Monthly Archives: June 2012

Homemade Coleslaw

frugal food



Hello Dear Reader,


I’m having a day on the run! Lovely son came home last night with new girl friend - on my best behaviour no ranting, shouting or walking round in baggy knickers so I won’t embarrass him. No noisy romantics with Dearly Beloved as he doesn’t mind but he says it freaks out visitors! Today, I had a quick run round the charity shops and bought a 1970s/80’s table cloth with tiny flowers which will be great to cut up for quilting. I also called into my local craft shop to buy some wadding for dad’s quilt. I met a lovely lady in there, who recognised me from my blog and I was really impressed with the bag she was making and the other lady in the craft shop was recovering the chairs which are used for craft work shops. I also bought wadding by the metre and discovered a new brand at a very reasonably cost.


Lunch needed to be a quick affair as I have a quilt to baste and quilt and dinner to make for guests! We had some Aldi German Bratwurst sausages and homemade coleslaw.

I used the food processor to finely shred the cabbage and onions and switched the attachments to grate two carrots. I like lots of onion. I then has a squirt of real mayonaise but added a splash of cider vinegar to thin it down a bit. I gave it all a stir and my very quick lunch was ready.



Here’s the close up; you can see it’s not drowning in fluids the way shop bought coleslaw does. It’s also really crisp and chunky.



I had to transfer it to a bigger bowl to stir it through. I usually make this in the winter (it’s like flippin’ winter!) as you can get white cabbage all the year round. I’m now off to quilt dad’s quilt and even hope to take it to him tomorrow. I get really excited when I come to the end of a project and can see the finishing post and speed up.


Until tomorrow…………and on her best behaviour!


Love Froogs xxxxx

Scrappy jelly roll tutorial - 2" blocks!

frugal quilting

Hello Dear Reader,


When I made my first ever quilt I cut every little square and wondered how I couldn’t get them the same size and couldn’t get them to match up squarely to each other. I had no idea quilters pieced strips together and then cut them down. I love quilts made of tiny squares or shapes which all lock together. Here’s how to get almost perfect tiny little 2″ squares. You start with jelly rolls, which are two and a half inch strips which you sew into pairs, then iron open and flat and then do the same again with another pair. Make sure each strip is different.

Once you have the four strips sewn together you will need to slice them down into two and a half inch strips. Search through my blog for a how to make jelly rolls tutorial and you’ll see how I use the cutting board as my guide to get accurate sizes and cuts. Here’s the link http://frugalincornwall.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/frugal-jelly-roll-quilting.html

You will now have all of your fabric in strips in readiness to sew together by turning the ends on each other. My dad’s quilt needs five blocks of 12″ by 8″ to form sashing to hold the bigger 12″ blocks together. It is a random scrappy quilt but I do have a pattern in mind.

I get all my blocks ready before I sew them and I always work in pairs and threes. It’s easier to make sure my seams are pressed neatly and I will have corners that are sharp and match up.

Here’s the finished block. I didn’t have enough of my chosen colour and had to add in some strips from another part of the quilt. It doesn’t matter, I know my dad is going to love the hand made quilt with all its imperfections. I’m going to make him some curtains too from some old fabric mum has kept for me and save them a whole heap of money by making all the soft furnishings for his bedroom.

I’ve always made my own curtains and cushions as they are so very easy to make, is there any thing that you have always made and can’t imagine why any one would buy them?


I’m off to sew another couple of scrappy blocks together.


Until tomorrow,


Love Froogs xxxx

Deep cleansing with a financial fast

Down shifting, money saving

Hello Dear Reader,


British TV viewers will see 47 advertisements a day and then you will hear advertisements on the radio. They do everything they can to convince you that you need something, that you deserve something. Holiday adverts that suggest time on holiday with children is precious when actually any time with children is worthwhile as is time with loved ones. By the time we’ve watched it all, we could be lead to believe that our skin will fall off without certain moisturisers, our eyes will stop functioning unless we douse them in a fine misty spray, that we need toothpaste that lets us crunch ice cubes and that we need three new sofas from DFS every year (about as long as they last). In fact, we all need tools delivered by the next working day, that a swoosh of light is delivering stuff around the Olympic village and that insurance is better because a rat pisses in your pocket!


I’m going to suggest a very deep cleanse, the fiscal version of a soapy enema! Make the decision that tomorrow is the day you stop accumulating, that you get rid of stuff and you avoid buying. To do this, stop carrying any means of buying any of this. Take a deep breath and stop buying lifestyle magazines, gardening magazines and dare I say craft magazines. You don’t need any more fabric until you’ve used what you have and you’ve turned the clothes that will never fit you again into quilts, cushion, chair covers and dusters. Take those ridiculous high heels to the charity shop and you are never going to wear that coat again, so take it to the hospice shop. Don’t go shopping and that includes banning yourself from online window shopping and the only thing you’re advised to do on ebay is sell stuff! You need food, a roof over your head, a few basic essentials and very little else. Stuff does not make us happy; love, friends, family and contentment does.


There is so little that we actually need and so much that we can go without.


Make sure that you come home every day, empty handed!


Until tomorrow,


Love Froogs xxxx

Holiday at home.

frugal holidays

Hello Dear Reader,


Yesterday’s blog disappeared so I’ve tried again. For a few years, whilst we were paying off debts and reducing our mortgage, we didn’t have any holidays at all. We had no weekends away, no days out, no meals in restaurants, no theatre trips, in fact, nothing at all until we were debt free. If you are not saving, not reducing your mortgage and not debt free, then you are spending money you don’t have. Over the last two years, we’ve had an off season holiday in Brittany and I’ve done so with savings. Each time I reduce my mortgage by ten thousand pounds, I save £100 a month in interest and it’s always the interest on any debt which keeps a debtor poor. Dearly Beloved will have another week off work in late July, when I will be on holiday. I will amuse myself at home for the rest of the summer break.



In the week holiday we have together, we always make sure we have at least three day trips. We don’t use these as an excuse to splurge as we see our selves very blessed to have jobs and have time off at all. So, the treat is always the time, our own company and to be able to relax. We never go far and don’t use any more diesel than we would if we were at work and this is what we get up to when we holiday at home. Firstly, we treat the week as if we were going on holiday and get ready for it. We tell people we’ll be on holiday and not around much, so we have time to be alone. Just as in France, we get some nice food in, we’ll have wine with dinner and we might save films we’d saved on the freesat box to watch in the evenings. We’ll plan a barbeque together, just as we would if we were away. We also plan day trips to get out and about.



We have two or three days out and about on our bikes and we’re investigating bike trails in Cornwall that we haven’t ridden yet. We’ll investigate walks and research car parking. There will be some we do regularly and some all day walks that we only have time for on holiday. We lived in Plymouth for thirteen years and love the Hoe, the Barbican and Devil’s Point and we’ll have a day down memory lane and treat our selves to an ice cream or a coffee (but never both on one day!) Remember, it’s the time that’s the treat.

We’ll plan for and visit a car boot sale and some charity shops in that week but, just as with any holiday, will have a set budget. It’s a week where I won’t spend in my sewing room or writing much, but give over to us. We’ll use sunny days to sit in our garden and read, just as we would if we were in France and we’ll have long leisurely lunches where we just sit and talk together.



Holidays are wonderful as families get to focus time on each other and have fun together. This can be done at home, with day trips or at the very least with picnics in the garden. Drag the dining table and chairs outside and eat like Italians! Get out your best table clothes and plates and treat yourself. Make nicer meals where you have time to prepare, lay a table and wash up together. Be tourists in your own neighbourhood and discover history, walks and the environment around you. Holidays were always a hard earned treat, such as a work’s do to the seaside for the day and now people see them as some kind of God given right and entitlement. See them as a treat, as a luxury and rediscover appreciation in what you have around you and mostly spending time together.


Until tomorrow,


Love Froogs

Less of Froogs these days!

frugal weightloss
Froogs - 5′ 10″ - for those who asked


Hello Dear Reader,

You may have noticed that I haven’t written much about food recently. It’s that time of the year again! Froog’s weightloss challenge. I can lose it, but I slip after about six months! It took me three attempts, many years ago, to give up smoking. I’ve lost weight twice and put it back on but I stand a very good chance of keeping it off this time as Dearly Beloved is doing this with me.

I’m not joining the gym, Weight Watchers, Slimming world, eating dust or drinking shit shakes; I’m just eating small meals and exercising as much as I can. I’m getting used to the hour of exercise a day. I would encourage everyone to find a way of exercising without spending any money. No one needs a gym membership or fancy equipment. I favour walking, I stick my ipod in, put my old trainers on an walk a four mile route and keep the pace to a reasonable puff.


I came back from France 1lb under 14stone! I am now 13 stone 5lbs - and Dearly Beloved has also lost half a stone. I’ll save even more money this way as we’re eating even less with no cake for snacks………….in fact, no snacks at all!

So, anyone want to join Froogs free to join frugal weight loss support group? I’ll blog weekly about frugal exercise and weight loss and I’ll continue to save all my money to give to Santander! So, no fear about that changing.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs

Keep active to save money!

Saving money

Hello Dear Reader,


Some of you lovely folk often write and comment on my rushing around. All I can say is that in this weather it helps me keep warm. As I’m typing, I’m wearing big thick socks, wrist warmers that Foster Mummy made for me and my dressing gown over the top of my clothes. I’m just going to give in and light the fire!



I also find that if you’re feeling cold, then get out the broom and scrubbing brush, some vinegar and old newspapers and give the house a going over. It will be bright and clean and you’ll be a darn sight warmer. Or, you could be forty seven and wonder why it’s so hot every hour or so!!!!!


Until tomorrow (sorry not much, busy doing ‘other stuff’ tonight)


Love Froogs xxxx

All wood is good wood, bulk buying and trip to Trago

http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post


Hello Dear Reader,

Any frugal or financially savvy person will know the benefit of owning a trailer, a pick up or a ratty old estate car where you can get anything in the back from a goat to bags of free goat shit. Our trailer is used to bring home furniture that we’ve acquired from Freecycle but predominantly wood. We were given free wood recently and it turned out to be fence posts and bits and bobs of broken fence. There was no way that we’d turn up at a house, where we’ve agreed to take something away and then turn our noses up. I mean, who does that! So we took the fence away and Dearly Beloved has broken it down for kindling and the posts for logs.


The couple who owned the house were grateful that we took the fence away and cleaned up afterwards. They were elderly and not really up to the heavy work. In gratitude, they told us they were having trees down and that they would give us the wood. We couldn’t believe our luck and left our phone number. It then transpired that they needed to give the wood to the tree surgeon to offset the cost of having several trees down as they couldn’t afford it any other way. They phoned us and told us about the trees and we said we were still grateful for the fence posts and panels that we had previously received. We heard no more from them.

Recently, we received another call, saying the tree surgeon had finished but they had managed to take all the smaller branches and hid them behind their shed and they had kept them for us. The couple seemed delighted in our story of how we’d paid off our debts and were saving money to pay off our mortgage by keeping warm on freecycled wood. All in all, there’s another two trailers full of smaller branches for us to collect and we will go back to them for the rest over the next two weeks.


I thought of the fabric, shirts, jars of chutney, cushions, craft material, gifts from a lady who is an Avon sales rep and I’d forgotten to mention all of the wood I seem to acquire here and there. As I type this, Dearly Beloved is stacking the wood to dry so he can saw it down later. At this rate, I won’t have to buy any more wood this year which means I can dry all my washing and keep us really warm. It takes effort to source it, keep our eyes open, to read notice boards in the Co-op or post office and look in the free to collectors section in the local free paper but with some tenacity and determination, we can find what we need for next to nothing.

This afternoon we went to Trago, which is near us in Liskeard. It’s an odd shopping experience, but if you look, it sells everything you need. I earned a lovely bit of extra money yesterday from running my quilting workshop and it was a real treat to have some spare money to stock up (all my income goes straight to Santander and I have no personal spending money). Dearly Beloved saws up most pieces of planks with an ordinary saw and he balances a plank under his foot on the back step. This means he is bent over and it was lovely to be able to buy him a saw horse, which he’s putting together as I type. I also bought him a new bow saw as we’ve piles of longer thicker logs in the garden that are going to need some welly!


After buying Dearly Beloved some gifts (I can’t remember the last time I had some money to spend on him!) I went to the butchers and did some bulk buying. Due to the already lower than the supermarket prices and their discounts on top, I bought what would amount to ten packs of smoked back bacon for £9.50 which when I bagged it and weighed it to match the regular pack of bacon from the supermarket, I bought £1.50 of bacon for 95p - so a really good saving and it will last in the freezer for months. I also bought an extra large gammon joint for £5, which I am boiling and I will slice down and freeze into portions. It will be great for packed lunches for weeks. I also bought two very large packs of rump steak - almost 2 kilos for £10 and portioned that into 8oz steaks, with two in each bag. I’ve got six servings of steak for £10! I also bought eight very large pork steaks in garlic and herb sauce for £7, again almost 2 kilos and I have four portions from that. I also bought a small leg of lamb for £6 which will be the treat for my son when he comes home tonight, as he always loves a Sunday roast dinner.


It takes a couple of minutes to portion meat, a while for a gammon joint to boil and then slice but those few minutes work saves me hundreds of pounds a year. It’s always worth the effort.


Love Froogs xxxx

Many hands made light work of it!

frugal quilting



Hello Dear Reader,


I have had the best day ever! In one day, four ladies cut fabric, made a quilt, basted it, quilted it and edged it! We stopped for tea, coffee and home made Bakewell tart mid morning and then the sewing continued.

By tea time, the quilt was completely complete. We were tired but it shows what can be done in a day if you work together! The darkest blue stripes are from the donated fabric bundle from America. The yellow was part of my recent jumble sale haul, the paler blues were donated shirts from a colleague, the backing came from another colleague.



It was lovely to show people how easy it is to make a quilt very cheaply. We even used off cuts of Hobbs batting that I had from previous mistakes quilting challenges and over laid them and kept them together with spray adhesive. I showed everyone my ‘tape it to the floor with duct tape’ method and ‘spray the layers to baste it in minutes’ method too. We stitched in the ditch and finished the whole lot. There are plenty of left overs which can go towards my dad’s scrappy quilt.


It was great fun and should anyone else want to come along and quilt - I’ll put aside another quilting day at the top of my blog. We’re all going to meet again to crochet and for me to learn how to crochet.


Enjoy the handiwork of an incredibly trio of ladies, one who was a proficient crafter who has quilted many times before, one a sewer but who had never quilted before and one who had never used a sewing machine before. Kim’s name was pulled out of the hat (an actual hat!) and we really appreciated her speed sewing at the end to help us edge the quilt before night fall!


Well done ladies…………..you were amazing and I had the best of times xxxxxxxxxxxxx


Much love,


Froogs xx

Quilting workshop beckons

quilting


Hello Dear Reader,

When I look through my stash of fabrics, the colours often remind me of something or somewhere. I love faded gentle colours, bright yellows and purple hues.


I love the faded blues and yellows that remind me of warm summer evenings drinking rose wine on my holidays. Even the bushy flowering hydrangeas in my garden remind me of the my holiday journey.

I’m getting fabric, the house and the food ready for Saturday and hope the colours and the day leaves everyone with warm memories. I hope people dive in and not worry about wonky seams or if unpicking needs to be done. Seam allowances can stray here and there and the colours will still be as beautiful.

From left to right. Blue shirt - donated, Blue and yellow pillowcases - 50p each from the charity shop, blue and cream checked seersucker - donated dress, yellow striped - 50p from the jumble sale, lilac floral - 50p from the charity shop, lilac shirt - donated. The yellow floral fabric was a five metre off-cut from eBay, which cost £7. Plenty to make a quilt.

Some fabrics will not be cut up until the day itself so participants can have a go at making their own jelly rolls. The lengths are varied so folk will be able to join them and create their own uniform lengths. I’m so excited that between the four of us, we’ll be able to make, baste, stitch in the ditch and edge the entire quilt in one day. How exciting can this be!

(Apologies for my absence - this yucky joint pain sent me to bed with pain killers yesterday xxx)

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs

I don’t want any, thank you very much!

No adverts

Hello Dear Reader,


This blog is aimed at the good for nothing, useless twonks who work in media, advertising and PR. You don’t cut corn, you don’t mill steel, you don’t raise animals, you don’t heal or educate,many people might think that you do nothing useful at all. Your job, just like Del Boy, is to convince people to buy a load of pointless crap that anyone with a brain can do without. You are always looking for new avenues to advertise, to get people to buy the mountain of useless shite that you currently can’t get rid of because the world is short of money. You blight some very good blogs with your banners, adverts and those boggin’ pop ups! I’m so sick of you that I just don’t read blogs that advertise, review or have guest writers. Some of those guest writers wanted to clog up my blog by writing about products that my readers may be interested in. I’m sure the readers of this blog are not here because of the products I use!


Many of you afore mentioned useless dip sticks, in between tweeting, updating your Facebook status and going for coffee, spend your time trawling the internet looking for ‘avenues’, ‘window’s and ‘possibilities’. You have offered me dog food, spoons, clothes, discounts and other buckets full of useless crud in exchange for me to write a review. You want me to put links on my blog for samples (I’ll send you a fucking sample in a minute!) Any daft beggar who writes to me in the future and tries to offer me some pointless product will get a simple email. ‘Jog on!’


I don’t do adverts, I don’t want your stuff (when you sent it, I gave it away) and the only way I will write for anyone, is for a whole lot more money than you’d be prepared to pay! I’ve put a heading, telling you semi-literate numpties that I don’t do adverts and yet you still email me with your offers, which are always paltry may I add, proving that you don’t read my blog but just quickly flick and scan through and think you’ve found an ‘opportunity’.


I don’t do consumerism. I don’t want more. I got off the buy more merry go round a few years ago and I’m not getting back on. I shop in jumble sales, I wash out and reuse a mooncup! I wear the same shoes for around four years, I use the library, I mend tights, I even get my fire lighting newspapers out of the recyling skip in the car park. I buy supermarket value products. I make do and mend. I make gifts for people out of old clothes, often gifted to me and I encourage anyone and everyone to stop feeling they have to buy any more than they actually need. Now would you please get the message…..I don’t want any, thank you very much!


Until tomorrow,


Love Froogs xxxxxxxxx