Frugal Friday

Quite a busy week here with all the " back to school" stuff and lots of cleaning and decluttering before my course starts again.

In between all that we are making an effort to stick to the new budget, not so easy when we discover that MasterShoestring is having to buy his own A Level textbooks ! However, a few more bundles of books have been sent off to Ziffit so that should help to offset the cost.

I also washed out plastic bags for re-use and went through the collection of plastic tubs and threw away all the broken, old ones so now I know exactly what we have and can use them all.

We did lots of cooking from scratch, with lots of it in the slow cooker, so that I could get on with other jobs whilst saving on energy costs. Things made included:- tortillas, chicken stock, lentil soup, bread, roast chicken, pizza, soup and spaghetti bolognaise. I also made waffles and pancakes for breakfast.

I made and froze quite a bit of apple juice using the steam juice maker and was delighted at how well this worked.

I planted some lettuce and rocket seeds in the hope of extending the garden season and used salt on the weeds on the paths. We also harvested, lettuce, marrows, cucumber and a tomato. I used the marrows to make 2 pots of marrow and apple chutney using apples from the trees and other ingredients that we already had on hand.

I used a gift card to buy a Physics book that MasterShoestring needed and got several other books out of local libraries including one I need for my course. I didn't pay reservation fees as I was passing the libraries on the way to school anyway.

Finally, I reorganised the utility room and the kitchen and ordered a few odd bowls and plates to replace ones that were chipped, ordering just what we needed was far cheaper than buying a whole new set.

I hope you had a good frugal week too !