Five frugal things as we head into Autumn

And just like that, summer is done, and we are heading into Autumn. Here are my five frugal things for  the past week.

Hey frugalistas! It’s been a week of mad and interesting weather as we move into Autumn. We went straight from a mini heatwave/Indian summer to rain and storms, and now back to sunshine, albeit with chilly mornings and evenings. I had a glorious walk down to the quay this morning with Archie, so I thought I would share.

I actually love Autumn. It’s hard to beat a sunny woodland walk when all the leaves are on the turn. I also enjoy snuggling up as the evenings get darker to watch something good on the TV. A recent series I enjoyed was Love & Death on ITV, about an ‘ordinary housewife’, Candy Montgomery,  who did something quite out of the ordinary. No spoilers here, but I recommend it if you are looking for a drama to get your teeth into.

However, I haven’t sat around to watch TV much. We are off on our holidays next week, and there were some jobs I wanted to get done before we go away. So I have been busy! Anyway, here are my five frugal things for the past week.

Making the best of the harvest

As we are away next week, I have been in the garden picking runner beans, tomatoes, courgettes, squashed and peppers. I don’t want them to go to waste whilst we are away. My daughters will be here, but they can only eat so much.

The tomatoes were a particular concern, because a lot of them are still green. Also the pesky slugs have started eating them too. I picked and froze all of the ripe ones, then picked the remaining green ones to ripen on a sunny window sill. Hopefully, by the time we return they will be rosy and ready to eat.

A lot of the courgettes have been frozen too, but we will eat the peppers and runner beans before we go away.

Baba ganoush

I had three aubergine plants (eggplants) that were given to me, but only one bore any fruit. They are quite small, but apparently this variety is meant to be little!

I picked them a few days ago, before the slugs started on them too, so I thought I had better do something with them this morning. I decided to make baba ganoush, a garlicky Middle Eastern dip. I remember eating it years ago when I was a volunteer on a kibbutz.

I didn’t have quite enough to make a huge quantity, so I added a couple of courgettes too. This will do for today’s lunch on a bit of toast. It’s delicious! The recipe I used is here.

Buying on Vinted 

I bought a nice, lightweight summer jumpsuit on Vinted the other day. Yes, I know summer is gone, but I will wear it next year. I love easy, loose-fitting clothing when it is warm.

Vinted is so good for finding bargains. The prices are really low. The best thing is, as I am selling quite a few bits, I just use the credit I build up from my sales to buy new stuff. 

My jumpsuit cost me £5.95 plus postage. It’s not the best photo as I have washed it and put int on the line already – this is the seller’s pic.

More budget DIY

I finally recommenced by efforts to revamp the kitchen and dining area this week. The last unit got painted a sage green to match one of the others, and I put a first coat of white paint on the walls and skirting boards. 

We have been struggling to find a really pale green that would go with the scheme. I bought so many paint samples that looked just right, until I got them on the wall. They were all too dark!

However, I ‘think’ we have cracked it, so plan to order the paint so it’s here for our return. I promise you that one day soon you will actually get to see the final result, rather than just little bits and pieces.

Cost of living cosmetics

My daughter asked me to buy her a couple of birthday presents from a website called Give Me Cosmetics. Whilst I was there, I had a quick look around and found these ‘cost-of-living beauty hampers‘, which looked excellent value. As I am already buying for Christmas (only three more paydays, guys!), I bought two of them for my nieces. (I can say this as I am 100% sure they never read my blog!).

Each contained 11 items for £19, with an individual retail price of £72. They still have them on there, but probably not much longer, so be quick if you are interested!

Have a great week and please do share your five frugal things (or however many you managed) in the comments.