Frugal 'Good' Friday

Last year I published my recipe for Hot Cross Buns on this blog and we'll be making them again today. If you need the recipe then you can get it by clicking for the posts from 2016 and then going to the list from March of that year. MasterShoestring is helping with the making and baking this year.

Apart from making our own buns we are also planning a very, frugal Easter celebration thanks to a very generous gift of chocolate from my sister. My sister lives in Australia and does not often see us, so she has sent the most ENORMOUS box full of Thorntons chocolate rabbits to help us celebrate. I am looking forward to hiding them all over the garden for the traditional hunt on Sunday, absolutely no need to provide any more chocolate !

This week has been all about staying home and working in the garden, we didn't go anyway apart from the airport to collect MasterShoestring, back again from the USA. He has been so tired that he has not felt like eating ! The silver lining has been savings on groceries and petrol. I've finished the spring cleaning and used homemade window cleaning spray when I ran out and rewashed and reused all our micro fibre cloths and rags everyday.

We also made muffins from pumpkin puree frozen at Halloween and a loaf cake from last year's blackcurrants, also frozen. I used up some leftover Christmas wine in a spaghetti bolognaise which was extended using 1/2 cup of red lentils. I also made homemade garlic bread from reduced pita breads to have with the leftovers one night.

I read a free magazine and 2 free papers, as well as downloading lots of free Kindle books. I've now got so many that I decided I better read some before borrowing anymore books from the library. I ordered 3 more books for my course for free using Swagbucks vouchers.

We also exercised for free using online videos and went to the cinema for free. The new Smartmeter showed us that the solar array is working even when it is cloudy and is enough during the day to cover all our background electricity consumption and have some leftover which goes to heat the hot water. It was great to see that the array is still helping with energy usage even when it is cloudy !

I'm looking forward to doing lots of Easter baking with all the ingredients we have already stockpiled. Lots of supermarkets including Asda, Morrisons and Lidl are offering special prices on selected vegetables over the Easter weekend, so I'm planning to take advantage and store some in the freezer, carrots are as low as 19p !