Is Old Style a Rose Tinted World?

squeaky

Ooh! Get a nanny and have free milk

mah_jong

I have came late to this thread...
my thoughts, for what its worth!!!

As with everything, OS means different things to different folks. Sarah Saver says its not always easy, any ealier poster also mentions being on a low income.

Living cheaply and frugaly is not always a choice, esp for the low earners.

fresh fruit and veggies are generally more expensive than cheapo fishcakes and pizzas!!!
Supermarkets churn out the cheap rubbish and we are meant to be grateful that the price is low (no other consideration for much of it).
Trashy shoes whilst cheap ..... last no time compared to leather well designed (note....not designer) shoes.

It takes thought, organization and dedication to turn things around, and make choices.
I do think the more you have financially, the easier it is to CHOOSE the OS life.

If its financially driven ....yes ...it can be a slog at times .......

Ma

culpepper

mah_jong wrote:

As with everything, OS means different things to different folks. Sarah Saver says its not always easy, any ealier poster also mentions being on a low income.

Living cheaply and frugaly is not always a choice, esp for the low earners.

fresh fruit and veggies are generally more expensive than cheapo fishcakes and pizzas!!!
Supermarkets churn out the cheap rubbish and we are meant to be grateful that the price is low (no other consideration for much of it).
Trashy shoes whilst cheap ..... last no time compared to leather well designed (note....not designer) shoes.

It takes thought, organization and dedication to turn things around, and make choices.
I do think the more you have financially, the easier it is to CHOOSE the OS life.

If its financially driven ....yes ...it can be a slog at times .......

Ma

Trouble with those cheap fish cakes and pizzas is,they dont fill you up,they are all pap! A homemade bread base,chopped up bacon,pineapple and tom puree with some grated cheese ontop comes to about the same price as a cheap pappy pizza but is much healthier and more filling.
You can make fish cakes with a tin of sardines,some mashed potato and an egg which comes to pennies not pounds.
Some of these so called puddings are just cornflour with flavouring and colouring in.They probably cost the company who make them about 3 or 4 pence each and you can spend 50p on one! Much better to buy a bag of apples.
OS is about being bothered to do things the long way round.We are on one income and eat fresh fruit and veg and rarely eat ready made stuff.If my kids want cake or biscuits,they get out the cookery book and make some.

Queenie

Austin_Allegro wrote:

....
We have a choice in being frugal, our ancestors did not, for the most part.

I've been given that comment some thought because I don't necessarily agree that today people are aware they have a "choice". We're fed the myth that we can have what we want, when we want- we're even told daily what is it that we *should* want! If you are consistently being seduced (brainwashed!) with the message: "enjoy-now-pay-later-low-repayments" then of course there's the danger that you get sucked in! After all, that's the whole purpose of the seduction! It works!! LOL

You only have to read some of the heartbreaking stories across these boards to realise that some people didn't appreciate that they *did* have a choice! Credit, loans, enjoy now, pay later have been prolific messages bombarding our society for decades.

Others, through circumstances, only have Hobson's Choice either through redundancy/relationship breakdowns/debilitating health issues/needing to turn to State Benefits. Some people have never been taught the basics of budgeting, sewing, cleaning, cooking or even ... prioritising! If/when their lifestyle, as they know it, comes crashing down they can be at a complete loss on how to do some of the most basic life skills. So for them, living frugally isn't a choice - it's a daily need to make ends meet.

As for our ancestors, they also had choices - the difference was, they were socially ostracised and shamed if they made the wrong choices (debt = prison/workhouses or ultimately, starvation and death).

Today, the opposite is true, you can be socially ostracised if you *don't* conform to the "live-now-pay-whenever" culture.

I think that's why MSE is so popular and valuable - it genuinely *is* empowering people with *choices* that they simply were not aware of before. Be that playing the credit card companies at their own game via stoozing ... or playing the supermarket game of buy it or make it for less

But a large number only find out about it when they've used up all their credit limitations

mah_jong

culpepper...that is waht I was trying to say...... its a slog ... but there are choices to be made.

The 'easiest ' (the softest option ...pap food )way is not the best way.

It takes thought, dedication and and organization.

Mah...... must learn how to make point clearer!!!!!

Former_MSE_Andrea

This is a really nice discussion. It made me think though. If a lot of us that enjoy MoneySaving (and OS in particular) do it "behind closed doors" so-to-speak because we think we'll be judged by others as being tight, how do we know there aren't a lot more people doing it, but who also feel the same way, than we think? If no-one's telling anyone, then how do we know?

Is it time to come out of the MoneySaving and OS closet perhaps?

mink35

johanne wrote:

But when im 30 and own my own house, have a nice car and no debt... living healthily on good homemade food.. and with my liver and lungs in a decent state... then i'll be smug even more! :rotfl:

Too right! I'm a bit older (actually 40 ) but have no mortgage and a very healthy savings account. I have a friend who's 100k in debt - maybe not much with house prices as they are but then when you look at it her mortgage is only about 40 of that - the other 60 is purely the 'I want it' debt. She and her husband have nice, posh cars - both on credit; they holiday abroad with their family every year - always on the credit card; they have every modern appliance possible - mostly on buy-now-pay-later. I don't want to be that person, ever.

MSE_Andrea wrote:

This is a really nice discussion. It made me think though. If a lot of us that enjoy MoneySaving (and OS in particular) do it "behind closed doors" so-to-speak because we think we'll be judged by others as being tight, how do we know there aren't a lot more people doing it, but who also feel the same way, than we think? If no-one's telling anyone, then how do we know?

Is it time to come out of the MoneySaving and OS closet perhaps?

I'm out of the closet, Andrea! I tell everyone that wants any tips where to look - most of them can't be bothered! I've converted a couple of friends who read the site regularly but haven't yet plunged in and registered.

I've also converted a friend to OS ways (she is very proud that she can feed her family of 6 with hearty soup, homemade bread and a pudding as well for around £3!), but she doesn't even look at this site :eek: She has taken to making nearly all homemade bread and rolls (and hence pizza) and she has mostly stopped buying readymeals and would sooner cook an extra portion if she knows one of her children needs an instant dinner - this is obviously tastier, healthier, bigger etc but also even quicker than a frozen readymeal which probably cost three times the amount!

Anyway - my point is - you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink!

squeaky

Rose tinted? It might be for some, but certainly not for me.

I'm a practical realist who, as a first example, learned how to cook out of sheer self defence! The muck I was first producing was pretty dire and I just could not afford to keep buying meals out all the time, and back then ready made meals were awful too. Now I really enjoy cooking, and baking my own bread (easy peasy with a breadmaker) has saved me a fortune.

I'm not an evangelist about it, would never go on a march or anything, but I'm very happy to recycle what waste I can and compost the rest.

Again, I don't make any great point with friends about MSE, but if the conversation drifts into a subject where I've learned something useful from MSE than I'm perfectly happy to talk of it and to tell exactly where the info came from and how useful and helpful the site is.

I don't adopt every strategem available from MSE - for instance the thought of wearing somebody else's clothes makes my skin crawl, so Oxfam seldom gets my custom - I've just gradually absorbed more as I've tried most things and then settled for the ones that work for me.

It's about comfort level.

I'm comfortable with my level of Old Styleness (if there is such a word) and quite honestly I feel a whole lot better for it.

My body is healthier and so is my bank balance... so in a way... the Old Style life IS rosy

nicki_2

OS is half choice,half necessity so it's not that rose tinted for me (although Johanne would probably say I come across as if it was )

When I first moved out and became independant OH and I were on benefits, we just started renting our own place which needed decorating (landlady stripped the bedrooms completely and had built in wardrobes put in 1 of 3 of them but said we didn't need to pay a deposit and we could live have the first month rent free so that we could use the money to decorate instead) plus I was already pregnant with DD. At that time I gratefully accepted hand-me-downs, sent off to charity anything we couldn't use or didn't want. We had DD's cot and chest-of-drawers bought for us, a friend gave us a changing unit with built in bath and our first Christmas we were given loads of Argos vouchers so that we could get basics like knives, ironing board, iron etc. We made do and were living from benefit deposit to deposit. We started hiring cars to visit family (worked out the same as train/bus fare) and bought ourselves a few treats...all on a credit card that I managed to get.

OH started a course and became a qualified IT person and managed to get a job on £11k a year and a company car. We started looking to buy a house but couldn't afford one. Our credit card repayments/interest were getting higher and higher to the point where we could only just afford it. OS started to become a necessity again so I started experimenting with some things.

Last year we were asked to leave by our landlady as she wanted to sell the house. I found another house literally over the road through a friend but it is £16 a month more (going up another £5 next year) with no central heating, 2 bedrooms but a garden. OS became more important and possible as we now have a garden. It's taken me a year to clear it enough but we now have our own fruit/veg growing.

OH got offered (and accepted) a better paid job, £19k a year but no company car. So we got a loan, eventually, and paid off the credit card as much as possible and bought a 4th-hand car. We don't struggle on the income now, but I do stick to a budget of £900 a month for all the household bills which includes £346 rent, £153 loan repayments and credit card repayments. We're in the process of trying to get our meters changed from pre-pay to direct debit and we've recently BT our credit card to Capital One for 6 months.

I still accept hand-me-down with open arms and if we can't use them I now try to sell them on ebay. If they don't sell then I either pass them onto the school for summer/Xmas fairs when they're asked for or I pass them onto a charity shop. I still shop in charity/bargin shops, buy value range whenever possible and own range if not.

I like the OS lifestyle and I hope to be able to pay off all our debts (£11K by 2008) just with the money that OS is saving me. We do treat ourselves to the occasional modern "luxury" like we have a video, freeview & DVD player, but we tend to buy only DVDs now and then only from ebay. If I can avoid paying full price for something I will

Edited to say : Last night I asked OH what type of OS I was (I was reading yesterdays OS thread at the time). I explained what the options where and he said "There's LML, then there's half-OS, then OS and then there's the place where I come" Apparently I OVER OS sometimes

r.mac_2

squeaky wrote:

It's about comfort level.

I'm comfortable with my level of Old Styleness (if there is such a word) and quite honestly I feel a whole lot better for it.

I totally agree with you!