Phew what a hot week it turned out to be! I hope you aren’t sweltering too much. I have my little fan on in my office as I type this and all the windows open a crack to get a nice through draught. I don’t want all the doors open, though, as I am sick of the flies! Here are my five frugal things for a week of hot weather.
Drinking water and making ice
I am drinking loads of water in this heat. Whatever the weather I tend to stay hydrated, but the last time I went to the spine clinic they told me that keeping up your fluid intake is really important for the health of your discs. So now I am drinking even more!
I don’t buy bottled water (all that plastic – no thanks) or even bother with a filter. We have perfectly good, safe drinking water in the UK and I don’t know why people have to make it more complicated than turning on the tap.
I used to buy bags of ready made ice, but in a bid to reduce single use plastic I have stopped doing that now. I constantly have a tray of ice cubes in the freezer and tip them into an old ice cream container every now and again so we always have some. A couple of slices of lemon and I am good to go.
Best of all, this costs nothing except the price of the lemon.
Preserving the harvest
You may have spotted on Instagram or seen my recipe post, but I used up some of the redcurrant harvest making a batch of redcurrant jelly. It is totally delicious, although I am not eating much of it myself at the moment. I am still on Slimming World and it is far too many Syns!
6lb of fruit made nine pots of jelly, so they should last us a while.
Picking the bounty
As well as the currants, we now have courgettes, chard and runner beans coming thick and fast. I need to make a batch of courgette soup before we go away next month. I am hoping my lovely lodger will pick (and eat) some whilst we are away.
There are a lot of green tomatoes and some small cucumbers so we should have those soon. This is good as I am eating a ton of tomatoes at the moment. My favourite Slimming World lunch is eggs with grilled tomatoes and air fried potatoes or a bit of bacon occasionally.
Bought SW books
I gained a pound last week. It wasn’t that I fell off the Slimming World wagon and went crazy, but we had people here, I was busy and I didn’t focus as much as usual. I need to take my own advice about staying motivated on Slimming World!
To counter this and refocus, I stayed at my SW meeting. Whilst I was there I decided to purchase a couple of books to inspire me with my meal planning. They were only a fiver each, which I think is excellent for recipe books with such clear instructions and nice photos.
I went for Best Loved Extra Easy Recipes, which are the most popular recipes with SW members, and Slimming World’s Fakeaways, as I have been experimenting with these anyway. I am going to try some of the kebab recipes as I can add some chunks of courgette to the skewers.
You can get both of these books on Amazon
Mid week boot sale
I don’t usually go to the mid week boot sale as it tends to be full of traders. However, now that the school holidays have broken up it will start to be used more by parents getting rid of their clutter. These are the best ones for the bargains.
I went on Wednesday and got myself a new pair of Clark’s Springers sandals for £2 and a really pretty Per Una top for £1. As well as the usual ton of stuff to sell on eBay, of course!
Love a good car boot. What have you been up to during this week of hot weather?
I’m linking up with this Cass, Emma and Becky in this week’s ‘Frugal Friday’ linky.
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Julia says
The kids (and DH!) were astounded when after complaining about the lack of ice in the house I pointed out that the plastic handle / grip on our freezer drawers, comes off and are actually ice trays!!
An excellent design as they don’t take up any space inside the drawers!
shoestringjane@outlook.com says
That does sound like a good design. Mine freezes it really quickly so I am making tons of it and sipping iced water all day
becky says
Am so with you on the tap water..we are so lucky we CAN drink it in this country so we should! thansk for linking! #5frugalthings
Kim says
Look at the website Slimming Eats it’s fantastic
shoestringjane@outlook.com says
I will – thanks!
Joleisa says
Girl! You’ve got your own ice maker on the go.
It’s hot here too and we use up so much ice! We also freeze our own. I do agree that the quality of the drinking water is usually good, so no need for bottled water. I am in Connecticut though and I’d hate to get unwell from drinking tap water that my system isn’t used to. So for that reason, I’ve been drinking bottled water. I do feel bad about the single use plastic, and there’s a lot of it at the end of the week, but after toying with the idea of boiling a big pot of water each night, the plastic bottles won. Like I say, in the UK, I don’t buy them so…
Well done on your harvest and on using up the produce too.
Looking forward to seeing what you get up to next week.
Betta from daVille says
I grew up in Connecticut and always drank water straight from the tap. On all of my trips to UK also drank water from the tap; you’d be fine.