When do you save?

Firstly, apologies.....I'm unable to leave comments on some of your lovely blogs and I am enjoying them, thanks to everyone who writes as you give me so much pleasure. Today's blog is all about the saving accounts we frugals seem to have.

 Every month, a week before payday; we go through the family finances. We dig out every receipt and we record everything we spend. We even create our own receipts for car boot sale and charity shop purchases. We then start to move money from one account to another. What ever is left (and there's not much some months and some months there is much more) gets divided into more over paying the already over paid debt repayments, some into the long term savings account and some into the rainy day saving accounts. I try to make sure that more and more of my salary is left at the end of every month, by stretching everything that little bit further every month.

It may seem crazy saving money when you owe money, but what if your car goes wrong? What if you need to pay to get to see a sick relative at a moments notice, but what if you don't have access to any credit? That's when we turn to savings.

It's an even better feeling at the end of each month when the savings didn't have to be used. We've only token amounts in the #2 and #3 accounts. We are going to have to ensure our house is sellable in a very competitive market and have it ready to go 'on show' for spring next year with hope to sell by the autumn. We are going to have to be extremely creative about doing that and we'll need access to real cash to do that. So, my new challenge, is to keep the debt repayments going and seriously save for the house renovations!!!

No pressure then!!!

What do you have to save for and what do you have to go without to get it? We'll have to forget central heating this year, forget baths and forget any new clothes or shoes, we'll have to forget Christmas again (we don't 'do' it anyway) and forget any un-necessary car journeys. In fact, we'll have to find another £100 a month from somewhere to do it!

I'm off to grit my teeth.

Until tomorrow,

Froogs xxx

No Sweat energy saving

Hi everyone,

I'll start with thanks to the 1967 of you who logged onto Frugal Queen, to those of you who left comments and those of you who became followers. Apologies for not writing a blog yesterday but I returned home with a migraine and went to bed. Go to bed early will be one of the things I will be writing about today. Today my frugal refresher is all about saving energy, or in my case, not using it at all!!!!

I've had a look at old blogs and thought I would throw in the photos and write about a variety of ways that I save money on energy. So here goes.

1. Turning the thermostat right down! Here is our central heating thermostat. The last British winter was unusually harsh and we spent weeks being sub zero. Usually, winters here in Cornwall are usually around 5 - 8 degrees, which are easy enough to cope with. When you think of the average summer temperature being around 18 - 20 degrees, the fact that I heat my house (when I heat it!) to 17 degrees, means that I keep my house at the temperature of a warm summer morning. I don't need a jumper in that weather, I don't need a coat. I drastically reduced my heating bill simply by keeping it as low as I could without feeling cold. I leave for work at 6.30 am and get home around 6 pm, so I don't need the heating on then. My heating is set from 6.30 pm - 8.30 pm and as the house is so well insulated, it never really drops below 10 degrees and the heating only has to raise the temperature slightly. It's warm enough for us.

2. Dry outside and get rid of the tumble drier!!!! As you can see by the leafless tree to the right and the long shadows, this is the middle of winter! I use drying racks as I can grab them inside if it rains. We have no tumble drier and we manage to dry everything outside or indoors on racks. Like my mother, and undoubtedly my grandmother, I launder according to the weather report. If the 'weather is set fair' then everything gets washed and I'll 'do an extra load'. I also launder as little as possible. Clothes are hung up to air and worn again, work trousers are 'spot cleaned'. We use the same bath towels all week and hang them over the banisters to dry. Weekend jeans are put away for the next weekend (and sometimes the next!). I'm a clothes sniffer! If it can't be smelt when I put it up to my nose, then no one else can smell it just walking by!

This sight above is my dining room/laundry room. Dinner is eaten whilst looking at the undies!!! The house is warm enough that it dries and I open the windows enough that the house is aired and doesn't get damp. I always wash work clothes on a Friday night on a wet weekend, to make sure they are dry for Monday.

3. Just heat and light the room you are in! Now I've come to my senses and I'm preparing to downsize, I'm happy to report that two people can live in just one room if they want to! I've bought, from my monthly shopping budget or with my ebay money, a couple of plug in oil filled radiators. They use the minimum of energy and will heat either my lounge, office or bedroom on the lowest setting. When I'm working late, I might only want the office heating, or if it's the weekend and we're watching a film we'll often just use one room. At that point, we make sure we're comfortable and just heat that room. As working people, we can often get in from work late, eat and want to do no more than go to bed a read. On nights like that, we turn the heating off all together and just heat one room. The same goes for lighting, we turn every light off behind us and only have the light on in the room we are in.

4. Cook in bulk and fill the oven up. I bulk cook at the weekends and freeze dishes as a sort of 'ready meal' to reheat in the week. After twelve hours away from home, I don't always want to stand over a cooker. I also don't want my oven to be switched on unless I'm going to fill it up.

What ever I cook, I cook plenty of it and it's frozen for another time. This is really useful in the months where I have spare cash as I can free up some of my budget for things I need such as new work shoes. Not only that, it's a comfort to know I have a freezer full of food to keep us going and that I made a 2 litres of soup in one go, or three meals at a time from one pot of bolognaise sauce. In the long run, you will save time, energy and money by bulk cooking.

5. Use low energy devices!  We use a variety of electrical devices which are smaller and more economical now there are just the two of us at home. They are well worth the outlay. I have a slow cooker, which is used so often when I'm at work. There is nothing better that knowing I'm coming home to a ready cooked meal waiting for me.

Our bread machine was given to us by a friend having a clear out, but they can often be picked up at car boot sales, from the classifieds and freecycle. People often buy them as a good idea but don't use them that much, so us froogals can benefit from their flippancy. If I'm bulk baking, then I use my main oven and bake six loaves at a time and freeze them for DB. Often, because he likes it freshly made, I make just the one loaf. Simply tip the ingredients in and set the timer and get on with something else.

Finally our mini-oven, which is our main 'cooker'. It's big enough to do everything we need and uses far less energy than a conventional oven. People buy these to take camping or in their caravans, so look out for the summer sales when stores such are Curry's, Dixon's or Comet sell them off cheap. Ours was only £15 and has been the best purchase I've ever made. It has saved me pounds.

6. Wrap up warm It may be summer and no one is worried about the cost of energy but whilst you may get around the car boot sales this summer, look out for blankets. Keep them on the back of chairs, on the end of the bed, on your chair in the office. Look out for wooly pullies and buy them bigger than your size so you can add layers. I'm warm enough and happy enough about wearing a few more layers.

7. Get a timer. We use our timers for showers and can get in and out in five minutes. That even feels like a long soak now. Our bathroom isn't heated in the morning so we don't need to linger in there! Our timer came from the Sally Army shop for £1.50 and we've used it so much for so many jobs.

8. If it's good enough for John and Yoko. Get to bed early when it's cold. We read, listen to the radio, read the paper (found free on the train) or in my case knit, in bed. If some one has a TV to give away on freecycle then we might get one for our bedroom and watch a film in bed (that's if some one gives away a free DVD player on freecycle!). We then don't need the heating on at all!!!

I know many of you reading this do not live in the moderate British climate, where it doesn't usually get too cold or too hot. We certainly never need air conditioning or massive amounts of heating (where I live). I'm sure you've all got your own way of saving energy and some of you generate your own such as Gavin in Australia and many of you in America, Australia and New Zealand harvest your own water or have solar water heating. I know some of you live in extreme weather conditions and heating your house is a must or you will probably die of hypothermia, I know some of you have children and need to keep them warm and some of you have health conditions where you are burdened by huge energy costs. I can live in this manner as I'm young, relatively healthy and I choose to. However, we can all use less energy and do what we can to live lightly and spend less.

I've halved my energy costs since 2009 even though energy prices have continued to rise and they are just about to rise again. I wrote recently about water poverty and we also have 'fuel poverty' in the UK where many people can choose heat or to eat. I'm lucky enough so far that I can do both but understand that families on low or fixed incomes, such as pensions have to be as meagre with their heating and energy costs as I have to. If anything, I'd better get used to this way of life now as this is the way it's going to be when I have only my pension to live on.

Now it's over to all of you. Share your struggles with energy costs or how you fight the battle to use less and keep the costs affordable.

Until tomorrow,

Lots of love, Froogs xxxxx

Frugal refresher -day two: the easy stuff!

Thanks everyone for the comments yesterday. I know looking at your pee most of the day and carrying buckets of rain water around might seem a bit extreme but it's not always about money. We have to look after this world too, all of us have to do our bit. My blogs this week are for the benefit of people who may have recently started reading or haven't been following me for long. Between December 2009 and today, we have paid back almost £36K of personal unsecured debt and we took drastic steps to do it. Now, it all seems so easy but some of you who have to go on that journey may still be daunted by it. You will get there. If you're reading, it's would be lovely to know who you are and would be fantastic if you left a comment or became a follower.

Today is all about the easy stuff. Let me think about a once upon a time day for me in the distant past. I would go downstairs, open the door and get the milk in, pick up the paper off the door mat and go and eat cereal, with shop bought jam or marmalade and drink premium coffee. I would get to work and get a coffee out of the vending machine, may be buy a pastry or sandwich at lunch time. On the way home, I would pop into a central Sainsbury's or city centre Tesco metro and pick up something for supper. Sometimes I would already have something at home, but I'd 'fancy a change'. In the evenings, I might go to weight watchers or the gym and come home and use the Internet without caring what it cost me.

My first start is about the really easy frugal steps we can all take. There are so many but here are just a few that I used and still stick to.

1. Cancel all newspaper and magazine subscriptions. A paper a day and two magazines a week will cost you £624 a year. Now, we only read freegan mags and newspapers. Dearly Beloved commutes by train and will walk up and down the train when he gets on looking for mags and papers. We usually get one or the other every day.

2. If you buy lunch and a coffee a day at work, then you could be spending £840 a year on lunches and £600 a year on just one coffee a day. Take a packed lunch and a flask and save £1240 a year.

3. A cut and colour every other month used to cost me £70 and now I get Foster Mummy to cut it for me and I colour it. The colour I buy is £5 and I colour my hair once a month so I spend £60 a year on my hair. By 'doing it myself' I've saved £390 a year.

4. Make your own bread. Bread now costs £1.50 a loaf for 'cheapy harry' sliced white in some places and as cheap as 80p in others. I make bread for DB's lunches. I make bread for 17p a loaf and as DB gets through two loaves a week, I've saved £138.32 a year.

5. Stop eating out and don't buy take aways. We used to have a take away every Friday, either fish and chips or a 'Chinese'. We could easily spend £15 to £20 a week, especially if we had a bottle of wine every Friday. As we don't do this any more, we saved £1040.

I don't miss any of the above, I don't need them either and I now don't know how people fall for the 'you're worth it' marketing, which is actually saying 'just give us your money for stuff you don't need'. If you've added all of that up, in a year I managed to save, or should I say, stop spending!!! the sum of £3432.32 a year and if you know your tax codes, you will have worked out that it would have taken £5000 before tax just to spend that amount of money.

We still eat well, I still 'have my hair done, I still have 'artisan hand made bread' on my table, we still read newspapers and magazines, we still eat every day but now we do it at a fraction of the price.

Frugal refresher for five days!

Hello everyone,

No photos today I'm afraid. I've been catching up on all of your blogs tonight and came over all whimsical when I read Vintage Vixen's blog tonight. I remembering actually saying to the poor teacher who ran 'Careers' at school that when I grew up that I wanted to be Stevie Nicks. I was 15, a mouth on sticks and had an answer for everything! Poor old fart didn't even know what I was talking about. I think I said I wanted to be a nurse so I could laugh at lots of willies as well..........I think I had to stand outside his office for an hour after school. I was well known in the corridors of my comp!

We've just paid the first of our 'repayments' on our mortgage after having a interest only mortgage for a few years! Previously, we always had a repayment and then stupidly took out a stupidly large mortgage. I've had to gird my loins and dig deep in the frugal repertoire to do this but I will get this house paid for. I can pay up to 10% of the balance a year and I'm going to get 21.5K paid off in 12 months!!! It will nearly starve and freeze us but I'm going to do it!

I thought I would share some of my truly, deeply frugal ideas with people. Some of you reading this may have logged onto 'Frugal Queen' for the very first time today. Over the next seven days, I will be sharing five frugal facts about me every day. Here are today's.

HOW I SAVE MONEY ON THE COSTS OF WATER - Get a water meter. In my water region, South West Water charge £1400 a year for un-metered water per year. Since having a meter I've reduced the amount of water I consume every quarter. I now pay under £300 a year for my water.

Here are my five frugal money savers to cut my water bill by £1100 a year!

1. PERSONAL HYGIENE Stop having baths! I am a bath addict. I can't think of any thing more delicious than a bubbly bath. Now I only shower. Baths are for birthdays and special days. Get a timer in your bathroom (five minutes are all I allow myself). I can wash shoulder length hair in five minutes. I wet my hair, then turn the water off. I then soap it and rinse. I don't do what the bottle says and wash it twice!!! It's a con to sell more shampoo!!! Also, I don't condition! That again is just a con to sell you something you don't need!!!! It will condition itself after a few hours! I don't wash my hair, or myself in the shower every day! I shower every other day. I wash my hair every other shower! I keep it clean by clipping  it up and not touching it. Most of the grease on your hair is off your hands.

2. USING GREY WATER Place a bowl under every tap. Every time I wash my hands, or my face or my teeth, the water gets used to flush the toilet. In the kitchen, the water gets taken outside in the summer and poured onto the garden. Make sure some of the water goes down the plug or your drains will block! I also use a large plastic box, or you could use an old baby bath if you have one or get given on, to stand in whilst you are in the shower. I then pour that into watering cans and water the garden. I have run out of rain water from the butts so I really need this water for my veggies. We use homemade natural soap and not much shampoo and very few chemicals, and as I've eaten the veg, I may be proof that this is harmless.

3. THE LOO If it's yellow..........We don't flush pee. We only flush poo. Plus, any hand washing water gets poured down the loo. It's a sin to throw pure drinking water down the toilet so use second hand water. I placed a brick and a water hippo in each cistern, so I've reduced the huge flush in my old style loo by one third.



4. THE WASHING MACHINE - we replaced our top loader, after we'd sold it on eBay, with a triple AAA class front loader, which we chose, not only due to using very little energy but because it used the least water. We place a full size plastic bin next to it. I put the hose from the machine on the side of the bin, to pump the rinse water into the bin. If you use Eco soap powder, which I do sometimes, you can pump all of the water into a bin, or water butt and use it on  the garden. I've eaten all of the veg which has been watered by the washing machine waste water and I'm alive.

5. SAVE ALL THE RAIN YOU CAN - Buy as many water butts as you can afford. A good rainy day will fill them and each butt represents a saving of £10 for SWW customers. When it really really rains, I put pots, buckets, pans, in fact any thing that will catch the rain. I use an old bin too, if the butt is full, then I pour the water from the butt into the bin and let the next rain storm fill it up again. Use the rain to rinse the car when you wash it, even to wash the car and windows.

I'll be back tomorrow with five more frugal refreshers of how I reduce my living costs and I'm able to pay off debts at a huge rate and now over pay my mortgage at (fingers crossed) 10% a year.

Until tomorrow,

All my love,

Froogs xxxx

Increases mean decreases!

Let's have a look at everything that increasing in price. Food, almost 25% increase and each time I go back to the supermarket, I notice increases. Energy, has been predicted to rise by 20% And salaries? Well, they are the same. This all means, we will have to decrease the amount of food we buy even further and decrease the amount of heating, hot water and lighting we use altogether. This will mean more veg and lentil soup, more blankets on the bed and on our laps in the evening. Fewer uses of the washing machine and wear the clothes for longer. Less of everything and yet, pay the same! I think I'll cope.

 We'll all have to discount store shop and then, with a small list, stick to it and eat it slowly!

 Dearly Beloved will have to stock up on pasta to fill him up.

We'll all have to eat less.

Plus, some of us are facing pay cuts, redundancies, pension cuts and will have to be even more creative with even less. Downsizing will not be an option, it will be a necessity. What will you have to do with less of and what are you expecting to pay more for and not even get as much as you do now.

We'll all have to be creative together!

Until tomorrow,

Froogs xxxx

I like big butts!

 It's water bill time again!!! Oh the joys of it all. Every three months I feel the need to plot and plan as many ways as possible to not have to buy my water from South West Water. I've been very frugal with water this quarter and we've used 21 cubic meters of water. I now have a bowl under every tap, even if we run the tap to get hot water, we save the water. Even if we just wash our hands, we save the water. I've had no more than a bath a fortnight and we just leave the car to sit in it's own filth. Clothes are sniffed, if they have no smell, then we carry on wearing them. Towels are thrown over the banister and used over and over.  Toilets are never flushed with brand new water, but we used second hand water. Even with all that water scrimping and being really really good. Our quarterly bill was still £105.07! PLEASE!!

Now I sit and start to work out the costs of butts, pumps and grey water systems. My neighbour has six water butts in tandem next to his bungalow with an electric pump inside the house and has a header tank in his loft, which he pumps the rain water into. I have serious big butt envy. I'm going to put a water butt on a stand in my utility room and then pump the water from the machine in that and use that too, especially as I need to keep water for the garden.

We all have those, if I won the lottery moments and mine would be to 'green' my house. I would produce my own energy and harvest my own water for everything but drinking and stop paying so much for utilities. If any of you readers have a grey water system, then share the know how with the rest of us. I'm off for a sunbathe and a dream of big butts!

Until tomorrow,

Froogs xxxxx

Ignore those best before dates.

 I treated myself to a long leisurely shower this morning ( I did not set the timer! and must have had 7 minutes) and listened to a Radio 4 discussion on 'use by dates' and the pros and cons of them. I personally ignore them completely. I have eaten yogurt that is weeks past its sell by date was fine and vegetables often have yellowing and curling outer leaves taken off for the compost bins and we eat what's good. I'm in the process of making Sunday lunch and have made apple crumble for dessert. I went to the pantry and found some of mum's Blackberry jam, which as you can see, was made in September 2009. It must be very high in sugar as there was not a single trace of mould on top.

 The addition of the jam has now made this a blackberry and apple crumble, I also didn't add any sugar to the apple as the jam will sweeten it enough.

I trust my own instincts and sense of taste and smell to check if something is good to eat. I always freeze meat and don't take any chances as it's so expensive that I just can't afford to waste it. I cooked a roast chicken today and didn't have any big brown onions left, but found in the veggie drawer a pack of shallots, they were from November last year! They have been kept cool and in the dark and have gone quite nicely into the roasting pot along with garlic, potatoes, carrots and thyme. If they were off they would be spongy or dry, but they were hard, still pink and as difficult to peel as if they had just been pulled out of the soil.

There is of course a bonus to 'best by dates'. I buy some products from Approved Foods, which sell products close to or past their 'best before dates. I have crumble mix, and I didn't have enough, so I used another AF product of the pastry mix and I bulked it out with a few rolled oats and a spoonful of dark sugar that I've had left from the Christmas cakes, that I made as gifts. This company wouldn't have goods to sell and I wouldn't be able to benefit from the cheaper goods.

I still stand by my own money saving advice to myself that 'best before' does not mean unusable and poisonous after a certain date. It's up to you, but I ignore them and trust my nose.

On the 13th day she went shopping!

I gave in today and went and did a week's shopping and nearly fell over in shock as some prices have gone through the roof since I last went to Tescopoly! In case you are interested my week's or actually as lot more than a week's shopping cost £28.81. I bought cereal, veg, herbs, soya milk, quorn, veggie sausages, tinned pulses (ease of use for busy days) laundry soap and washing up liquid (all of Tesco's natural range was drastically reduced e.g washing up liquid at 40p so I stocked up for months), frozen veg, frozen fish/pollack, loo rolls, sanitary products and I shouldn't need to go again for the rest of the school holiday.

Foster Mummy is coming today.......I'm looking forward to the knitting and nattering and a vegan lunch. More later,

Froogsxxxx

No spend day 11!

 Hi everyone,

I didn't realise that clotted cream would stir up such strong emotions. It also lasts all week when you've opened it. If it then gets a little buttery, then use it in mashed potatoes instead of butter. As promised the third day of the sprouting tutorial. Today, they have started to sprout.

 Take them out of the cupboard and rinse them, swish them around but don't be rough with them. Put them back in the cupboard and check again tomorrow morning.

 Today, I spent the day with mum and dad. Dad has a tiny ex-council house garden in their 'old people's bungalow' and every inch, from either side of the front path, to the very boundaries, is full of vegetables and fruit bushes. Every window sill has seedlings in pots and old sacks show initial signs of early potatoes that are ranged up and down the garden path so you have so sidle your way to the front door. Even the inside of the house is an opportunity to garden. Mum has a floor to ceiling lemon tree in her conservatory, it is smothered in lemons, which mum harvests and makes lemon curd or lemonade from.

Usually, when I visit mum, I take her out for a walk around Fowey but it was so windy that we decided to just stay in and chat, which meant this was another no spend day......hence the day 11!

 I'm now digging really deep into the backs of the cupboards to use up what I have. The tinned chilli con carne  is massive and will feed us tonight and me for lunch tomorrow. I'm going to have to give in any day now and go and buy some fresh food. Eating out of a store cupboard is vital for a while longer and my shopping will dictated by contents and what I can do with them.

 I'm having to grit my teeth through this challenge as only 11 days in and I'm bored. But, today's talk with mum and dad has really, really strengthened my resolve to live on as little as possible. We spent the time chatting about pensions and the cost of living. They get by just fine, but they worry about their three grown up children who will have pensions numerically comparable with their income, but in many years from now, our pensions will not be worth as much as theirs. My money saving journey is going to be life long. I'll have to scrimp constantly to firstly pay off debts, secondly pay off the mortgage and finally to put every penny I have after that to put towards our pension fund. The end result is hopefully, as my parents have made sure, will be enough to live on.

We're managing to live on very little, and although the days can repeat themselves, we're living in style. Money  will only go so far, if you spend it whilst you are young (which I did!), you can't have it whilst you are older. We're both in our mid forties, so we only have twenty years left to make enough money to keep us going when we're older. To do that, we have to go without now and today was a real reminder that our lifestyle has a very real purpose and has reinvigorated my resolve to carry on not spending.

Day 7! Please leave a message after the tone.

I've made it to day 7. I've been out on two meeting this week and I've had two at work and my brain is now pate. I came home early with a migraine, have taken the pills and I'm sleeping it off. Thanks for the comments; I didn't deserve them; I truly was having a brat day. I've managed a week without grocery shopping and as usual, I haven't bought anything any way. I'm back off to sleep; see you tomorrow.

As ever and until tomorrow,

Froogs xxx

Truly, Madly, Frugal Day One.

Both from the store cupboard and bought at very low costs from Approved Food. The cous cous was 99p for 3 boxes and each box contains 3 sachets. Each are enough for two very greedy people. Each portion was 5.5p. The cooking sauce was 99p for 3 jars and I used half a jar with supper, which equates to 8.25p per portion.

 Hello again everyone and thanks for dropping by. Firstly, I have to take my hat off to all of you. When I asked for help and support, you signed up as followers in your droves. You commented and left such kind messages and I am truly grateful. Now readers, the next target is get 50 people a day to comment as I'm such a nosey soul and I love to hear the thoughts of people who read. As ever, if you're dropping by and you haven't become a follower yet, then it would be lovely if you could do so. This is going to be a loooooooong month and I'm going to need those hooters and placards on the side lines.

In answer to some queries, we do eat salad because it's often as cheap as the vegetables in season. Although,we add grated carrot, tinned sweetcorn and small chunks of cauliflower to salad at this time of year. We often add tinned beans such as canellini or even chick peas to bulk out salad. I sometimes make brown rice salad, which is simply rice cooked with the cheapest frozen mixed value veg and allowed to cool, I will then add some home made salad dressing, mixed with mint sauce or a squirt of lemon juice and I call that salad. Lidl will often sell two baby gem lettuce for 59p and they will keep for well over a week; punnets of cherry tomatoes are often on offer and their un-wrapped cucumbers are also 59p, and we again, seem to make them last a week, 'unopened'. I make homemade potato salad, which is simply peeled and diced potato, cooked and then cooled very rapidly so it still has a crunch, I then add finely diced onion and a good squirt of mayonnaise (6 bottles of low fat mayonnaise for 99p and at 16.5p a bottle, you can be generous) and then gently mix it together.


Well here goes the Extreme Frugal Challenge.This is it! Day #1 which is the easy part. I'll start to show the strain at the end of the first week and then things will start getting harder. There is a lot of food in the house and I know I can go a good few days without buying any more but the basic fresh ingredients and even then, I shall hold off for as long as possible. I'm going to do everything I can to use up store cupboard ingredients, which means home cooking, baking and batch cooking. By the end of the month, I want to see an empty pantry, which means I will have supplemented all my cooking with what I already have. As promised, I didn't spend any money today; there's no heating on (just jumpers), the empty rooms are unlit as are the corridors and my entertainment tonight is some knitting.

Tomorrow, to answer another query, I'm going to do something savoury with oats, left over veg and some more store cupboard ingredients. If you have any requests, let me know and I'll do what I can to accommodate 'what the ferret do I do with this?' over the next 29 days. There will be plenty of beans on toast and egg and chip days, there have to be for everyone now and some brighter days with a bit more variety. What ever I do to save money for that holiday this month, I'll share with all of you.

Until tomorrow,

Froogs xxxxx

The chicken was a Lidl bulk buy, when 4 chicken breasts were £1.99 - so 50p a portion for the chicken. The fresh veggies were expensive at 59p a bag, but that's still considerably less than the major super markets. Some of the cooked veg has been set aside for tomorrow's cook off. Supper tonight was £1.08 per portion, but it was posh nosh for a Friday.

Cook once, eat twice....or more!

 Like all working people, I have a busy life. I need, we need............I forget, I'm not talking to myself, to keep things simple. This morning, I popped some casserole steak into the slow cooker, with water, salt and pepper. I didn't have time to do any more. I came home, peeled two meals worth of potatoes, enough veg for two days and then added gravy mix to the beef and called that supper. Meat eating is expensive, but we make do with around 100g of meat each per meal. Neither of us feel deprived. (Food costs today - 83p worth of beef each and the veg came to 16p, plus gravy, just takes the meal to £1)

 We've all eaten too much for too long and now the economy measures are not only needed financially, but health wise too. We should all be aiming to eat less meat and 100g of protein a day is more than enough. We're also used to a huge variety of food and we seldom eat the same thing twice in a month. Not in Frugal Towers I'm afraid. Even though I saved money by cooking all the veggies in a tower steamer, I shall save more money, time and energy and simply pop a replay of tonight's supper in the microwave tomorrow and for an encore, we'll eat the same again. Plus! There will be only two plates and two lids to wash up

I hope we'll all settle down tomorrow night to watch Superscrimpers: Waste not, want not. The TV show is going to visit a family who spend £24K a year more than they earn. Did Channel 4 come knocking on my door? Well researchers, you should have read my blog by now so come on over, but I warn you, come in the summer or you'll need a coat! If anyone local to me, wants me to be their personal money saving expert, you know where to come and find me.

Again, thanks to everyone who dropped by, for those who commented and those who became followers. If you're still lurking and we haven't had a chat yet, then just let me know you are there. It would be lovely to hear from you. It's always lovely to see who's reading so, if you haven't already, then it would be even lovelier if you became a followers. Thanks again for dropping by,

Until tomorrow,

Froogs
xx

Think before I flush!

Hello blogland xxxxx

Just a reminder that I'll be off soon, so get signed up if you want access, see my previous blog as to how. Again, I want to thank everyone for the wonderful remarks and 228 requests to 'follow' in the last 24 hours xxxxxxxxxx I am genuinely touched. The blog usually get around 1500 hits a day and yesterday, it went over 2000. I never, ever thought, when I started this blog, that anyone would read it. I see blogging as the sane way to talk to myself. I like to capture something of everyday and reflect on it. Usually, I'm counting my many, many blessings. As so many of you read, it would be lovely if more of you would comment, but I understand if you don't.

I take a reading of each of my utility meters every week and keep a very close eye on my consumption!

I want one, I want one!

Today, the budget has given us all time to think. I'm waiting to hear the details of the 'water bill relief' for the South West.  In metered water costs £900 for a two bedroom house or flat and a house like mine......it's £1200 a year. We had a meter installed just over a year ago. We now use less and less water every quarter. Here, metered water cost £1.67 a cubic meter to buy it and £2.81 a cubic meter to dispose of it, so £4.48 a cubic meter all together. I marvel, green with envy at the people with compost toilets, rain water collection systems that they filter and use for toilets, washing themselves and clothes. I'm certainly going to investigate rain water collection for flushing our toilet. Currently, with three people in the house, we use 7.5 cubic meters of water a month. We need to reduce that even further.

You know you're frugal when you check your utility meters every week and keep a reading!!! Any one want to keep this going? You know you're frugal when......

Living Simply

Today has been simply wonderful. Friends over for lunch. Cooking with my friend. I made the soup and she made the flat breads. Before lunch, we took ourselves off to the charity shops, where I found a pair of never been worn walking boots in my size for £3 and a camping lamp for £3. We sat down last night and looked at savings we could make to have a holiday this year. We're hoping to camp for a long weekend and I'm sure we can save the money some how! A few car boot sales, some ebaying, and turning off the central heating from this weekend onwards and it should be a possibility.

Lunch and chatting with friends.

£3 walking boots.

A halogen battery powered lamp for our tent; does it get any better than this?

As a group of friends, we are all well paid professionals who have decided to get off the commercial train and take a different route, and we had so much fun rooting around charity shops and then just enjoying each other's company. We discussed how saying no to debt, no to materialism and living quietly and simply has made us much happier people. There's no going back to a life complicated by what we or anyone else owns.

I gave up the following for lent.......in 2009

In 2009, I decided I was going to live differently and I cut up my credit cards and I haven't borrowed a penny since and I have just paid back. I gave up ever having a dress from Boden. I still torture myself by looking at their website. I scan eBay and charity shops but not so much as a belt from Boden.

I've given up baths and I used to love to have one every day. They are now totally unaffordable. I've given them up, not just for Lent,but forever. Like the Boden dress I'm never going to have, I have a bath, but I can't use it!

I've given up holidays and the last one I had was in 2008. My next, if I ever manage to save up for one, will be in 2013. I consider a holiday every five years to be extravagant and I may have changed my mind when I get round to it.

I live by Bodmin Moor and I really want a proper pair of hiking boots, but I've given up on getting any of them either, like the Boden dress, I never see any decent, never been worn boots in the charity shops either! I just wear my work shoes on the moors and clean them afterwards!

I've given up the hair dresser and feel a proper Nana! with my long hair in a bun! The last time I went was in 2008, had it cut and coloured and they charged me £75 so I haven't been back since. If you don't mind, I won't be giving anything else up for Lent. I think I'm doing my bit xxxxx Love Froogs xx