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

Sarahspangles

Cherryfudge said:

@Sarahspangles, that made me laugh! Were you likely to start having flour fights?

I remember being in tears the night before my cookery lesson as I was trying to read the ingredients needed for the next day and couldn't work out what '1 lerion' was. Both my parents were baffled too, till Dad suddenly realised it was a lemon. Years later my writing isn't much better.

'Wash your mince' - really! I don't think I've ever washed mince in my life, or maybe that's what we did in the seventies?

If don’t remember flour fights, but we were rowdy. We only had one year of cookery as the school burnt down, including her classroom, so they let the poor woman retire.

My mother wrote to school about ‘wash your mince’ - I was mortified. I think she said it was more unhygienic.

Duchess2

@YorksLass take your time and do what you can when you can. If you can’t there is always tomorrow. A truly rubber chicken you had there.🐔. @suzeesu2000 you are right, it really is about time that schools’ curriculum contained learning real life skills like budgeting and cooking, simple diy and skills that will be useful in adult life. Have sorted & minimised some paperwork and a library ebook which kept me out of mischief this pm. Night-night

weenancyinAmerica

Maybe a class called "Learning to Be an Adult" or just "Adulting". It is really needed. One of our late night shows did a segment on hand-held can openers to see if people on the street knew what it was and how to use it. Over half didn't.
I have several roommate who don't know the first things about cleaning including sweeping and doing dishes. And budgeting - forget it. 

Cherryfudge

@Sarahspangles - the school burned down and they let the cookery teacher retire? H'm...

Green_hopeful

I always make chicken stock with the bones. It’s £3 in Waitrose (I know it’s not very money saving to shop in Waitrose but we buy so little that it probably doesn’t make much difference). I freeze it in large yoghurt pots and use it to make gravy. Just add some cornflour and soy sauce and it is instant gravy. 

My sister in law used to wash mince much to my kids amusement. She would run a whole sink of water and chuck it in. She also poured a whole bottle of olive oil into a frying pan to deep fry her eggs. One of my kids realised before the eggs went in and managed to get most of it back in the bottle before I realised. They only told me years later. I fry my eggs with a tiny bit of oil and butter and put the lid on so they are sort of poaching. 

mandy47

Minimised
3 large bags to the charity shop
2 boxes of books sold. They even collected from the house.
Recycled half a bag of paper and card.
Burnt a couple of years worth of personal paperwork.

Mended.
Button replaced on work trousers.
Bathroom blind fixed at last.

Minimised. 
Still making my way through contents of the freezer.
Not much progress this week. We were both off work and we ate out 3 times. Not very frugal but it was a holiday for us even if we didn't go away.
Tbf one meal was paid with a voucher I received for my birthday.

YorksLass

I went to an all girls high school, early to mid 60s, and in our first year we had sewing lessons and then cookery (aka Domestic Science at that time).  I remember making lemon & barley water, savoury mince (never heard of washing mince though), liver & onion casserole, a Victoria sponge, scones and very little else.  The school was very academically minded and the theory was a girl would either progress to Uni and become a "professional" or marry a rich man!  Either way, she wouldn't need to cook or sew.    Thank goodness my DM passed on her skills!  And definitely Yes to budgeting and (useful) cookery being on the school curriculum

@Cherryfudge - the chicken curry last night was very nice but guess what?  There's some left and I'm loathe to re-freeze it as the chicken had already been frozen.  Never mind, I'll eat it later in the week but ring the changes by having it either in a taco boat with salad bits or rice.  Tally now 9 meals from the rubber chicken.      

I'm having a Sunday sloth day so there'll not be much MMMing being done today although I'm eyeing up the Xmas tree baubles (I have far too many) with a view to donating some of them to the CS.  Timely or what?

Katiehound

My all girls school was also academically minded.
Your words sum  it up (same era too)
'The school was very academically minded and the theory was a girl would either progress to Uni and become a "professional" or marry a rich man!  Either way, she wouldn't need to cook or sew. ' 
(and to add if she didn't go to Uni she could go to Teacher training, nursing or secretarial college.. but that was for the lesser mortals!!!!!)

 We made an apron in  year 1 sewing except I never finished mine! Parents had to buy material & pattern & my mother chose totally unsuitable flimsy fraying material which also needed yards of bias binding! I avoid that stuff like the plague .Amazingly it did not put me off sewing.

The DS (aka cooking) was optional on Friday afternoons in 3rd year. So many girls wanted to do it that we only cooked every third week so you can imagine just how much we actually achieved.  One lesson was chocolate eclairs. My bf even had a second try without success and she is a really good cook but would never ever try to make eclairs, even now!!

Still unpacking the car and things that I brought home to give away are not allowed to enter the house!
About 20 books due to be posted off to various friends in the next 10 days. (They pay the postage but get the books for free so it possibly costs them 50 pence per book- all good to excellent condition that I have bought cheaply)

Sarahspangles

weenancyinAmerica said:

Maybe a class called "Learning to Be an Adult" or just "Adulting". It is really needed. One of our late night shows did a segment on hand-held can openers to see if people on the street knew what it was and how to use it. Over half didn't.
I have several roommate who don't know the first things about cleaning including sweeping and doing dishes. And budgeting - forget it. 

I think my now-20-something children did Food Science and Citizenship, which included personal finance. I don’t think any of it translated into being able to cook or manage their finances. To be fair to schools though, I don’t think those things sink in until you’re using them for real, as part of your routine. They had the foundations for that from cooking with me and from managing their pocket money and clothes budget. 

YorksLass

@Katiehound - I must have been one of the lesser mortals as I left at 16 to go to Business College!  To this day I can still feel the waves of disapproval from the school.  Ditto to the apron, although I did finish mine (all hand sewn), that we then used for cookery lessons.  I also made a short sleeved blouse (machine sewn).

I was going to go for a walk this afternoon but the sun disappeared and the sky looked distinctly leaden so instead I parked myself at the table near the radiator and have been minimising lots of old paperwork - yet to be shredded - and the CS bag has benefited by two ring binders.