Ponderings #1 – on pennies

Posted by louisa on Thursday 24 November 2011 in frugal | 15 comments

This was originally going to be a much longer post on two vaguely connected things but I think it confused the issue lumping them together, so I’ve split it up – pennies today, the other thing tomorrow.

A few weeks ago, there was an interesting article on Get Rich Slowly about picking up pennies. (I’ve linked to GRS a few times recently – the US-centric investment/credit card advice and similar that was very common when I started reading it has recently dropped off and now it’s mostly just good frugal living advice.)

So this article was about why the author Donna Freedman picks up pennies from she sees them on the ground. She talks about why the “ewww, it’s dirty” argument is just silly and the best places to look for spare coins, but the most interesting thing for me was when she talks about what she does with them: she saves them up in a jar and donates them to a food bank –

according to the hunger-relief charity Feeding America, $1 provides the makings for eight meals. I keep that in mind every time I pick up a penny: Another 99 of these and eight people get to have supper.

I used to pick up pennies all the time. I think I probably stopped about six years ago now, when I was still in full time employment and those pennies didn’t mean that much to me any more – or rather, I knew that they’d mean more to other people. We lived in a poor estate in a poor area so it seemed to be rude for me to take them when they could make more of a difference to someone on a tight budget. I still think this is a valid point but I do like Donna’s idea too – she collected $44.58 last year, which she rounded up to $50, and that provided food for 400 people: who knows how much of that money would have been picked up by someone who needed it, instead of being picked up by someone who didn’t really need it, or possibly getting washed or swept away and be lost to everyone forever?

Changing the topic slightly, we’ve always had penny pots at home – silver ones which are plundered for bus fare all the time, copper ones that are filled and counted while watching a film on a wintery afternoon – and it surprises me when I hear that other people don’t have them. At the far end of the scale, a friend of a friend THROWS AWAY ALL HIS CHANGE, as he puts it in the BIN, not in a jar for counting later or a charity bucket. He’s successful in business and I imagine his reckoning is that it’s not worth his time to find a jar, drop the coins in there every day and take it to his bank/Coinstar/a charity collection once a year. If he wanted to give the equivalent money to charity, he could argue that he would be better spending his time – those seconds that add up – adding value to his business, because that would probably mean he was able to donate more money in the long run. Since finding out about that, I’ve heard of examples of at least two people who do the same – and it had never occurred to one of them that he could collect them up rather than just THROWING MONEY AWAY. I think my capital letters show how aghast I am about this idea!

Do you pick up pennies on the street for yourself or for charity, or do you leave them where they are? Do you have a penny jar at home? Are you as shocked as I am about the people throwing money in the bin?! I’d love to hear your thoughts on this :)

Book Review: Stitch Step by Step by Maggi Gordon and Ellie Vance

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 23 November 2011 in Featured, making | 1 comment

It was a moment of serendipity when I spotted this book, Stitch Step by Step by Maggi Gordon and Ellie Vance, on the “new additions” shelf at the library back in September – I didn’t know it but I was about to get poorly sick — not ill enough to just collapse in a heap but not well enough to, you know, move. I suddenly found myself with a lot of sewing playtime!

The design of the book grabbed me from the outset: the pretty blue/dotty cover; the clear, well laid out tutorial pages; and the stitch galleries, oh my, the stitch galleries.

I think it’s worth noting that I’m quite new to embroidery. I’ve cross-stitched for a few years now but I’ve not spent a lot of time looking into the different stitches available when you break away from the cross (or fractions of it) and backstitches. The stitch galleries in this book really opened my eyes to the different possibilities – I could suddenly see the appeal of making samplers! As this is nearly all counted-thread work, it didn’t seem a million miles from my cross-stitching and it gave me the confident to jump straight into some stitching myself.

I’ll admit, I followed a handful of the tutorials because it was clear to see what to do from the stitch gallery pictures but those that I did follow were clear step-by-step guides as the title of the book suggests :) The pictures were crisp, with good fabric/thread contrast so it was easy to see what was going on. (The one I “chose” to take bad pictures of to illustrate this point is probably the least contrasting one but you can see the layout.)

In addition to the colourful thread work, there were also sections on whitework – which was a new concept to me (the idea of using the stitches to open up holes in the fabric I mean, not just the white-on-white stitching), using beads & sequins and on designing as well as stitching Florentine/Bargello work. Purr. Me like!

As with all tutorial books, they covered the basics as well – how to use embroidery hoops, useful tools, finishing and whatnot – which again, was useful for a newbie like me.

Overall, I didn’t read this book cover-to-cover or feel like I wanted to try every different stitch/tutorial – but it’s not for that: it’s for providing inspiration and reference, and I think it does those things very well.

I did have two minor problems with it though – both design issues. Firstly, I had the hardback version from the library. Apparently there is a paperback version available too — I think the hardback would be better than that but better still would have been a ring-bound hardback, that could have sat open of its own accord on my knee while I was stitching.

The second problem I had was a minor – but very annoying – thing: each page number was decorated with a cute image of a needle and thread. I would see it out of the corner of my eye and try to brush it away. On every. single. page. Sometimes multiple times on each page. ARRRGGGH!! ;)

All in though, I’m very glad I came across it and next time I’m in a sewing mindset (I’m all about crochet at the moment), I think I might have to add it to my bookshelf at home.

Declutter November mini-challenge week 4: your hobby/craft stash

Posted by louisa on Monday 21 November 2011 in decluttering | 7 comments

Ah, you knew this one was coming, didn’t you? ;)

I’ve also deliberately left it ’til last as I imagine most people will have dipped into their hobby stashes already – hopefully though having a focused look at it will help everyone (and me especially!) prune further: get rid of extra five things (or sets of things), in addition to your normal one a day.

The original idea for this was “declutter your craft stash” but I know that not everyone is crafty so I’ve expanded it to being whatever you hoard for your hobby. I’m assuming everyone taking part in the challenge hoards some stuff – if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be needing to declutter ;)

For me, I’m going to look at my yarn stash and my fabric stash, and at my books yet again because I always can prune them further. My t’other half John doesn’t craft but he hoards (or certainly did in the past) computer related stuff so I’d imagine he could find five things to get rid of there, and he’s a reader too so I’m sure he could find a few books he wouldn’t read again.

So whatever your poison – be it cooking, a craft, a sport, a game, a performance art or collecting something – have a look through your tools/equipment, your materials stash, your collection or whatever, and see what can go.

Think about what no longer any use to you – clear some space and maybe even pass it on to someone just starting out in your favourite pursuit!

Declutter November – end of week 3

Posted by louisa on Monday 21 November 2011 in decluttering | 1 comment

We’ve finished another week of Declutter November – and I’m beginning to struggle a bit!

I think I snagged a lot of the low hanging fruit earlier in the month and during the garden & wardrobe, and this week’s kitchen, mini-challenges so now I feel like I’m picking things just to meet the target rather than because I actually want to get rid of them. That said, I don’t have any wobbles about the things I’ve selected so perhaps it’s good that I’m being forced into it – I’m looking for stuff to declutter rather than it jumping out at me.

This week’s selection then:

• three books (3 items)
• a pair of candlestick holders that we got as a gift nearly ten years ago and have never used (1 item)
• a cute … thing (pencil case? make up bag) that I bough on eBay thinking it was purse size (it’s not) (1 item)
• two necklaces I took to my mum on Saturday so they’re not pictured (she gave me some of her clutter in return – clutter swap! – but I’m still counting them ;) ) (1 item)
• and another not pictured – a cute little cotton hoodie I bought for one of our nephews when he was born but forgot to pass on until it was too late. He’s two in a couple of months so it’s sat on my desk for quite a while now! (1 item)

Declutter November mini-challenge week 3: the kitchen

While I’m starting to struggle in the rest of the house, the kitchen mini-challenge was easy peasy! I got rid of:

• six big egg boxes – lots of people save egg boxes for us but we don’t have much use for these big 12/15 egg ones. They’ll go in the compost as it could use some bulk at the moment.
• an old bamboo steamer – since we have since inherited both a better bamboo steamer set and a metal one from friends.
• a cute little tea bag dish which is too small for our teabag mountain
• the chicken-shaped egg holder I mentioned in the mini-challenge launch – he’s nice but not for us right now
• the blue thing on the top of the pile, which is a thermos flask for soup/leftovers. I bought it when I temporarily didn’t have access to a microwave at work in … 2002? I then got access to a microwave and it was easier to take things cold then reheat them than carry the bulky flask. I have never used it!

I also moved a lot of things out of the kitchen: six plates, two bowls and four cups into cupboard space elsewhere along with our plastic picnic cups/cutlery; a carrier bag full of old teatowels to use as dirty rags elsewhere; two little shelves of misc; and all the medicines in the box below, which had been stuffed on a toddler-height shelf instead of being properly put back in the medicine box in the bathroom:

We now have some paracetamol, a pack of ibuprofen and a pack of plasters in a little drawer in the kitchen – that’s more than enough on hand. And now we’ve moved everything that nearly two year old nephew who never got his hoodie is far less likely to accidentally overdose on Strepsils and sticky plasters too…!

Between getting rid and clearing out, we now have a lot more cupboard space, an almost completely empty drawer, and three small shelves that are clear. Woo!

How has your week of decluttering gone? Are you still making progress?

Things I’m get unduly excited about at the moment

Posted by louisa on Friday 18 November 2011 in meta | 2 comments

The lovely people who have been reading this blog for a while may be aware that I get unduly excited about strange things. Like freshly cleared out chicken coops. And stupid puns. And graphs. And really obscure references in post tags for others in the small set of people who like both cartoons & mycology.

ANYWAY. It’s Friday afternoon (singalong Friday afternoon in our office) so I thought I’d think about some of things that made me all happy-happy-joy-joy. This is what I’ve been getting unduly excited about recently:

1. The pointy bit on, say, tomato puree tube lids that you turn upside down and use to pierce the foil on the top of the tube bit. (I wonder if they have an actual name because that’s kinda long winded.)

I used one the other day and was reminded of the genius – it does the job perfect and safely. I don’t have to hunt around for a knife or similar – and risks stabbing myself when said knife inevitably slips. It probably doesn’t add much, if anything, to the production time or costs (since the lids are just formed plastic anyway), and doesn’t impact the level of waste or whatever. Plus, if it’s a shaped spike, it makes the tomato puree come out in the fancy pattern, like a considerably less gross version of these. (Warning: link contains poo humour and a waste-of-plastic “gag gift”.)

2. How much quicker it is to defrost stuff in a bowl of water than just on the side

A 1lb/500g pack of diced lamb fully defrosted in about an hour the other day, versus probably all day if I’d not put it in water. Woo. And then I turned that lamb into a lovely casserole thing with lots of veggies and chickpeas. Double woo.

3. The thread slicer on a sewing machine.

I like to jump right in when it comes to crafts and rarely plan ahead enough to remember to grab a pair of scissors. And even if I do, it’s time consuming to pick them up whenever I need to make a quick snip. So the little (shielded) sharp bit of metal on the side of the machine is wonderful for me.

4. Seam/stitch rippers

And similarly, seam or stitch rippers, whatever you want to call them. So small yet so useful!

5. The fact that we might get to see the sea tomorrow

Great on two counts: 1) the sea, weeeee! and 2) dog in sea = hilarious.

6. That when I came to search for a picture of a tomato puree tube for the picture up top, by completely coincide I ended up on Recycle This and a photo I took two and half years ago.

I thought, “oh, I’ll use that, we use Morrisons tomato puree after all – oh! that’s our tomato puree!”

I heart internet coinky-dinks.

What are you getting disproportionately giddy about at the moment?