New & Shiny Stuff

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Posted on December 30, 2014

Regular readers would know that I am not an advocate of shopping. Of course, I buy food to feed us and things that we use in our day-to-day lives but I am definitely not into shopping for recreation.

Every now and then I have a day like today when all I seem to do is buy. I had to go to Brisbane this morning with The Duke as we were to pick up our latest purchase this afternoon, but more about that later. It meant that I had the whole day to fill in so my first stop was Spotlight. I bought 5 white buttons for a blouse I am making and I also took some time to look at the fabrics which were all 40% off the marked price. I do not buy things just because they are discounted but I found some fabric that I am planning to use.

The white piece is linen/cotton blend and I am planning to make a summer dress for myself. I also bought some white lawn (not shown) for the lining. I am going to use this dress as the pattern.

The red is a stretch cotton (t-shirt) fabric which I plan to make a copy of a top I bought earlier in the year.

The other piece is white with black silhouettes of kitchen utensils and I am going to make some more potholders and a cover for my Kitchen Aid mixer which lives on the corner of the bench in the kitchen.

After my Spotlight expedition I went to visit my mother and we went to a large shopping centre near where she lives. Apart from having lunch there we wandered around and I checked out several boutiques and I ended up buying a pair of white, slim-fitting trousers and a blue, patterned cardigan/bolero. I did try on numerous other pieces but I am very selective in the clothes I buy and wanted to be sure that were exactly what I wanted but more on those another day.

The final hurrah was to pick up our new car after our previous one was deemed to be a total write-off after the damage sustained during the recent ferocious hailstorm.

I am planning a much less adventurous day tomorrow. I will be staying at home and hope to get some sewing done. It will not be any of the new material just yet as I have a couple of other projects that I need to complete before I start any new ones.

What are your plans for New Year’s Eve? Partying or a quiet night at home?

Project 333 – Changing Colours

Project 333 – My Favourite

Making Ends Meet – The Essentials

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Posted on December 11, 2013

In an earlier post I identified the essentials for life as shelter, food and clothing.

I talked a bit about food and how you can immediately reduce your costs by creatively using what you have on hand and also the importance of not wasting precious food.

Now for the other 2 essentials before we move back to food.

Shelter

I know it is unwise to assume, but for the purpose of this exercise I will make the assumption that you currently have somewhere to live. This means that you will most likely have the expense of either rent or mortgage payments. These need to be your first priority when you are accounting for money and if you are unable to meet this payments then your situation is very dire. You should seek financial counselling as soon as possible.

It is not a good idea to try to sell or move to another rental property when things are really tight as there are costs associated with moving house, so, if it all possible, it is best to see if you can possibly maintain your current location by cutting back in other areas. If it is absolutely essential that you move, you could consider moving in with other family members as a temporary solution or sharing with another couple or family to reduce the costs. All of these strategies have been done before, and whilst not perfect, they are better than ending up homeless.

Clothing

“It is interesting, because I often don’t think of clothing myself as an essential. When I was trying to save for a deposit for a house, that’s the category I set to zero (save for a three week holiday I budgeted for overseas, and within that budget I was allowed to buy whatever, which happened to include lots of clothes!). Admittedly, most people have clothing, so can skimp for a while. And there’s free clothing, through hand me downs, swaps and freecycle. Or there’s op shops. Still, very interesting reading!”

This was a comment in response to my post where I placed clothing in the ‘essential’ category. Having clothes to wear is essential – we are not in the Garden of Eden – but buying new clothes is definitely not essential! In fact, like Sarah’s comment, in tough times the clothing budget should be set to zero.

Think about this: You had enough clothes last week and nothing has changed so there is no need to go and buy more. Children’s clothes can be let down, patched and created from refashioned adult items. Check out websites and you will find many references to challenging yourself to buy no new clothes for a year. It can easily be done.

A final tip: Use it up, wear it out, make do or do without.

In my next post I will look at what meals I can create using the list of contents of Sarah’s refrigerator and pantry.

Project 333 – Clothes Shopping

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Posted on February 11, 2013

One of the things I did while I was in Melbourne was to buy some new clothes. I bought 3 skirts, 2 dresses and a jacket but they were not just random pieces. Each had to earn its place in my wardrobe and be able to be worn in a variety of ways.

Here is one of the skirts.

I wore it to work today with an existing black top.

These are the dresses I bought. They are the same style and can both be worn with the red jacket I bought. I also have a black cardigan and a pink cardigan as well as a black jacket so there will be several options.

I will show you some of the other items another day.

On the weekend, I hope to have time to go through my wardrobe and decide what I need move out. I am definitely getting closer to having a selection of clothes that I love, fit me well and can be worn in a variety of ways. I prefer to have a small number of quality pieces than a cupboard bursting at the seams with ‘bargains’.