Can you do OS and work full time too?

coldstreamalways

I would agree that organisation is the key. Also, I think "right, when I get in, I WILL do this for 30min (soup, picking veg etc) before I collapse".

I work six days a week so OS is tough but so worth while.

Maybe we should have our own support group!:rotfl:

Let us know how you get on.

Penelope_Penguin

toffee65 wrote: »

I've started this month doing the FFFF £100 a month as we're saving for a car, boiler and kitchen.

What's the FFFF, please?

hot.chick

isn't ffff £100

Feed a Family of Four for £100

Winged_one

Both OH and I work FT, and long hours too. We are not 100% OS, but a lot more OS than not.

On Sunday afternoons, when I am cooking Sunday roast dinner anyway, I cook a double batch (or triple sometimes) of dinner for Monday and freeze the second half. (Like spag bol, lasagne, chilli, shep pie, smoked fish and brocolli pie, various curries....) - something that eats well the next day and freezes well too. LAter in the week, I will use one of the dinners from the previous week in the freezer too.

Winter is coming, so slow cooker dinners are great too for after work.

I also try to prep things as I buy them slightly - like chopping chicken breasts or pork chops into pieces before freezing in meal sized portions. So I can just grab a bag and defrost overnight in fridge (or in micro if i forget) and make a dinner pretty quick.

I WILL use sauces (good ones) in jars if need be for time purposes, especially midweek, although I will make from scratch as often as possible. If I have time at the weekend (usually when I am cooking anyway), I will make a batch of basic tomato sauce and freeze, so all I have to add is fresh veg and meat while cooking pasta, for example. And I have a good few very quick recipes for midweek.

I have to be organised after dinner. Washup, make lunches, sort laundrey (put wet stuff on line/clothes horse/into tumble dryer, put dry stuff into basket or fold (as energy and time allows), and put next load into machine setting the timer so that it's ready when I get in tomorrow evening), and tidy up generally before sitting down. We leave out breakfast on worktop, and clothes for work on chair upstairs, before going to bed.

Cleaning is mainly done in an hour on Sat mornings - we share the various chores and DD now has a few things to help out too. But it only takes about an hour.

Things like preserving, or making stock etc, happen as I get time. I was too tired last week after roast chick, so I froze the carcass for the next roast chick dinner. And I make my stock using the slow cooker (so I just throw everything in straight after the dinner, and leave it cooking until we go to bed - strain and freeze stock the next night when I get home while prepping dinner). Fruit and veg can often be frozen and used for preserving (jams especially) later.

Meal planning is a huge benefit - knowing what to buy when doing the shopping, and then not having to panic about cooking it in the evenings. I'd always have a few easy dinners in freezer for when life goes nuts (frozen oven chips, IKEA meatballs, pre-cooked prawns to throw into a jar of sauce with rice/pasta, pre-made curries from scratch etc). I'd often put meat into marinade one evening for dinner the next night (like chicken into yoghurt and tikka marinade) so it only takes about 20 minutes to cook next night. Or peel potatoes and veg, keeping them in pots of water on cooker, for tomorrow night to just turn on when we get in from work.

My usual week looks like:
Sun - roast dinner
Mon- dinner made Sunday
Tues - dinner using leftovers from roast
Wed - possibly a chop with spud type dinner or a stew
Thurs - possibly a previous week's frozen dinner (see Mon)
Fri - almost inevitably a takeaway (cos it suits us and we can afford it)
Sat - special dinner that OH and I cook together

OK, a concentration on food there, but that is the most important part of our organising stuff.

Allegra

Lists, lists and more lists And keep to them, don't just write them then file them in the recycling

Batch cooking days can seem a bit overwhelming when you first start, but as you get into the swing of things, they get streamlined and quicker, and save so much time it's unbelievable. When I did Weezl's month planners - especially Option 1, Option 2 is quite a bit heavier on quick and easy meals, so no need for as much batch cooking - I found that two big batch cooks, one before you start and one at the first weekend, took care of pretty much all the heavy cooking, and the last couple of weeks especially there was so much time for all the fun stuff. With Option 2, one batch cook did the job, the rest was all as and when, done in a half hour before needed.

But definitely, using some of your spare time to plan and organise saves you so much time and effort down the line, I just don't think that anyone trying to cook everything from scratch whilst working full time can afford to skip the planning stage.

rachbc

I'm not quite ft but nearly and plannign and routines are the key for me.

I monthly meal plan and shop online for bulk stuff then pick up other stuff on a sat morning or pop to ethnic shops during lunch break at work.

Washing is put on before work and hung up after - generally every other day then towels, uniforms and bedding at weekends.

Kids help with housework on a sat morning - everyone pitches in and has their jobs to do. Its not spotless but it'll do! If I had the money cleaner would be top of the list...

I do bake at the weekends cos I enjoy it and find it relaxing and the kids like to 'help' too.

Also squeezing stuff into 'dead time' helps fit everything in - so for example whilst the porridge is cooking I unload the dw or make sarneis for pack ups whilst the kettle is boiling.

Pink.

Hi toffee,

As your thread has dropped down the board I've added it to the existing one on the same subject which has lots of advice from other Old Stylers who work full time.

Pink

SugarSpun

My husband and I both work FT, although we both manage as much home office as possible because we have a year-old baby and no childcare. We live outside the UK.

The keys for us are organisation, division of labour and a relaxed approach to tidiness.

I do all our English-language administration, the majority of childcare, and most of the housework.
He does the foreign admin, stays home if I have to go out, and the cooking/grocery shopping.

I have a Word document that is always open, and in it there are a series of sub-lists to my Big List:

Daily Repeating Tasks: dishes, clear away the toys in the evening, wipe down the kitchen counters
Weekly Repeating Tasks: clean bathroom, vacuum, wash bedlinen, email clearout, check banking etc
Today-Specific Tasks: today's list involves buying ingredients for Christmas cakes and a Santa hat for the baby, finishing the journal article I'm writing, a work meeting etc
Weekly-Specific: the same sort of stuff but everything that needs to be done this week
This Month: the place where I put non-urgent stuff that will need to be done so I don't forget it
Towards the end of any month, or if there's something that needs to be done next month, I add a Next Month list. At the moment my niece's birthday's on that list.

I also rely heavily on an organiser and am an astonishing multi-tasker: dishes done while the kettle's boiling in the morning, laundry folded while the baby and I are singing in the living room, bread ingredients tossed into the breadmaker while the baby's lunch is heating, even swiping a floor-cloth around the bathroom corners with my foot while brushing my teeth.

Husband meal plans and buys the bulk of what we need at the weekend, only venturing to the shop for top-ups, does a scan of our mail weekly, makes admin phone calls while doing something else and does his best to pretend he is entirely unacquainted with the vacuum cleaner.

Right now I'm posting on MSE while the baby feeds herself banana (we're also playing peekaboo from under the desk), my laundry is merrily finishing itself off (went in as my toast was toasting) and my PDF writer updates itself so I can finish what I'm doing. It's hard to develop into a routine but once you're in one it gets easier.

artichoke

hi

i am hopefully starting working 3 days a week, (sometimes working at home and sometimes working away from home) i have kids age 5 and 6, a dog, a cat, chickens and 36 sheep to take care of,

I am trying to prepare for going back to working outside the home. We already do meal plans and batch cook, put the breadmaker on every night, make home made cookies / flapjacks etc for pack lunches and i think i am quite organised....but i have been a stay at home mum for 6 years and DH is used to me doing everything and he does not even notice what i do...

what is going to throw me out is that on the days i am away from home i need DH to carry on the old style ways, make sure the kids are washed, dressed and fed AND do some housework.:eek:

Our house is never very tidy - its too small and a bit cluttered - which i am going to try and sort out but basically 4 people in a tiny cottage is never going to be uncluttered. But i do always do a basic clean ie one load of washing every night, and out to dry in the morning, washing away, wipe the surfaces, clean the bathroom, brush the floors - (we have wooden / tiled floors throughout no carpets at all). I try the follow the flylady thread but never quite make it.

I went away last week for 3 days to a conference- on the day i went i go up at 5.30 so i could make the pack lunches, do 2 loads of washing and hang on airers to dry, make a casserole for DH and kids tea for first night, get a HM pizza base out of freezer for kids to make for tea the next night etc, etc...

I came home to find some of the clean washing still on airers (but most had fallen on the floor and been sat on by cat and dog). Dirty dishes all over the surfaces, and dirty clothes all over the bedroom floor. The HM pizza was still in the fridge and chip and fish papers on the surface.

I know we can make some compromises if i am working and bringing money in, but i don't want to loose all the OS ways. Housework is not too important (dust is inevitable with wood burning stoves) but basic cleaning and hygiene needs to be fitted into my new routine as well as healthy meals for the kids.

How do others cope with being out at work long hours or away from home? especially with kids teas, and pack lunches to make as well?

I am looking for more ideas for cookie dough i can batch prepare and freeze so that all i or DH needs to do is slice it up and put in oven (we have an aga style oven so its always on), ideas for meals that DH can make for the kids tea...

and some tried and tested methods for getting DH to put clean washing away and dirty washing in the machine;)

any advice appreciated

art

v8monkeyboy

I'm struggling too to make it all fit, but I feel that I'm slowly getting there.

My key was to give myself a break over the cleanliness aspect of the house. That doesn't mean I live in something that's unsanitary, but I maybe haven't pulled out the fridge for a while and cleaned behind it IYSWIM.

I also had to realise that the OH did not expect some domestic goddess who was perfect, looked good with full makeup and a sparkling house with homemade goodies when he returns home. He's far happier with some chaos, me slightly scruffier, some good fodd thrown together, and above all, me being me and being happy.

So, what we have now is; I tend to make stuff on a Sunday, as I cannot motivate myself on a Saturday for some reason. I will tend to make things that can be frozen, like chilli, spag bol, paella etc, and then they are ready for the week. I also bake if the mood takes me, but otherwise it's tough, and he'll have to find something sweet himself!

Apart from that, I will clean, but not as furiously as I did; it's clean, it acceptable to my mother (which means it's good enough for most), and it stays that way for ooooh, at least 12 hours until the OH comes home with huge boots on and doesn't take them off until he goes to bed :eek:. But hey, at least it's done.

During the week, unless I/we have visitors, things are tidied away, but no further cleaning is done until the next weekend. Towels and bedding are washed on a weekend, and clothes are just done as and when during the week - working on a ward, you just never know when you'll be wearing someone's coffee or the water from a vase of flowers (which happened to my mentor on Friday!)

Oh, and lists. Lists are the key - especially for food. I spend much more money if I have no idea what I'm eating on which day. That doesn't mean we don't swap and change, but it does mean we don't have food going to waste because I forgot what I was meant to make.
Make a decision on what to make/eat, check your cupboards to see what you've already got in (my mother will buy leeks every week for a month, then wonder why she's got so many...) the buy only the necessary things thereafter. If you know you're going to want treats, then put them on the list, otherwise offers will get you and the cost will spiral.

Sorry for the long post, but I hope this helps.

T xx