2022 Frugal Living Challenge

Primrose

Well that,s a case of a deserving reward Jackie.  Do your grandson a  favour by giving him a lift and get yourself some timely yellow stickered rewards.  The secret of using these is to have the experience to  visualise how they can best be used to produce some useful meals.

i guess this hot weather means many people will be reducing their fuel cooking bills by having a selection of salads.  Even if you use potatoes or rice as part of these you can cook bigger batches and store in the fridge.

cuddlymarm

We’ve just come back from a holiday in Las Vegas ( OHs best mates 60th birthday and that’s what he wanted to do so we’d paid for the holiday and trips last year but didn’t account for the drop in the exchange rate and how expensive it would be) But in true frugal style we found a couple of places that did happy hour meals and drinks and had a lovely time. I don’t regret it in the least, we’re getting to the age where we may not get the chance in the future.
Also I got my first grandchild today, a little girl and absolutely beautiful, who I really want to buy pink things for as I only had sons.

So we are now in super frugal mode until I find a job as I packed mine in last month as I physically couldn’t do it any more.
So I stocked up on salad , veg , cheese and meat to go with my existing stocks and am working on making it last as long as possible. Preferably without turning the oven on. I walked to our local Lidl with my trolley to resist buying anything I didn’t need.
So as DS2 is coming for tea tomorrow it will probably be noodles with veg in sweet and sour sauce with salad for lunch.

Any night night guys, try to keep cool 😎 

Cherryfudge

Wow, congratulations on your granddaughter @cuddlymarm! How lovely. The US holiday sounds well worth while too, you will always have those memories.

If you are near enough to your Lidl, can I recommend going in the evening when they orange-sticker things? I've had some excellent bargains then. It's also worth a look at their £1.50 veg boxes if they have any in. They tend to have a lot of potatoes in ours but even so £1.50 for three types of potatoes plus a few pieces of fruit isn't bad going. You just have to be level-headed and do the resisting bit if it's not on your list and is just a 'bargain'.

Good luck with the job hunt, I'm sure you have lots of skills and experience to offer.

Jazee

Congratulations cuddlymarm.
We are trying to be super frugal here too as we'll have two months with no salary for DH in August and September then a low but regular wage for him.  My salary just about covers the main household bills but not food.
However there is still some enjoyment to be taken from life and yesterday I went to an event with the family.  Spent £7.50 only on lunch and ice cream.  Taking my own lunch wasn't an option unfortunately.

Bluegreen143

Congrats on your granddaughter @cuddlymarm! My MIL was the same when I had my daughter as she had three sons and two grandsons already (one my DS), and my two sister in laws (my husband’s half sisters, not MIL’s children) are also super girly and were excited as SIL only had two boys too. Alas my DD is quite a tomboy and has mostly thwarted their ambitions to buy her lots of girly things 😆

In my family it was my DS who was the novelty as all the cousins in my generation were girls. 

zafiro1984

Congrats Cuddleymarm, two children here one of each, no grandchildren, one had cervical cancer at the age of 22 and they didn't freeze eggs in those days, the other married in his 40's, not sure if I have missed out or not, by not having grandchildren. 

I'm also trying to make food go as far as possible, it's so tempting to buy 'easy' things in this weather, but I mustn't. The rose hips on the hedge are starting to colour so this evening I'll start picking and 'Youtube' for recipes but not rosehip syrup as it's too sickly

One good thing about the weather is that I've saved on the electric I'm down by about 50% over normal use.

florianatwobob

@zafiro1984 I’m sure I heard about rose hip jam recently. 

Primrose

Have been hand washing clothes and letting them dri dry on the line.  Not too often you can do that in this unreliable British weather but every little helps. And two days worth of potatoes cooked for potato salad in one batch and surplus stored in  fridge.

Primrose

Phew. It's hot err . 32 degrees at 10 am.  

Pity our  tomatoes arn't  ripe yet

.  We could have made some genuine sun dried herbed tomatoes for the first time rather than our previous  oven dried ones. Love them but the shop ones from. A delicatessen counter are very  expensive to buy.

Frustrsting that the right British  weather never seems  to happen at quite the right time ,

Floss

florianatwobob said:

@zafiro1984 I’m sure I heard about rose hip jam recently. 

Rosehip jelly is delish on toast!