So I changed the picture for Frugal Friday this week as it has certainly been a snowy week ! No school or college yesterday but MissShoestring struggled in to London to work. Brr, it has been cold. Most nights this week I have left the central heating on overnight just to keep it ticking over so the condensate pipe won't freeze and leave us with no heating in the morning. Not very frugal but I would rather be warm and save money elsewhere ! However, last night it got so cold that the pipe froze anyway and I had to get up and thaw it out this morning ! The house was freezing, but at least knowing what to do meant that I got the heating back on and it's warming up nicely now !
The snow has meant no journeys out so that has saved a bit of petrol at least ! Before the snow came I made a menu plan for March and shopped for it at Aldi, picking up a few missing items from Tesco. This has meant that we are well stocked up over the bad weather.
This week we made granola, bread, soup, quiche, yoghurt, tortillas, salsa, refried beans, curry, chapattis. mashed potatoes and crumble from scratch and also ate 2 meals from leftovers stored in the freezer. I got a free paper after supermarket shopping and when I finished reading it rolled it up to make kindling for the wood stove. We have also used free wood in the stove all week.
I got 2 free packets of seeds from the free subscription to 'Kitchen Garden' magazine and downloaded several free ebooks. I also got 5 books from the library and read a few free magazines from the library website. I am really enjoying that service as it means that I have access to all the magazines that the county subscribes to, not just the ones stocked by the local library.
The final frugal thing I did this week was save MrShoestring some money on his union membership by switching to another one. The new union has the same services as the old one but offers a discount for part-time working and a special new member offer of only paying £10 until September. That should save us just under £50 and then the monthly cost will be a £1 cheaper each month. This union also offers discounts on services and purchases so we meant be able to save a bit more once the membership card comes through.
I hope you had a good week and are staying warm and cosy !
All of your cooking helps keep the house warm, I would imagine. When I use the self-clean option on the stove it brings the inside temperature up eleven degrees! (We live in a 600sq. ft. home.) We still have a lot of snow on the ground but our outside temperatures are staying in the 30’s this week. It feels like a heatwave!
ReplyDeleteDebbie
Yes, cooking certainly raises the temperature in the kitchen ! Glad to hear it's getting a bit warmer near you !
ReplyDeleteYou have a beautiful house.
ReplyDeleteThank you, that is so kind of you ! But a lot of things have been wrong with it recently ! MrShoestring was on the roof recently fixing a leak!
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