This week has been a catch up week after our lovely holiday in Wales. We have been rushed off our feet doing jobs! This is the price you pay for time away when you are self employed, I think. However, I haven’t spent much money so it has been a frugal week.
Catching up on the cleaning
When we don’t keep on top of the cleaning and vacuuming, Shoestring Cottage soon gets full of cat hair. We have two cats and they shed bucket loads of fur at this time of the year. Well, at all times of the year actually – it’s just worse in the summer!
I have been catching up on the cleaning and have done every room apart from the lounge and my office thoroughly. They are on my to do list for today.
I have also been making more of my thrifty and eco-friendly lemon cleaning spray. Regular readers may remember that I put the lemons in vinegar when I made my home made lemonade recently. Well, I couldn’t waste the peels, could I? They have been sitting in vinegar for a couple of weeks and are now ready to be strained, diluted with water and put into one of the glass spray bottles
Prepping for the boot sale
We have a shed full of stuff that we need to shift at a boot sale (or two). However, every time we have planned it the weather has been awful so we have postponed. Now I am worried we are going to run out of summer before it is done!
Looking at the forecast for this weekend, it looks to be fair, so we are going for it. I am waiting for my oldest daughter to let me know which day is best for her as she is my assistant (and also has loads to sell).
I have been through some more stuff donated to me by my sister as potential eBay stock. Some of it is excellent and some is more boot sale fodder. We have so much! It should bring in quite a bit of money, so that’s good.
I have been Mrs Hinched!
My youngest daughter has been here for the week. She has just finished her second year at university, but can’t come back for the whole summer as she has a job. I don’t think she will ever move back here, actually. She is at uni in Brighton and absolutely loves it.
She is the only one of my three daughters who is remotely tidy. I blame the parents! She kept tutting at the state of our larder cupboard. It is absolutely rammed with food, including our Brexit stockpile (I know!).
I haven’t had any opportunity to do anything but tut at it myself this week, but she rose to the challenge and decided to give it a tidy. Now it looks as if Mrs Hinch has been in. All the cans and bottles are in perfect rows and I am scared to touch anything!
I do think it is important to keep on top of what you have in foodwise, and I do audits of the cupboards, fridge and freezer pretty often usually. This ensures we use stuff up before their use by or best before dates, not that I am too bothered about sticking to the latter. It does also mean I dont’ keep buying more items that I already have, so it saves money and helps me to meal plan.
She is a little treasure! I wonder if I can persuade her to sort the attic before she leaves…
Yummy fruit salad
I have been looking at different ways to eat fruit. Even if you love the stuff, it can get a bit boring eating it plain all day. I love melon, so I decided to make a yummy Sunshine Fruit Salad featuring this, oranges, grapes and a bit of ginger in it. It is even Slimming World friendly.
I worked out that it cost around 40p a portion with most of the ingredients purchased from Lidl.
Greenhouse treasure
The tomatoes have finally started ripening in the greenhouse! We have courgettes as well, which means I have to continually come up with new and exciting ways to eat them. Not always easy….
Actually, I love tomatoes grilled with a bit of salt and pepper and dried oregano on top. This is a frequent choice for lunch or breakfast with eggs and occasionally a bit of bacon.
Something I will be putting on this week’s meal plan is this courgette and tomato eggy bake. Perfect for this time of the year when we have a glut. I can also easily make this Slimming World friendly.
Receipt hog
As I enjoyed using the Job Spotter app so much, I thought I would try Receipt Hog. My daughter uses this and kept pinching all my receipts to scan in and add to her tally. Not any more, as I am using it myself!
It is a market research tool and you can earn coins from snapping your receipts for groceries, health and beauty products, etc. So obviously the more you buy, the more receipts you submit and the more you earn. However, my daughter told me that she has been doing it for a while and has only managed about a fiver so far.
It’s not going to make you rich, but it’s money for nothing and takes seconds, so why not?
I hope you have had a good, frugal week. Let me know in the comments what you have been up to.
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I’m linking up with this Cass, Emma and Becky in this week’s ‘Frugal Friday’ linky.
Becky says
OOh I am going to try your lemon cleaning spray! Have a fab weekend!
Julia says
My cans and jars are in nice straight rows like that too – all grouped together in order!!
I wonder if our uni daughters returned to the wrong homes by mistake, as mine is the complete opposite of me and is a real Messy Jessy!
I only have one tomato plant that I got for £2 at the May Day fair which has now taken over the clematis and sweet peas in the patio container I put it in with, but even though it’s outside I have loads of tomatoes on it and at least half a dozen ripe and ready for picking (2nd picking)!
The last time I grew them outside I picked all the green ones that were never going to ripen and shut them in an old shoebox on the counter, where they continued to happily ripen well into October. There was not one tomato that ended up being thrown out!
Fingers crossed for the weather this weekend.
shoestringjane@outlook.com says
That’s a good idea! I will try that
Su says
I have 3 tomato plants, which are struggling outdoors. The tiny green tomatoes are dropping off, the weather is just so wet, cold and awful that they don’t really stand a chance. Likewise the pepper plant I bought in Aldi. However, I have found cobnuts! I’m very excited by this and will go foraging for them in a couple of weeks time. There also seems to be a prolific crop of apples too, so I intend foraging those as well.
Kyla says
You can use courgettes grated in quick reads cakes and brownies.
shoestringjane@outlook.com says
I need to do this! Got a couple of recipes but don’t remember if I have ever actually made a courgette cake