Welcome back to another Five Frugal Things round up, where I find free food, eat from the cupboards, show myself to be a true Second Hand Rose, go bargain hunting at the car boot and do some furniture upcycling.
Here is my frugal week.
Free food
This is the ideal time of year for a bit of foraging. I really enjoy it! I have picked two bags of blackberries during my dog walks this week. One we ate straight away as a compote with some applies that needed using up and the other went into the freezer.
I would like to go and pick more this week, ideally without Archie! He pulls and moans like a toddler if we stand still too long, not ideal when you risk getting dragged into the brambles.
I also spotted rose hips, damsons, apples (not ripe yet, though) and sloes whilst I was out. We have made sloe gin before, but to be honest we took about two years to drink it. I might have another go, though.
Second hand Rose
On bank holiday Monday we went to the poshest picnic ever for Mr Shoestring’s niece’s wedding anniversary. It was beautiful, and the food – a graze board or cheeses, breads, meat, salads, fruit and quiche – was delicious.
Fortunately it was just family, so it was an informal affair. Just as well, since I wore a completely second hand outfit! I am a proper second hand Rose!
You may have seen the Laura Ashley trousers, top and necklace that cost me a grand total of £4 from my favourite cat protection charity shop in last week’s blog. I added a pair of Clarks sandals that came from another charity shop for £6 and a Monsoon cardigan that was £1. I felt great!
After all, it is Second Hand September!
Car boot haul
I dragged myself out of bed quite early on Sunday to go to the boot sale. It was a beautiful morning and I knew there would likely be lots of people selling off their unwanted stuff.
I was really pleased to find some lovely Laura Ashley bedside lamps for £4 each, this gorgeously cute clock for the kitchen, some clothes, wicker baskets and various other bits and pieces. I spent quite a lot, around £45 I think, but if I had bought them new, my bargains would have run into hundreds of pounds.
If you want to find out exactly what I bought, check out this video on my YouTube channel.
A spot of upcycling
Work to revamp our bedroom furniture is moving very slowly! Because we still have two lodgers for the next few days, there is little space to move things around. Nevertheless, I was determined to achieve some DIY in August, so I decided to tackle the dark pine wardrobe.
I used an undercoat this time, but it still took 6 coats of paint to cover it! The paint I chose was Frenchic’s Dazzle Me white. It came up well, but I was surprised to need so many coats.
Once we are back to a single lodger, I am going to fill up the spare room with as much as I can from our room so that I can roller the ceiling and walls and do the paintwork.
Meanwhile, Mr S has been working hard to cut back a jungle of shrubs in the front garden so that he could get to the picket fence. He has repainted it white and it certainly looks a lot better.
Eating from the larder
Having two lodgers has meant not buying too much food. There is no space to store it, since they both want to keep their food somewhere too!
I decided it was a good opportunity to eat out of the stores as much as possible. I made a yummy meal out of tinned potatoes, a defrosted chicken breast, a couple of rashers of bacon, some leftover sweetcorn and a sprinkling of cheese. It was like camping food, but really tasty!
I also used two flatbreads from the freezer as pizza bases, with seasoned tinned tomatoes, more of the sweetcorn, half a wrinkly pepper, some sliced courgette and grated cheese. This made a quick and light meal, which I will do again.
We seem to have accumulated a lot of bread products in the freezer, so I have been working my way through them to make sure they get eaten before they go stale.
We will be back to one lodger by Sunday, when my youngest daughter arrives for a week. So the usual chaos will prevail.
How has your week been? Would you be a second hand Rose and wear exclusively pre-loved clothing to a do?
I’m linking up with this Cass, Emma and Becky in this week’s ‘Frugal Friday’ linky.
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