2024 Frugal Living Challenge

Prudent

Siebrie said:

@Prudent I harvest the fruit in my garden, wash and destalk, and then freeze, either open or in bags. Then, when I have time or need space, I will combine a sweet and a sour bag (say, strawberries and rhubarb) and make jam or chunky sauce, which I then put in a jampot and close. This is kept in the fridge and used within the next fortnight in my breakfast and our desserts. I try to avoid using sugar, snd I hate mega jam sessions; one pot at a time I can manage.

This is such a clever idea. We have plenty of rhubarb on the allotment as it was the only thing that was already there. I am hoping to plant all kinds of fruit bushes this year.

suzeesu2000

Siebrie said:

@Prudent I harvest the fruit in my garden, wash and destalk, and then freeze, either open or in bags. Then, when I have time or need space, I will combine a sweet and a sour bag (say, strawberries and rhubarb) and make jam or chunky sauce, which I then put in a jampot and close. This is kept in the fridge and used within the next fortnight in my breakfast and our desserts. I try to avoid using sugar, snd I hate mega jam sessions; one pot at a time I can manage.

What a great idea, I never thought of doing that before. Sadly I don’t have the room to grow any fruit but I do make a habit of buying a load when cheapest. Will be doing this too. Thanks for idea x

mumtoomany

Thank you @Elisheba and @Cas , for your comments. We went back to the BHF shop on Wednesday, measured up the sofa and bought it. They delivered it on Thursday. The problem was the old sofas. When we moved here they had come in through the door to the boot room. This door had now been bricked up, the new build for DD1, now stands where the boot room was. The front door is too small, as are both doors in the kitchen, so they couldn't go out of the patio doors. We ended up breaking them up in the lounge! But the new ones are now in, and comfortable! 

No other money spent this week by me. OH had orders a new welder, from his pocket money. The old one is broken/irreparable and he needs to finish welding the camper. 

Hugs to all, mumtoomany.xxx

Elisheba

Hope your new sofa lasts a long time, @mumtoomany! Glad you were at least able to break the old one up to get it out - what a pain though 😬

London_1

 We bought our first new sofa in 1979 with two armchairs The chairs have now gone, but the sofa remains, its got a set of loose covers over it.My old friends late husband Rob made it for us as he worked at Alston in Essex years ago and when we said we had wanted a new sofa as we had always had second hand ones, I said after 17 years of marriage and two children I thought I deserved one. It cost us £250.00 and for an extra £20.00 he fitted a double fold away bed with mattress inside it
   I still have it, although the loose covers have helped. Its had two children, 7 grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren bouncing and climbing on it. The bed inside is still as good as it was and I am loathe to part with this old friend after 46 years of excellent service.
 Rob sadly passed away last year and when my two now grown up children and I went up to Colchester for the funeral I was talking To my friend about when her husband had made it and how I still have it in my sitting room, it made her smile as well as her children ,now grown up as well had slept on it when small. When I move later this year it will come with me as I cannot part with it now  

  JackieO xx

otb666

We have never brought new sofas Always had in laws old ones and the ones i have at moment came with house and 24 years old They are laura ashley ones and the cushion covers getting a bit thread bare.  But i am reluctant to change them as i feel quite attached to them. I keep thinking of patching/darning them with gold thread, a bit like that chinese thing where you celebrate wear and tear Kintsugi

Frugaldom

Cas said:

Frugaldom said:

Ivy leaves can be boiled up to release enough saponins to use the resulting liquid as laundry detergent and i only realised how good it was after trying that last summer. 

I didn't know you could use ivy that way @Frugaldom, thank you for that. There's ivy in our garden that gets cut back every year so I'll need to try this rather than chucking the leaves in the garden waste bin.  I'm trying laundry liquid made from cockers for the first time today. 

https://youtu.be/B9wGeUpEiw0 Hopefully this link will work - it's a short video I took for a previous post elsewhere, showing the soapy bubbles running down the ivy clad cherry tree.

Frugaldom

@MegA43  Well done having such a frugsl start to the new year. Here's to frugality and the freedom to be frugal.

I'm just catching up with the posts so haven't read everything, yet. Hopefully, everyone got off to a flying frugal start to the year. I have a few lemons needing used up so will make some lemon curd or marmalade at some point and still have a couple left to squeeze the juice over pancakes/crepes. 

I've posted the link to the ivy leaf video and for anyone wanting to try making the liquid, you dimply boil up a dozen or so leaves in a pan of water, let it cool and then strain off the leaves, which csn then go on the compost, abd decant the liquid into a jar or other container. I'll add in the instructions once I find the original post. 

dND

Wow, those soap bubbles are amazing @Frugaldom.

I don't seem to be able to be very frugal at the moment.  I left so much in France plus all my 'stuff' is still in storage so I'm ending up buying replacements - but hopefully not too many duplicates of what I have in storage.
I am however trying to utilise as many tip from MSE as I can.

For instance, today I wanted some hair pins, not the kirby grips which I can find in all the shops here but the bun pins.  Nowhere around here in walking distance has them so it was off to the big river site.  Being relatively inexpensive items. postage was due.  But I'm just running out of the collagen powder I take so at £24.99 that would give me the free delivery.

However, I noticed that the collagen now comes in capsule form at about half price, and a 2 month quantity meant that I was back under the free delivery limit. 🤣

So a bit of lateral thinking later and I signed up for the Subscribe and Save for the collagen - it's the only place I've found doing the brand I like - saving me a few more pennies and then used the tool MSE suggests for finding items to top-up the order to the required level.  In my case it was 500g of chia seed which I will be using again once I get in my new house.  And the best bit was my total was less than I usually pay for the collagen powder alone.
So a roundabout way of being frugal I suppose. 🤣😁 

Frugaldom

nannygladys said:

 Frugaldom -   I do as well, first came across them when Winston and Pumpkin were born, seems such a lovely place, it's my hope to get up there one day!! 🙂

I don't get much chance to watch anything but see the occasional update and like seeing the donkeys and goats. I do wonder what happens to all those babies, though. It was interesting seeing there had been protests outside because they brought that lonely sheep all the way down from, was it Shetland? Didn't quite understand the whys and wherefores of that move but understood even less why demonstrators would arrive at Dalscone. It's certainly not for frugal reasons. 😆 Maybe I should be making videos daily to try and attract some support for our own sanctuary but I'd need a daily volunteer to do all that as A. I don't 'do' cameras, B. My days are stretched well past their elasticity and C. With such bad internet connection and lack of mobile signal, it already takes hours to upload what photos and videos I do take.