Lazy LAZY magazine writing on "being frugal"

[Bathsheba]

See if I see another magazine article where their ?top tip? for ?beating the credit crunch? is ?Give up your daily lattes ? that will save you £500 a year and loads of calories? ? I?m sure the same tip is given twice in this month?s Sainsbury?s magazine and has been the mainstay of such articles for years?

Do people really believe that everyone

A ? has a daily latte from a coffee chain
B ? hasn?t thought about giving that up

Okay, I?m a SAHM who doesn?t work in an office directly above a branch of Starbucks, but I?d say that 90% at least of the working population aren?t in Coffee Republic every morning for coffee.

Its lazy, lazy magazine writing..!!

Knitting is a hobby/ craft, not a way to save money, unless you sell your stuff.

Good yarns will almost always cost more than the jumper/ scarf etc you could have bought.

I have read India's lovely book (it's a great fun, witty and interesting read) but yes, she is preaching to her sisters, not to genuinely skint people.

Her advice on clothing appears to be 'buy more expensive stuff, but less of it', which is fair advice if you have the cash to buy the expensive stuff to begin with but hardly a 'frugality tip'.

Anyway, even when I have bought, say a dress which I really love and am totally pleased with, the chances are that by the next time a dress occasion comes around I want a new one. Sorry India, I don't care how flattering a DVF wrap dress is, I'm not wearing to five friend's weddings in a row.

And my mum won't wear them at all as she is the other side of 60 and looks like an extra from The Steamie in them

Make your own CHEESE? Don't you need special equipment for that? Or is there some genius trick to it...

although, if you're going to make your own cheese really you will need a cow as well...

Its to 'learn new and develop old skills' and I guess a cheap way to entertain yourself when not crocheting your own pants. (membership from £27)

So, I have my list now of things for a frugal life:

Sewing machine, thread, needles material
knitting needles, yarn (don't scrimp on this)
card, glitter and other greetings card paraphenalia
london zoo annual pass
WI membership
Plants, seeds, compost etc for growing own veg
Muslin clothes for making own cheese
Karaoke machine (for cheap, home entertainment)
Membership to houseswap club for cheap holidays
Membership to car club

I'm running out of space. Sorry!

don't forget churn for making your own butter.

Its to 'learn new and develop old skills' and I guess a cheap way to entertain yourself when not crocheting your own pants. (membership from £27)

was in reply to the WI question.

I work and have 22 month old DS but maybe some of these things possible if you have older dcs?

The people on this thread put everyone to shame on thrifty behaviour. The tips on there are incredible. White vinegar fabric softener anyone?

Apparently butter is quite easy to make. Buy price reduced double cream from supermarket, almost on the turn. Shake the carton, keep shaking for about half an hour. Different people can take it in turns and it counts as good exercise. You'll hear a thunk after some time and voila, inside the carton will be a solid lump of butter and some buttermilk liquid which can be used in recipes. No churn necessary!

Georgimama why is it illegal to use iplayer when you don't have a TV license? Are you sure about this?

I bought India's book beginning of December and posted on here about making my own cheese (no equipment needed) and it was lovely.

Also made her curry - it was fantastic and very very cheap.

Haven't churned my own butter yet but that's because I haven't seen cream on special offer yet.

And her recipe for cupcakes fairycakes is from the Magnolia bakery and it was amazing.

I loved her thrift book (and her shopping book from a few years ago) and I do think she's a witty writer.

There's a huge income differential of people trying to save money at the moment - some advice is not aimed at me

peas -- yes, if you have a computer that is capable of streaming TV (even if you don't use it) then you need a TV licence. Ditto if you have a TV just for playing DVDs or VHS.

There's very very little way round having a TV licence, unless you really have no equipment at all. And even then the TV licensing people are likely to harass you so much that you might as well just buy a licence to make them go away.

Cryptoprocta - yeah but if you are making it in a quantity to actually meet your family's needs that's a lot of hours you're going to have to spend shaking cartons....

Thanks frogs I don't have a TV. I don't watch live TV. I occasionally watch programmes on the iplayer (on my laptop). Isn't that alright? I am not streaming live TV

We get repeated letters from the Licensing people asking for confirmation that we don't use our office PC's for TV viewing ! Oh yeah, whilst drinking our lattes, with deli made sandwiches, we're all watching Jeremy Kyle !!

You don't have to have a TV licence if you just watch DVDs or videos. Not sure about the capabilities of pcs cos my laptop is ancient and wouldn't work like that anyway.

I've only just bought a TV licence after 3 years of not watching any broadcast telly - and unplugging the Tv aerial and scrambling the tuning just in case the licensing people came round. But I wrote them a letter saying we didn't watch broadcast tv and never heard from them again.

There is a bit on the BBCiplayer website that says if you don't watch live broadcasts you don't have to have a tv licence to use it.

Thanks for that link Cryptoprocta, those are actually useful hints.
I'm going to try this one:
"I switch off the oven for the last 5-10 minutes of cooking time."

ooooh, the programme currently on Radio 4 will have a feature in a minute about whether I need a license to use the iplayer! Am I alone in finding the MSE tips a bit scary and extreme?

My dp made his own butter once (out of curiosity) using Cryptoprocta's method and it really did work! It was very tasty too.

I thought they had changed it. You definitely need a TV licence to watch live stream TV through the BBC website. I assumed Iplayer was the same thing.

Peas -- in that case it's probably fine. I just know that the licence people are very tenacious and loopholes are few and far between!

If you live in a soft water area you don't need fabric softener at all. I gave it up a year ago and I notice absolutely no difference in my clothes.

Anyhoo, back to the lazy writing. Magazines seem to be infected with the lazy/ repetitive writing virus. There are certain 'stock' articles that get rolled out year after year - you don't even need to read them to know what they will say.

One example is the 'how to get a good night's sleep' article, which will helpfully suggest to us struggling insomniacs:

Make sure your bed is comfy
Don't drink caffeine before bedtime
Don't watch action films just before bed

etc etc. All blindingly obvious and also totally useless to anybody who actually has a problem with sleep.

This passes as journalism, and people strive for years to get employed by magazines only to be asked to churn out this predictable tosh.

As for the yearly 'swimsuit to suit your body shape' article accompanied by photos of tall skinny models with no tits to illustrate each one, it's beyond parody innit.

I live in a very hard water area and don't use fabric softener.

LaurieFairycake- could you post the IK cupcakes receipe?

I'm being thrifty by not buying her book

my magazine treat ( I dont buy any other books or magazines) is homefarmer. Has a lot more practical and useful thing sin it than any of these poxy articles seem to have.

surely it doesnt have to be thermoss (thermosi?) if youre making it last a month. even a thermos wouldnt keep it warm that long. Wonder if you can keep coffee that long?