Heading into Autumn: Five Frugal Things

The weather has changed so much over the past few days, you can really feel that we are heading into autumn!

After saying how disorganised I felt in last week’s post, I managed to sort myself out this week. I feel so much better for keeping on top of things. This is one aspect of working from home you rarely hear about.

Getting organised

I tidied my desk area of all of the paperwork that needed sorting out. It made me quite excited when I found this sweet little noticeboard in the charity shop for £1 – I only have a small space on the wall to put one and this fits perfectly. Next job is to actually attach it to the wall!

I did a clean and tidy through the whole house and organised my eBay piles into ‘list now – autumn/winter’ and ‘put aside for spring/summer 2020’. If I run out of stock I may list some of the summer stuff anyway (on the basis that eBay is an international marketplace and there is always someone going on holiday).

I also did all of the silly little tasks that it is easy to forget, such as submitting my meter readings to Good Energy and booking an appointment at the dentist. It’s good to feel more in control.

Making the best of the harvest

We are still reaping the rewards of our efforts to grow some of our own fruit and vegetables. The courgettes have pretty much finished, but I got a couple this week and made ratatouille. However, as we are heading into autumn, things are slowing down.

The tomatoes are still coming as well, although they are finishing in the greenhouse. Some of those outside are still green and we haven’t had a lot of sunshine to ripen the last ones. I will bring them in soon and ripen them on the window sill.

Our plum crop has been fantastic this year. Mr S loves them in crumble, but I don’t want to put back all of the weight I lost on Slimming World so have been simply stewing them.

I made a big batch in the week with brown sugar, cinnamon and ginger, which were absolutely gorgeous. We have a ton of pumpkins too. Too many for just us I think, so I shall give some away for Halloween.

We need to make the best of what is left as it really saves a lot of money. I have barely bought any veg for months.

I do give a crap

We have been buying our toilet roll from Who Gives a Crap for a while now. We get a box of 48 rolls for £36 every few months or so.

Initially I got a free trial box and wasn’t convinced they were worth the expense, so immediately cancelled the subscription. I thought I could save money by buying recycled rolls from Sainsburys.

However, they are double rolls and last for ages and ages and I actually think I am spending less on loo roll. Once we had started to use them we realised that they were incredible value, as well as being more eco-friendly.

Unlike those from the supermarket, they also come in zero plastic – each roll is individually wrapped in paper. You are probably thinking what I did – surely that’s a huge waste of paper? However, this layer of recycled paper helps keep them dry and safe in transit. We had a box left by the courier in a safe place but it rained before we got to it. They all came out fine and dry.

They also look pretty in their little wrappings and I keep them to use as packing material. You could wrap presents in them, compost them or just recycle them. The loo roll tubes always go in our compost heap anyway.

The biggest issue is finding somewhere to store them, but I use an old laundry basket with a lid to keep them out of the way. Last time I bought some of their big rolls of kitchen paper too, which are great.

If you want to give them a try, you can use this code to get 10% off – OBFRIENDS. I don’t get anything for this, by the way! Just happy to spread the word.

Ignoring care labels

Who are these people that buy items of clothing such as tops and trousers that are dry clean only? How crazy is that?

It costs a fortune to dry clean things, as well as involving some nasty toxic chemicals, so why anyone would produce a garment that you might need cleaning after wearing just once of twice I just don’t understand.

I ignore nearly all of them for anything except coats that are lined and contain wool and some silk dresses. In my experience, almost everything can be either carefully hand washed or put on a gentle machine cycle.

Karen Millen seems the worst for this and I wash loads of things before selling them. They turn out fine. This week I washed two ‘dry clean only’ dresses and they came up a treat.

Meet Debs the Dummy

I no longer work alone! Not sure if this is one of my five frugal things or not, but I do think my new mannequin was a bargain at £20 from Amazon! I have been using a plastic hanging dummy to photograph clothes for eBay for a while, but this one is much better.

Debs the Dummy is light so I can move her around if I need to, size 12-14, which is better for larger sizes, and is made of polystyrene so I can pin things to her. Some similar ones were almost double the price, so pleased with my new pal!

How do you feel about so suddenly heading into autumn? It will soon be Christmas….

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

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