Another week of thrift and frugality

It has been another week of thrift and frugality here at Shoestring Cottage. Our lodger has let us know that she has a new job elsewhere so will soon be moving on. As there is usually a gap between lodgers – especially during lock down when people aren’t changing jobs so much or doing courses at the university – we will need to be as frugal as possible until we find a new one.

Renting our spare room makes it possible for us to live the way we do. Being self-employed means income can sometimes be a bit patchy. The rent from our room is steady, as long as we find someone to move into it, of course. I have advertised it anyway, so hopefully will get some responses at some point.

More about making money from your spare room here.

Anyway, here is my week of thrift and frugality.

1# Back to soup making

Just when you think it is safe to leave the house without a hat, scarf and gloves, the beautiful spring weather we briefly enjoyed takes a turn! It has been so cold the last few days. 

To warm us up during the day when we are working at home, yesterday I made a huge pot of veggie soup. I rarely use a recipe, and this one consists of frozen broccoli and frozen mixed veg, potatoes, celery, hing powder (asafoetida)* (as onions upset my stomach and this gives a similar flavour) and stock.

I bought the frozen vegetables specifically for this purpose. They are quick to cook and cheap to buy.  As ever, I made a huge pan full, so this will last for several lunches and I have frozen some in a few old yogurt pots.

Soup is such a thrifty and frugal meal. You can chuck all sorts in it, use up wrinkled veg and leftover cooked food and freeze it for a quick lunch. I wrote a post on why you should make more soup here.

I will eat the remainder of the low carb Diet Doctor rolls I made earlier in the week with this. They aren’t as nice as real bread to be honest, but are OK slightly warmed with lots of butter.

Turning off the heating

Because the weather had warmed up so much, we turned the heating off auto. We are just putting it on when we need it or lighting the wood burner. 

I am a cold soul though, and get chilly when I am sitting at my laptop working. Instead of jumping straight to put the heating on, I have a couple of big jumpers and some throws in both my office and the sitting room.  They make a remarkable difference! Layering up helps too, especially on our dog walks.

So, even though the weather had got cold again, I don’t intend to put the heating back on automatic.

DIY cleaning spray

As I had an orange that had gone really manky in the fruit bowl, I thought I would use it to make another batch of my home made cleaning spray. I usually make it with lemon rinds, but I think it will work perfectly well with oranges. 

I started it off by cutting it up and putting it in a jar full of white vinegar. As we have eaten the other oranges, I have been adding their peels to the mix. 

It will be ready to dilute and use as a spray cleaner in a few weeks.

A home made cheer up gift

My daughter had some devastating news this week. She was made redundant unexpectedly.

I am furious with the company she worked for as she left a permanent position to move to them. They took her on just four months ago and were clearly pleased with her work. She has had nothing but praise for her efforts!

You have to wonder why they didn’t hire someone on a temporary contract to see if their new venture worked, rather than create a new, permanent position in the midst of a pandemic. It just shows how some employers view their staff as disposable assets rather than actual people with rent to pay!

It’s a tough job market at the moment. I am really heartbroken for her, but onwards and upwards. She has a bit of freelancing work to do from her last employer, so maybe she can build that up.

Anyway, I decided to cheer her up with a home made present. I painted a cute box I had saved from Christmas with some spare paint from my recent DIY efforts and decorated the inside of it with photos of Harry Styles. I also included a message to her previous boss on the outside (s’cuse my language, but hey ho).

I’m going to fill it with little gifts – she might read this, so I won’t say any more just now, except that large quantities of chocolate will feature!

Haggling the bills down

We have been on a superfast broadband only contract with Virgin for the past year, paying £33 a month. I know we could get it cheaper, but we have tried other providers in the past and our internet service has been awful. At least with Virgin it is fairly fast and reliable.

However, this was on a deal and we have just come to the end of the promotional period. It immediately jumped to £47 a month, which is a lot for just broadband. Then, to add insult to injury, they emailed to say it would be going up by a further £3.10!

I stupidly tried to speak to them via live chat. Don’t do this, unless you are happy to wait at least 10 minutes in between each response – they clearly expect their staff to deal with too many conversations at once.

Eventually, I gave up and rang them. I told them unless they could do a much better deal I would be leaving. They immediately offered me a £35 a month contract to stay! It’s always worth ringing your provider to threaten to leave if your think your bill is too high when you get to the end of your contract. 

As I say, I could probably get it cheaper, but I am generally happy with our internet and would rather not move. If I had decided on a new supplier, I would have gone to see the deals on TopCashBack* first, as this can reduce the cost still further. In fact, Virgin are currently offering £130 cash back for new customers. Wish I could have taken advantage of that deal!

If you sign up using my referral code here, you can currently receive a £5 bonus.

So, that’s been my week of thrift and frugality. I am hoping the weather will perk up next week so that I can get outside to do some jobs in the garden. Until then, I am snuggling indoors with Archie! How has your week been?

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