2025 Frugal Living Challenge

weenancyinAmerica

Love the bag with the bees.

Gem-gem

weenancyinAmerica said:

Love the bag with the bees.

Thank you. I don't normally purchase crochet boxes but when I saw this one, I liked tge look of it. 

Quantaqa

Hello All, happy Saturday.  I hope you are having a lovely weekend.  My boiler finally got fixed yesterday and it is a relief to have hot water again.  The car is still in the garage while they wait for a part so I just have to be patient.

Plans for the weekend:
*Catch up with a friend today at a local cafe
*Take advantage of the beautiful weather and get laundry out to dry on the line.  Second load in the machine now.
*HM Pizza for dinner tonight
*HM Sunday roast for dinner tomorrow
*Relax in the garden this afternoon with my library book


Thank you to whoever mentioned the book 'Less' by Patrick Grant a while back.  I treated myself to this last month and absolutley love it.  I have stopped buying books but made an exception for this one as it wasn't available in my library, and it really was worth buying.  I did have a trip to the library yesterday and picked up 5 fiction books and one Craft and Stitch book to get ideas from, so they should keep me going for a while.

mumtoomany

Good afternoon everyone. 
As promised, albeit a day late, a tally of the spends for last month. I total I spent £408 gulp! Of this £97.42 was food and grocery shopping. Bills were £103.07, electric tv licence and phone/Internet. Fuel, petrol was £46.27, redex was £19.96 and diesel for DD1's car, 20.88, so total £87.11. The remainder was discretionary spends, wood, screws, etc to fix the barn. Bed sheet, birthday gift and the train. Hopefully the discretionary spends will be much lower this month.

So far this month we've been food shopping, spent £33.27 also filled the petrol tank, £67.90. OH has traveled to collect DGS2, and visit a car show with his nephew. We will be taking DGS2 home next weekend. So petrol will figure greatly in September I think. 

I was watching the news a day or two ago. There was a piece about inflation and the cost of living. The presenter that food costs were rising, but that people would not be able to do anything about it. The average uk household spends over £100 per week! They need to all join this thread. 

Hugs to all, mumtoomany.xx

mumtoomany

I forgot to add, I won £50 this month on the premium bonds. Hope others here have also been lucky. Mumtoomanyx

Prudent

Well done on you PB win @mumtoomany. Nothing for me again this month. OH got £100.

I agree that grocery prices are on the march again. I noticed it on most items when I did a shop yesterday. A tub of yeast for example was up from £1.50 to £1.79. I did manage to get two Lidl veggie boxes, a half price chicken and some half price salmon fillets which helped balance it out a bit. I found a good recipe of BBC good food for using courgettes and tomatoes: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/tomato-harissa-stew-cheddar-dumplings. I used fresh tomatoes rather than tinned as we have a glut of them. I also stocked on cherries as Farmfoods had 200g packs for 39p and 1.5kg self raising flour which they also had for 39p. I spent £160 last month on all of our groceries which includes cleaning products and basic toiletries. It was the most I have spent in a long time. I am aiming to cut that back this month. 

@Quantaqa, Less is on my 'want to read' list too. I have been gifted quite a lot of quilters scraps over the past year and had a lot of fun creating with them. I found a new -to-me Youtuber yesterday who makes scrappy quilts so I watched a few videos for ideas. I am finally ready to start piecing together my string quilt. The tiny scraps meant it took ages to make the blocks but I am loving the result.

We are going to a BBQ later. I am going to bake a cake to take -courgette of course as I am in a glut busting campaign.   

MayDogsandCoffee

My grocery bill has been getting higher I have been buying too many gluten free (essential) 'treats' (not essential).  This month I am trying to avoid the supermarket, except for dog meat.  I use the local butcher and have meat reared by farms within a 20 mile radius, so a bit more pricey but well worth it, I have found a local green grocer, some prices are better and again lots of local produce so it works out cheaper to buy in season.  I might start having milk delivered as that is where the 'popping to shop' costs a fortune.  I am in the process of moving so have missed much of this years growing season but will plan ahead for next year once I am in the new garden.  There is a lovely small potting shed which will make a huge difference.  

I have had a lovely weekend NSD all of it, just pottering, gardening, some housework, batch cooking and walking the dog.  Got a stash of books from the library; funny enough one of the books is called Pottering, A Cure for Modern Life by Anna McGoven - very apt. 

MrsCD

Now you've done it, @Gem-gem! I've started to crochet a string bag, just with leftover acrylic yarn. I think it will stretch though, so I'm not going to make it as long as the pattern says. Even if I just use it for loose veg at the shop, it will be useful!
Had a bit of a tummy upset over the weekend, so I've been sleeping it off when I could. No spends though!😁  On the mend now.

Gem-gem

@MrsCD, I agree about not making it as long, especially the handles. 

Hope you are feeling better. 

Over the weekend I made two parrot blankies. Using up old, previously used but not completed wool /project. 

Quantaqa

A quiet day at home for me today and I am glad to be indoors with Storm Floris outside.  I hope everyone is safe and dry as well.  

I am trying to master some routines in the house.  DH and I have the terrible habit of leaving the kitchen after dinner and then we face a big mess when I get up the next morning.  The past 4 days have gone really well but yesterday not so much.  DH was doing the cooking (he loves to make our Sunday Roast) and the kitchen was a huge mess.  I managed to get 80% of it rinsed off and in the dishwasher but then DH cut his finger so I got sidetracked dealing with that.  This morning I cleaned the last of it up, removed a bloodied cloth that I had soaked in bleach from the sink and disinfected the worksurfaces.  Kitchen is looking good and the dishwasher is empty again to take tonight's dinner dishes.  

Apart from a bit of housework and ironing I've had a nice lazy day and have finished off watching a new adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo on the streaming service  U.  I've been watching a few things on this chanel since we cancelled Netflix and really enjoying all the free offerings.