2024 Frugal Living Challenge

Madbat60

@Prudent thank you for the link to the website it looks really helpful.  Thank you all for your kind thoughts regarding DP.  He starts his cardiac rehab on the 6th Feb.  He's pottering about doing stuff that's not strenuous.  He has an interview regarding his universal credit on Thursday.  I'm just about to chase up the PIP people as his form hasn't arrived.  Good tip about dehydrating celery, we have loads in the garden.

Cas

RavenRover said:

I was speaking to the veggie man the other week at the market and he was saying that potatoes are rising in price this year because a lot of the growing areas have been affected by bad weather. Growing them may be a very frugal option this year.

Oh that's interesting @RavenRover.  I noticed a lot of the seed potatoes online were marked as not available for this year.  I wonder if the supermarkets will be able to do their bags of potatoes for 15p for Xmas 24.

mama67

I bought half a sack from the local farm shop on Saturday used to be £5. 

Was £8

mandy47

Last week I was gifted a couple of cartons of long life milk. Today I was gifted  2x4 pint bottles of fresh milk. Dated 27th. DD makes hot chocolate with milk so we get through a fair amount each week so these freebies are very welcome. 
Grabbed a large pack of YS minced beef today. Half price. 

London_1

Well ,I  survived the wander around the W'rose outlet in Dobbies as what they had 'discounted' was pretty poor, a bag of Brussel sprouts starting to yellow a bit at £1.71  !  I don't think so and that was the reduced price !!.
I wandered ,I looked,  and I walked away and went home

Tomorrow I taking my semi-housebound friend there for a free hot chocolate and squishy cakes courtesy of a kind lady from this site  who sent me a voucher
 Thank you Kayannie I shall raise my hot chocolate cup to your health

  JackieO xx 

kayannie

London_1 said:

Well ,I  survived the wander around the W'rose outlet in Dobbies as what they had 'discounted' was pretty poor, a bag of Brussel sprouts starting to yellow a bit at £1.71  !  I don't think so and that was the reduced price !!.
I wandered ,I looked,  and I walked away and went home

Tomorrow I taking my semi-housebound friend there for a free hot chocolate and squishy cakes courtesy of a kind lady from this site  who sent me a voucher
 Thank you Kayannie I shall raise my hot chocolate cup to your health

  JackieO xx 

I'm very happy to have passed it on, much better than going in the recycling bin! I hope you  & your friend enjoy your squishy cakes & hot chocolate. KA xx

suzeesu2000

RavenRover funnily enough, I was wondering if I have the space to grow even a bag or two of potatoes this year. Thankfully we don’t eat a huge amount but free is better than paying through the nose isn’t it

Have joined our local community pantry. Pay £5 and receive a minimum of £15 worth of groceries. Am hoping there will be fruit in it during summer to supplement what I can’t afford. 

dND

I had a good trip to L1dl today.  I go around lunchtime to encounter the minimum number of people and today for the first time in the 7 months I've been back in the UK there was one of their £1.50 waste-not boxes. 😁
I'm suitably impressed: 


 
A good haul plus I managed to find the discounted pineapple tins and peach tins mentioned by someone earlier, (sorry but I don't remember who it was), 6 tins for £3.   Also, a lot of my Plus vouchers were for things I buy rather than for biscuits or UPF that I now try to avoid.  The pack of green beans in the veg box was a bit old for my taste - I usually buy frozen if I'm not growing my own - but, tonight's meal was root veg and red lentil soup so they got lobbed into that.  Waste not, want not. 

All in all, about 3/4's of my purchases were either free or discounted items. 😁  Definitely my lucky day!

RavenRover

suzeesu2000 said:

RavenRover funnily enough, I was wondering if I have the space to grow even a bag or two of potatoes this year. Thankfully we don’t eat a huge amount but free is better than paying through the nose isn’t it

Have joined our local community pantry. Pay £5 and receive a minimum of £15 worth of groceries. Am hoping there will be fruit in it during summer to supplement what I can’t afford. 

Mine are all in bags and boxes.  I even use old heavy duty shopping bags! I do have a big garden but 4 inches under the soil is a 2ft bed of pure clay!

Glittering_M

Morning all.

I have been lurking a bit and enjoying reading through the posts.

The ideas for dehydrating are great. I used ours to dehydrate some wild mushrooms (safe ones) last year but haven't really used it much else but I've got some inspiration now. 

Need to decide what to go this year too.  Re. Potatoes, I just grow supermarket ones that I'd left too long on the dark and they'd sprouted. I've had an ok crop. My partner doesn't particularly like eating home grown potatoes though, particularly whole because of the risk of finding a black bit or a bug. He also dislikes home grown leeks because he says they are gritty. I did see a tip about cutting the leeks up then washing them but I haven't tried that yet. I think I need to get better at actually eating what we grow, as I like to 'save' things particularly if they are limited in numbers as I don't want to use them up and then find oh, I could have really done with that. Any tips appreciated! 

I need to decide whether to grow tomatoes and aubergines this year. I grew varieties that are supposed to grow happily outdoors. I started them off indoors before planting them out after hardening them off. They did grow outside but I got about one tomato from 3 plants and no aubergines. I've tried growing from seed and a plant. Friends nearby have great success growing up both of these in a greenhouse but I only have a A1di plastic one which is not completely see through.  Need to get)make a fruit cage or similar to protect the sweetcorn as something destroys it just before I want to pick it (probably squirrels, deer or Badgers). 

We've got quite a lot of tender plants indoors for winter but most have died. It's their first winter so I don't know if it is me or them. As it has impacted different varieties then I'm guessing me/the house!  Really upset as I've lost Stevia, African basil, lemongrass and Vietnamese coriander and these all cost quite a bit to buy in the first place. Unfortunately, none have any return policies and I'm not sure if they'd accept them anyway. Any tips to try and save the remaining ones would be fab. They just went brown. They have sufficient (not too much) water and light. It's a cold house but I thought they would be ok. 

Growing for health was mentioned in an earlier post. I'd love to find out more about that. I wasn't sure if it meant the benefits of gardening or growing things to benefit health or both. I try and grow herbs. I'd like to grow more Thai basil. Year before last was successful, last year a bit of a flop. I really enjoyed the chamomile plants which I grew from seed last year, although I picked some of the flowers and dried them, again I haven't actually done anything with them, they are just in a jar. 

I know I need to get better with labelling. Some plants I grew or attempted last year, I have no idea what they are. I did label but they got confused. Most confusing was the Veronica which I put in the dark as the packet said and eventually planted it out and then it turned out to be a sunflower! What happened to the Veronica I have no clue! 

I saved some cosmos and cat mint (although may be cat nip, we aren't sure) seeds (labelled and separate) last year so hoping to give them a try. The bees love the cat mint/nip although it does look like stinging nettles which is a downside.

Trying to be frugal but not having much luck. Our main expense is food and I'm not sure how much further I can cut it. My partner already complains we don't eat meat enough! I used to be really good at meal planning but I've not had any motivation for that properly for months. 

I also want to look much more into making own soaps, hair stuff, washing liquid etc. I have seen some earlier posts on here. I know my partner would be quite anti it but I can use it for me.I made some apple cider vinegar 2 years ago and didn't really use it much last year. I went to use it this year and it seems to have really reduced in volume? It has a cloth lid on but I wasn't expecting that much evaporation. I have used that on my hair but I'm not sure if it adds anything.

Exercise needs to be more on the agenda for me this year as I don't really do anything. 

I also need to be mindful of not overworking and also taking on too many side roles and things. I have started side work which I enjoy but it takes hours and whilst the rate is quite good, once you actually divide it by how long it takes, it probably isn't that good on a per hour basis! I really struggle to relax and know what to do with myself. 

Sorry for the long post, but useful to start to list things out! Thank you for all your posting as I really enjoy reading all your posts!