2021 Frugal Living Challenge

mandy47

Today I made 16 jars of blackberry jam. Free blackberries from the local nature reserve and the sugar was paid for with a voucher from valued opinions. A coupe of jars are earmarked for friends, the rest should last us a full year.
Another 2 tubs of tomatoes roasted and frozen.
6 bags of beans blanched and frozen.
100 portions of garlic frozen in ice cube trays, that's our best garlic harvest yet.
The freezer is looking pretty full.

Blackcats

Really pleased for you Willowlou - what a relief.  

2Scratters

Morning Peeps,
I didn't know till not long ago that you can replace just the blind slats on vertical blinds. Pity I threw out the runner from the front bedroom when we took them down. Fortunately hubby is good a whittling and got the blind runner from the back bedroom that happens to be the same size to work again. Todays task measuring the drop and placing that order

In the garden we have the skinniest pear tree that finally got planted to ground this year. It provided quite a good bunch of small pears till the winds whittled them down. There are now 10 left. One fragile branch is so loaded it has broken yet the fruit are still filling. Looking forward to tasting them soon.

mumtoomany

Hi all. Good news willow, must be a relief. Harvesting away here. More blackberries, all from our own land, I have around six kilos in the freezer now. These are used for adding to porridge during the cold months, and, of course for press and crumble. Will keep picking for another week or two. Picking a tub of raspberries every day now. Most of them make it indoors! Some apples to bring in yet. It's been a poor year for my tree fruit. Only the three older apple trees and one of the others have born any fruit, I think maybe the late frost killed off the blossom. Only five damsons too! Left those for the birds. Hardly a cherry either. it has been a much better year for vegetables. Courgettes and cucumbers by the dozen. Lots of broccoli and cauliflower, also sprouts and cabbage. And so many beans, mostly sold on the gate, but plenty in the freezer. 
Money wise, this is going to be a bad month. Have not had the grandchildren since August, we do all the childcare, for which DD pays us. DD and DS-i-L have both taken holidays and now DD is waiting for a covid test result before she can go back. Expensive month, three of the four DGC have birthdays and DD3 has her driving test. Her MOT is due too. We bought her the car a year ago and said we would pay for everything for it until she was driving. OH is outside now fixing something on it ready for the MOT. Once she is driving, she will look for a full time job. At the moment we have to drive her to work, or at least sit with her while she drives. 
Next month should be a bit easier. We've some sheep/lambs going to market in the next week or two. Should be paying less for fuel, if/when DD3 passes. Should have the children more too, although they are all at school now, albeit the youngest is only two days a week. At least we have some savings to tide us over.
Hope everyone is well, take care, mumtoomany.

Frugaldom

Hi fru-guys and gals, just a flying visit from me. I'm trying to keep up to date with the posts and have seen quite a few mentioning campervans, motorhomes and caravans so this is just a heads up that if any of you happen to be within reach of Frugaldom then you are more than welcome to come and park up for the night. I have space for a couple of campervans or motorhomes here and qualify as an Aire. The council suggested we charge between £5 and £10 per night but I have said all along that friends of Frugaldom can visit our project for free. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea being off grd in the middle of the countryside but for us, it's like escape to get back to nature. Plenty photos on my social media pages.  It would be great t organise another meet-up at some point if anyone is close enough or travelling this direction. (SW Scotland)

Olio is still proving to be fruitful for us here and the foraging has been quite good now that all the trees and hedges are beginning to grow. I have some cucumbers growing in the potting shed (still not got a greenhouse or polytunnel) and we've plenty of potatoes. Biggest and best news of all is that I finally got planning permission passed to build the hut! I cannot wait to get started but now need to wait another 8 weeks for materials and, in the meantime, start salvaging bits and pieces from anywhere possible. Excited is an understatement as I can't wait to spend a weekend out there watching the wildlfe, birds, ponies and goats! (I can't remember if I mentioned saving 2 goats!)

Garlic has been harvested, plum jam made and this week I made some hedgerow jelly. I also sampled, for the first time ever, dock leaves! I had no idea they were edible until seeing a post online so despite over 35 years of frugaling, I'm still learning new things. I also did an ApprovedFood order after someone here mentioned the pet food so that's the cat's meals taken care of until the end of the year. 

Now I just need a Premium Bonds win before cashing them all in to build the hut. Onwards and upwards... once that's done, I want to build a second one so frugal friends have a place to stay if/when visiting.

skogar

Great news on getting planning permission for the hut Frugaldon.

YORKSHIRELASS

Frugaldom sounds amazing, we are the very proud owners of a folding camper and over the winter DH wants to buy some solar panels so we can stay at really cheap sites, which suits us as the whole idea is to get away from it all and I dont always want to be lined up in a row with a load of caravans.

Rising electricity prices is a worry here.  We have a stand along fridge, a very old stand alone freezer and a fridge freezer.  We need to get our ridiculous £90 a month electric bill down and we have discussed getting rid of the single freezer and fridge freezer and buying one big A rated freezer.  We also need to start using the slow cooker as much as possible as we dont have mains gas, so all our cooking is electric.

I have done a freezer inventory, we have enough food for 10 meat based meals and 7 veggie meals in the freezer alone, so we need to use this up.  We are having a few days away next week then we will be really cutting back on the spending.

Mumtoomany when DS1 got his apprenticeship he needed a car to get there and there was no way he could afford it on £3.50 an hour, so we bought the car and paid all the bills for a couple of years.  Then DS2 also needed a car, so at one point we were paying for 4 vehicles!!  So glad those days are over now.

Blackcats

Great news on the planning permission Frugaldom.  You must be very excited to start this next phase of your vision.  

Yorkshirelass, I've built up some credit for gas/electricity over the summer but I think it will erode quickly when the cold weather comes.  Like you I'm going to use my slow cooker and cook larger quantities for future meals.  I've got a heated airier which is cheaper than the tumble dryer and I'm getting better at turning lights off and keeping an eye on the heating thermostat.  I'm a long way from being super frugal but I'm trying and that's what counts I suppose. 

Frugaldom

Thank you, I'm really looking forward to it being built and hope you'll get the chance to visit one day. 😁 That invite extends to anyone here who can get to SW Scotland. 

My head is bursting with new ideas so we can spend more time outdoors not spending money. I'm going to try building a camping kitchen so there's a place to rinse dishes after cooking outdoors. We have a soakaway drain by the barn so I'm told this should be ok for grey water and we use all water sparingly here. No foraging done today but have a campervan visitor tomorrow who should be able to help pick more apples and berries. 

nannygladys

Congratulations Frugaldom on your planning permission, it takes a long time to come through.
Yorkshirelass & Blackcats I'm keeping a strict eye on elec and gas usage and have built up a buffer over the summer as well. I have solar panels and make sure everything is charged up, cooked, washed etc when I'm getting free energy, but even then it depends what I'm doing whether it's free or not. I've stopped having the tv on for background noise at night and like you switch all lights off etc, all the things we know that help to save fuel, but there's only so much we can do when they keep putting their prices up.

My one frugal thing today has come about by accident as I've decided as I can't find a winter coat that I like I'm going to wash and mend my old one, it's not as if I really need a nice new one for going out in, as I need a more everyday one, so that's it I'm going to stop looking! Money saved.

Made two banana loaves today, given one to dd 1 and the other sliced for me in the freezer for coffee breaks, the bananas were given to me and way past their best but I had to let dgd finish some ice cream from the freezer to fit it in!!
Nannyg