Tag Archives: mend

W is for Work at it

Day 23 of the A-Z Blog Challenge

Saving money certainly isn’t an easy thing to do. I guess if it was that easy, then everyone would be doing it and nobody would be struggling to find the pennies.

In this throwaway age, it is unfortunately, so much easier to just replace stuff with new, buy stuff instead of make it and live for today rather than forward thinking to tomorrow.

Saving money actually involves hard work. For most of the situations i have spoken about over the last month, it is necessary to do a lot of the ground work for yourselves. Whether that is by learning a new skill, researching other options either within your community or online or by being creative and thinking outside of the proverbial box for a solution to your potential spending problem.

The internet can be your best friend in helping you with this though. Youtube tutorials are amazing for showing you just how to get to grips with a sticky skill or repair that you need to know and don’t forget there are the amazing bloggers who also take the time and the trouble to present a page of tips and techniques to help you out for free.

kids-talking-clipart-people-talking-clipartAnother source of help can be friends and family, even if they don’t have the time to do the physical stuff for you, they may be willing to have a conversation to help you, and the older generation are generally a minefield of information about the make do and mend lifestyle. There was a time when they didn’t have a choice, and they didn’t have the internet to help them either. If they wanted something, they had to either work out a way to provide it or go without.

To start this lifestyle can be quite daunting though, and it takes time. My suggestion is to break it down into smaller tasks of what you want to achieve and then use that list to figure out what your priorities are.

  • You want to save money? Why? Write it down.
  • How much do you need to save? Write it down.
  • When do you need to save it by? Write it down.
  • How are you going to make those savings? Write them down.check-mark-1292787_960_720
  • Which are easier to achieve now and which ones are goals for the future? Write them down and prioritise them.
  • What will you do when you reach your goal? How will you reward yourself? Write it down – you need to be able to see a positive outcome at the end.

I would make a file of these notes and leave gaps for more ideas to be slotted in as they occurred to me. I don’t know about you, but i can never get everything out of my brain in one sitting, i do some, i go away and cogitate, i do a bit more.

businessman-with-a-great-idea_1012-219I would also leave space for comments and reflections. What if something doesn’t happen the way you wanted it to? What are you going to do then? How are you going to stop yourself from feeling a failure when real life decided to kick you up the Jacksy just to make your day? These are important points to note as well, Life can truly be a right pain in the arse sometimes and there is very little we can do about that, but we can do something about how we react to it.

Remember me saying that earlier this monthdesperate-screaming-woman-clip-art__k16052356 i had to purchase two new front tyres and have a wheel alignment on my car? Cost me over £200. That was a pain in the arse. Wasn’t expecting it. But it did save me from having a tyre blowout which could and probably would have cost me an awful lot more, and maybe not just in money.

So, plan what you are going to do and how you are going to do it. Add in your contingency plan and make sure that you find a positive, no matter how small, about any set backs you face.

Then you can make this saving money thing work for you.

Have a happy day.

Anita. x

M is for Make Do and Mend

Day 13 of the A – Z Alphabet Blogging Challenge

Hey, i’m half way through the month and as my theme is making do and mending then it seems kinda obvious to have that for my letter M.

For most of my life i’ve been a skint single mum so as much as i would like it to be otherwise, making do and mending has always been on the agenda.

Yes, i’m a qualified seamstress. Yes, i am interested in many crafts and have quite a few DIY skills but i sometimes wonder if i would have had them had it not been a necessity to gain those attributes?

I guess it started when i was a teenager (i wasn’t a mum myself then by the way, but i was skint). My mum would always say that she couldn’t even thread a needle which meant that if i wanted anything sewn or mended i had to do it myself. Once she found out that i was actually reasonably ok at threading needles, it is amazing how much my mending pile would grow…

When i was about thirteen i asked for a sewing machine for Christmas. Mum and dad didn’t have a clue about sewing machines, and they were also skint, so they scoured the local paper and picked up a second hand one for me and put it under the tree. I loved that machine, it was an old singer, you’d call it vintage now (it was bordering on vintage then) and it would only go forwards and back but it meant that i could take in the legs of the 70’s flared jeans that my cousin passed onto me so that they fit the fashion of the 80’s.

Sewing machine vintage  This isn’t my old machine, but it is the exact version. I found this picture at Helen Howes Sewing Machines . There are plenty of other vintage machines on her site also.

I have had several sewing machines since this one, i am bereft if one breaks and i am without one – it happened when i couldn’t afford a new one once, i was without for about six months. It was emotional.

My current machine does a lot more than just forward and back. It does so much that i probably don’t use at least half of its capacity, but it does thread the needle for me and it also cuts the thread when i’ve finished sewing. It’s the little things.

sewing set up

But would i have been such a keen sewist if it hadn’t been for necessity? I guess i’ll never know, but learning and using that skill has definitely saved me money as well as helped me to earn some with Baby Dreams Stitchery.

And what of other crafts and DIY?

My dad taught me to wallpaper and paint from a very young age, i also learnt early that wood chip paper is a definite no no in the decorating stakes, no matter how bad the underlying wall state is.

I can also handle a drill and a screwdriver-yes, i do know the difference between a flat head and a posidrive. I am a dab hand at reading the instructions and then building flat pack furniture, the bunk beds were a bit awkward, had to get my (female) neighbour in to help me to put one on top of the other. The double bed in contrast was a doddle.

I think what i am trying to say here is that it is cheaper to fix something, or create it yourself than it is to discard and buy new every time. For me, the make do and mend lifestyle began as a necessity, and even though life isn’t quite so pressured financially as it used to be, it is still a way of life and always will be.

I was just walking around a certain upmarket home and fashion store and saw some really cute cushions with the phrase ‘Bee Happy’ appliquéd onto them…for £25….

I put them back on the shelf…

I can make it myself much cheaper than that…

But then, i don’t have to pay myself for the several hours labour it’s going to take either…

Have a happy day.

Anita x