Every week I share five frugal things that I’ve done during that week just to show you that the small things you do all add up to a great frugal lifestyle where you can learn to live a fabulously frugal life.
Before I start though, as always feel that I should say that being frugal to me is about getting the best value for our money – it’s not about doing without for us or about not having nice things. We all have different financial situations and we’re all frugal for different reasons. 😉
1) If you follow me on Instagram (shameless plug to get you to follow me there ;-)) then you might have seen on my stories that last weekend, one of the things on my to-do list was to try and make some homemade floor cleaner that I could pop in my bucket when I was mopping.
I did make some and it did an OK job but it wasn’t amazing so I was going to have a go at a second batch this weekend coming up to see if I could tweak my quantities to get a better result. I know it’s silly because clean is clean but I wanted it to be a bit more scented and for that smell to stick around for a bit longer than it did in version one. The problem with that is that it’s usually essential oils that I use to add the scent and the amount I’d need to use in a full bucket of water to get that effect would make it not very cost effective.
So, I decided to have a think and get back to it this weekend.
But then last night when I popped to the shop (last minute food tech shopping again) I had a quick check in the reduced section – not the fridge one but the one for tins and other non-fridgey things – and I found three bottles of Zoflora reduced to 76p each because the boxes were a bit battered. They were my favourite clean linen scent so I snapped them up!
I love Zoflora and it’s what I’ve always used to clean my floors because it does such a good job and the smell lasts for ages afterwards. These three bottles will last me a good while and to be honest, Zoflora is a bargain even at full price so these little bargain bottles are fantastic.
I’m trying to go more homemade when it comes to a lot of my cleaning products for lots of reasons but maybe I’ll stick to Zoflora and give the homemade floor cleaner a miss – unless any of you know something I don’t and have a secret ingredient.
2) I feel like this one almost deserves a post of its own but I’ve been doing lots of prepping in my garden lately because my plan for this Summer is to use my greenhouse to its full potential. Last Summer we got it just a bit too late to start most things off so we stuck to the basics – chilli, tomatoes and strawberries and bought plants that were already halfway grown rather than being able to grow them from seed.
(My Greenhouse is beautiful by the way – it’s a half-sized one which is perfect for us but just in case you never read my post about it, it was a gift from the company who make them as they read on here that we wanted to start to grow our own fruit and vegetables.)
Anyway, last weekend, I had a good old planting session and have a greenhouse filled with all sorts of fruit and veg seedlings!
So far, I have spinach, spring onions, garlic, chilli and salad leaves with my blueberry bush on the patio so I think I’ve made a good start. I have tomato seeds ready to go but I think they need to be started off in the house as they need hear to germinate.
I need to figure out how to grow the things that need bigger or deeper pots so that’s my next thing to work on.
I enjoyed pottering about in the garden as I gave it a good tidy too but this guy enjoyed himself even more than me, especially when it started to rain…
Buddy watched from inside. 😉
3) I found a voucher in our butter container (Country Life if you want to get one yourself) that gives two for one entry to English Heritage properties so I’ve de-greased it and now have the voucher tucked away in my purse ready to use this Summer.
We used to have a membership with the English Heritage and we more than got our money’s worth out of it but we cancelled it when we stopped using it so often which was because the kids lost interest a little (a lot). Mr Frugal and I have discussed this though and decided that this year we’re going to do more things that we enjoy doing now that the kids are old enough to take care of themselves for a day so they can come or they can stay home and do their own thing.
4) I’ve been doing quite well with my weight loss recently and I have to say that a lot of it comes from the motivation of a weekly meeting where I have to step on the scales in front of a total stranger who’s either going to look at me and say well done with a smile on her face as she tells me what I’ve lost or she’s going to look at me with sympathy as she tells me, in a very quiet voice, how much I’ve put on. 😉
I also get lots of hints, tips and motivation from the other people who attend the group so to me, £5 a week is worth it. I’ve tried going it alone and it’s all too easy to have a day off or to lose motivation so the £5 a week is an investment in myself and so far, it’s paying off.
Last weekend, I bought what’s called a ‘Countdown’ which means that I pay in advance for 5 lessons and get the 6th one free which saves me £1 a week. Not much I know but every little helps and as well as saving money, it’s keeping me committed to going each week.
5) Last week I shared my tip about freezing lemon slices to use in drinks and cooking and this week I realised as I was chopping up some bananas that I don’t think I’ve mentioned that I also freeze bananas.
I peel and slice them and then pop them into a bag in the freezer because Master Frugal loves a banana and peanut butter smoothie as a snack. I often see bananas in the reduced fruit and veg section so I pick them up when I see them and freeze them as well as freezing any from our fruit bowl that ever gets to the just about to turn stage although that doesn’t happen too often. 😉
I then pop the frozen chunks in the blender with some milk and a spoonful of peanut butter and hey presto, a smoothie that everyone loves
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I’m linking up with this Cass, Emma and Becky in this week’s ‘Five Frugal things I’ve done this week’ linky.
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