Five frugal things to kick off October

It’s been a wild week of weather, with lots of wind and rain punctuated by spurts of warm sunshine. Cardigan on, cardigan off, leave the house with a coat and umbrella or just go out in a T shirt? It’s hard to make a decision! Autumn is well and truly here. It’s actually a season I rather enjoy. There’s nothing like a leafy Autumn walk on a sunny day. So here are this week’s five frugal things to kick off October.

Making the most of the sunshine

On Wednesday I decided it was wise to make the most of the sunshine. I was working all day from home, but managed to do a load of laundry early and get it outside on the line.

I love the smell of line dried washing. It did dry too, but I finished it off in the airing cupboard to make sure.

I also took a break mid morning and sat in the garden with a cup of tea for a while. I do appreciate these simple pleasures, and who knows what the weather will do next!

I have pulled out some jumpers ready for the chilly days and evenings. Better to layer up rather than immediately put on the heating, although we have had the fire on a couple of nights.

A bit of spice

I mentioned in a previous post that we have a good crop of pumpkins this year. This wasn’t exactly by design.  We got the courgette seedlings muddled up with the pumpkins and grew loads more than we intended.

Never  mind – I love pumpkins! The ripe ones are mostly quite small, just big enough for a pot of soup. We do have some giant ones on the way, but I will tackle those later!

Anyway, I decided to spice things up a bit with a Thai spiced pumpkin soup. It uses Thai red curry paste, ginger and coconut milk and made a nice change from our usual roasted pumpkin soup. I didn’t have any lemon grass and the ginger was the dried variety, but it was nice nonetheless.

Using up the tomatoes

We still have tomatoes ripening both in and outside the greenhouse.

I have actually kept on top of them this year, probably because I now eat lunch at home. Most days I have them in some form, but my favourite way is to lightly grill them with a little dried oregano, salt and pepper on top.

They taste so superior to shop bought tomatoes and I shall miss them when the crop is finished!

Dying my hair

For years I have been dying my own hair. I just touch up the roots each time to stop it getting too dry.

I was annoyed as I thought I still had half a box left but I didn’t. Usually I buy it really cheaply from Home Bargains but didn’t want to drive right across town just for that.

I popped in a couple of shops near me and they didn’t have any in my shade. Eventually I found two for £11 in a little Boots store. Loads more than I usually pay, but still much cheaper than getting it done at the hairdressers!

Whenever I bring this subject up I get lots of women telling me they ditched the dye altogether and have embraced the silver! I am tempted but I’m not sure I can face growing it slowly out.

There is a thing on Instagram under the hashtag #grombre showing lots of women proudly displaying their grey roots growing out. What do you think? Have you welcomed the silver yet?

This is what frugal living looks like

I am determined that October is going to be a super frugal low spend month. In fact, I started series of posts on Instagram about what frugal living looks like and plan to put a new photo on each day in October to show my money saving achievements and daily habits. Come over and have a look!

I also wrote a post about living a frugal life, here. I wanted to show that frugal living can be hard work but is also a satisfying lifestyle. Saving money every day means you can get by on a limited income, or save for a goal, or even pay off debt.

I also had a little star moment on Twitter in the week, filmed at the SHOMOS blog awards and shared by Pension Bee. If you want a laugh at me admitting my biggest money mistake see here ….

How has your week been? Have you managed some frugality?

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