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

Makingabobor2

I agree with @foxgloves about blackberries. The last 2 years we have headed out with tubs over several weekends and managed to pick loads. They freeze really well and we had enough to last for months. 

fionaandphil

I am another one for blackberries!  Our friends gave us two cuttings about 5 years ago which we stuck on an unused fence and they have gone from strength to strength.  We usually pick one or two punnets every day during growing season and give loads away to family and neighbours.  We still have some in the freezer from last year despite using them for crumbles and with breakfasts. We also have raspberries and get lots of desserts out of those but rarely enough to freeze, the wild raspberries get left for the birds in the hope they won't eat ours!  We also have blueberries but rarely get more than a punnet out of the two plants.  Our salad is growing nicely and I picked some lettuce to have with quiche for tea last night.

DawnW

Don't forget, with frozen veg there is no waste, which is also environmentally friendly.

Elisheba

@foxgloves There is a regular market locally, but I don't recall seeing a fruit and veg stall. It tends to be more cool and expensive things that might interest tourists. I'll double check next time I go to it. One of the main things things I was thinking of was berries as well. I have them most mornings with nuts and yogurt, and frankly buying that amount fresh would cost an arm and a leg.
I do have a front and back garden but my landlord wasn't keen on me digging them up for veg. Pots are no good as silly dog pees in them and that's kills anything I plant (speaking from experience with some lovely fushia bushes a few years ago). Maybe next year I'll see about a few window pots.
I think you are right, and I'll just have to do one thing at a time, and opt frugal where the price differential is too noticeable.

Elisheba

@Makingabobor2 @fionaandphil Yes, fully intending to go on a lot of scrumping for  blackberries this Autumn (is it scrumping if it's not apples?). Didn't manage much last year, but this year I'll put aside lot of time. Already working out how to make a hook on a stick to get the high ones! I have a big chest freezer to will freeze as many as possible for my breakfasts.

Elisheba

@DawnW That's a very good point! Less waste is always good.

Makingabobor2

Elisheba said:

@Makingabobor2 @fionaandphil Yes, fully intending to go on a lot of scrumping for  blackberries this Autumn (is it scrumping if it's not apples?). Didn't manage much last year, but this year I'll put aside lot of time. Already working out how to make a hook on a stick to get the high ones! I have a big chest freezer to will freeze as many as possible for my breakfasts.

When we go, DH takes the cutters with him, so we can cut back the brambles to get into the bushes properly, as some are so overgrown you just can't get to them. 

Elisheba

Goodmorrow, Friday Frugaleers,

Well, I did a big thing yesterday. After much mulling things over I finally decided to cancel my TV licence. As you might have picked up on here I barely watch any TV. I can go from one month to the next without switching it on. However, I always thought with the TV Licence I would pay it so I can watch Doctor Who, and support independent broadcasting. I also listen to BBC Sounds fairly regularly for folk and country music, and although I'm currently on a digital detox, I did check the BBC news app frequently.

However, when I looked into it you don't need a TV Licence for BBC Sounds, or the news app. You only need it to watch live TV on any channel (not just the Beeb), or anything on iPlayer. Now I never watch live TV anyway, and so rarely watch anything on iPlayer that it is no hardship to stop altogether. And I can just catch up on Doctor Who when I stay at my Mum's over Xmas. So, since I am now looking at my finances and saying 'how little can I spend' rather than 'can I afford it?', I decided it was time to ditch the licence. The less you spend the less you need to earn after all.

So thats £175 a year saved. Not a huge amount, but it all adds up.

Then, when I was organising my wardrobes I found the tin I had made up of toilet cloths (not everyone's thing I know 😉), which I used for a couple of years to replace toilet roll. I stopped using them when I moved, I think just because toilet roll is less work. But, in the interests of taking the less you spend the less you need to earn seriously, I'm going to start using them again. I just need to dig the bucket with a lid I used to store the used ones in our the garage. I also have about a box and a third of 'Who give a C**p' loo rolls left, so maybe about 60. So they can just be used for when I have guests round. Since that's not very often they will last for years 😂. Since I reckon I use about 2 of those boxes a year normally, that's £90 a year saved. 

So altogether, for not much work, thats £265 a year saved, minus the extra cost of washing toilet cloths once a week on a hot wash.

Another thing I did last night was go through my whole wardrobe and fairly ruthlessly decide on what I didn't need more, and put it in a pile for selling/charity shop, which added to the pile I had created when I brought my summer clothes out of storage.

I had two full wardrobes of clothes, and I'm trying to internalise a minimalist mentality where the more stuff you have, the more work it is. So I have weeded it down, and now it's one (very full) wardrobe. I could have been more ruthless, but I figured that with a lot of it, it won't fit me next year anyway, so I can get one more season out of some of my pretty dresses and sell them next year instead. And I have more than enough to be dealing with for just now, getting what I have already sorted out ready for V!ntrd. Once things are ready for sale I can hang them back in the spare wardrobe and I'll know where it all is.

So that should be less stuff to look after once I've gotten rid of it all, and less work for moving whenever that happens.

In spending news, I spent about £11 yesterday on two washing machine dyes. One black for some white underwear that's gone grey, and one olive green for a white dress my Mum bought me a few years ago, and a couple of white tops. I'm not keen on white as it needs a separate wash, and this dress is starting to look a bit yellow anyway.

So I'm going to try the olive green dye on it and see how it gets on. It's cotton so that should be fine, although the lining is nylon so not sure if that'll take or what the finished product will look like. Will also need to take into account the fact I need to do 3 washing machine runs per dye, and not on eco mode, so that's an added expense. However, these items would otherwise be at end of life, so in the interests of keeping things going as long as possible, I thought I'd give it a go. I was also thinking about dying a light denim jacket I have a darker denim colour. I decided against it though as realistically it won't fit me anymore by next year, and it'll be easier to sell if I haven't mucked around with it.

I got the hoovering done yesterday so a result there. Today is bathroom and bins day, so I'll have to fit that in at some point. The bathroom floor needs cleaned as well as the whole bathroom, and the three upstairs bins are over flowing with all the stuff I've been sorting out this week, and all that needs to be sorted into recycling, keep for fire, or proper bin.

I'm out this evening at a church thing, then meeting a friend for lunch and shopping 2 hours away tomorrow. Then Sunday I have church in the morning, and seeing a musical in the afternoon. So I'll only have Saturday and Sunday evening at home, which doesn't give me time to do anything really so it's good the house will be up to date with cleaning etc. 

Today I'm wearing a little beige jumper that used to be too small for me, so result there. I'm also wearing a pair of jeans I bought on V!ntrd just before the prediabetes and diet and that were too tight for me. Now they are just about too big for me 🙄, and they are a bit too long. No point in hemming them when they don't really fit,  so they'll be added to the sale pile after today as well.

Hope everyone has a good Friday, and is going into the weekend with lots of exciting plans!

Makingabobor2

Sounds like you're doing really well. Good idea to cancel TV licence if you don't use it. 

foxgloves

For out-of-reach blackberries....either an old walking stick or umbrella with a hooked handle or a piece of scrap wooden batten or even a sturdy stick pruned from something in your garden or foraged......into which you have hammered a big sturdy clout nail at one end. That will do the hooking. 
F