Five frugal things for Spring

The British weather is being more confusing than ever. Last week we were walking around in T-shirts then yesterday it turned very cold again. We had snow and hail! The wind was bitter too. Nevertheless it is officially spring…. Here are five frugal things for Spring that I have done this week.

New writing job

Firstly, and I am so happy about this, I got myself a new monthly column, writing about frugality and money saving for Money Magpie. You can see my first column here.

I am trying to expand my freelance writing at the moment, so this was a great boost. I also write regularly for Mouthy Money. Writing is something I enjoy doing, so if I can earn a bit of money doing it, what could be better?

If you subscribe to Money Magpie you will find out when my columns appear, plus you can read the amazing array of great personal finance articles that they publish.

Growing our own

If you read my blog regularly, you will know we have gone back to growing a bit of our own food again this year. It seems sensible with inflation going through the roof.  You can see a video I made about this here.

The tomato seedlings have been doing well on the kitchen window sill, but this week the runner beans and courgettes in the greenhouse popped their little heads up too.

I did attempt to start a tray of sweet peppers in the greenhouse as well, but as it has become so cold again that I have bought those inside now.

I still haven’t got around to sowing the cucumbers, and I need to do that. It has been a busy week, and this weekend is busy too. If the sun shines I will pop out and sort those this afternoon.

A bit of DIY

Mr Shoestring has been busy in the garden this week. Firstly he made a new picket fence to replace the one that got blown over and broken during Storm Eunice. 

He made it from scratch and painted it to keep the cost down.

Then, just to show how clever and thrifty he really is, he created two raised beds from, well, an actual bed! He and his brother helped to clear some furniture from his old aunt’s house a couple of weeks ago, and the bed came from there. It fell apart when they moved it so was no good to sleep on. 

This is great for our veggie patch. We have such a problem with bind weed that raised beds are the way to go. We can put weed smothering sheets underneath them and fill them with top soil and compost.

The fire is back on!

We thought we had finished with our wood burner until the autumn, but this crazy weather – and the cost of energy bills rising by at least 50% from TODAY – has meant it is back on. I am sitting in front of it as I type, with snow blowing horizontally outdoors. It’s so cozy.

I am so glad we have an alternative form of heating. Not just to keep the bills down, but also as a back up in case the boiler breaks down or we have a power cut. If we move next year, we need a house with a chimney so that we can install one, if there’s not one there already.

Still experimenting with Keto food

I mentioned last week that I am eating low carb at the moment and cooking a lot from scratch to keep costs low. This week I made some Keto bread rolls, which were pretty good. OK, they are not as good as a loaf of fresh, crusty bread, but they are handy to have.

The other thing I made, that was a bit of a disaster, was a fat head pizza. The base was supposed to be cheesy and doughy, but actually just tasted gritty. As I know other people have made this successfully, including Miki who I interviewed last week about how she does the Keto diet on a budget, I think this was my fault.

As I was melting my mozzarella with some soft cheese, there was a knock at the door as a friend popped by. When I got back to my cheese five minutes later it had liquified and then solidified again. I think that was the problem, so I will have another go at fathead pizza this week.

My shopping bill was about the same when I went to Lidl yesterday, so I am happy that I am sticking to budget. Let’s hope I can carry on this way. 

I am doing it to see if it helps with my fibromyalgia, which has been bad of late. If not, I don’t know what else to try! I have done FODMAP and tried plant based. The first was helpful but restrictive and the second actually made me feel worse. We shall see. I think it needs to be anti-inflammatory, which usually means avoiding all processed foods, sugar and gluten. This is naturally the case with keto, so in theory it should work. 

I will let you know how I get on. Have a great week and don’t forget to check out all the other things I have been up to on my YouTube channel. I publish two videos a week and it would be great if you would all subscribe. Did you manage some frugal things for spring? Let me know in the comments.

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