2014 Frugal Living Challenge

lovefullshelves

NSD for me today..and we carted a load of logs which should give us most of next winters fuel for free:D There are joys to not having central heating and the main one is the cost. We buy aprox £150 of coal a year and thats our heating! DS had his own little leccy heater but is tighter than me about putting it on! He turns it on...goes and looks at the energy monitor..then turns it down!
Did my bi-monthly iceland shop yesterday. Thats eaten a big hole (£32.60) in the grocery budget and alot of it is treats for DS. And sausages!! But I do know that all we really need for the next couple of weeks is bread, milk, marg and ham for OH:) already done next weeks mealplan. Yay!
And yesterday, to use the free car park we parked at matalan..oh dear...I spent £6 on shorts for the summer (I do it every year, then take the year befores for work ) but they do get alot of wear as in the winter I use them as PJ's and under cheeky dresses to keep my nethers warm!!
Hope everyones enjoying the sun!
xx

skintygerlinky

Evening Frugalites xxx

Been on a YS frenzy today! Determined not to buy any more food this month except bread and milk. Got a few extras today which means I can batch cook and portion up a huge veggie curry, a pot of pea and lettuce soup (sounds vile but I promise it's really lovely)& a pot of carrot and lentil soup. These can be added to other meals in the freezer and fingers crossed I'll get through! Again its all a bit trial and error and if I have to go shopping then so be it. But lets see!

So my rummage in the cheapo sections netted me:
3 little gem lettuces
baby sweetcorn
vine tomatoes
bunch asparagus
bunch of spring onions
4 cheese and onion pasties
some veggie tagine thing meal

Spent £5.58 and can live with that! Feel sense of pride when I stock my freezer and also looking forward to seeing my friends tomorrow night. Siiiiigh. It's the little things isn't it, Frugalites? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpIolqJZPfo

DawnW

Did a seriously big shop today :eek: Lidl's then Sainsbugs for the things I couldn't get in Lidls. Picked up Jack Monroe's book while I was in there, and was impressed so might have brought it home with me Some great recipes in there, so I am looking forward to trying them out She writes very well too, very talented young lady.

Mega housework today as the house was a tip. OH swept the chimney too, which made it even worse :eek:
Washing dried on the line

Made Thai green chicken curry for supper (yum) and I made a big one so there is some for another day. Tomorrow I will cook a pork joint, so roast pork tomorrow and leftovers for another time. I try to cook a few things at weekends as I get home from work quite late, and usually shattered, so it is nice to be able to just warm something up, or do something quick. We don't like ready meals and hardly ever have takeaways. A couple of big cooked dishes enough to do a day or two in the week, and make do on the other days with jacket potatoes or omelettes and salad or something like that.

Whatever we eat for the next few weeks will have to have spring greens with it, as we have lots of them ready in the garden

paidinchickens

I would love the new Jack Monroe book but I will wait til Mothers Day :A

PiCx

tatabubbly

Oh I must see if you can get the book on amazon, I'm outta the country so its the only way for me to get it!

Didn't have a frugal at all weekend, however I did get a refund on some personal training sessions.. I downloaded the Insanit@y workout online so that will be my trainer from now on!

Trying to get most of my housework done now for the week. OH shirts are ironed for the week already, and the laundry has all been gathered and nearly done..

Left to do : Brush and mop floors I hate doing this
Spruce up kitchen
Wipe down surfaces..

Trying to plow away with my savings. It's not going too badly but this month will have a huge dip in it when I attempt to order a dress online..

TM6

I am off now to my favourite Table Top Sale

In the spirit of my 'fit and frugal' challenge, I am walking a mile along the riverbank to get there and I will come back via the canal.

Hopefully I will get some bargains and not get TOO carried away :rotfl:

See you all later for a catch up

cottage_retreatist

tatabubbly wrote: »

Didn't have a frugal at all weekend, however I did get a refund on some personal training sessions.. I downloaded the Insanit@y workout online so that will be my trainer from now on!

hey tatabubbly! I have got the 'ins@niti' 25 minute version from a friend - I'm thinking if I can't manage 25 minutes of workout a day I deserve to have my 'food baby'!! :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Frugal living still going strong - I think! Something I've been learning is frugal living isn't buying cheapest its buying wisely! So I have had some larger expenses i.e. the cat's 2kg dry catfood but on this cat food he eats healthy, no additives and he eats less as a result!

So far - for me, no clothes bought this year! Coming up to 1 year of no clothes buying! Am having to buy tights though at intervals for workwear no books bought this year (reading freebies on ibooks and my own collection); no naughty purchases of 'stuff' so I'm feeling quite good - we can always work to reduce our food bill but as we're not spending elsewhere - no holidays planned this year - I am happy with our progress!!!

Just can't wait to be debt free!! Then I can start saving for our dream cottage and move out of the city :j:j

Got to start with washing clothes but OH says I can't as it's too early for the neighbours :mad::mad: one reason to leave the city right there!!!!

Hope everyone is having a great, productive, frugal weekend? xx

tatabubbly

Cottage, its super hard!! LOL!

Just whipped up a batch of scones in the kitchen! Delighted to use up some of the ingredients that are just wasting away in my fridge! Managed to whip up ingredients for dinner tonight and OH lunchbox for tomorrow so going to try to convince him to do the shopping tomorrow night so I can have a NSD!

Did most of my chores apart from the floors, gawd I need inspiration to do them!

cottage_retreatist

shhh!!! don't tell me that tatabubbly!!!

You'll scare me off doing exercise :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

I have a red cabbage stewing on the hob at the moment and a lamb stew in the oven - with a giant batch of potatoes going on for mash - hoping to keep aside half of it for tomorrow to encourage me to use up the fish mix from the freezer and make fish pie tomorrow!

I'm notorious for simply falling asleep on Monday evenings so fingers crossed!!

It's times like these I wish I had 2 ovens - got some bananas I'd love to turn into banana bread but I can't squeeze anything next to the casserole pot by the time I eat supper i'll be in no mood to do baking!!

so long as I can do something with them before they go completely off - OH keeps buying them even though he's not eating them so there's about 10 ready for mashing - has anyone even simply mashed them then bunged them in the freezer for banana bread later? I could do that!!

DawnW

Cottage-retreatist I just bung them in the freezer as they are. They go black and look a bit sinister, but are fine for cakes. When defrosted they are much softer and a bit of liquid may need to be drained off. You can squeeze the banana out of the skins a bit like toothpaste in fact - it is quite compelling :rotfl:

If the odd one gets past its best in the fruit bowl I will freeze it, saving them till I have enough for banana bread

I save past their best citrus fruits as well, for marmalade making - the orange or few clementines that have gone a bit dull looking in the fruit bowl, and left over half lemons and limes (even if you have squeezed them a bit over fish or something). You don't need seville oranges, any will do, and it is quite nice to have mixed fruit marmalade if you have more than one type

Sunday roast lunch today with spring greens from the garden

NSD - haven't been anywhere to spend.

Planted potatoes, radishes and mangetout in the garden, and put up the mini plastic greenhouse thingy so that I could sow salad leaves and basil (that will have to come in though I think) and put the tomato plants out during the day as they are getting a bit leggy.

Washing dried on the line, and the dog walked in the countryside - brilliant day