Five frugal things to take us to Easter

I have been struggling to think of five frugal things this week. It feels as if I have been so tired I have barely done anything apart from work and walk the dog! With a bit of consideration though, I found some.

Poor Mr Shoestring has had covid this week – it finally got us. I am still testing negative at the moment, but will be amazed if I don’t succumb too. He is ok, though, and on the mend.

Keeping food bills low

We have had a very low spend week generally. I haven’t done a proper shop for ages and have just been using what we have and topping up here and there. We always have a decent store cupboard and I like to whittle it down every now and again so that we circulate our provisions. As a bonus I won’t have to hit Lidl over the Easter bank holiday. Am I alone in generally disliking food shopping and crowds?

Anyway, I will have to do a proper one next week as I also need washing powder and some cleaning items. I will continue to keep food bills low by meal planning and writing a shopping list.

A quick and easy budget dinner that my daughter makes herself regularly is eggs Benedict. She cheats by using a packet hollandaise sauce. I can never eat too many eggs  – I love them – so this will be on the menu at some point. I am eating low carb right now, so will make the sauce myself rather than out of a packet and will use cream.

I have a lot more ideas to keep your food bill low on my YouTube channel, here.

Still decluttering

As my eldest daughter is planning to have a stand at a boot sale this Easter Sunday, I have been having a clear out of my eBay stock to give to her. I definitely have made some mistake purchases over the years and some items have sat on my account for a long time without selling.

It has been quite satisfying to go through all of the plastic storage boxes in my office clearing things out. She is saving for a project, so I am happy to help her out. Plus it is good to whittle my stock down to items that will actually sell. As we are planning to move house next year I am having a general declutter anyway. 

It has got me going on the decluttering again. It really is very therapeutic!

Growing our own

I mentioned last week that I sowed runner beans and courgettes early and they were doing really well in the greenhouse. Then we got a cold snap a couple of weeks ago and it killed off most of the runners and damaged a few of the courgettes. So I have had to start again! There is still plenty of time, but it is a bit annoying.

I have lots of tomatoes still doing well on the window sill – far too many, in fact. This week I planted more runner beans, repotted the courgettes that survived and sowed mixed salad leaves and peppers. 

Because Justin has been poorly, the veg patch and raised beds aren’t ready to sow any seeds directly into the ground. Hopefully we can sort that during the week as the weather is so fabulous.

Gardening doesn’t need to be expensive, as I explained in this post.

Advertising the spare room

Sadly, our lodger has a new job in London and is moving on. This is a shame, as she has been great. We still want a lodger at the moment as it is handy regular income. So I have updated the advert and put in on Spare Room. 

It can take months to find the right person – we don’t want to live with just anyone! So, without that income, we will have to be super frugal for the time being. 

We did consider taking in language students again, as we used to. However, lodgers are so much easier and less of a tie. However, if you want someone from time to time hosting language students is a lot of fun, as I explained in this post.

Increasing my freelance income

I think I have mentioned in previous blogs that I am making an effort to increase my freelance writing. After all, writing is something I really enjoy doing, so it makes sense  to make it my focus. 

You may have seen a couple of my recent writing efforts for Mouthy Money and Money Magpie – I currently write monthly for both sites. They are well worth perusing if you want to increase your personal finance savvy. Check them out!

So these are my five frugal things for this week. What have you achieved?

I’m linking up with this Cass, Emma and Becky in this week’s ‘Frugal Friday’ linky.