Thrift thread

You won’t have room loopy, we are supposed to be stockpiling for Brexit apparently.

Batch cooking?

Yes, batch cooking and padding out stews etc with plenty of vegetables. Just defrosted the remains of our Halloween Beef Stew and dumplings and it tasted even better than I remember.

And ask yourself when out ‘do I REALLY need this or do I just want it?’

Grow your own.
Last year we helped our little grandsons plant veg seeds thinking that they probably would not do very well as we usually just have flower garden and only a hanging basket of Tom thumb tomatoes by the back back door and a few herbs that look after themselves.

How wrong we were, Everything came up!
Yellow tomatoes, aubergines, peas, beans, cucumber in the garden not in green house and sweet corn in between sun flowers.

Had to get GN advice on the optimum time pick the sweet corn. ( it was delicious)

My grandsons enjoyed picking and eating their produce.
We are giving them a plastic green house this year.

So my thrift suggestion loopyloo is grow your own.
There is so much fruit and veg variety that can be grown in containers on patios and balconies.

Loopy, if you do get a Homebase tree take it out of its pot, give it a good drink of water and repot it in a size up pot.
They are plonked in a small pot with their roots bound in plastic and very little poor soil.
Our living tree came from there in December, I repotted it and now, outside, it’s making new growth.

My last years 2017 Christmas tree in a pot thrived and grew..until September 2018 when it died1

Only buy bed linen and household necessities in sales.
Grow your own yes, but it can be pricy when you are let loose in a garden centre. there are tools, seeds, growbags, potting compost. I know it's much nicer but not necessarily cheaper. Our glut of cucumbers came just as they were cheap in the shops.
I would rescue that Christmas tree though. I always ask if I can rehome the sad looking bedding plants when the council are refreshing the public plantings.
Thrifty holidays: try house or pet sitting in a place you'd like to visit.
Cheap haircuts; we have a college near us where models are required for budding hairdressers. Theres also a restaurant where the very cheap meals are cooked by trainee chefs.

I like being thrifty - gives me satisfaction turning something old into a useful item. I’m handy with sewing machine, which helps.
Sheets which have worn threadbare have been turned into pillowcases.
Old towelling nappies were made into sweatbands for OH - we nickname them “eyebrows” as he doesn’t have any, so sweat runs into his eyes when gardening.
Old T-shirts and vests cut up make good cleaning cloths, or washable baby wipes.

I’m sure lots of you will come up with more imaginative thrifty ideas.

If you keep wearing out a rubber glove on one particular hand, turn one inside out match it up with another worn out pair.
The other thing to remember is ' a bargain is not a bargain unless you need it!' Something I do have to remind myself from time to time......