My inexpertly carved pumpkin lantern!
I love writing my weekly five frugal things post. It makes me appreciate the small things we do each week to stay on track and in control of our finances. This week we are going for good, old fashioned thrift.
This week I have been working part time hours. I love it! When I have time I do so many more of the little creative cooking activities that I enjoy. I haven’t been able to achieve as much as normal as I am struggling still with fibromyalgia and a trapped nerve in my neck. Not being hunched over a desk constantly has definitely improved the situation though, so hopefully I am on the mend.
Soup, soup, glorious soup
I love soup and will happily eat it on the warmest summer’s day. It is so comforting and nourishing. Now that the weather has turned chillier I am enjoying it even more. We are going for good, old fashioned thrift this week and our five frugal things are almost all soup themed!
Making stock
I usually make stock with poultry carcasses. However, as I have now given up meat we don’t have as many bones kicking around. Incidentally, I do still keep and make them. I will eat something made with animal stock rather than waste it.
This time, however, I decided to make vegetable stock. I have been reducing our food waste as much as possible and keeping all of our vegetable trimmings and peelings in old ice cream tubs in the freezer. Once I had two full ones I made my stock. It is super easy, but I plan to write a post on how to do it in the next week or so. Old fashioned thrift means wasting nothing!
Making croutons
We don’t eat that much bread, and usually leave it in the freezer taking it out a slice at a time. But we found ourselves with a load left over from when we hosted our French student so I made some croutons. You can read how I did it here.
Butternut squash soup
A neighbour of Mr Shoestring’s mum often sells surplus home grown veg at their front gate. This week they had butternut squashes and pumpkins. We bought a huge pumpkin for £2 and two butternut squashes for 50p each.
The pumpkin firstly became a lantern for the local kids. We always take part – I like seeing the little kids dressed in their funny costumes. This is now waiting to become soup, of course. I am not letting it go to waste.
In the meantime, I made some delicious butternut squash soup. The two squashes made 12 portions. Again, I will post the recipe for this soon.
Halloween costume
We always dress up for Halloween at work. We need to keep our evil spirits up! I didn’t have lots of time to make a crazy costume or the money for anything expensive. I opted for a T shirt from Lidl for £2.50 and a witch hat from the charity shop for 50p. 
This picture shows what a lovely bunch of crazies I work with.
Zero waste lunch box
OK, this isn’t exactly old fashioned thrift. However, I was recently gifted this brilliant stainless steel lunchbox by &Keep, a brilliant zero waste online shop. Taking my own packed lunch to work every day saves me a ton of money and I can see myself using this one for years to come.
I would love to move towards a completely plastic-free life. This is a great little two tier lunch box with a separate small container, which I take my snack of nuts in.
I love going back to the days where old fashioned thrift was seen as an admirable and virtuous thing. It saves money and is good for the planet.
What have your frugal achievements been this week? As ever, I am linking up with Cass , Emma and Becky in their Five Frugal Things linky.
I rarely eat meat, not out of any moral compunctions, but because I’ve never liked the texture. For stock, I usually save the water that I’ve cooked pasta and veggies in. Once it’s cool, freeze it in yoghurt pots (the 500 ml ones, incidentally just tried the Aldi full fat Greek yoghurt, OMG it’s absolutely the best ever and only 68p!) and then when I make soup, I use that, just add one stock cube. I’ve never gone down the veggie peelings route as I think it’s more gas to use and energy costs are my highest expense.
Hello, is your comments section working ok? Just tried to post something and got message to say ‘you’ve said that before so it’s being deleted.’ I know I do repeat myself LOL but I’ve never seen that before. Let’s see what happens when I hit ‘send’ on this one …….
Thinks it’s all ok….
Your pumpkin man has character. And I love soup when the weather gets cold. It’s also made in advance and is sitting there waiting for us so we know what we’re having. It avoids that “what do you want for lunch?” conversation that irritates me every day and means I have toast an awful lot.
Tx
Soup and toast though
I too love soup, and, like you, even eat it in summer. And I also keep my vegetable trimmings for stock, in the freezer. I make a lot of soup! Other frugal things this week, included buying a new set of sheets and pillow cases for $1.50. I kid you not. Got home and discovered that I’d accidentally bought the duvet cover instead. Grrrr. Might wash it and use it as a bottom sheet, to save waste. Also got a pair of black tights for $1.50. It was a good day.
.Stayed out of the grocery store as much as possible – spent very little
.Renegotiated a deal with my TV & Internet provider
.Washed only full loads of laundry
.Combined errands to save on transit fares
.Cooked & Baked from scratch
We still haven’t carved our pumpkins yet this year, but I am so looking forward to roasted pumpkin seeds and pumpkin in almost everything! We are on a similar mission to be more eco-friendly too, It’s interesting to see how being eco-friendly fits in with a thrifty way of life. I love your new lunch box.
The two can go hand in hand. I found some lovely bamboo lunchboxes in TK Maxx yesterday that are cheaper. Only £8! I guess they might not last as long as stainless steel
Oh I do like that lunch box and m keen to hear how you make veg stock! #5frugalthings