…Make it do or do without. I am full of inspiration to be thriftier and in the process more eco-friendly, as I’m reading a wonderful book right now called The Simple Home.
We cook (mostly) from scratch, take hand-me-downs, use up our food stores/art supplies/toiletries etc, and try to buy sales for everything from food to clothing to home improvement items. But there are many ways we could live a more frugal life and make better use of the money and resources available to us.
Earlier this week, while Eric gave the older boys a bath in the evening, I decided to do a quick mending project. I really should mend more things instead of just replacing them or dealing with them as is. We picked up a cute wicker laundry hamper from Buy Nothing earlier this week and you know–the longer a project sits undone, the less likely it is to get done ever. At least that’s how it is for me.
The hamper liner had a hole in one seem and one of the handles was torn off. So after washing it, I dug around for my little sewing kit, fixed it up and now we have a laundry hamper–nicer than one I would have purchased and it was completely free.
The Simple Home is divided into twelve sections, so you can focus on a different area of household management each month. The areas I feel most motivated to improve upon at the moment are:
- Mending–for example, my kids burn holes in their pant knees like wildfire, so I really should learn how to sew a nice patch instead of replacing them. Maybe the repaired pants wouldn’t be great to wear to school or to a dinner, but who cares about patched knees around the house?
- Baking yeasted breads. Lovely, gluten-y bread! And many other things. If I could learn how to make cinnamon buns like the ones we had in Norway, I would consider myself an excellent baker. Or if that becomes a health issue for more of the family in the future, it would be good to learn how to bake a good loaf of GF sandwich bread + other things, too.
- Gardening. This year I’ve planned a small container garden so we can really focus on learning to grow a few veggies and herbs well. Quality over quantity and we’ll learn through the years.
- Wellbeing. There is a whole section about not just health but mental wellbeing–something that’s so often overlooked for mothers and especially stay-at-home parents. Being part of a community, taking time to slow down and include small moments of rest in the day, and balancing living in the moment versus planning for the future… those are all works in progress for me!
I’m looking forward to this summer and the rest of the year for many reasons. And it’s fun to have some personal lifestyle goals like the above to work towards, too. This weekend we’re hitting the garden store (manifesting spring even though it’s snowing ever-so-lightly right now) to start on our container garden!
What are your plans for the weekend, or frugality/homemaking goals for this year?
xx Claire
P.S. Nothing like logging into WordPress on an evening and seeing that your mini-rant on a tough motherhood topic has been viewed perhaps more than you intended. LOL. Anyways, I’ll leave it up as this blog is like a diary for me, and I did mean every word I wrote too (even if I’m not usually so forward).