2024 Frugal Living Challenge

willow_loulou

Goodness I'm so tired, I really need the sunshine days to hurry up and get here. 

Very thankful for my store cupboard today, I had a microwave pasta meal for my dinner. They’re not big but definitely enough for me. 

I earned just over £3 cash back last
month in normal spends with my credit card and through my banking app offers. Plus another 120 avios points and managed to save a few more £ in my holiday account and retirement fund from Prolific surveys. I’ve not had much energy for that so pretty pleased with that. 

Frugaldom

@Glittering_M it's homemade laundry liquid made from washing soda and grated soap. If you do a search for 'laundry gloop' you will find several versions of the recipe. It saves quite a bit of cash over the space of a year. 

AnimalTribe

I read along, but don't post very often. I just wanted to say thank you for the information about ivy 'soap'. I've loads of ivy in the garden so I'll give it a try. I've tried horse chestnut leaves in the past and they worked well, but there are no trees near me now.

Glittering_M

Thanks @Frugaldom I had seen your previous post somewhere about ivy washes but I had also ready that it wasn't very good for washing machines so I'm looking forward to trying the gloop!

willow_loulou

Another fabulous Friday £1 bag. This week its
2 bags of salad
celery
ginger 
2 plums
4 small tomatoes 
4 large pretzels 
gluten free wraps for my friend 
5 small sweet potatoes 
3 coffee sachets
A st micheals individual cake
a club bar
a little pack of haribo
crackers (charcoal?!?) 
A fruit shoot drink - it’s out of date but if it’s not nice I don’t mind as I actually wanted the bottle so win win. 

 Very pleased with that, especially the pretzels, I really liked them in America so I’m hoping these are somewhere as tasty! 

Edit to update. Pretzel was indeed good! Just need to figure out the right cheesy dip. Have one for tomorrow and 2 in the freezer for next week ‘does a happy dance’ 

Prudent

@willow_loulou it is so interesting hearing about your £1 bags, thank you for posting. I get a £1 fruit and veg back most weeks. It is very varied in content. Some weeks I can get plenty of variety and items and other weeks it can just be 4 or 5. The wee community shop I go to also does 10 items for £3.50 or 20 items (for larger families) for £6. The item choices can be a bit limited for me as I try to avoid the ultra processed options. Mostly I get things like porridge oats, tuna, tinned butter beans, kidney beans. Recently they have started adding some bakery items and some fridge items. Again a lot are processed but there is the odd gem like feta or mozzarella. Additionally they have the option to purchase other items at reduced price. This week I bought some vegan pie for OH and some fish for us both. They were giving away tofu. I can often buy boxes of good quality herbal teas for 50p as no one else wants them!

I have liked the challenge of the unpredictability of the wee shop. I have to reverse meal plan constantly. I look at the content of the veg bag and plan recipes around it. Yesterday I made a leek, butter bean and cabbage crumble from a Sainsbury’s recipes and it was very tasty. The leek is from the allotment and the cabbage came from my veg bag. I recently picked up several blocks of 500g mature cheddar at Farmfoods for 49p. I now have a stash in the freezer. I used some in the crumble topping.

Other than that it is a busy time at the allotment with lots of planting in the poly tunnel. Yesterday I planted some early carrots outside and covered them with fleece. OH planted onions. We are doing an experiment. Half of the bag of onions sets was started in the poly tunnel a few weeks ago and will be transplanted and this week half went straight out. We will see which gives the best results. I had aimed to try the same with the borage beans, but the second pack yesterday was mouldy. Today I am going to plant some parsnips and try some spinach, although it may be a bit early. My tiny wildlife pond is filling with water and I have ordered some oxygenating plants for it.

willow_loulou

@prudent my only issue with it is the loose fruit is all out of season stuff and so far seems to be far to underripe tasting yet over ripe in condition. I may not pick any up next time unless it’s something for the guinea pig. Do you find that? 

Prudent

willow_loulou said:

@prudent my only issue with it is the loose fruit is all out of season stuff and so far seems to be far to underripe tasting yet over ripe in condition. I may not pick any up next time unless it’s something for the guinea pig. Do you find that? 

It can literally be a mixed bag. I find the fruit tends to have more issues than the veg. I tend to get a lot of seasonal stuff which I think helps such as rhubarb and cooking apples. In the growing season they will have an abundance of certain types of veg. Last summer it was courgettes and spinach. The shop makes up a bag and then where they have either just a few of something or large quantities it is put out in boxes. There is no extra charge for taking from the boxes. I find the spinach is wilted in the boxes and no-one other than me takes some. I take it home and put it in a jug of water. I am not sure about the courgettes as I grow them myself. When I started I had no space to grow veg. Now I have an allotment I am hoping to become more self sufficient this year.

willow_loulou

Does anyone have any frugal cholesterol reducing or heart friendly tips? I’m finding everything suggested pretty expensive! 

I’ve bought benecol drinks but the dairy free are rarely in stock and some cholesterol reducing tea. I’m obviously upping my fruit and veg and don’t eat much red meat anyway. 

Just wondering if anyone follows anything I can use. 

I was using flax seed in porridge or alpro yoghurts but really have to force myself to eat it. 

I really want to avoid medication if I can
Any general weight management advice etc also welcome. Being dairy free and frugal is making it more challenging- at least in my head anyway! 

leftatthetrafficlights

@willow_loulou - a wholefood plant based diet has been regularly scientifically proven to help - check out the Dr. Greger website: 
https://nutritionfacts.org/

He does a 'Daily Dozen' app too which you can download to your phone to help keep you on track while you adjust to the diet. There are loads of resources on YouTube too (including Dr Greger stuff). A couple of things I would recommend you watch on YouTube are Plant Nation, What The Health, Gamechangers and Eat Yourself Alive - they're really good to get some evidence based science informed suggestions from as opposed to the random quackery that is spouted in some places! 😳