Frugal, thrifty, make do, mend! Let this debt come to an end!

foxgloves

Fab boots! I agree about how difficult it is buying them online without trying them on. That's exactly what I did during Lockdown when I needed new walking boots & non-essential shops were closed. I bought a beautiful pair from a well-known up-market brand & despite them initially feeling tight, I knew they needed to be walked-in to loosen up the leather. I also had them stretched at the local cobbler's - £5. The fit improved well on my left foot, but not on my right. I have a slight lump on my heel (from tendonitis) & as these boots have a tough stabilizing heel cup, there is no flexibility there. Of course by then, the returns period was long gone so I am left with a pair of lovely, good quality expensive boots which I can only really wear for short walks. Infuriating!! I will NEVER buy footwear online again.....though admittedly Lockdown was not without its shopping challenges.
Hope you get on well with your new boots. I have well-fitting hiking boot envy!
F x

SuzeQStan

I love the frugal list Elisheba - thanks so much for posting it. Excellent tips on there - I’ve taken doing (cutting and dyeing) my own hair ever since the pandemic. And I cut/shave my hubbies hair too. before I started doing that I was spending about 1k a year just on getting  hair done (terrible shameful horrible to think of it now)

Never thought about using a flannel instead of a shower puff before - and soap rather than bath gel.  Food for thought!

Nice one Elisheba 👍🏻😊

SuzeQStan

Ps nice boots - you will have the comfiest feet in those

Elisheba

@Makingabobor2 I was open to any brand and these were what the shop suggested. Coincidentally my friend and his partner, who do a lot of Munros, swear by this brand, so fingers crossed these ones don't fall apart!

@Sunshine_girl2 My secret walking boot dream is to get my feet measured up in the Lakes by the shop that mold the boots to fit you. I've seen it advertised in walking magazines and it sounds so good!

@foxgloves oh no! That must be so frustrating! The not at all cheap pair I bought for my 40th in lockdown were letting in water within 6 months due to them getting holes because of being too loose. At least I did get some wear out of them though!

@SuzeQStan Oh, change to flannels and soap! Very little plastic to worry about either! 

Moorviews

Thank you for the frugal list. Please excuse me breaking out of lurkdom and commenting 😊Your diary is one of a very few that I have followed for a long time. I just wanted to commend your purchase and hope that the new boots prove comfortable. Given that our feet are the foundation of each step we take, then good boots are a great investment. I have the same brand of boots in leather and they have lasted me really well, despite my soggy moorland walks! 

Elisheba

Afternoon, frugal friends 

Oh, that's lovely @Moorviews So glad you are enjoying my witterings on here!  I still haven't had a chance to wear my boots out on a proper walk as its so hot I'm in my walking sandals at the moment!

So, I have added up all my June spending.  If there is anything else in the next couple of days I can always add it on.  As suspected I am at almost double my £100 food budget for the month.  I've now increased my budget for next month to £150, and will rein in the spending a bit.  It shouldn't be too hard - although I wasn't excessive this month I know I could have spent less. It's hard to believe that when I started this diary at the start of 2020 I could cut back to £40.  I mean, I could probably still do that if I was doing a no spend, eat out the cupboards month - but I wasn't doing that then!  I might do a table to compare my spending then and now at some point.

I have also gone almost double on my £100 personal allowance.  As £32 of that was on Kindle books I have yet again deleted my card from Amazon!  I've increased my budget to £150 for July but I'm not sure if that's realistic.  I have a London trip to include lunch and dinner, a local festival, a beer festival and an Escape room and dinner booked in for the month.  I really enjoy getting out and socialising with my friends and need it for my mental health, so I will just have to try and be thrifty and frugal and see how I get on.

Otherwise everything was on budget or a little under for June so that's something.  I have taken out my 'annuals pot' money from the July budget and cut it back in August as I really want to get rid of my overdraft, and with the £400pm credit card payment, £175pm energy DD, and £100pm on travel, the annuals pot was the only place I could cut.  It should be fine - when I created the virtual 'annuals pot' I basically estimated figures for all on them (Car, Christmas, birthday, holidays, etc) and I won't need nearly as much for holidays as I estimated this year.  Next year, as I am noting down everything I spend out of the 'annuals pot' this year I will have much better data to work with and it will be more realistic.  And if I do need it, its always there, and it just means my overdraft will also be there!

I was thinking when out on my dog walk this lunchtime about whether I could make dog food for my monster munch.  I can't make it any cheaper than the 12kg bag of kibble I get him for about £8 from Lidl a month, but it might be worth trying to make it all the same.  Although he is perfectly healthy, at least I would know he is getting a proper healthy, balanced diet if I made it. 

Doing some sums, a 1kg bag of frozen chicken fillets (you can get thighs cheaper but I don't want to pick bones clean) is £4.25 from Tesco, and with 1kg rice (52p - Tesco) and a 1kg bag broccoli (£2- Iceland), and 1.4kg mixed veg (£2 - Iceland), that would cook up to 6.4kg food.  I'm not sure if he would eat the same quantities that he does of kibble, but presuming he does that's 360-400g a day.  So £8,72 would give 16 days food.  So double that for a month - £17.44 for a month of food.  Energy would be negligible as its in the slow cooker. That's about double what I am paying now, but much healthier for him so might be worth it.

I had a couple of chicken fillets in the freezer left over from when he had tummy trouble and the vet said to feed him chicken and rice.  So I've put them in the slowcooker with some frozen cabbage and sweetcorn and brown rice on low.  When its done I'll break up the chicken through it, and try him on 400g a day and see how he does on it.  I'm hoping it will freeze in easy portion sizes in all the old margarine tubs I have.  One way or another its free food as I had it all in already, but I'll be able to test out how viable making his food will be. 

I hate to use battery chicken but free-range thigh and drumsticks are £5.20 a kilo (Tesco), and you are getting less meat (and I would have to pick the bones - being a veggie I am not keen).  So it wouldn't be very frugal, and I don't suppose his kibble is using free-range either so I'm not being any worse than I currently am.  If it works out I can think about it, or wait until I am debt free and buy free range chickens then for him. 

I am in the office twice this week (and didn't take a packed lunch yesterday - oops!).  Then I am down in London this Saturday to meet some friends and watch the Pride parade which will be fun. I will need to go out to Lidl on Friday night to buy more cat food as I am running low.  I'm not going to try my hand at making cat food just yet - its much more fiddly as you need to buy taurine to add to it, and my cats are way more fussy so not sure they would eat it!

Then depending on how energetic I am feeling on Sunday I should really do a monthly shop.  I'll need to do a meal plan, but I have loads in so I don't think I'll need that much.  I found a tub of butter I have no recollection of buying in the fridge a couple of days ago, so that will be £2 off the July shopping budget if nothing else! sadly I also found half a cucumber that had turned to much I had to bin, a little very stinky feta the dog got, and two slices of brown bread that smelled very ripe (also for the dog).  I don't mind if the dog can have it - as my Gran always used to say 'It's nae loss whit a freen gets'.

Anyway, that's all my moneysaving news for now! Hope everyone is enjoying the slightly cooler weather this week.  

Elisheba

Hmm.  Regarding making dog food, I realised that tins are 400g each and if I'm giving him tins he gets 2 a day.  So that would be double the amount of food needed than I thought.  However, when I looked at his kibble bag its only 4% animal derivatives!  I was thinking it should be 20% meat, but actually I try to keep his protein levels low because he is so hyperactive.  So if I used 3 kg of rice (which would cook up to 9kg) that would take it to 12.4kg of food, which would be 15.5 days food.  So could still be manageable. 

I have done a washing and hung it out, but it was starting to rain while I was hanging it up so no idea when it will be dry.  Oh well, I'm not in any rush for it. Dinner tonight will be new potatoes and something from the freezer, probably with peas.  I made lentil soup at lunch time so that will do me until Friday for lunches.

SuzeQStan

Love your gran’s saying xx

interesting about the taurine for cat food - media has been full of how taurine is the fountain of youth for a lot of walks of life 

Pride sounds amazing! 🌈🏳️‍🌈🦄🥰

Elisheba

That's interesting about taurine @SuzeQStan. The only time I've heard of it was on a medical drama - might have been Greys Anatomy but not sure, when an elderly lady was treated and it turned out she was malnourished and had high taurine levels in her blood, and it was because she had been eating her cat's food to try and make ends meet. 

badmemory

Don't think this would happen now as pet food seems to be even more expensive than people food.