Prepping: the new world...

Floss

MrsCD said:

 
 Check he can do basic housekeeping, such as cleaning the toilet, windows etc., 

Forgot to add - teach teenagers to clean the bathroom so if in shared accommodation they can at least have a shower in relatively hygienic conditions 😁

Nargleblast

Yes, teaching children at a very young age the basic principles of taking care of your body, your possessions and your environment, plus cleaning up after yourself go a long way to make them into competent adults who are a pleasure to be around.

Reduce, recycle. I am doing that with the household book supply at the moment. I had loads of books in two different book cases, fiction and non fiction, several were my husband's from years ago. For ages they have all been there, most never being read. Encyclopaedias, reference books, cookery books, odd works of fiction here and there, autobiographies. I decided to follow the William Morris principle of not keeping anything in your home that isn't either useful or beautiful. 

I have reduced that book stash to around half. A parcel has gone off to Ziffit, I'll get a few quid for them. Some paperbacks in very good condition have gone to the village library. Three carrier bags full have gone to the hospice charity shop. I still have three more bags in the car boot but I can unload them as and when the opportunity arises. 

All the fiction is now in the spare room bookcase, the nonfiction in the study bookcase. There are huge gaps on the shelves that I can use to store other stuff. A copy of  the Readers Digest Cookery Year that I have had since the 1970s has gone. As much as it was a treasured read, I never cooked anything from it, the recipes are very dated, from the 70s dinner party era. Any useful stuff that I don't already know I can find on the internet. Times have moved on and we have to adapt to that.

Prepping-wise, getting rid of stuff that is no longer useful will be a help for the future years when I will need a simpler, less-cluttered living environment, and when I eventually shuffle off this mortal coil it will be simpler for my children to clear the house. I am sure most of us have known the nightmare relative who was an Extreme Hoarder, I don't want to be one of those.

Karmacat

I'm going to finally get a car.  I passed my test 40 years ago, but I've never driven regularly.  I had my eyes checked, I'm researching chains of driving schools for refresher lessons using an automatic (I learned on a manual, of course, but everybody I've spoken to has said, get an automatic).  I want something small, even a 3 door, and a hybrid, not full EV.  Not sure what type of hybrid yet, I'm not quite there.

Does anybody have any prepping-type, or other type, tips as to what to get, what to watch for?  Or even what satnav to use, since I may not have one built-in in the car I choose - no idea when they took over. 

I have: emergency lantern, AA flashing lantern, nice new atlas, nice new highway code, AA book of roadsigns, I'm about to investigate the driving section of Which.  

All advice and information, including websites I probably don't know about, gratefully received.

Farway

Karmacat said:

I'm going to finally get a car.  I passed my test 40 years ago, but I've never driven regularly.  I had my eyes checked, I'm researching chains of driving schools for refresher lessons using an automatic (I learned on a manual, of course, but everybody I've spoken to has said, get an automatic).  I want something small, even a 3 door, and a hybrid, not full EV.  Not sure what type of hybrid yet, I'm not quite there.

Does anybody have any prepping-type, or other type, tips as to what to get, what to watch for?  Or even what satnav to use, since I may not have one built-in in the car I choose - no idea when they took over. 

I have: emergency lantern, AA flashing lantern, nice new atlas, nice new highway code, AA book of roadsigns, I'm about to investigate the driving section of Which.  

All advice and information, including websites I probably don't know about, gratefully received.

Sat Nav, use your mobile phone, hands free of course, or with passenger. Google has one, but IMO Waze is better, live updates and can get a nice English lady telling you to take the third exit at the roundabout

Nargleblast

If your phone doesn't have a satnav facility then I can recommend both Tomtom and Garmin satnavs. And definitely get an automatic, I switched to an automatic 12 years ago and would never go back to a manual.

YoungBlueEyes

I’ll second getting Waze as your satnav.  V easy to use and easy on your phone battery  

YoungBlueEyes

@DigForVictory If it was me I’d buy him lots of one thing and only a little of something else to go with it (itms?) so he has to start thinking about quantities and stashing… eg lots of packets of pasta and only one jar of pasta sauce. Lots of toothbrushes but one tube of toothpaste.  Engage his engineer brain  

Floss

@Karmacat visit all your local dealers & test drive anything that takes your fancy* Are you buying new, pre-loved or ex-demo? I'm currently driving a Hyundai i10 and can recommend as a petrol small 5-door.

* don't do what I did & state "4-door, not white" to my former main dealer colleagues, and leave in a 3-door white car that I hadn't driven 🫣... it did last me 10 years though!

pumpkin89

thriftwizard said:

Some interesting observations came out of the lockdowns; why was everyone chasing every last shred of loo-roll for dear life? Did it not occur to anyone else that you could use rags & a bleach-bucket? When the shelves in W8rose (our local supermarket) were devoid of tagliatelle & fusilli & irate customers were yelling at the poor staff, why was no-one buying the macaroni? (That shelf was full!) I did worry that some people have kind of lost the ability to think outside the box, especially when under pressure, if they can't mentally swap macaroni for fusilli, though I know they do work a little differently in some recipes.

I've just done an event aimed at getting people to curb their buying habits, particularly with reference to clothing & fast fashion. From my point of view, it was very successful, but once again, slightly dismaying to hear people proudly proclaim their inability to sew on a button or mend a small hole in a jumper. I know some of them will have been covering their embarrassment, but others still have a "I'm too important to bother, I'll just buy a new one" attitude. Is this the defiant cry of a dying breed? Or the "mainstream" fighting back?

IMO, one of the great problems of our time is that many people only really interact with others in similar social circles.  Different ages, classes, cultures co-exist without mingling, which leads to many of us having quite fixed expectations and narrow views of the world.  Social media exacerbates this by showing us news stories and posts which reinforce, rather than challenge, our existing opinions.  I suspect the things you suggest genuinely did not occur to many people.

Your post has called me out as rather more "stuck in the box" than I'd like.  I can cope with swapping pasta, but I can no more imagine rags and a bleach-bucket than having to trek ten miles to a well to get water.  I like the concept of mending clothes but I would need someone to show me how.  I'm not "too important to bother" but the motivator is environmental concerns rather than thrift - new clothes are cheap and time is always in short supply.

YoungBlueEyes

I think yoofs today place a different value on time/money than us middle-aged folks. 

When I read on the other thread about fleece lining your curtains yourself with those cheapo blanket things, I bought some and sat and did 2 big pairs in the evenings while watching telly. Yes I could’ve gone to Dunelm etc to buy an equivalent but I value the money saving of it.

I used to work with a girl who always bought carp clothes from Primark, wore them twice then binned them. Washing is ruining the environment (microplastics, water is precious etc), they only fall apart anyway, (which they can’t repair) so why bother? They’ve got better things to do. She valued the time saved more than the money. YOLO and best life and all that.