My frugal week 14/1/22

I have headed this my frugal week, but actually this month hasn’t been frugal at all to date. I finally loosened the purse strings a little to buy some things we needed in the sales. Nothing too exciting overall – for example, one of my purchases was a new clothes airer. I know how to treat myself!

On top of that, my daughter moved into a new flat. Being somewhat cash strapped, as she is between jobs, I have helped her with a few small expenses.

But the purchases in the sales were expected and planned for, and the rest we can pretty much cash flow if we are super frugal from now on.

Tracking my spending

I am also tracking every single purchase in my budget book*. This has been a worthwhile investment, and didn’t really cost me anything as I used some gift vouchers that I had. Sure, I could have used an old notepad as I always  have in the past, but I have found having a dedicated book sitting in a prominent place reminds me to keep it up to date.

As 2022 is likely to be the ‘year of the squeeze’, as I said in this post, tracking my spending is extremely important.

Making stock

This week I finally had time to make some stock from our Christmas turkey carcass. I boiled it up for about 3 hours using this method, then strained it. Then I  sauteed some celery, potatoes and a bag of mixed vegetables from the freezer before adding some of the stock and seasoning.

I went off to watch TV, fell asleep on the sofa, and when I woke up I realised the soup was still bubbling away and had been for about two and a half hours! Fortunately it wasn’t burnt, just rather concentrated. But this turned out to be a happy accident as it tasted absolutely amazing. A long slow cook just brought out all of the flavours.

Funnily enough I keep coming across the idea of bone broth, which is basically what this stock is, and how good it is for you. I am going to make a point of making it every week using bones from the butcher, or poultry bones if we have any. It seems bone broth has a lot of healthy benefits, including improving digestion and gut health, as this article explains.

Meal planning from the pantry

I am still writing a weekly meal plan on my magnetic meal planner* – another purchase made with gift vouchers! It is a good buy. Because it is stuck on the fridge, we can see at a glance what we need to prep or get out of the freezer, etc. An improvement on the scraps of paper I used to use, which seemed to disappear sometimes!

Here is this week’s plan. I have tried as much as possible to use food we already had in to help keep the grocery bill down. Hence the turkey stock! But it also incorporates two of the packs of chicken I got from Asda for 20p each and some of the my whole salmon, reduced from £18 to £3.88.

Sale price wellies

I have been hoping to find a pair of wellies in the charity shop since I realised that mine had split a month or so ago. Sadly none popped up in my size. I wanted to get a good pair this time, some that weren’t going to split after only a year. They had to be comfortable too, as I walk in them quite a lot with the dog.

We popped into the garden centre and found they had some in the sale. They started out at a ridiculously expensive £30, but were reduced to £18. Hopefully this means they will be better quality!!

I opted for plain ones this time, as the patterned ones seem to be the ones that break easily. We immediately went on a long, muddy walk with Archie and they were so comfy and dry, so I am very please with them so far.

New light

The one thing that was missing from our bedroom transformation was fitting the new chandelier. As we needed the light moved into the centre of the room, I thought we might need an electrician. However, Mr S and his brother managed to do it themselves. They both have an engineering background and weren’t worried about moving it safely. It is now in position and working, and looks a whole lot nicer. 

So that’s our frugal week. How has yours been?

This post contains affiliate links, marked with *. If you click through and make a purchase, I will earn a small commission. Thanks.

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