HOUSEHOLD TIPS NOT FOUND IN WOMAN'S WEEKLY

[Stanley]

Today's tip is to avoid being a stick-in-the-mud! I'll admit to being a dinosaur in some matters where I have strong opinions but in other areas I think I'm pretty good at accepting change. After all I am sat here using a state of the art computer and have adapted to satellite and internet TV. The one thing I strongly object to and will not join in with the herd is the 'Just Eat' advertising campaign which encourages people to ditch cooking and rely on takeaway food. I have nothing against old-fashioned chip and pie shops but can see enormous potential for harm in the other outlets which are flooding our high streets. One of these days......

[Stanley]

Back in 1979 when I was researching watermills in the Lake District I found myself in the office of a man who ran a green slate quarry and part of the furniture was this magnificent sideboard made as a wedding present by his grandfather for his new bride in the 19th century. I think it's significant that he had it in his office rather than his home and wonder if a newly wed husband could get away with this message today!
However, the message is a good one. The woman of the house spends most of the money in a family on minimum income. I know from personal experience that any progress we made at Hey Farm in the old days was down to Vera being so good with money. Have a laugh but remember the basic message!

[Stanley]

It's an oldie but if you like your morning pot of coffee don't settle for instant! Find the right proper beans or ground coffee for your taste and stick to it even if it's more expensive. I'm still on Machu Picchu organic fair trade and I've just brewed my one pot of the day. Lovely..... It's not the most expensive luxury in the world and we deserve it!

[Stanley]

My kids laugh at me but my mother imprinted me well! If I can buy frequently used items in bulk I always do so. 8Litres of Lea and Perrins looks expensive but if you compare this with the cost of buying small bottles in the supermarket it's a good investment!
My well-stocked store cupboards give me a feeling of security, a national transport strike or similar event would be no problem for me. There is another benefit as well, in a period of financial stringency like the one I am passing through at the moment you can run stocks down and lower your spend in the shops. It makes a significant improvement!
[Buy good boots as well. These Trickers are 40 years old and as good as the day they were bought.]

[Stanley]

Those boots are a good illustration of what can be saved over the years if you buy well. I got three pairs when I was made redundant at the mill, they cost me £14 each. The same boot on Tricker's list is available today but costs £425. Today's tip, buy the best and look after it!

[Stanley]

Thinking about those boots and inflation I realise that when I bought them my last wage at the mill would be about £70 a week average so in theory I could have bought 5 pairs a week at £14 each. I don't know what the average industrial wage is today but I suppose the equivalent of my job as engineer at the mill would be about £400 a week. So are definitely more expensive now than they were then, on that measure, about five time more.
Not sure how this is a household tip but it intrigues me because today many items like that are actually cheaper in terms of how long you have to work to afford them. I wonder if the same will happen over the next 40 years.......

[Marilyn]

I wouldn't have any use for 8 litres of Lea and Perrins, but I do have stocks of certain items.

[Stanley]

I use a lot in my stews Maz but it will take even me a long time to get through 8 litres! No problems with shelf life, it just gets better with age..... The best Lea and Perrins of the lot is a bottle that's been sat on the shelf in a bar for years, they use a couple of drops in a Bloody Mary.......

[Stanley]

My mate Jack has a fault. For the first four months of his life he wasn't house trained and in his case I've never been able to cure it. Very occasionally, he pees on the carpet in the hall. It's a big fault but what can I do about it? I'm not going to punish him by making him sleep outside, that would be cruel. So I have to grin and bear it and on the odd occasions when it happens, soak up as much pee as I can and then pour neat Dettol on the patch and mop it well. Lots of people wouldn't put up with it but it's something I have to live with.

[PanBiker]

A length of plastic runner with a puppy training mat on top might help and would certainly save your carpet Stanley.

[Stanley]

That's a good idea even though it is shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.... Mind you, on second thoughts he might find somewhere else!
Today's tip is read Energy Matters if you have a Smart Meter!

[Stanley]

If your energy levels are low as mine are under the new medication, don't try to compensate. Accept it and tailor your energy to what you have to do. I've slowed down a bit but who cares!

[Stanley]

Today's tip is if you are moving house, avoid leasehold agreements like the plague. This feudal hangover is long past its sell by date and it's high time it was abolished.

[Wendyf]

My brother has just managed to sell his house in York after a long 18 months on the market, probably because it is leasehold. The terms and conditions are very clearly set out and it isn't an onerous lease but people have been staying away without checking out the details.

[Tizer]

That's rather like the situation in the Somerset Levels after those floods a few years ago. They were in national news headlines and everybody thought any house in the levels was in danger of flooding. The truth is that most houses in the area are as safe as anywhere else, the problems are with the ones right down on the moors, mostly isolated or in small hamlets.

[Stanley]

The leasehold system is a blight on the market. In days gone by you paid a small annual charge called 'ground rent' but then the leaseholders woke up, realised they were on an earner and set on their lawyers to find ways of maximising income. As Tiz says, even houses without leases can be saddled with obscure charges like 'estate management fees'. We live in a greedy world......

[Stanley]

This doesn't apply to our friends in Oz but in Barlick when you get a perfect morning like today the thing to do is take advantage of it! I'm not talking about attending weddings, if you have anything heavy to wash that needs drying outside today is the day!

[Stanley]

Don't get wound up too much when you see conspicuous consumption like Windsor. Recognise that it is a PR exercise and very small beer in the overall economy.

[Stanley]

If the windows are covered with frost in winter put a penny in your mouth to warm it up and press it on the glass. It make a perfectly round peep-hole you can see out of. We've no need of this now we all have central heating......

[plaques]

Put a penny in your mouth? Good god Stanley with all the warnings about contamination putting money in your mouth is the last thing you want to, or should that read, that last thing you may do. Even picking up the odd small denomination coin from the street is fraught with danger. You never know if a dog has peed on it or something even worse.

[Wendyf]

Sucking pennies didn't do Stanley any harm! You wouldn't be able to see much from a penny hole these days, a 50 pence coin might do the trick .....dipped in bleach first of course!

[Stanley]

Ah, but they were proper pennies in those days. A pocketful of change weighed a ton! And we had no thoughts about infection then, mind you they did leave a funny taste in your mouth.
Posting in Memories this morning reminded me of something Bert Slack my barber said once It was Bert who told me that when you went to a strange barber's you should always go for the barber with the worst haircut because he was the best one and did everybody else's! So that's today's tip!

[plaques]

Following the golden rule that there is only two weeks between a good hair cut and a bad one I drop into the 'low cost' one in Colne. Actually they do quite a good job. At pensioners rates too. In the general barber type chat I learnt that older women preferred shorter hair styles but qualify it by saying " don't make me look like a lesbian". I had to confess my ignorance that I didn't know there was a 'lesbian' style. To my simple mind you either suit a particular style or you don't. Anything after that what others think doesn't come into it. So my tip is ' please yourself.

[Stanley]

Cheapest barber ever is my hair clippers, straight over the top when the length bothers me.....
In the days when I could pull birds I was once riding in the car on a freeway in LA and had my head stuck out of the window to dry my hair as I had just come out of the shower. Susi told me that she hated it, she knew women who paid a lot of money each week to get a style like mine and all I had to do was stick my head out of the window! Those were the days..... My beard was black as well!

[Stanley]

I am constantly reminded of the depth of expertise and experience that is available on the site if you ask for it. It reminds me that many a time you get the impression that, if you are older, any opinions you voice are automatically relegated by the young to 'old fashioned' and 'out of date'. Today's tip is don't let this worry you, twas always the same and they will go on to make the same mistakes we did and eventually they will remember your advice and conclude that perhaps they should have listened!