2024 Frugal Living Challenge

Elisheba

Oh, I have that book @London_1 Yes, I agree, its very interesting 

Cas

mumtoomany said:

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! 

Brilliant news @mumtoomany, hope it give you years of pleasure.  And at least it was your old sofa that wouldn't fit through the doors rather than the new one.  A few years ago DH's friend had to take the window out to get his new sofa in! 

Cas

Frugaldom said:

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.

Oh wow @Frugaldom, isn't nature amazing!  I'm definitely going to use the ivy leaves to make laundry soap next time I cut it back. 

mumtoomany

Hi, @Cas. Yes luckily the arms come of the new one, held on with bolts, and the back is no so high. That was the problem with the old ones, the back was very high and the arms stuck out a long way. One or the other would go through the door, but not both. 

Hugs to all, mumtoomany.xxx

Cas

Just catching up as we're away for a few days. The place we're staying is owned by family so it's only costing us our petrol money plus our food. Anything in the fridge at home that needed eaten up was packed up and brought with us along with a some batched cooked meals from the freezer.  We treated ourselves to a chippy tea and ice cream so it's been a low spend time away rather than no spend.
 

willow_loulou

I have a question about how cold is too cold in doors? 

I’ve been chilly all day trying to stretch my electric til Friday when I get paid. Logic tells me I have enough (I do plus the emergency) but the snow has kinda worried me you know? 

So how warm do you keep your homes? I’m stuck on electric because I forgot to get my chimney swept. For some reason my house just feels cold today. I’ve got dehumidifiers going , oil rads, hand warmer, heat pad etc. I have a fan heater that I put on warm the room up some but my nose is cold! 

And yeah I’ve layers on, blankets etc 

fionaandphil

I think the official guidance is about 16 degrees @willow_loulou but I always find that cold.  On a day like today when its very chilly I would say at least 18 to 20 degrees is better.

Florafauna

Another NSD today for me. So much easier to do when I'm back at work. All meals today made of store cupboard and xmas leftovers. No spends needed now until Saturday when I am travelling to a family birthday 

Elisheba

I put my oil central heating on for an hour or two in the morning at 18 so I'm not too cold showering and getting dressed.  Then wear big fleece oodie style thing during the day while I'm working, with a blanket on my lap.  Then the heating is on again at 6pm for a couple of hours, or I use the wood burner.  This seems to work very well in my new (1970s terrace) house, but in my old (1910's terrace) house I would still be freezing, and often put the electric heater on in the room I worked in or my fingers would get too cold to type.

In terms of heating the person not the house I found in my old house a hat and gloves helped, and a pair of really long, thick fluffy socks I had been given - the trick was to get socks loose over the bottom pair, as if they were too tight then my feet were still cold, I suppose as no air to heat up. As I normally only wear thin leggings, I would occasionally wear some jogging bottoms over them. Lots of layers on top. And I have bootie slippers not slip on ones.  I'm so glad my new house is warmer, because I looked and felt like the abominable snowman at times, and it is quite tiring and faffy wearing all those layers.

Frugaldom

House warming is difficult for us as I'm mostly outdoors every day and there's no central heating or even double glazing at home. (Open fire and a small log burner.) When I did try a thermometer, it was showing a top temp of 14c or 16c if the log burner was blazing. I think room temperature is definitely something that depends on lifestyle. 16C is massively too warm for me but I do wear fleece a lot.