Hello and welcome to my round up of my frugal week, where I aim to show you five things I have achieved that have saved me money or have cost nothing at all. The little things really do add up; a fiver saved here and there can combine to make a significant difference to your bank balance when you are living on a small income. Here are the fun, frugal and free things that have made up my week.
Second hand gifting
As I am buying nothing but second hand during 2021, I have to be really organised about presents for people. I have quite a large family and, although we don’t buy for each other at Christmas (other than a Secret Santa gift), we do buy birthday presents.
My budget for this is around £30, so although I am buying second hand I am still spending the same amount on everyone. As I have said before, second hand gifting is a challenge, but it is also a lot more fun that sending the same tired old gift voucher. Ok, an Amazon voucher is very useful, but it’s not very imaginative, is it?
I bought this beautiful vase for my mum for her birthday next month in the charity shop. Isn’t it gorgeous? I was tempted to keep it! It was only a fiver, but I will fill it with some lovely flowers before I give it to her.
A trickier challenge this month was my 26 year old, super smart and professional nephew. I really struggled with ideas and his mum and brothers couldn’t come up with anything either. In the end, I had a brain wave and bought him a gift voucher from a trendy online shop, Beyond Retro, which sells vintage and second hand designer and sports clothing. Ideal for him hopefully and I think I will use the same idea for my other two nephews.
I discussed this in my latest YouTube offering, which you can see here. I would love it if you would come over, like and subscribe!
Free exercise
Walking the dog twice daily for the past year has really paid dividends for my fitness. I have noticed that I have improved stamina and strength, especially when walking up hills.
Walking costs nothing, you get lots of fresh air and you can see a multitude of interesting things on your way that you would miss in a vehicle. It’s the perfect fun, frugal activity.
I track my walks on my Fitbit and before that I used Map My Walk on my phone. Sometimes I can’t believe how far I have travelled on foot over the course of the week.
Now that the weather has improved I am setting my target at 15,000 steps a day, rather than the usual 10,000.
Freezer audit
This week I did an audit of the food in our two freezers to make sure older items were being used first. They were a total disorganised mess! I spent 10 minutes creating some order and put all the meat and protein together, bread and cakes in one drawer, vegetables in another, etc.
It made me realise that I don’t need to do a food shop at all this week. Other than milk and pet food we really don’t need to buy anything. It also made me realise that we still have a ton of redcurrants that we grew. I need to make another batch of redcurrant jelly.
As you can see, one is packed and the other is almost empty. As soon as I can squeeze everything into one I will defrost the other and then vice versa. As we currently don’t have a lodger or any produce from the garden, we could probably make do with one freezer for now.
I have written my meal plan based on what I found in the freezer and will be publishing that tomorrow.
Bedroom makeover planning
My next DIY project will be our bedroom. It hasn’t been painted in about seven years and is looking a bit tatty. Firstly, though, there is some Archie damage to the bottom of the wardrobe that needs to be repaired now that he has stopped eating up the house!
I have decided to paint the whole lot white to keep it bright and fresh and focus the colour on the bed linen and cushions. This is pretty much what we have now. However, I will also use Frenchic paint to upcycle the boring pine wooden furniture. I am thinking Dazzle Me white for the wardrobe and large chest of drawers and the bedside tables in a very pale pink; maybe Nougat, like this photo from the Frenchic website.
I love this paint! This isn’t an affiliate link, although I wish it was because I am always recommending it :).
Using up the bread ends
I never like throwing away the ends of bread and always shove them in the freezer for bread crumbs or bread pudding. However, there is only so much of either we can eat.
I made a huge batch of bread pudding this week though, using this recipe from my old Cranks cook book. We ate one lot and I took the other half to Mr S’s niece, now that we are allowed to meet outside. We caught up with her and her husband with their baby girl. As she was born during lock down we have missed out a bit but will be catching up over the summer for sure. So cute!
When I did the freezer audit I found loads more bread ends lurking – the equivalent of a whole loaf! I think from now on I am going to make a point of eating them in sandwiches or as toast. There is nothing wrong with them, so I don’t know why I have got into the habit of only eating the inner slices! Do you eat the bread ends?
Don’t forget to come and join the fun, frugal chat on my Facebook group. We are nearly at 1,000 subscribers now and it’s such a warm and friendly group.
I’m linking up with this Cass, Emma and Becky in this week’s ‘Frugal Friday’ linky.
Niki says
I generally don’t eat the bread ends, but toasted , they go well with soup.
shoestringjane@outlook.com says
They would make good giant croutons too, cut into two or four
Jo says
I have taken to drying spare bread as breadcrumbs. That way I can just keep in it jam jars and save the freezer space for something else. I find that a small sprinkle of dried breadcrumbs on yoghurt adds a lovely bit of crunch, which I love.