did you manage to change the colour of your text?  That hasn’t been possible before in the new forum.

I think my oldest item of clothing is a jumper that I knitted 40+ years ago.  It still fits although somewhere along the line it shrank slightly - the sleeves are now bracelet length.  Also, sadly, the sleeves have felted along fold lines, where they were abraided by the bed frame/mattress when the jumper was stored in an under-bed drawer.

Correction!  It’s my St John Ambulance beret, from when I was a nursing cadet.  That predates my jumper by 2 or 3 years.  I removed the badge years ago and wear it occasionally.  No it’s not!  I just remembered the Vietnam-era Australian Army shirt that I was given as teenager.  It’s upstairs somewhere.  I never wear that now, just treasure it.

TwibbleDee said:

PipneyJane said:

Ironically for a website about saving money, we don’t talk a lot about budgeting.  Every month, I set aside money for my clothing allowance and my crafting allowance.  These are automatic transfers to separate savings accounts, made on payday.  Not huge amounts of money, but it does build up, and by keeping them quarantined from my regular account, they don’t get accidentally spent.

I just figured that budgeting was covered in other threads, so not really covered in this one.

Hubby & I have an arrangement where we each get an "allowance" each week, and that is used for our individual eating out, clothing, and fun money.  We keep track of everything on a spreadsheet that we both have access to and update almost every day to keep it balanced with the bank.  Funny thing - we changed banks last summer, and the final straw for our old one was that you could have all the same transactions, but the balance would be wrong, then when you logged in later, the balance would have updated to match what you have in the spreadsheet, but that was after you went crazy for a while trying to figure out why it wasn't right.

I’ve not found one, @TwibbleDee.  We have bits, like the Grocery Challenge or some of the stuff on Dealing With Debt, but nowhere where people sit down and share their entire budget, asking for advice on what they could trim or change.  It may be a British thing, though.  I was a longtime active member of the American Motley Fool and find that Americans are far more likely to share this kind of data.  I always learned a lot reading those posts.

My bank updates its balances immediately after a transaction has registered, but my credit card can take two days, so I do feel you pain re your old bank.  They’re also slower to recognise deposits than they are to recognise payments. (Annoying!) Whenever I spend on my credit card, I immediately log into my banking app and transfer the amount of money over, so that I don’t spend what I don’t have.   

30+years ago, as a student nurse, I kept track of everything in a tiny Spirax notebook.  On the cardboard cover was a “budget” listing my take-home pay and all the bills I had to pay each month, leaving a sum that I called my “Money To Live Off” and the spending of that is what I’d track in the notebook.  Later, when I became a trainee accountant in the 1990’s, I switched to using the account pages in a small Filofax. Whenever I lapsed - which could be for months/years - I ended up deeply in debt and spent years bouncing along the bottom of my overdraft.

By then, I had a “Bills Account” for the mortgage/utility bills, and my regular bank account - the start of “quarantine” for my money.  With internet banking, it became easier and easier to open savings accounts and set up standing orders to automatically transfer money to each of them on payday each month, so the number of savings accounts I have has snowballed.  I even have one that I call my “Petrol Accrual” (petrol = gasoline), to cover refuelling my car each month. 

MoneysavingmadGem said:

Never thought about a crafting allowance. I have to focus on one project at a time or I feel overwhelmed and nothing gets completed.

I've wombled some fabric on a free site to hopefully recover a couple chairs and a jumper for my step daughter. Going to go for a rainy stroll to pick it up! So I'll have a cuppa on my return.

Since meeting my OH, I have started to think like him, he says with clothes you get what you pay for. For example a decent pair of boots will last longer than the cheap supermarket ones. Therefore, he looks to have a small amount of durable clothes than lots of clothes that wear out quickly. That for me puts a whole new spin on my budgeting for clothes as I used to just look cheap and replace often. Now I look for quality and offers - i love a charity shop find or a bargin sale! 

@MoneysavingmadGem I am the same.  I have one project on the go at home, usually a sweater of some variety, and a basic sock project in my handbag for when I get stuck on the Tube or have had to be away for work. 

Depending on other needs, my Crafting Allowance has been as low as £5/month or as high as £20.  Just because the money is there, doesn’t mean that I have to spend it but it does mean that when I want/need cash to buy supplies, I have it and I can buy better quality yarn (pure wool, etc) or rare-breed yarn instead of plastic-based.

Ditto Clothing Allowance.  That started life as a “Boot Fund” when I realised that, every winter, I wanted to buy a pair of riding-style leather boots but never had the money to buy them when they were in the shops.   The amount isn’t as important as the habit. When DH was unemployed and I paid all the bills, my Clothing Allowance was £10/month. The important thing is to put something away where it can’t be easily spent and to leave it to grow.  

I do love your OH’s attitude and totally agree.  I think Terry Pratchett voiced it as “Mr Vimes’ boot theory”.  For me, quality of fabric has always been a thing.  That comes from my mum, who trained as a dressmaker.  It has to feel right.  (Yes, I am the person who wanders around shops groping the clothes.). 

- Pip

Liverpool_Anne

When looking for clothes I have been known to stand at the door of a shop and scan the rails and walk back out. I look first by colour, then if I see an item I like the colour of I feel the fabric, if it's not right, I prefer linen and cotton, I walk away. If the garment meets those criteria then I look at the style etc. I do have a lot of clothes that seem to be old but in reasonably good condition and I put this down to being a fussy shopper over the years. Most of my friends hate shopping with me
Take care everyone

Baileys_Babe

@Liverpool_Anne I like the way you clothes shop, colour then feel then style, I realise I do the same I just haven't thought about how or why some things are instantly dismissed. Thank you for explaining my process.

Cherryfudge

I'm with you on colour first, @Liverpool_Anne, and print or lack of it. After all if the colour ain't right, I won't be wearing it.

Oldest item... not sure! Various things of Mum's dating back as far as WW2, and a jumper and shorts of my Dad's of similar period. Embroidery by Mum that's could be pre-war. A few that aren't so old but will make people smile: my Mum handed on terry nappies (diapers) when my children were born and some are still in the back of the cupboard. They were probably mine as a baby and I used them when DD was tiny (the boys kicked too much to keep the folds in place!) and I have mentioned them for when GD gets big enough!

PipneyJane

Fizz2015 said:

Can I ask how many coupons is a swimsuit? 5 or 6? I desperately need a proper supportive swimsuit for proper swimming rather than just lounging in the facilities. 

@Fizz2015, swimsuits aren’t listed but lets assume they use the same fabric and resources as “women’s combinations” so 4 coupons.

All this talk of the oldest garment we own reminds me that I should have one of my mum’s jackets somewhere, from the 1950’s.  Very fitted - it never fit me - and beautifully tailored.  I also have my dad’s tallit bag, which contains his tallit and, I think his father’s.  The latter would be over a century old, while dad’s - if it was his first - would be at least 96 years old.

(A tallit or tallis is the prayer shawl that Jewish men wear.  The spelling in English depends on which version of Hebrew is spoken.  Israel went for Sephardic Hebrew, while the version that merged with German to form Yiddish is Ashkenazic Hebrew.) 

On non-garment fabric items, my oldest is a puffball quilt cover made on the Victorian goldfields in the 1850’s by my great-great-grandfather.  Why, I have no idea, because the puff-balls were never filled with anything and it doesn’t keep you warm.  (It isn’t quilted in the classical sense.)

- Pip



ETA:  after all of the above, I completely forgot why I logged in this afternoon.  I have a spend to declare:  2 coupons spent on 2 random pairs of Alpaca socks from UK Alpaca.  I bought a pair for DH as well, but they’ll come out of his coupons.  (There was an offer in today’s newsletter.)

Liverpool_Anne

@Cherryfudge, exactly, if the colour isn't right I won't wear it and likewise if the fabric doesn't feel right. I think the trend towards cheap fast fashion made from not nice to wear fabric has also meant few purchases for me in the pasr several years and my tendancy now to wear cotton t shirts and trousers although I have noticed a creeping inclusion of other materials into the cotton t shirts which means some of my newer ones are not lasting as well as my older ones and I am not really happy about this change of shop required for the future I think

florianatwobob

I’m a clothes fondler too! I prefer natural fibres and have been known to rant about the number of clothes made out of polyester. 

maryb

ooh how old?  Loden style coat 25 years.  Too big and bulky to wear over trousers in normal circumstances  and I don’t wear skirts now I’m retired but when it snows there’s nothing like it.  Couple of cashmere jumpers from John Lewis 20 years old  - and boy can you tell the difference from their modern stock.  My Barbour is 15 years old and I have renewed the cuff facing three times - it’s in Liberty fabric so can still be got.  My Mephisto shoes went back to France several times to be resoled  before the inner lining got too worn.  The rest of my stuff is cheap M&S basics type but even so I try to keep it for several years.  Winter jumpers only last two years these days ( see cheap cashmere above) because I go through on the elbows.  But I’m getting into visible mending so I can keep them going a bit longer

But my DH (pushing 70) beats me - he has still got his grandfather’s white tie tailcoat and trousers. Just a shame we don’t have occasion to go to formal balls.  He got married in his father’s morning coat, though I did have to let the trousers out to their absolute maximum - and that was a third of a century ago!  No chance of getting into it now, lol.