Thrifty New Year

One of the comments below mentioned thrift.  I'm not sure that I can claim this, but

it is something that I aspire to be.  Every year I set myself new goals to move in this direction.  Generally I try to live my life in the same sort of way that my Nan would have done.  By this I mean trying not to waste anything or buy unnecessary.  We don't eat junk food, most things are prepared from fresh and we all sit down to a family dinner every evening.   It's not easy as I work full time, but I think that eating together is a very important part of family life.  It gets us all together, eating healthy food and it's cheaper than take-away's.

I try to make my own clothes as they are better made than most of the (cheap) clothes that I would buy in the shops.  Therefore they last longer and due to the effort involved in making them I value them more.  Also it avoids the dubious manufacturing conditions that some of the garments are made under.  Now that I have 'inherited' quite a lot of cloth and yarn, I have resolved to use only this for items for myself for the next six months.  I will allow myself to buy notions but not cloth or yarn.

me wearing the jacket and trousers

I generally try to make something new if I'm going out for a special occasion, that makes me feel more special and then the items usually go into my general clothes.  For example, today I'm wearing a patterned cord jacket and brown trousers that I made for a work conference a couple of years ago.  This way I usually have something new to wear out, I regularly replenish my wardrobe and when I wear the items I can ascociate them with a happy occasion.