Could we have managed nowadays?

[goggy]

What a subject!I feel like a living  fossil!
My opinion is that if you couldn't make it,buy it,you did without,so a lot of people learned to make stuff they wanted.Remember the first knitted garment for Winter?The first home cobbled footwear?First set of altered hand me down's?
Gawd!I can laugh about it now,but all the "hardships"taught me how to get by to this day!
         Goggy.

[JillJ]

Now I know why I always feel guilty if I throw the last bit of a bar of soap away instead of slapping it on to the new bar so that every bit gets used, and why I feel guilty if I throw a plastic bag away instead of washing it for re-use - it's all my mother's fault!

Jill

[behindthefrogs]

If you look at your last big shop and how many items you actually threw away a small part of without using them all, and then look back at what your parents did you will find that you could actually save up to ten percent of the cost of that shop.

The loaf that went dry.
All those bread crumbs my mother put in a jar for the next treacle tart.
The soap you didn't finish.
The end of the joint of meat that could have been minced
The end of the toilet roll.
The bottom of the washing up liquid.
The bananas that went a bit black
The freezer bags that you could have used again
The fruit and veg you could have bought loose and just the quantity that you needed.

Just keep your slip once and look back when you have used most of it.  That is why our parents avoided debt.

[subee]

This thread certainly makes you count your blessings and I think that's what they used to do years ago too - if Hubby came home safe from the ironworks/foundry/mine etc.(no H & S rules then!!) and if Son came back safe from War!!

My Dad has just got a mobile (aged 79!) we haven't taught him how to text yet not sure he would approve of the 'text speak' a la Ali G style - 'I is on me way ome' 'cn u ring me bak' etc.

I remember when Mum first got a microwave he though we were well posh because we had a 'telly' in  the kitchen to get Channel 4!!

subee x

[JillJ]

It all makes me very thankful that I don't now have to do all those thrifty things that are really second nature to me, and even though my conscience pricks occasionally I console myself with the knowledge that checking the posts on RC is much more fun than grating stale bread and mincing left-over meat and I still don't owe a penny to anyone!

Jill

[CarolBurns]

The bottom of the washing up liquid?  Doesn't everyone fill the water and then squeeze the bottle to get some water in, shake it and then use it in the water? I do that with shampoo, bottles of bleach etc. They are totally empty before they see the inside of my bun lol


Carol

[CarolBurns]

As for the bread my Dad saves it as well as other bits of food and mixes it all together for the birds that he gets in his garden

Carol

[subee]

The bottom of the washing up liquid?  Doesn't everyone fill the water and then squeeze the bottle to get some water in, shake it and then use it in the water? I do that with shampoo, bottles of bleach etc. They are totally empty before they see the inside of my bun lol


Carol

So glad it's not just me that does this - it's sooo satisfying to get the last of it out!!

subee x

[behindthefrogs]

The bottom of the washing up liquid?  Doesn't everyone fill the water and then squeeze the bottle to get some water in, shake it and then use it in the water? I do that with shampoo, bottles of bleach etc. They are totally empty before they see the inside of my bun lol


Carol

The answer is no they don't.  We took a group of youths on a narrow boat holiday some years ago and the number of things like that which were thrown away still a tenth full were amazing.

When we asked why; we were given excuses like life is too short to turn it upside down and wait for the liquid to drain down to the nozzle.  As for squeezing it to pick up some water that required far too much effort.