Can you do OS and work full time too?

pixie1

I have to say that I have fallen off the OS wagon recently. I moved jobs three months ago which has meant i work a 5 day week rather then a 9 day fortnight and that one day off a fortnight was my batch cook day The hours i am working are also a lot longer and so is my commute to work but the pay was better so i thought it was a good move. But this has meant that after getting up at 5am and not getting home until 7pm im too shattered to cook from scratch, luckily its just me and hubs and a messy house.

Yesterday I found out that i have been offered a new job! I will be working a 5 day week (i can ask for a 9 day fortnight in time as they boast flexi working, best employer etc) and its only 5 mins from home with shorter set hours!! So I can be home by 5:30 every night and not have to leave my house until 8am every morning!

I had been struggling to the extent that on days i took a packed lunch to work (aprox 2 per week) i felt i had done a great job lol

My new job is slightly less money but i think it will be worth it in the long run. Healthy home cooked food every night, a freezer stocked with blocks and lunches made for both of us to take to work each day - hey how easy does that sound!!

Hard work but well worth it!!

Pix

missychrissy

You can do it. It takes small steps to start with but after a while OS becomes second nature.

I work 60+ hours a week (mostly 12 hour night shifts) and look after one of my grandsons 1 - 2 days per week but I always cook from scratch. I regularly use my 6.5L slow cooker and always cook in bulk and freeze several one person sized portions (great for taking to work). I get ideas from recipes but adapt them to the ingredients I have available. I always use up chicken carcasses, as well as lamb and beef bones left over from a roast, to make up meat and veg soups in my slow cooker. I find the preparation time is minutes when I come in from work in the morning and I have a lovely meal or soup when I wake up in the afternoon and several to freeze.

I am now completely self sufficient in wine and also make sufficient to give lots away to friends and family. Yesterday I set off 5 galls of elderberry wine and last week juiced sufficient apples to set off 4 galls. Each bottle works out at about 16p. It only takes a few minutes here and there to do it. The longest part is picking ingredients like elderberries, sloes, hawthorne berries, blackberries, rosehips etc, but I combine it with walking my dog. She gets to play out a bit longer on a berry picking day and loves to rummage in the hedgerows.

I grow some of my own veg, especially potatoes,and they only require a quick weed with a hoe and a bit of feeding and mulching. I tend to do it before I go to work in the evening. I have 2 composters in my small garden but they keep my garden fertile and use up all grass cuttings and veg peelings as well as some of the apple windfalls from next doors apple trees (he is quite happy for me to use up the apples overhanging my garden and in return I give him homemade wine).

I never turn down any fruit or veg offered as I can usually turn it into something good. I have been offered 2 large marrows that I am collecting on Sunday. I want to use one to make a large SC of veg curry and I want to try the other as homemade wine.

I find it exciting turning other people's unwanted fruit and veg into something very palatable and it is very cheap.

I could go on - but I don't want to be boring - but there are lots and lots of ways to be very OS that only take up a few minutes here and there.

[Deleted User]

http://www.flylady.net

If you go to her site and begin by signing up for her daily emails, she get you started with simple baby steps and quick routines that'll help get you organised and cut down on the overwhelming housework.

Small habits like 'swish and swipe' and 15 minute easy challenges, help you to go all through the house every month and free up time to enjoy being OS.

I hope it is OK to post this link. I have no ulterior motives - simply find it to be and encouraging and effective system that's fun to be a part of. It's also completely free.

Hope this helps

[Deleted User]

without a doubt organisation is definitley the key word here .over the past 49 years I have always had a small book or pad either in my bag or as now sitting on the side by the kettle.I write down as I run short the shopping I need ,plus any odd jobs or things I must do during the day.As they get done I cross them off.I have a big box of spare scrap card/paper in the kitchen that is cut down to a reasonable size to use for lists
I always think the night before I go to bed if I have to get something out of the frezer for dinner the next night.
Vegatables I peel and put into cold water tuppaware boxes in the fridge for the week9I hate peeling spuds0 so I do a weeks worth on a sunday morning all in one go.Then just change the water daily as required.When cooking double the amount so you have one to eat 'fresh' and one for the freezer for when you feel like an instant dinner.I think the secret is baby steops slowly at a time and try to bully ,cajole or beg help from the rest of the family .A sit-down strike once worked miracles with my tribe when i thought I was knocking myself out whilst they sat around .its amazing how a cold kitchen with no tasty smells emerging for dinner can concentrate their mind on the fact that Mum is not the maid-of all work and the donkey in the house
Good luck

clairehi

DH and I both work fulltime and have 2 kids, I am currently pg with DC3. I wouldnt describe myself as an Oldstyler as such but my mother is a very thrifty lady and I have learnt a lot of old style habits from her.

We are lucky to be able to afford to have a cleaner and get shopping delivered by tesco as cleaning and shopping used to take up all of Sat morning for DH and I, which is one quarter of our weekend!

I dont have time to shop around all the supermarkets and go looking for whoopsies. But I have always meal planned and batch cooked to minimise waste and hassle. We will always have 2 meals a week which are out of the freezer though.

Some OS stuff is not a chore - I always buy books in the CS or get them out of the library, never pay full price. Picking blackberries and baking are fun OS things to do that the kids enjoy too.

Agree with Jackie S, re organisation, I have a notebook full of lists too

toffee65

I do come onto the forum every now and then, as I find time limited due to working full time working. The problem being a lot of the threads are so so long there is no way I have the time to read through them all

I've started this month doing the FFFF £100 a month as we're saving for a car, boiler and kitchen. All seems fine with that as I've been on Weezls (sp?) website and picked some ideas up...even as early as we are into the month I have a feeling I will go over but only by £20 so still will be chuffed with that.

What I would like to know are there any other FTimers out there living OS and do you have any tips when trying to get the best out of the less spare hours in the day/week compaired to stay at homers. As i've already spent all of last saturday having a baking day I really don't wish to use all my Sats of the month up doing this...Any other ideas?

Many tips would be welcomed

mum2one

The simplest is as much organisation as you can, I'm a full time mum, but studying, - when I did work full time, time off was valueable.

Look at is setting a system- I don't know how you want to do things weekends, evenings etc - but just my few thoughts

Banking - Set up online payments monthly - so now takes 5 mins to doublecheck

Post - Deal with it then if you can - leave to later - later arrives when the plie falls over

Notebook - wouldn't be without, anything and everything goes in there

Food - Cooking from scratch at all in week, double up and do spare for freezers

Christmas - Don't know how many, start one evening on cards, I tend to split mine to family, post, street, hand delievery - just tackle one set a time

Presents - I buy a lot in Jan sales then rest through year, present wrapping I find I'm better doing it over a couple of days - take over the dining rm, I say it looks like Santas elves are in progress - to someone else looks like a warehouse!!

Shopping - Maybe consider online - a mate does hers at Sainsburys, and goes via Quidco (cashback) gets £1 a time for the orde

Baking - Even if you one Sat a month/6 weekly and do bulk batches

Sorry there only simple ideas, but good luck with it all xx

starjumper

Hi Toffee, it can be hard if you work ft but the best advice I can offer (and I'm not 100% OS 100% of the time) is to set aside a few hours of a weekend or an evening and do a big old batch cook for the week ahead, plan your menu, do your shopping and prepare ahead so it's basically a quick re-heat job when you get in from work which save so much time and effort for the sake of a few weekend hours in the kitchen. Cook extra and freeze portions for a future meal. If you can shop wisely and stick to your list, don't be lulled by offers of stuff you don't really want or need in the supermarket.

Other OS kind of this I do include being really mean with the heating, so lots of romantic snuggling under blankets, evenings spent watching telly by candlelight (rather than having lamps on etc) and filling the oven if it's on, so cook your pie for tea or whatever and put a few other items in, might as well, you're heating the space. I also leave the oven door open to heat the kitchen when I've finished baking.

There is so much you can do, I'd have a think about what kind of areas you want to OS in and spend a little bit of time reading suitable threads.

On a different note, B&Q sometimes have crazy online sales where they sell kitchen doors etc for £1 or something, often annoucned on another board but worth keeping your eye out for if you want a cheap kitchen.

LondonDreamer

I work a 10 hour day most days plus commuting. Living in London, it's hard to be OS since I have everything literally on my doorstep but I do try and make our meals most of the time.

For the weekend meals when I have time, I try and make something that'll stretch or at least make extra portions. As an example, last weekend I made lentil soup on Saturday and roasted a larger chicken than needed on Sunday. Barely any extra cooking (just a little more prep) and from that, I got:

- Six portions of soup
- Sunday Roast w/ trimmings
- Four portions of chicken and mushroom pie
- Four portions of chicken curry
- Enough leftover meat for sandwiches the next day
- A tub of mash (boiled an entire pan of potatoes when I made the roast, rather than the handful I needed)

And I could've made stock or soup from the bones, but it was getting late by that point. :rotfl:

As there's only two of us, that's six extra meals into the freezer already. And the mash is also in the freezer ready for when I make fish pie (4-6 portions) next weekend, so half the job is done already. Obviously if you have a larger family, the same amount won't go as far but scaling up to 2-4 times what you need where possible is definitely a good idea.

Also for baking... what sorts of things do you make? If you're baking cakes, I'd suggest making them in loaf tins. You can cut smaller slices than from a round so it stretches further, meaning you don't have to bake as much. Also I love making cookies as I can make up a huge batch of dough, freeze it in small logs and bake as required.

maman

I found it far more important to be OS when working ft. The most important of all is to meal plan and write a shopping list to match. This makes food shopping so much faster when you have limited time and no time wasted thinking of what to have for dinner. Spin offs of just these two things are afirm grip on spending, little waste food, no emergency take-aways and a good balanced diet. It amazes me that people who say they are busy will wander round the supermarket throwing stuff in and then say they have nothing for a meal. Or they go everyday to the supermarket.