Make Do, Mend & Minimise in 2025 (and 2024)

London_1

Minimised : DGS Jack dug some of my new spuds up this afternoon, will probably have them for dinner tonight 

Make do : Had some left over chicken curry for lunch delicious on the end crust slice of brown bread toasted 

Mend : sewed a couple of small holes that had appeared in two old  tee shirts,

OK they are old, but I only wear them either gardening or for housework, as they are very faded but constant washing over the last couple of years have mad them soft and loose enough to wear for grubby jobs and they just get tossed in the machine when I do the towels. 

JackieO xx

YorksLass

I've been treating myself this week and have bought a new bedspread (my granny would probably have called it a counterpane  ) and two new bathmats.  I've washed the old throw I had on the bed and the old bathmats to join the other CS donations so that's some more Minimising done.  Just need to get it all to the CS now - I think the wally trolley might be needed!  

Tonight's tea is a Make Do using up bits from the fridge - a few small pieces of cooked gammon, some broad beans, two small stuffing balls, leftover gravy and the last of a bag of baby potatoes.  That wasn't on the meal plan but it doesn't matter, I love making a meal from not a lot.  No waste, cash saved - what's not to like?

I've been making a Welcome Baby cross stitch card for my hairdresser whose baby is due soon and thought I was going to have to buy some double sided tape to attach the fabric to the card but I had a rummage in my stationery box and found some in there - I don't remember buying it or even what for, but I'm happy I kept it for Justin.   

Cherryfudge

Make do - finished up houmous & celery, rather than making something new for lunch. I guess that's 'minimise', too.

Mend - not only the dishwasher but the carpet shampooer and three sets of scales have broken down! DH fixed the carpet shampooer and a chap is coming to see to the dish washer. I don't know why the scales died, but when I got out the two old sets which I'd been reluctant to get rid of, neither of those would work either. Time to replace them all with just one set!

Minimise: more irises rehomed. Finished a big dish of vegetarian tikka marsala. Threw out a few plastic bags (recycled). Also threw out glue that had dried up.

Esmeralda2662

Make do: Used up some tomato and olive pasta. My niece rather over estimated how much we'd eat! Also reheated some garlic bread slices although they came out rather crunchy. Did a dinner for 2 of us so all good.

Mend: Not sure this counts but had to get my car into the garage urgently to replace both handbrake cables on my car as they had snapped. Got a lecture from OH about being too rough and yanking the handbrake on and off and causing the problem. Also counts as a minimise as it minimised my bank account by over £200!

Minimise: 3 books sorted out to go to my aunt, a pile of clothes (including 2 pairs of jeans and a dress that were too small for me that my German friend brought with her on her recent visit) to go to charity.

Green_hopeful

What a palaver. 

We had a quite nice Marks and Spencer sofa bed that has been in our office on our second floor. I rolled it out the other day and realised the its too big for the room and the mattress isn’t very comfortable. So we decided to get rid of it. I dismantled the frame from the mechanism and we lifted it over the bannisters to get it off the top floor. 

I contacted a lady who furnishes places for people that have been homeless and get housed. The council will give them a space to live but absolutely no furniture. I explained that the mattress wasn’t very good and it would need a new one but did she know anybody looking. As often happens she did know someone. We said we would pay for a local man with a van, Colin, to take it and we would rebuild it for the person when it got there. 

Colin came and we travelled in convoy to the flat. One look at the door to the flat and there was no way the frame would go through. The warden lady said its a common problem. 

So we brought it home. Colin chuckled, in a nice way, as we paid him.

The lady from the homeless charity came round with a plant and card later in the day. We gift lots to her and we always ask her first. 

So i popped it on freecycle the next day but no one was interested. I looked up donating it to Sue Ryder. The information said the mattress had to be perfect. It clearly isnt so i looked at getting a new mattress to donate. 

I found one for sale in Crouch End London. We are 90 miles from London but we tied in our trip with visiting our kids. The mattress was £16 nearly new. I explained that we were buying it to donate and the seller gave me a £10 discount. 

We picked it up and brought it back. As predicted the Sue Ryder collection men wouldn’t take the original mattress but were happy with the replacement one. 

I remembered that my mum has a spare sofabed in her storage unit so we are going to go and measure it to see if it will fit through the flat door for the chap that wanted it in the first place. Hopefully we can get it in our car.

Fun and games. But I am going to take one three seater sofabed as a minimise. 

We also looked through numerous coats hanging in our cloakroom and decided we dont need half of them so we are going to wash and donate them. Not quite out of the house but nearly. 

Cherryfudge

@Green_hopeful, I'm impressed at the lengths you've gone to, to give someone a sofa bed! It will make life a lot easier for them, and it's good that it's not gone into landfill, especially when there's use still in it.

Esmeralda2662

@Green_hopeful, I'm impressed too with the amount of effort you put in with your donations and think you're great for trying to find an alternative sofa bed for the first chap. Fingers crossed the measurements fit! X

Cherryfudge

I don't think I've mended a thing in ages, but for once I've got rid of a few bits and pieces:

Make do: used up random vegetables in a sort of stir fry with fish fingers for tea.

Minimise: pulled up two or three brambles that were embedded in the wrong place (close by the back door). Sent 2 pairs of worn out shoes to recycling (having found to my joy that our tip apparently does real recycling for shoes, not just incineration). Took the soft plastics to recycle and two OOD packets of tablets have gone to the pharmacy. I'm afraid I had to compost two bags of very brown squidgy apples that have been stored in the shed, and a bake-at-home pastry from the fridge that was ages out of date.

I still have too much stuff.

YorksLass

The usual day to day Making Do continues (mainly food items) and the Mending has been of a financial nature.  However, despite having Minimised many, many things, I'm still finding stuff to release.     

• Two pairs of glasses taken to Specsavers for their recycling bin.
• A few more items from the Use Up food list have gone - a packet of Idahoan mash, a block of baking chocolate (banana & chocolate chip muffins), the last of a tub of baking powder (added to plain flour in place of self raising) and the last few drops of a bottle of lemon juice.   All these had passed their BB dates but were perfectly fine.
• Three large sturdy storage boxes given to DS for when he gets around to sorting out his garden shed.
• Large cardboard box, polystyrene and plastic wrapping in recycling bin.
• Bottle of shower gel finished, two to go.
• Bottle of body lotion finished, still have two spares
• Handbag to go to CS

This month's Minimising project is sorting through my late DH's amassed collection of tools, something I've been putting off for a fair while but now feel ready to do.  He was a great one for Justin so it could take some time, especially as I'm not even sure what some of it is for!  

I've gone through the electricals/larger things - some I've kept and some I've given to DS; others I hope to donate to a local community based tool lending "library".  It works just like a library but with tools instead of books.  There are two tool boxes of small items to sort through (eg screwdrivers etc); again I'll keep some for myself (basic tool kit only as I'll not be doing much in the way of DIY ), DS can have his pick of what he'd like or can use and the rest will be donated.  There's also two biscuit tins full of copper fittings that I think may well be destined for the scrap merchants.

I'm with you @Cherryfudge - I have too much stuff!

Cherryfudge

What a good idea that tool library is! Between that, the things you keep and the things your DS will use, that's such a good way to keep things going and help others at the same time. There is something rather wonderful about working with tools that others have valued: the sense of continuity is like nothing else.

Over here, I've not really made do or minimised today but I've mended some socks and sewn on a button, and also - not really mending but expanding the use of something - added a hanging loop inside the neck of a fleece.