2026 Frugal Living Challenge

fionaandphil

Hi Butterfly, looking forward to hearing your tips.

I've picked some blackberries from the garden today, we have a great crop again. I also had 2 very brown bananas so I've made some muffins while oven was on. Hopefully will keep DS and DH in snacks for a few days.

butterfly2507

my partner asked if i'd like to have two deodorants (he got them in a 1+1 deal and realised after two uses that they don't work for him) and who am i to say no to free stuff? 🤣 so i'm now the proud new owner (and user) of deodorant. i tried it out today and it keeps up well. so between the two new ones and the one i currently have in use i'll hopefully be set until the end of the year.

dND

Welcome @butterfly2507 👋

I'm currently on a spend to save week. Taking heed of all the worrying harvest forecasts I've stocked up on 10kg/£4.99 of atta flour from F4rmfoods. I got a very good deal on some chakki atta from there a while back and I use it as my main flour. (Atta is a soft wholemeal flour, the sort used for chapatis, the chakki variety is a stoneground version.)

While I was there I also got a kilo each of dried chickpeas and black eyed beans for £1.29 each and 6 packs of Graham's butter at 250g/99p each. 😁 They only had unsalted butter left but as I do the Nancy Birtwhistle trick of adding oil to make it into spread-from-the-fridge, I'll just add a bit of salt then.

I then toddled off to L1dl where I got another couple of kilos of porridge oats - dated until 07/27 so I now have 4kg to see me well into the winter and hopefully mitigate any forthcoming price rises. 🤞

For those who want to grow their own blueberries, L1dl currently have an unnamed variety for £3.99, or at least my branch in S Wales has.

The garden is still producing albeit at a very reduced rate as I try not to water. My marrow picked as courgette plant has done well so I was able to do 2 courgette cakes, one date and walnut and the other lemon and poppy seed, to take to my knitting group today. I'm thinking about a ginger version for puddings in winter as it freezes very well.

Happy frugaling everyone. Dxx

Viking_mfw

I've just picked another 600g of blackberries from the garden, bringing the total haul up to 4kg. Mostly made into jelly but I think my mother in law will take these for blackberry and apple which we don't like much.

I went to the library yesterday to borrow a book called Not Needing New. It turned out the catalogue was wrong and the book was still in another branch. Looking it up the librarian said "ooh it's in hot demand!". Presumably because people who read books about lowering consumption prefer to borrow them from the library!!

maryb

Ooh interesting, hadn't heard of that. Just checked our library catalogue. They don't have it. Stock has been terrible since the libraries were outsourced to a not for profit called (laughably) Better

butterfly2507

hello everyone! had some errands to run this morning in the city centre with mom. parking was 2€ 😅 but there was the weekly market as well and we were able to buy some apples, peaches and strawberries. the peaches and apples are as big as my fist! if some of them don't get eaten on time, i'll either make a smoothie with them or freeze them for when needed.

i also needed a new bra and luckily found one for 35% off 😀 i've had my old bras for years now and it's time to finally update them … or switch them out for new ones 😏

Debsnewbudget

i have bought some kilner bottles to store blackberry vinegar.

I have removed the plastic stopper but they still have something that looks like hard plastic on the metal closure

How can I sterilise them ? I was going to put the glass jars etc in the oven, do you think I can do that with these ?

dND

I haven't done it myself, but the AI powered Internet suggests boiling in water for 10 mins.

Hopefully someone who has done it before can help. Dxx

butterfly2507

is there maybe a way to get the whole metal thing off?

kayannie

I use these for elderflower cordial. I sterilise by first filling with boilling water & then turning the bottles upside down in more boiling water.

KA x