Saving energy and other frugal stuff

Hi, and welcome to my review of my thrifty week. At last the weather has turned a bit cooler, although we did have a scorcher mid week! I love moving into Autumn, as it’s my favourite season, but as the temperature cools and the nights draw in, saving energy is really important.

So what has been going on here at Shoestring Cottage? It feels a bit chaotic and busy, but that’s because we are still sorting and decluttering in readiness for our upcoming house move. My office is a tip! Tidying that is a job for the coming week, although that looks equally frantic. Onwards and upwards!

Saving energy with a Wonderbag

I began the week by experimenting for the first time with my Wonderbag. This was gifted to review on my YouTube channel, and I have to say I absolutely love it! In case you haven’t come across a Wonderbag before, it is a type of non-electric slow cooker. It is super insulated fabric filled with foam chips. The idea is that you make your stew, soup, casserole or whatever, bring it to a rolling boil, and then place it in the bag, where it will continue to cook in the retained heat. You can slow cook for up to eight hours. 

At a time when we are facing record breaking energy price hikes, every little helps and I will be using my Wonderbag a lot. But I also love the fact that the company is a social enterprise. They donate Wonderbags to women in Africa to save them time collecting wood and cooking over an open fire – time that they can spend on paid work. They also support women by providing employment in the making of the bags.

So you can see that by buying a Wonderbag, you do more than just reduce your carbon emissions and save money on your energy bill.

I started with a chunky minestrone soup. You can see how I got on here. If you are interested in buying a Wonderbag, the company has offered my readers a 10% discount. Use the code JANESAVES10 at the checkout.

Growing our food

We have had an amazing number of tomatoes – they have done so well this year. The courgettes were steady, but since we had some rain last week they have really taken off. They are at the point where you turn your back for five minutes and they have doubled in size :).

The cucumbers have been great too, but my biggest surprise has been the peppers. We have about ten green ones in the greenhouse. This is great, as we eat a lot of peppers. 

Next year we will be in our new house and plan to start our veggie garden from scratch. Watch this space!

A bit of a do

I would like to say that this was frugal, but it wasn’t really! We went to Justin’s nieces 10th wedding anniversary party mid week. She was never happy with her original wedding photos and wanted to recreate the occasion and get some better ones. She even wore a wedding dress for some of the time!

She wanted the whole family to wear white too. I scoured the charity shops and second hand sites, but couldn’t find anything suitable. You won’t believe it – I only went and bought something new! However, I will wear this to my daughter’s upcoming 30th birthday party, and can see it getting a lot of use if we have a warm summer again next year. So, I will get my £25 worth back….

My daughter did my makeup and even put some false eyelashes on me. There’s a rare thing! Anyway, we had a great time and the happy couple paid for all of our dinners and drinks, so it was a super fun and semi frugal evening. 

Gathering boxes

I know that you can buy boxes to move house, but I have no intention of doing so! It’s a totally unnecessary expense when you can pick them up for free. 

We have all been collecting them for a while, when we have had deliveries or seen them in the supermarket. My daughter got some from Freecycle when she moved, then saved them for me. I have just put a wanted on Freecycle too in the hope of collecting a few more. 

My dad has been keeping his newspapers for wrapping breakables, and I always keep packing tissue and bubble wrap when I receive it anyway. So, we are almost ready to start packing!

Moving ourselves or using a removal company?

Wow – have you used a removal company lately? They cost thousands! We had thought about hiring a van and moving ourselves, but I have got the ‘man with a van’ that we used when my daughter went to her current flat coming to give us a quote. He charged less than £300 to move her, so I am hoping it will be around the £600-700 mark this time. 

This is still a big expense, but we have budgeted this amount. I think it will be easier to have some help lugging the furniture out of the house. They were very good when my daughter moved, happily taking down beds and putting them up at the other end, for example. They are actually two men with a van. 

So, that’s my week – how has yours been? Are you looking at saving energy? Let me know in the comments if you have ever tried a Wonderbag or similar and what your thoughts are. Until next time, bye for now.