Making Do and Doing Without

Last week Sheila from To Love, Honor, and Vacuum  tweeted the question “could you stop shopping for a year?” and included a link to I’ve Got Enough Stuff. The article takes a humorous approach to our over consumption while asking a serious question: Do you have too much stuff? I tweeted back to @SheilaGregoire that I went a year without buying anything new and she asked if I had written about it. I searched my archives and realized I wrote very little about going a year without buying anything new. I thought about why I didn’t write more about our year on The Compact and realized that we didn’t have to make very many changes and my every day life just didn’t seem that newsworthy.

Over the last couple of weeks, I have had time to reflect on what is important and the people who have had a profound influence on my life. And it is the little, everyday things that have made the biggest impact: My grandma teaching me to say my prayers. Waking up in the middle of the night when I was sick to see my Dad watching over me while I slept. My grandma saving everything, including the rubber bands from the newspaper to be reused. My dad telling me to turn off the lights or he’d charge me a dime. These reflections have caused me to think that perhaps the little things are noteworthy.

Making do is a little thing; something that is so much a part of me that I don’t spend much time thinking about it. It is also an aspect of my personality that is hard to keep hidden in real life and  has an impact on those around me.

I am using a picture of my kitchen for this series, because when I see the glamorous kitchens on foodie blogs I can easily convince myself that I have a case of  “ohIneeda” when I really have a case of “ohIwanta”. If you look at the picture above, you can tell that I do a pretty good job of  convincing myself to do without the latest kitchen appliance or gadget. I have mismatched appliances, limited cupboard space, and the only item that is less than 5 years old is the coffee maker. But I don’t let those limitations stop me from cooking for my family or creating new recipes.

Here are a couple of ways I made do this week:

I didn’t have enough ramekins when making egg puffs, so I used coffee cups:

I didn’t have self-rising flour or a biscuit cutter when making biscuits, so I made self-rising flour from scratch and used a glass to cut the biscuits:

And I didn’t let the fact that I don’t have a broiling pan stop me from broiling steak:

I also don’t let the missing broiling pan stop me from batch broiling. A cookie sheet doubles quite nicely as a broiling pan.

This post is linked to Works for Me Wednesday and Frugal Friday.

Do you make do or do without?