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

Elisheba

Afternoon, my frugal friends 😁,

And hello @slowdown - glad my thoughts on the Terracube phone helped you. I still hate the camera on it, but it still keeps going (although it does occasional restart on me out of nowhere) so I'm stuck with it for now.

My travelling companions are off climbing Ben Nevis today, and not being at all minded to climb any mountains I am mooching around Fort William drinking lots of coffee.

The train journey up here from Glasgow was just spectacular. I can't believe I grew up in Glasgow and have never done it before! Just such amazing scenery. The backpacking around has been a bit heavy going in the heat at times, but everything else has been fab. I'm getting a lot of value for money out of the bag of muesli I've been carrying with me for breakfast 😂. 

Spending wise I'm writing everything down I spend on Notion as I go along. I overspent in Edinburgh on our first night as we went out for dinner and lots of drinks, but other than that I've been fairly frugal and I think I should come in at £50pd or less, which is what I'd budgeted for spending.

I'm trying hard not to worry about anything and just be mindful in the moment - which is what we should do on holidays. I do miss my dog something awful though! 

Tomorrow we are off to Skye via the Glenfinnan viaduct which will be fun, although just on the normal diesel train. I have seen the Harry Potter steam train from our B&B window though 🚂😁. 

It's been nice having today to myself as I am used to my own company, and being around people all the time, no matter how good friends they are, can become a little grating. I visited the West Highland Museum earlier, which was very interesting, and I can feel my Jacobite sympathies rising up again!

Growing up, my Grannie would tell me stories of Bonnie Prince Charlie and how clever he was, and the tragedy of Culloden, and his escape from 'the English'* (I'm aware it was primarily a Scottish army fighting him at Culloden) . It's funny as he was Catholic and it was essentially a religious war, and Grannie was a good Presbyterian, by upbringing at least - but she was fascinated by the Jacobite uprisings and read very widely around them.

The thing is, he may have been very clever and the rightful Stuart heir, but it was the English throne (and gold) he was interested in - he could have dug in at Edinburgh and likely kept Scotland, but he decided to press on to England instead. Then when that didn't work out he abandoned Scotland after Culloden to drink himself to death in France, Scotland was garrisoned to the hilt, his supporters lands taken and the clan system destroyed, and that was the end of that. But folk heroes, eh? Who needs reality 😂.

I hope everyone's week is going well 😁. I'm going to pootle around town in the sun a bit more before I need to go back and let the intrepid explorers back into our room. 

Makingabobor2

Sounds like you are having a fab time and glad the sun is shining. Been raining here most of the day. Love the stories. Reminded me of when I worked in a day centre for people with dementia and a Scottish lady we had there, used to tell us a story that when her parents had brought her to live in England, the only way they were allowed in was to get the train down to Hadrian's Wall and climb over the wall!....LOL  But all was well as apparently they then saw Prince Charles out hunting and had a picnic with him!   If only these stories were true.  

SuzeQStan

You paint lovely word pictures Elisheba - it sounds just perfect! Enjoy enjoy!
ps getting your value from the muesli made me laugh.  Surely you should be having some gorgeous tattie scones!?!

edit - predictive called them tattoo scones lol

beanielou

Enjoy Skye 

Slowdown

Your holiday is sounding fab and a lot more frugal than mine. I can feel those pennies (euros actually) draining out of my bank account! 

Love the Bonnie Prince potted history you posted. All I ever heard as a child was The Skye Boat Song and didn’t have a clue what it meant. Learnt it off by heart though as a nine year old in the borders! 

Hope your northern wanderings continue to be delightful. 

Slowdown 🙂

missymoo81

Morning! Just wanted to check in and see how you are.

AnotherNewDay

@Elisheba could you post your cake in a mug recipe again please? 

Elisheba

Good morning, my frugal friends,

Sorry for the break in posting - I got Covid when I came back from my holiday and it absolutely knocked me for six.  I was ill for a week but it has taken me a good couple of weeks to recover.  My food budget it all over the place as once I was clear of the bug I still didn't have much energy so was doing little (and more expensive) shops  and as very few things taste good so I haven't been eating very healthily.  

Got my spending s/s on Notion up to date to day.  I may have overspent but at least I have written it down!  The Prime sale tempted me yesterday so I have ordered some vacuum bags to put my summer wardrobe in, a knife and scissor sharpener which will save money in the long run, and a little kit to build a cute bookshop which should be fun to do over winter and that I have been eyeing up for years now.  I may end up having to buy son=me tweezers, shape blades and glue for it as well - not sure what exactly it comes with

I have a library book I ordered to collect at lunchtime (the new Percy Jackson - what a great children's series they are!).  I'll also pop into the chemist to collect my repeat prescriptions and some new painkillers for my not-sciatica the Doc prescribed yesterday.  

I'm getting low on home made clothes washing liquid so I need to have a read through Nancy Birtwhistle's book to try hers this weekend. She has a recipe for making it with conkers, so maybe I'll go out and collect some this weekend to try.

I've been using the Microsoft To Do app on my phone, and it is quite good at getting me organised.  I'm up to date on washing up, clothes washing and hoovering.  I need to do a kitchen and bathroom clean, and then should be completely up to date.

I'm in the office this Friday, and then breakfast with friends on Saturday morning.   Plans for the rest of the weekend mainly include getting my summer clothes away and winter clothes out.  I'm also hoping I'll have time to do a tip run, and a charity shop drop off. Oh, and I also have pumpkins to carve!  Well, one pumpkin and two squashes in various colours.  Does any one have any tips on how to get the actual pumpkin and squash out (to freeze) and still keep the skin with funny faces cut into it? If you leave the flesh in the pumpkin it goes bad within days and is unusable.

If all that gets done, and I still have time I have a list as long as my arm of useful things I need to do, and there will also be my new book and the bookshop kit to fill up my time, so I won't be bored!

Oh and I meant to say, as an update on the cottage I wanted - it did eventually get put up for let, but it was over £300 more than I am paying just now and didn't accept pets so wasn't an option.  I do wish they could have told me about the pets thing at last straight away and then I wouldn't have gotten my hopes up! As it is, despite my calls and the form I filled in they didn't even email me to say it was up for let, its only because I was looking on Rightmove I knew.  

It looks like the temperature id dropping quite a bit this weekend so I might pick up some coal and wood for the fire.  It'll be good for the soul, if not the budget, to have a fire lit  .

@anothernewday I am going to have to look through my posts myself to find the mug cake recipes!  I have been meaning to do it for a while so you have given me a good excuse!  I can't remember now which ones I found good so no point looking online.

I hope everyone has a brilliant day!

themadvix

Delurking to say the best way to decorate the pumpkins without losing the innards is to draw on them - maybe with googly eyes? May not be for you, but definitely means the pumpkin can be eaten!

Makingabobor2

So sorry to hear you had covid. This new variant seems to be quite bad. Hope you're feeling better now. x