Can you do OS and work full time too?

villagelife

Try and put everything down where it belongs - keeps house tidy and saves time.

Having a bin close to where you open the post so all junk mail can go straight into bin and then sort rest out immediately. Having supply of envelopes and stamps to hand saves time.

Butterfly_Brain

Buy lots of veg and prepare it all in one go, wash, chop freeze. I do this every so often with seasonal veg from the market or using the Aldi super six. Once it is done it is easy to cook straight from frozen.
Cook double and save one is another time saver plus it saves on fuel costs.
I have bags of a basic mince for cottage pie, pasties, stuffed cabbage, pancake filling or add some chillies and a tin of kidney beans for chilli etc , spag bol / lasagne mix etc , beef casserole which can be used in pies, pasties or add some curry powder to make a curry. Chicken portions which can be cooked from frozen. HM roast potatoes, mash and croquettes plus HM y.puds which literally take minutes to heat up add some sausages and you have a quick toad in the hole .
HM soups include mushroom, celery, vegetable, parsnip and butternut squash ( If you want cream soups don't add the cream if you are going to freeze the soup because it is likely to split when re heated add cream or milk just before serving.
If you are able to spend a morning in the kitchen you will be able to prepare most of your meals for the week.

shoei

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

Buy lots of veg and prepare it all in one go, wash, chop freeze. I do this every so often with seasonal veg from the market or using the Aldi super six. Once it is done it is easy to cook straight from frozen.
Cook double and save one is another time saver plus it saves on fuel costs.
I have bags of a basic mince for cottage pie, pasties, stuffed cabbage, pancake filling or add some chillies and a tin of kidney beans for chilli etc , spag bol / lasagne mix etc , beef casserole which can be used in pies, pasties or add some curry powder to make a curry. Chicken portions which can be cooked from frozen. HM roast potatoes, mash and croquettes plus HM y.puds which literally take minutes to heat up add some sausages and you have a quick toad in the hole .
HM soups include mushroom, celery, vegetable, parsnip and butternut squash ( If you want cream soups don't add the cream if you are going to freeze the soup because it is likely to split when re heated add cream or milk just before serving.
If you are able to spend a morning in the kitchen you will be able to prepare most of your meals for the week.

Thanks, for this. I actually didn't know you could freeze veg without blanching it! Thats really helpful.

snowleopard61

I found it saved a lot of time and kept the place tidier to buy a pair of shredding scissors (I got mine from Amazon, cheaply for under a fiver) so that I could immediately shred the personal details on letters I didn't need to keep, especially on the junk mail that still filters through despite my being registered with the Mailing Preference Service. When I had an electric shredder I had to save up piles of paper as the shredder was too bulky (and possibly unsafe; pets etc) to leave out handy to use.

Angel_Jenny

Not just the cooking from scratch and gardening and essentials! But also things that are hobbies but not essential.

Maybe I am just really disorganised but I get in from work, do some house-y jobs, eat something, tiny bit of gardening, some exercise, and suddenly it is almost bedtime!

I work full time (37 hours ish) and am a part time carer (30 hours ish)for a family member and it feels like I am just getting the essentials done.

I struggle to find time to attempt knitting (no wonder I am not improving at all!), baking for fun, and letter writing. Learning to sew has pretty much disappeared to the end of my list.

Do you have any tips for getting organised so there is more free time?

Maybe I should stay up later and get up earlier!

Steve059

Personally, retiring helped.

maman

Steve059 wrote: »

Personally, retiring helped.

I agree with that as there's more time for shopping around BUT....I found that when I worked (60+hours a week) I had to be organised. I found meal planning invaluable as I never needed to waste time thinking of what we were going to have each night. I could plan for meals that suited the amount of time I had to cook. My list meant I could just whizz around the supermarket once a week and get everything I needed so no time (or money) wasted just popping into shops for a few bits.

I think getting organised is the answer. I don't know what work you do OP but I think a lot of it is like managing your workload at work. Make lists if that helps, some people use spreadsheets. Sort out a budget, keep a spending diary. Organise your wardrobe so you're not searching for stuff in the mornings. Try to have a hobby that involves getting out to a class where you'll feel you need to be there as someone's relying on you. I'm sure others will be along with more thoughts soon.:)

Blether

Steve059 wrote: »

Personally, retiring helped.

I love your style.

lobbyludd

I think personally (and I am only vaguely OS, I just happen to enjoy a lot of the things that are OS) there's a mix of things

1) health first, so sleep enough and eat well
2) I can't do it all, all the time, I garden, read, cook, sew, knit, upcycle/repurpose, grow fruit, work fulltime and am a single parent of 2 kids. But I don't do all those things every day.
3) mindset change - you mentioned finding time for the non-essentials. My grandma grew veg, knitted, sewed and baked because it was essential otherwise they would have had no food or clothes, but she also saw those things as her hobbies and derived pleasure from them.
4) learning one new thing at a time - be it knitting or baking or growing seeds, these are skills that take time to learn, practice and become instinctive, if you pick baking as your one new thing, start off with one recipe and redo until it becomes instinctive, then another and ditto until "baking" isn't something you have to plan for, just the new recipe.
5) changing what I already do so it hits several things at once. I don't exercise, but movement is vital for health. So I am gradually working up to walking into work and back every day (5 miles a day, I've done 2 days a week so far and in two weeks time it will be every day). This is good for the environment, my pocket, is O/S and gets my exercise in. I may also listen to an audio book on my way-in/out - not really reading but access to literature at least or get to know the local city flora and fauna. I don't know your caring set up, but could you weave in baking or sewing as part of your time with this person (may not work at all - but you get the idea).

I think it can be done, but gradually, and remember that a lot of O/S things were the norm because there was no alternative at the time, many people now are free to pick and choose which ones work best for them, and that's fine.

happy35

i work full time and am reasonably old style, I cook from scratch for 6 out of 7 nights but always have a night off when we either get a takeaway, a ready meal of have something quick such as beans on toast etc

I am going to start growing some veg this year, whether I have time for this remains to be seen, If it doesnt work I wont bother again

I pick and choose what I want to do, i clean using stardrops, soda crystals, bleach and zoflora as this works for me as loads of the sprays give me a bad chest

On the other hand I always use Ariel to wash whites and Ariels colour for other clothes. i always use Lenor 7x fragrance as well. I know I could save money in this area but I like them so I buy them

I bake cakes and bread because I like doing it, it is more of a hobby and I dod this on a Sunday morning.

I have picked the things i like and do them I wouldnt have time to do everything.