My Off-grid and need to be frugal diary

vampirotoothus

I love your garlands!

You've inspired me to find some projects that need finishing off, so thank you! V x

AnimalTribe

Vampirotoothus Thank you. Please post a photo of your project when you’ve finished. I’d love to see it. By the way, I like your username. With a name like that I suspect that you are an urban fantasy fan. I am a huge fan of the genre. At the moment I’m re-reading Kitty the werewolf series by Carrie Vaughn.

On Sunday DH and I met some friends for a walk on the beach. It was a gloriously sunny day. We joined them for lunch at a little café but we each paid for our own meal. Not with these friends, but other friends, the bill used to be split and I found myself paying for much more than I consumed. These days I always say at the start that I prefer separate bills.

When we went into the city recently DH forgot his Tesco card so we didn’t get the club card prices or the points. The seaside town had a Tesco so DH was able to get a £7.25 refund for the price difference and the points. Well done to DH for checking on Tesco availability I would never have thought of it. It just shows that having a loyalty card is worth it.

In the afternoon I went for a walk on the moor road. The verges are full of thistles which the butterflies love. I spotted cabbage whites and peacocks. It was such a pleasure to just dawdle and watch them.

Today, I went to pick some more raspberries from the garden as the bushes are still heavily laden, but they have ‘gone over’. I suppose that means the mice and birds will be well fed. We have had so many berries and the freezer has loads of them so it’s not really a problem.

It’s very windy today but unfortunately the wind is blowing in the wrong direction for the turbine. I only saw one butterfly on my walks today. I wonder where they go in the high winds?

ellenvan

Glad you got the refund from Tesco.

A work round if you ever find yourself in that position again, just ask the person after you in the queue can you borrow their clubcard for a moment.

Someone asked me recently. She wasn't bothered about the points just the reduction in total spend.

It was over a £1 worth of points so technically I gained too.

Although I did put extra item in food bank

AnimalTribe

Ellenvan thanks that's helpful to know.

It’s been a mixed couple of days. Yesterday was good. I picked the last of the blackcurrants and they are in the freezer, and I cashed in £35 worth of Nielsen reward points for PayPal cash. I made a couple of fruit cakes – one mixed fruit and one crystallised ginger.

This morning has been good too. It’s been very windy so lots of free energy. DH took one of the dogs to the vets for her annual vaccination and check-up which is free since we paid £99 four years ago for a lifetime service. DH did a quick shop for milk and picked up reduced price strawberries, and I’ve done lots of mending and tidying. On the down side the tree surgeon team we were expecting tomorrow has run over on their current job and can’t fit us in until the end of August. It means the massive bottle of milk DH bought today and the pasties etc that were bought previously will not be used by the team. As there are 3 members of the team, we bought a lot of food and I don’t know where I’m going to put it. The freezer is full and most of the pasties and pizzas are meat, which means only DH can eat them.

AnimalTribe

Yesterday was stormy enough to break a wooden gate which allowed some sheep to get into the garden. Some immature apples were also blown off a tree. Considering how strong the wind was I was surprised that there was so little damage. DH drove some wooden posts into the soil and cable tied a metal hurdle to the posts and that will stop the sheep until a proper job can be done. The apples I collected and turned into puree so as not to waste them. Even though they were small the pureeing worked well.

Today DH replaced some broken hinges on a footstool and mowed 1 out of 3 lots of grass. There was a large punnet of strawberries in the fridge and there are some I don’t think will last until tomorrow, so I’ve cooked them with sugar to make a strawberry sauce which will last for a couple of days. I try not to waste anything.

I’ve been fixing some jewellery, mainly replacing missing stones. There are some pieces where I’ve had to remove all of the existing stones as I couldn’t find a match and replace them with something completely different. I will leave them to dry overnight.

AnimalTribe

Last night DH took some yoghurt from the freezer to use as a starter yoghurt. Unfortunately, he’d defrosted coconut milk by mistake (I keep frozen coconut milk to give to the dogs to cool them down when it’s hot). So, no yoghurt making today. I’ve taken out some proper starter now so it will be yoghurt making tomorrow.

I’ve done my usual Sunday catchup phone calls and emails with people but other than that and some laundry it’s been a quiet couple of days.

I took a couple of photos of my walk along the moor road which I’ve attached.