Old Fashioned Frugal Skills You Need To Save Money -
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 เม.ย. 2024
- It's ok to be broke unless you suck at being broke. You may not have money but you can excel at being broke if you use your skills or learn new skills.
Frugal Queen in France
We are a British couple living in Brittany on a budget.
Frugal recipes, days out, home renovations and day to day making do in France.
We’ll give you hints, tips, advice and an insight into our life in France.
Website www.frugalqueeninfrance.com/
Instagram / frugalqueen. .
Equipment used
Camera : iPhone
Editing : iMovie on a Mac mini
Music:
TH-cam Copyright Free
Epidemic Sound
Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Artist: audionautix.com/
Some Sound from Zapsplat.com
TH-cam Audio Library
Apple iMovie*
I love that heading that its OK to be broke unless you are bad at it! Happiness is an inside job. Not having much money does not have to tear you up; there is much joy in making things work in a creative ways. And God seems to bring things across your path when you have a happy generous heart. Not all things come from the spending of money. Things can just appear in wonderful mysterious ways.
Very very true
I love that expression, happiness is an inside job!👍
So true! The past 17 years I’ve had to live on very little. 13 of those years, I was raising my children alone. We did have enough. Sometimes I think the people around me would be shocked at how comfortable I am with little lol. I was talking to my kids about it and we all said we wouldn’t change a thing. That is being rich.
Another favourite saying is: I started with nothing and still have most of it 😊🇨🇦. Plus my children learned very valuable life skills. They will tackle anything. Cheers, Janina
my mom and dad built our home from scratch. my grandad was a bricklayer, my dad was a drafts man. it took them 4 years to build the house cost them £2000 in total. we still have the book with every item they brought to build our home even down to the cost of nails. every brick has had my grandads hands on it. i love my home and love its history
That's amazing
I’m 62 years old and I’m tiling my kitchen backsplash as I watch this. After a lifetime of doing it myself, I just prefer it. I know I’ll be satisfied with the quality of the work. Over the years My husband and I have saved tons of money on our houses. We’ve passed the skills on to our daughters who do amazing renovations.
Super savings
Thankyou Jane and Mike for your great vlog today 😊. Just like you guys all our houses have needed work of some kind of work .. we have always given it a go ourselves..we've had some mishaps .. but we've learned along the way ..
Our French house is our 8th property and perhaps our biggest challenge...
Our friends think we are bonkers..😅.. but we love the process and end results. Standing back and saying we did that... at a fraction of the price ... more money in our bank & not someone else's !!!
Take care both . Have a lovely weekend ❤❤❤
@@user-es2iz6wh8l thanks for your feedback
My son and his girlfriend bought a home 5 years ago. It is in a very nice neighborhood, but was the worst house on the street. Needed alot of work inside, and the back yard was just a mudhole. Now, 5 years later, it is a beautiful home with a lovely back yard. They have done almost all the work themselves, learning as they went. It is worth the effort!
Oh wow!
In addition to sewing, mending is a good skill to have. I absolutely hate mending, but it has revived quite a lot of garments for us over the years. Also, don't know if this could be considered a skill, but we also found that just being careful with everything we owned helped a lot--taking care of stains in clothes immediately, changing to work clothes if there was a messy job to be done, handling eyeglasses carefully so they don't get scratched or broken, being aware of where your things are so you don't leave a coat behind on a bus, etc.
All great skills. Thanks for sharing
Another useful tool is a “defuzzer” that removes those unsightly bumps on sweaters+ sweat shirts. I have salvaged at least 20+ clothing items by using a defuazzer instead of throwing the garment away!
Caring about your possessions; absolutely
I agree that knowing some basic tool skills will save you a lot of money and increase the value of your home. We've had several houses that no one wanted and turned them into lovely, valuable homes. My husband made sure our girls knew how to handle tools and had their own toolboxes, their husbands, too.And now the grandchildren are being trained. Both families have worked themselves up to beautiful homes that they have improved so much with their own efforts. We all know how to look for bargains and watch our money carefully. All our families are without debt, including no mortgages.
Thanks for passing on those skills
Hi Jane and Mike from a cold wet and wintery West Yorkshire.i do lot of old fashioned frugal skills week in week out because I learnt them from my mum and grannie. Throughout the years I have used these things skills to save thousands and thousand of pounds.
Many thousands of
My new(at the time) daughter in law, called our cabin ,our current retirement home a shit hole,7 years ago. Nice, huh? Well she couldn't help but drop her jaw to the ground when she arrived last summer, for the first time in 7 years. We had remodeled the entire home. What was a living,dining, kitchen in one room, 12×20, is now a large functional kitchen with a table and 2 chairs in the middle of the room. We went from curtains dividing rooms with multiple beds in each, and a breezeway with bunkbeds and washer and dryer, and a rarely used garage with a paper thin fiberglass roll up door. To the finished product that has 2 bedrooms, nicely decorated, with walls and doors. One has a desk area in it, for office space. Our bedroom has 4 dressers in it. 2 for misc storage and 2 for our regular rotation of clothing. Our breezeway got insulated, new wall boards, and painted and made into our utility room/laundry room and extended pantry. We turned our 20x20 garage into a family room. Adding insulation in the walls, drywalling and then adding flooring. We also removed the main roll up door,and replaced the back door with a set of French patio doors. All of the items we used were greatly reduced, 90% off from home improvement store, and then made them fit into where we needed them. Our furniture is repurposing either what we already had, or thrifting something cheaply. We learned so much over the projects that we did. Like hanging drywall from a ceiling with screws, and going to get another sheet from our trailer, only to come in to find the first sheet on the floor 😮. It turned out that the rafters were spaced further apart in the garage than in the remainder of the house, so the weight of the drywall wasn't supported. We couldn't afford to add that much timber, so we used washers on the screws to hold them up. Once finished we opted to texture the ceiling to cover up the washers as best as possible. No it's not perfect but we are very proud to have made a 400 sq ft room for our comfort and enjoyment. We even managed to follow the contour of the rafters to give us a 10 ft ceiling. We have put in well pumps, replaced water heaters( most recently going to tank less), installed wood stoves, put in new ceiling light, or fans, added exhaust fans , blown insulation throughout the attics, added windows, put in new doors, installed dishwashers, repaired septic drain lines, replaced toilets, put in all kinds of plumbing and electrical, including replacing the main panel in our home and wiring a new garage. We added shelves throughout the home for storage, because we have only one small closet in the entire house. We have 3 upper cabinets in the kitchen and 1 lower with double doors, and one tiny one for cookie sheets, so we had to get very creative. We have a thrifted stainless table with a lower shelf for our counter top/prep area. My husband repurposed bunk bed frames into another shelf on the bottom shelf to double my storage. I added under bed totes underneath the table for storage as well, and we put old shower curtains on pvc pipes with shower hooks to pull closed over the storage area. I just folded the curtain in half and stitched them in place. Shower curtains clean up easily for spills and drips. No more "shit hole", here. Some people just can't imagine what a place can become, with a little imagination and a lot of elbow grease. You tube is a great learning tool, as well as encouragement that you can do it. To fail is to learn, and you won't learn if you aren't willing to try and fail along the way.
Sounds like our houses
Wow! That is an impressive amount of sweat equity you put into your home, must be very satisfying!
Absolutely amazing.
I use my hair drier to blow dusk out of things like smoke detectors vents on the radiators, really any areas that is hard to access.
Great tip! Thanks 😊
This was fun-- because it made me think back to our younger selves and the botched jobs and a few successful DIY jobs we did when setting up our homes. All were great learning experiences. Even today, when the manufacturers say, "This will ONLY take you 10 minutes to install." we laugh and add 45 minutes just to be sure we will get it done by the end of the day. 🤣 Thank you for sharing.
Yep! Ten minutes or all day as we didn't have a clue or had to carry planks home
In the 70 s my late husband and I used to make everyday 4 floor tiles 18 x 18 " from scratch. We had only 4 moulds...a lot of work but we managed to them for the whole house. I really enjoy your videos tks
Oh wow!
As a child I helped my grandmother hook lengths of carpeting for a relative with a lot of corridors to carpet. It was very satisfying. I later learned to make cushion covers, curtains and loose covers.
Wow, great memories
I really enjoyed this video. I'm late 50s and this is how I grew up - watching my mum in particular try everything. She did the lot - painting/decorating, tiling, insulating the loft, putting shelves up, laying carpet, puttying windows etc so I've always tried to do everything myself. As you said, tiling is not that hard and something you can learn on the job. I won't touch gas and electricity but I'll give everything else a go. I like living like that; it's so much more satisfying.
Thanks Ruth, it is satisfying
Another great video your story of getting the floorboards home reminded me of my husband and I carting wood,paint and wallpaper home strapped to his push bike it took the 2 of us to do it! We lived 2 miles from the shop! I love being able to mend or repurpose things I’m proud of the stuff we do ourselves. I’m now going to finish darning my husband’s boot socks 😂
Love that! I’m proud of everything we did when we had no money, it shaped us
My Mum and Dad were really good at making cosy homes with next to no money. We even had a home made ironing board.
That's awesome
I am eternally grateful for being brought up in a family that was both frugal and practical. I learned so many skills 'by osmosis'. There are things that I can't do now because my hands won't cooperate, or because we aren't allowed to do them any more. If I call up a friend to help me, he knows that I have already worked out that I can't do it, or can't do it alone. We also do skills exchanges, where they do something for me and I repair some clothes or knit something or bake a cake. No money changes hands that way.
That’s wonderful
I will admit that although I am an adept painter and decorator, I had a colleague's partner paint my current home white from top to bottom when I first moved in. As a full time working single mum, I realised it would take me a decade to diy, and I did not have the time or energy. And it was important my son had a clean, fresh environment. It cost me £1,500, which I took from the procedes of the sale of the family home (divorce). It was worth it that one time. Since then, I have done all the redecorating myself. The most expensive and best investment was a good ladder. Stay safe working at heights!
Good safety tip
We learned all these skills just like you and Mike. We learned because we too bought the neighborhood fixer uppers through the years. In those days it was through books from the library. We also learned from family and friends willing to coach us along. Even now at 65 years old we still look our needed skills up on TH-cam.
We have always been frugal. We love the frugal way of life. When we were just starting out and our friends were buying new cars and new furniture, it was a bit harder for us. Then we realized how rewarding it was to do it ourselves.
We've enjoyed it too
Hi Jane and Mike! In my younger years, my group of friends and I would arrange painting/ paper removal parties. Since many hands make light work, for the cost (payment) of a couple of pizzas and beverages we would finish kitchen, living and dining rooms in a day. Those are fond memories.
Wonderful!
Jane and Mike you are both so courageous and inspirational!!! Thank you for sharing. You have encouraged to be more adventurous in my frugal endeavours.
You’re welcome
When we bought our first house, it was only partially renovated. We needed paint and some other diy bits but with no transport we carried it home between us. We needed a dustbin, so the paint went in the bin and we took a handle each. I also managed to save up work bonuses and bought a small freezer. To stock it i went to the Bejam store and bought veg which i put in my back pack to get home. All went ok at first, but due to snow it was slippery under foot. I fell backwards and ended up like a stranded turtle due to my load.
Embarrassed at the time but later i chucked about it. The things we do to get by!
I remember bejam and hanging bags off a push chair and getting home as fast as I could before it melted
I recently purchased the newest version of Dyson for $25 at a thrift store. Cleaned out the plugged hose and filters. It is a $400 Dyson. I was quite pleased with myself. 😊
So you should be
Wow! 😂Good for you.
I researched and bought supplies to install my own drip irrigation for my plants. Will save us a fortune for me to install myself, It's very hot here in summer. Irrigation is a must. It saves on water and time to install the system. I have a good chunk finished already. Saved seeds from last years garden.😊
Excellent!
Evening Jane and Mike what a cracking video your experiences are almost exactly as ours as regards to not having people in to do the biz when we bought our run down cottage nearly 50 years ago - even though i was a miner on a fair wage -with the children and living costs and wanted to learn diy we did it ourselves but nor roo proud to seek advice
Thanks John
Really enjoyed this - almost feels like we’re chatting in a lounge. Great content very well delivered. Many thanks.
Glad you enjoyed it
I am doing up a narrowboat to live on, and am learning as I go. I'm also buying as much pre loved furniture as possible to save money, and older furniture is better quality and will last longer. I'll be repainting the outside myself too, as getting this done professionally costs an eye watering amount of money. I know a couple who spent more on the external paint job of their boat than my first boat cost! Absolute madness
How satisfying for you
What a great video. Thank you so much for your continuing inspiration! In my very first apartment, I had no money so bought sale white twin sheets and threaded the deeper hem onto inexpensive curtain rods. It did the job!
That's very creative. Thanks for sharing.
We have also always bought houses that needed substantial work. Sweat equity😊
Love that! It meant we could afford a house.
Years ago these skills were handed down from parents and grandparents, basically because families spent so much time together, the arrival of the television and computer games/iPads has changed things greatly, also the same skills were taught/encouraged in schools, like yourself we’ve bought houses needing lots of work and turned them round on a tight budget, hubby fitted a bathroom and kitchen and did all the painting and decorating simply by trial and error, I’ve made curtains and duvet covers, it’s surprising what talents you find you have when money is tight.
I’ve made duvet covers too from old sheets.
Enjoyed this video! Thank you!❤
So glad!
Hi Jane , we had lots of pictures but didn't like the colour of the frames, so we carefully removed the picture and then repainted the frames in waterbased white satinwood or masked the glass with decorating tape and then repainted. It takes a few coats of paint,leaving overnight to dry but really happy with the end result.
Great job!
Good video. Thank you Jane Mike and Puppies.
Thank you
Great video as always ❤
Thank you
Valuable skills, and your lovely home is a testament to your hard work and creativity. I was fortunate enough to be raised in an area where the town was literally being carved out of the bush. My immigrant father learned to cut down trees, he and his brothers dug the basements by hand, and as a very young child, I was exposed to all aspects of home construction. I actually worked on building his 'retirement' home and between him, my new husband and myself, managed to complete a home for ourselves. Then we built barns and sheds, greenhouses, etc. I didn't mind mixing concrete, or putting the shingles on the roof, but absolutely won't touch wiring. Probably because I was almost electrocuted as a child, sparks came out of a socket and scared the stuffing out of me.
Great memories
I have a small tip that may help you with plant damage by browsing deer - in Wales they have trialed tying tufts of sheep wool to the leader shoots of trees - deer apparently don’t like the smell of sheep wool and avoid the tree. Not sure if Brittany has the number of sheep that Wales has but if you do, it may be worth a try. No idea if it works but I heard it at a Gov forestry talk today at work and thought of your deer! Free wool hangs on every fence where I live!
Great tip
Jane, this video sounds so similar to our life. Married 45 years, modest house paid in full, no debt, and now retired. Living carefully has been our motto and I can attest that it works!
Thank you
Thanks for sharing
So funny, as you are talking about learning to do things around the house to save money I’m painting out kitchen cabinets! The cost of 2 gallons of paint is sooooo much cheaper than paying someone to come in and do it. Of course they would probably have it done quicker but I’m getting it done cheaper and it looks great!
You can do it!
When we bought our last house, the neighbors thanked us when we cut the grass in the yard the first time. We were baffled until they explained the previous owners never did anything to the house or yard. That explained the rough interior of our house. Many years of working on it, we turned it into our dream home. And we improved our skill set along the way. I sewed curtains, we shopped for inexpensive house componets from the reclaimed lumber stores, taught ourselves how to plaster, lay brick for the fireplace, sand hardwood floors, and so much more. Loved hearing how you walked home carrying lumber. Through this entire video, I smiled thinking of all the things we did that were so similar as to what you and Mike have done. Great video.
You did great too, well done to you.
Like you, I've never ever paid a decorator, always done it myself and for others too. Always laid our own carpets/flooring too. Once when we moved house the removal firm damaged a massive wardrobe and collapsed it! I had to quickly cut up the wood to size and nip to the ironmongers for corner brackets, raw plugs etc and built a makeshift fitted wardrobe with poles the following day so there was storage for my then childrens clothing and made a curtain and track to cover it until we could afford new wardrobes. My dad was heavily into diy, so even as children we used to help by pasting the wallpaper, sanding the woodwork etc. My grandmother's both taught me to sew, knit and darn. During the 1st and 2nd World Wars one was a seamstress, and so earned an income taking in everyone's repair jobs. I recall having 5 tonnes of gravel delivered and all the young teens living nearby fetched their parents spades, rakes and wheelbarrows and got stuck in helping me shift it! Smashing young lads! Your video is full of brilliant tips for everyone😊
I love the teens helping story
Great video, as are all your videos. Thanks for sharing such helpful tips and advice.
Glad you like them!
I had to laugh watching your video this week as we have a definite DIY mentality in New Zealand and we have only ever paid someone to paint the outside of our house, everything else we have done ourselves including replacing the ceiling in the hallway. I am a total plant scrounger, I even have a special bag I take out on walks with me and have a garden full of African daisies in all colours that I have scrounged from all over the country.
And why not indeed
❤Basic skills are a lifesaver.we did exactly the same. Buying fixer uppers is one of the best ways of building personal wealth. We have never regretted any of it! But only if you do most or all of it yourselves.
Very true
You have a lovely place Jane and Mike
Thanks
Thank you
Good video thanks very much 👍🏻
Glad you enjoyed it
Jane your story about having to carry lengths of wood home to patch the kitchen floor made me laugh and The Chuckle Brothers immediately sprung to mind! When my eldest was a baby we had an old banger and the battery packed up so we had to walk to our local village where there was a car parts shop to get a new one. Car batteries are very heavy and we got it home by putting it on the shopping tray at the bottom of the baby’s pram but the pram was beginning to buckle by the time we got home! Over the years we decorated, replaced skirting boards and architraves amongst many other things. It may be cheaper to do it yourself but it also gives a sense of achievement and satisfaction.
Thanks, we actually walked home saying, "to me, to you"
@@FrugalQueeninFrance 😂
You did a lot of work together👍👍👍
Yes I did and it was fun
We tiled our last bathroom, floor, aside from wallpapering, the hardest thing we ever did. Would have been easier if we hadnt chosen tiny tiles!
I'm a big tile tiler for ease
I too have had to learn making my curtains and basic mending skills. Painting and making do with whatever you have.
It’s a good skill to have
Never had a painter and decorator in expect for the outside high gables. Buddlias self seed with us like weeds! I’ve a very handy husband who can turn his hand to anything and has saved us probably hundreds if not thousands over the years.
Same with Mike.
Best wishes from So.Illinois at 87°on a stormy day.
And to you too
We are a family of do it yourselfers! My Dad was a master carpenter and helped my husband put in a new bay window, refit our kitchen completely. My husband did heating and plumbing in our first home and built our baby’s cradle which has been passed through the family, outdoor furniture and made stone walls in my yard along with making a waterfall, stream and garden pool! They also made brick entry landings front and back. My son worked for an electrician and was able to retire my entire house. His old boss checked all his work and approved it. Another son landscaped my property and helped me to plant it. My husband hand dug out garden, expanding it a little every year. We always did our own painting and repairs. A barber friend taught me to give home hair cuts and I always cut my own hair and groomed my own nails. Until our latest car, we did our own repairs but computers changed a lot if that! My youngest helps a friend with his automotive business on weekends and all of our car repairs are now at cost of parts!
That's so lovely, thank you
For the first time in my life I'm paying someone to do these things for me, I'm doing a root & branch update so I've got less to do in the future. I'm 71 but I'm struggling to let them do it!. We learned like you over 40+ years & 2 houses, but we were lucky enough to have parents who were handy in all sorts of ways so we had some idea! It's gone down the generations &,our son, nephew's & nieces are all handy too. One of our houses was derelict -not even connected to the main or any drains (well till we found a loo in one of the outbuildings that was😅).. One cold tap, holes in the floors with ash from the fires tipped down them, it's amazing what you can actually manage if you have to. Ps I propagate everything to fill our large garden.
That’s sad that you’re struggling but great that you had many years of independence.
Thank you, I miss doing everything myself, possibly there's an element of control freakery there. But I still intend to do plenty. I've always cooked from basics & love "concocting" dishes from whatever is to hand. A friend calls it "proper cooking, not reheating" & couldn't believe how much better & cheaper it was, or how little time it really takes.. She sees stuff on line now about how we should all be using pulses, seeds & all parts every scrap of food, not to mention left overs & rings me up grumbling that its "what everyone does anyway" (well once they're doing real cooking) this from the woman who thought curry only came in jars (I didn't realise it did) & thought I was bonkers looking for her spices to make one for a party at her house in fairness this was about 35 years ago. Come to think of it everyone thought we were daft buying a derelict house & doing all the work piecemeal (whilst both working full time) as we could afford it without borrowing more on our mortgage. As we both earned enough, they wondered why we didn't just borrow "like everyone else" & get it all done straight away, at least until the mortgage interest rate rose to 15% & people were losing their homes. You're right it isn't always easy but in the long run it's more secure as none of us know what's going to happen. We had redundancies & later longterm Illness , either of which could have left us struggling if like you we hadn't been careful.
I've got two pairs of jeans that have holes in the inner thigh. Rather than bin them, I've watched a TH-cam video on how to patch them (historically, I've always been terrible at sewing). The first pair is almost fine and I even got the patches for free by ordering upholstery samples from Dunelm (they didn't even charge for postage!).
I'll use them for dog walks when I often get dirty from very friendly dogs. 😊
You did a great job
Our house was liveable but the jobs they had done were a total disaster, ie shelves put up with sticky pads!!!. Didnt find out til one night it fell off the wall and broke/ smashed everything on it
It’s always better to do it yourself
I like your accent
Thanks
Hi Jane
How do you find your old videos. I want to see the one where you remodeled your bathroom. Thanks for sharing your knowledge God bless.
In the search box, type frugal queen in France bathroom
Thanks Jane and Mike. Being frugal is the best way to encourage yourself to be a creative problem solver.
We enjoy the creative process
We still live in our first and only rehab. It was also an opportunity for us to completely remodel a house we loved, instead of having to deal with a stranger's questionable taste in colors, floors, and such. We installed new cabinets, counter tops, windows, appliances, etc.....Our daughter is moving to Texas and we intend to follow. But unfortunately we cannot shrink our house and move it, like on Harry Potter movies.
It would be so good if we could do that
Do you have grown children? I can't remember if you have talked about that in the past.
Yep, we never tell about their lives for their privacy.