From Frugal Foundations to Fortified Family Future

greenbee

One of my friends once told me I'd have less dust in the house if I kept the windows shut. However, I'm quite fond of fresh air... 

rtandon27

We live on a main street (for a town) and I like open windows as well.  Our vacuum gets worked out a few times a week and we STILL have copious amounts of dust!

Baileys_Babe

Our house is very dusty, mainly due to age and materials, I like dusting even less so most of the time there is dust somewhere around.

Greying_Pilgrim

I do think there is some connection between our old and frankly, exhausted window frames and the 'ingress' of dust.  But there is also plenty self generated - clothing fibres and hair 😭 mostly mine 😭.  Our carpets are old and disintergrating too (in a perfect world we should have replaced them before moving in, but 💰).   greenbee - you can't win, as we enter autumn, the internet is full of 'helpful' advice to air houses to cut down condensation and mould, which involves ......opening windows.......  Like rt we live on a road, and there is plenty of soil/sand dust swirling about at the best of times.  Whilst i loathe housework, I don't think the outdoors dust is the principal culprit, and I'm not giving up an aired house, as I  think dust would still accumulate.  Having said that, I do hope new windows would make some difference, both to dust levels and cut down on some condensation (current thin panes aren't as effective at keeping warm moist air away from the cold outside.  

I'm glad I'm not just a totally lazy slattern (Mallory towers anyone?), and dusting isn't a 'goto' activity for more folk than I perhaps realised.  I think I was most surprised at Rhonda not liking housework - I always thought it was her jam.

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning MFW'rs

Funny auld start with us.  It's pouring one minute, sunny the next and windy the next..... all at the same time as being humid as heckington ☹️

Shopping done.  Went to MrS and MrL today.  No boxes in either.  MrS was a rather mundane shop.  Did their usual trick of not having things on my 'carefully curated' offers list in stock 🙄 And I don't know if I mentioned it last week, but MrS onions (1 kg) have gone up to £1.10 😱 The Stam.st carrots weren't fit for a horse, never mind humans, so I got some of the MrS 69p ones.  Delighted to find that they were grown locally by a farming family that I know of.  I did a smarty shop, and was amazed to not have my bags pawed over in a 'check', as I bought alcohol instore today.  I've nothing to hide, and zap 'in' only what I take 'out' of the store.  The checks, where staff do a careless rummage through your carefully packed bags is the one element of smarty shop that I dislike.  

Oh, the other thing I noticed in MrS was the Stamst frozen garden peas are now 850g.  Anyone remember the heady days when valoo peas came by the KG? Oh, and I couldn't see any Stam.st  Red Kidney beans - do they not do them anymore?  I spent enough in MrS to gain 5x extra points, and I am nudging £15 in n*ctar points now.  I will decide whether to just rely on them in October, to try to do another 'lean' month, or whether to allocate them specifically for our holiday food expenditure.  I need to double-check store locations in our holiday destination.

Then I mooched over to MrL.  I got a bag of tatties (7.5kg) for £4.09 - which I think is on a par with MrS 'white potato' prices per kg.  I'm hoping that my punt on the potato variety being given as 'MP 1', may mean they are Maris Peer?  a second early, or Maris Piper?  - a maincrop, so less likely.  But fingers crossed they're good wedges and mashers 😁

In total, over the two stores I spent £67.53 - which I have already added to my siggie figgie.  Just over £27 to last  for the remaining 5 days of the month if I go shopping next week 😬  Not impossible, but tight.  

I've LG's school tops out on the line - presumably they've had extra 'rinses' whilst I was out.  There is another load of clothes in the machine.  I'm trying to decide when to put them out.  The promised breeze has started up, but the showers are lingering a little longer than forecast.  

Shopping is mostly put away.  I am planning on making a stew in the SC for tea tonight.  I want to use the SC much more this winter, so have to start somewhere.  The fact that THIS STEW is vegan is immaterial, but I also want to try the spanish style rice recipe too, but it won't work easily for tonight's tea with staggered meal times, because LG is out at club.  I will be substituting BNS for the pumpkin, as I have some frozen BNS - must remember to do a seed pick of the pieces before putting them in the SC tho 🙄

Right, best go and peg the rest of the wash out.  I'm going to take a punt on the weather having stabilised for the rest of the day.......

Ta for being here.  Greying X

EssexHebridean

Watty1 said:

After much decluttering I am more at peace with the house.   Earlier in the year I bought a couple of lovely hurricane lamp style cases for candles in the local charity shop. I'm returning them on the next village trip. I have had them for 6 months and they have not been lit (I have added the candles) so clearly I don't love them.  I shall simply view the money spent as a hospice donation and I view anything else I buy there the same way - if I don't love it and use it, then back it must go.

I have a candle holder I bought earlier in the year that hasn't yet been used - but that is purely because I don't light candles during the summer - as soon as we are back to sitting in the front room and using candles, it will be straight in use. While letting go of things you are ready to is great, make sure that the decision is being made from the right perspective! 

Pollie

I once read somewhere that 10 days dust apparently looks the same as one days dust so  ever since then I don't do the daily duster dance!

themadvix

Pollie said:

I once read somewhere that 10 days dust apparently looks the same as one days dust so  ever since then I don't do the daily duster dance!

Daily duster dance? Nope, not ringing any bells... none whatsoever.... Less than monthly dusting here. Cat's tails make good dusters, mind you, although the fur and the litter require daily hoovering, so it probably balances out.

Greying_Pilgrim

Dearest Pollie - in the words of Charlie & Lola, "Never have i ever, not never will I ever"  do the daily dust dance 🤣  But I do think your point is entirely valid, because I get disheartened having done the dusting, how quickly it comes back.  Stuff is 'clean' for about a day, and then the dust covering starts to creep back again ☹️

The stew is smelling quite lush.  I hope it's a keeper of a recipe.  I remain disappointed with the MrS frozen BNS.  I only had to remove 2 seed 'casings' this time, I could see no obvious seeds in the chunks of BNS, but what was worse was the pith/skin that hadn't been fully removed.  The one piece looked like it was from the bottom of the BNS, with that hard callous that is usually where the..... flower ....blooms?  You certainly couldn't just lob the chunks into the stew, straight from the packet.  I don't know any other frozen veg where i have to check through it to look for 'detritis'.  I suppose to be fair there is sometimes a stalk in a pack of green beans, or a shell in a pack of peas, but BNS does seem particularly bad for 'waste' being still included/attached.  

Greying X

EssexHebridean

Wait what - people actually dust every day?!