Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Frugal Living’ Category

Dumplings and Puddings

Posted in Frugal Living, Recipes on April 17, 2020| 20 Comments »

Ten years ago, I went through a phase of writing posts about frugal living. They’re listed here, and you might find them useful in this current climate.

The thing is, back then, I was mostly concerned about not wasting and saving money. But when I read back through the posts, I realise that they’re equally applicable for times when we have to stay at home and limit our trips to the shops.

In times of difficulty, being able to eke every last ounce of goodness from what we have at hand has a two-fold benefit: it saves us money, time and trips, but more importantly, it reassures us that we have the necessary skills and resources to survive on very little.

Last week, I uncovered an old packet of chicken mince in the freezer. It’s become surprisingly difficult to buy chicken in Sydney – Pete thinks that’s because it’s less daunting than a leg of lamb, so folks who would normally eat out have grabbed it as a safe option for home cooking. Our one kilo of free range chicken mince became 75 dumplings the first night – enough to feed four adults…

…and curry puffs two nights later…

I had a little stale bread – half a sourdough fruit loaf and some wholemeal – which I turned into two leftover bread and butter puddings. I followed our very simple recipe but omitted the ricotta as I didn’t have any at hand…

I also used treacle from the pantry and some packets of sultanas which my mother inexplicably found in her handbag one day…

The occasion called for a generous splosh of Calvados…

Et viola! One for us, and one left on the back deck for our friend and neighbour Will to pick up…

The next day, Pete and I discovered that cold leftover leftover bread and butter pudding is delicious…

A lifetime ago in a kindergarten playground not far away, a fellow school mum said to me “when times are hard, it forces you to tighten up and take back control. And I don’t mind that, because it makes me feel strong”. At the time, she was talking about her financial difficulties, but her point is still valid today.

When life is easy, we all get sloppy – food gets thrown away, we discard materials instead of reusing, and we fly by the seat of our pants instead of planning ahead. Now is the time to tighten up and take back control. May you all feel strong and powerful today! ♥

Read Full Post »

April Mending

Posted in Frugal Living, green living on April 10, 2020| 11 Comments »

I love mending!

Well…I love easy mending. Small Man’s Landsend pyjamas were not easy mending. I had to unpick the triple-stitched-in elastic and replace the entire casing. It took hours (quite literally). The first pair were a bit dodgy, so you’re only getting to see the other two…

But it was worth it, right? The pjs are in pretty good shape after five years of constant wear, so this quick slow fix should hopefully give them another year of wear!

. . . . .

My friend Ian’s work jeans also came in for another repair. Farmers are hard on their jeans – I suggested wearing leather chaps but Ian wouldn’t have a bar of it (which is the Aussie way of saying that he wouldn’t even consider it)…

His heavyweight Wranglers are incredibly sturdy, so they’ve always been worth mending. They’ve still got quite a lot of life left in them!

. . . . .

Finally, Eli’s old shoes were dropped off for a quick fix so that his baby brother Seb could wear them. Aren’t they the cutest things?

I stitched the hook side of the velcro down, then replaced the loop section on the front straps, just to make sure they stayed on securely…

It was a messy job, but it only needs to last a very short time…

And here’s my young neighbour, up and walking just before his first birthday!

. . . . .

If you’re a mender too, you’ll understand the joy that comes from breathing life into something that might otherwise have been thrown away. I’d love to know about your latest project!

Once we’re able to let go of the notion that repairs need to be invisible – once it can be seen as a point of pride and the continuation of a story – then mending becomes easy, functional and rewarding. And often unexpectedly beautiful! ♥

Read Full Post »

A Sustainable Winter Wardrobe

Posted in Frugal Living, green living on June 6, 2019| 26 Comments »

A long time ago, I worked at Reverse Garbage with the irrepressible Belinda M. She was sassy, totally adorable and had her own unique view of the world. I remember the morning she came in and declared that she was no longer a vegetarian – she’d watched David Attenborough’s “Life of Plants” and decided that they were living things with feelings too. So, true to her Italian roots, she went back to eating bolognese and lasagne.

Belinda also taught me my most valuable “fashion” lesson and over the past twenty years, I’ve rarely wavered from it. She always wore stripes (and only stripes) until one day, when she came in furious because stripes were the hot look for that season. “Dammit, now I’ll have to stop wearing them until they go out again!” she said.

She was right too. Why on earth would we want to dress like everyone else?

However, it wasn’t until I discovered thrift shopping (driven by a new found awareness of sustainability) that I found my “style”. I know I’m using a lot of quotation marks in this post, but if you ever met me and saw what I actually wear, you’d understand.

This year, we made a concerted effort to source as much of our winter wardrobe as possible secondhand. Pete, bless him, is always supportive, so he’s allowed himself to be dragged to numerous Salvos Stores and opshops. We’ve found some wonderful treasures, but they all needed tinkering with to make them our own.

Let me show you what we’ve been playing with! But first, please allow me to introduce you to Blue Rhonda, my latest eBay find and named after her original owner…

. . . . .

Pete fell in love with the cut and heavy duty fabric of this old US Air Force shirt. The entire garment is contoured for movement – the sleeves are shaped rather than a single piece, and the body is slightly tapered in at the waist. It fits him like a glove, but we needed to demilitarise it so that he wouldn’t have people asking him where he’d served.

I started by taking off all the patches…

We then soaked it in a half-strength black dye (which cost more than the shirt) to remove the khaki greens and browns, while keeping the pattern. Pete’s worn it almost constantly since, as it’s the perfect layering weight for early winter. He posed somewhat reluctantly for these photos…

. . . . .

I needed a new winter coat that wasn’t black, so I was pretty chuffed to find this vintage Edward Kazas Italian wool/cashmere swing coat at Anglicare for just $25. Apart from a bit of cat hair, it was in almost perfect condition. I paid our fabulous local dry cleaners $20 to make it like new again…

Many vintage lovers insist that you shouldn’t mess with original features, but the shiny gold buttons really weren’t me, so I switched them out for funky purple ones that I found at Reverse Garbage for ten cents each. A couple of friends have commented that they look like lollies, which makes me love them even more!

. . . . .

A second jacket, this time an old denim chore coat which I bought at Uturn in Marrickville for $6.70 (they were selling three items for $20, so I picked this up with Pete’s air force shirt and the jeans below). The chore coat is an American classic, but I’m bad at leaving things alone…

…so I added a panel of the Japanese print that my young friend Luca gave me when he went off to Paris to study fashion…

…and a tiny bird patch on the collar…

. . . . .

The third piece in our three for $20 purchase were these too short Diesel jeans. I let the hems down and celebrated the fade line as part of the ongoing story of the jeans, then darned the holes with purple 4ply cotton (picked up for $2 from the Salvos) and added octopus patches (as one does)…

The patches were a gift from my lovely friend Moo, who bought them at WOMAD earlier this year. They were hand stitched in Indonesia on old Singer sewing machines…

. . . . .

I turned a pair of too big linen pants and Pete’s old linen shirt into a couple of lightweight shawls…

…and a scrap of kantha quilting into a reversible poncho…

. . . . .

No winter wardrobe is complete without accessories! I was pretty happy with this one carrot ring that I picked up at the Salvos for a dollar…

. . . . .

Finally, let me leave you with some wise words from the always stylish Emma Watson and the folks at Fashion Revolution…

I suspect my clothes say I’m a bit of a nutter, but you know what? I’m ok with that.

Are you a sustainable fashion shopper? We’re quite new at this, so I’d love any tips you have to share. And for more information and inspiration, check out the fabulous Fashion Revolution resources page. You can also read all their fanzines online for free at Issuu – here’s the link. ♥

Read Full Post »

Does it really make any difference?

Posted in Frugal Living on May 14, 2019| 28 Comments »

Sometimes it’s hard to keep up the green momentum, especially when life gets hectic.

Does it really make a difference if we turn the heating down by a couple of degrees or take shorter showers? I had an answer to that question today.

As I was decluttering and shredding old papers, I found our bill notices from the second quarter of 2005.

It was interesting to see how much our USAGE has dropped since then – water has come down by 38.5%, electricity by 32% and gas by a whopping 40.5%. We now use the gas equivalent of a one and a half person household (there are four adults living here).

It’s simultaneously rewarding and cringe-inducing – it’s hard to believe that we used to consume so much power and water, but rewarding to see all the small changes adding up a whole lot over 14 years. I’ve tried to figure it out before, but utility prices have more than doubled over the past decade, making it difficult to really track how we’re doing from one quarter to the next.

I always have a moment’s hesitation before posting something like this because without fail, someone will leave me a comment saying that I’ve made them feel guilty. Please understand that it’s never my intention to make anyone feel bad – I’m acutely aware that we all have complicated lives and that we can only do what our circumstances permit. And believe me, our household still has a long way to go, particularly on the electricity front.

What I hope is that this post will encourage you (and ourselves) to keep going! Small changes and tweaks are definitely worth the effort – switching to energy saving light bulbs and using the eco setting on the dishwasher might seem trivial, but they really do make a difference! ♥

Read Full Post »

Roadkill Denim Challenge

Posted in Food & Friends, Frugal Living on May 11, 2019| 22 Comments »

“It is not a plastic bag under the black sedan parked outside your house! It’s a pair of discarded denim jeans…”

My old friend Maude, who lives across the road, texted me on her way to pick up The Artist Formerly Known as Pinkabelle from school.

Sure enough, the jeans were still there when Big Boy and I went walking the next morning. They were badly ripped and had possibly been run over.

“What. Are. You. Doing..?” asked my son, as I gingerly picked them up and brought them into the house.

I threw them into a sink with Napisan for several hours, then hot water washed them with laundry detergent in the machine. They came out nice and clean…

Serendipitously, I’d just been watching all the happenings of Fashion Revolution Week and reading some of their excellent publications. If you’re interested, you can read them for free online at Issuu – here’s a link to their second Fanzine titled Loved Clothes Last…

. . . . .

. . . . .

Inspired, I thought it might be interesting to see how many things I could make from our roadkill jeans. It was such a fun challenge! Here’s what I ended up with…

One denim apron with a large double pocket

I unpicked the label and reattached it to cover up an oil stain that didn’t come out in the wash (unsurprising given that the jeans had been under a car on the street for at least two days). Here’s the pattern if you’d like to have a go at making one.

One denim placemat

I was so happy with how this piece turned out – it’s made from the flat-felled seams and waistband, cut to size and zigzagged together with matching thread. We use these all the time – the double layer of denim provides reasonable heat protection…

One useful bread bag

This was assembled from the leftover leg fabric and assorted scraps. If you’d like to try making this, have a look at our tutorial here (they’re very easy)…

Two zippered useful bags

As the scraps got smaller, I started stitching them together crazy quilt fashion. They’re perfectly imperfect! We have a tutorial for making these as well if you’d like to have a go…

One denim coaster and four denim rings

This post is starting to sound like a Christmas carol! The coaster was dead easy – I simply cut around the remaining back pocket and zigzagged around the edge to stop it fraying. A single line of white embroidery was added to make it a bit more interesting. These work really well for hot drinks – they don’t have an edge for mugs to fall off, they’re easy to wash and quite heat resistant.

The rings are an old favourite of mine – I made one from a belt loop and three from the stitching around the zipper. Sadly, I couldn’t find a clever way to reuse the zipper itself…

Two wraparound bracelets

I’m completely in love with these! They’re certainly not most people’s style, but I find them incredibly comfortable to wear and they keep my wrists warm. Pete likes them too – he says they’re “a bit biker chick without being hardcore”. Ahh men…

At the end of the challenge, only a small amount of scrap was leftover…and it went into the rubbish bin. Yes, I could have saved it for pillow stuffing, but once I start thinking like that, my house is going to overflow…

I’ve learnt so much from this exercise!

As always, I’m blown away by the resilience of denim – despite being heavily worn, left outside under a car for several days and possibly run over, most of the fabric was still in excellent condition. And it feels wonderful to give materials that would have ended up in landfill (or worse, the waterways) a second lease of life!

Have you been upcycling?

I’d love to know about any projects you’re working on! ♥

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »