Monthly Archives: December 2012

I’ve made it!

money saving

Hello Dear Reader,

For some of you, it’s already New Year. Some of you will be heading out this evening. I love the new start, the new beginning, the fresh page of a new diary and stepping out on a brand new year. I’ve had a wonderful year.

Now back to my resolutions and maybe they can be seen as hints as to how to stay frugal over the coming year. 1. Fix broken things. 2. Make good use of the things I have. 3. No spend days. 4. Have a plan.
and finally, my last resolution for the year.

5. Stick at it.

I’ll be honest with you and tell you now that life, mine in particular can be a difficult and often an uphill struggle. Throughout life, I’ve often not stuck at things. I certainly don’t have the breaking strain of a kit kat but I’m not made of steel either. However, I’m getting better at sticking at whatever I started as I get older.

Frugalling along through life, doing what ever I can to pay for my house before I retire can be utterly miserable at times. I could give in and say at any junction, lets go on holiday, I look like crud and I’m going to buy new clothes and whilst I’m at it a facelift! The hardest part of anything is the sticking at it.


When I hit the credit wall in 2009, I had no choice but to pay back every penny of debt I owed. The more I paid off, the easier it got. It became a challenge and then a game. I enjoyed making do, I enjoyed being thrifty and finding bargains. I enjoyed learning new crafts to keep myself amused. Those are the bits I still love. I love the peace and so often hate the isolation. I know, as you tell me, I am really lucky to have the unshakeable support of Dearly Beloved and he and I are together every step of the way. His needs are no greater or lesser than mine and both of us have to remind the other every now and then that we have money and we can spend it.

Some of you have a very difficult road ahead of you, I know, I walked every step. Some of you have walked the walk and you are now debt free and mortgage free. Now you save for holidays and travel. You go out on hiking holidays, go on far flung long haul destinations and you earned every minute of it. I’ll be there one day. My bucket list is a long as yours and I’m sure similar in many ways. I will, like you, achieve some of them.

In the meantime, to make sure that I get there, there are many things that I’m going to have to stick to. I’ll have to put up with the contents of my house and fix them if they’re broken. I’m going to make good use of everything I have including my surroundings and get out into them more and spend a lot less time at home but out in the open. I’m going to walk on beaches, clifftops and coastal paths. I’m going to the library more and will make better use of my garden. I will carry on having no spend days and use my time more productively and have more to show for 2013 than I did 2012. I’m going to carry on having financial plans and goals and working towards them. I will remind myself every day that new year resolutions are not a to do list for the first week in January but a year long change in habits. Nothing ever gets any better if we just carry on with life as we’ve always lived it.


I have to remind myself, that for some dear readers, that all this is new to you. Some of you have been with me throughout all of my journey and continue to come with me. I know you are there and I truly appreciate your support. You will be able to share me fixing up what I have as I renovate my home. I will be making good use of my sewing machine and you are welcome to come and share with me as I do so. I will be planning not only how to save money but days out and you, of course, can come with me. There will be plenty of time at home when we’ll just be chopping wood, weeding the garden, recycling, digging, cooking and mending things and you’re welcome to peep through the window whilst I do so.


If you’ve had to set yourself a stiff budget and have to stick at it, sticking at it will get you to your mountain top. Menu planning, budgeting, shopping with a list, packing lunches the night before, mending clothes, altering clothes you bought at a charity shop are all feasible but all require sticking at as none of them are the easy options. Anyone who has ever given up smoking, drinking, lost weight, got fit or learnt a new skill knows the easiest part is starting, the hardest part is sticking at it and the best bit is achieving what you set out to do.

However you spend the New Year, it’s yours to do what you please with.

Until 2013,

Love Froogs xxx

Planning for 2013

money saving


Hello Dear Reader,

The new year is getting closer and closer. It makes me feel incredibly optimistic and as the A Team would say, “I love it when a plan comes together”.

I’m so glad that my recent posts have captured your imagination. For one, there are no signs of economic recovery, there are no signs of new jobs, cheaper mortgages, lower prices, in fact I would go so far to say those were the days of the late nineties and early noughties and we won’t see them again for a very long time. Growth is not going to happen soon enough for market forces to reduce prices and the rest of us will have to cope with rising prices and static salaries or pensions. This brings me to my fourth resolution for money saving in 2013:

4. Planning.

Planning what? Well everything of course. I’ll admit, removing spontaneity is the cure for happiness but so is being skint half way through the month. What can we plan and how do we do it? I’ll think of how I do this bit by bit.

I start with the basics of housekeeping and look at the complete year ahead. Anyone familiar with teacher speak knows this is what we call our long term planning. I look at my entire year and the imminent dates of financial dates. My car tax is due on the 1/1/2013 and I had money aside for that from every month in 2012 and I simply went and paid for the year’s worth in one go. Car and home insurance is due in April and I will be looking for the best deals throughout February and March and then looking for the best way of paying with the best cash back.

When my children were are school, I would put money aside every month to pay for the clothes, school shoes, and school costs and trips. I couldn’t touch that money, it was theirs as was money that I saved to buy them birthday and Christmas presents. This was all in the plan! This was all planned a year in advance as these costs are annual and they were never a surprise as funny enough, they happen every year bang on time!

I’ve documented my menu planning and I start with a stock take of my cupboards and freezer and then use that to help me plan meals for the coming month. I then plan a menu for the month and I try to vary meals, have some days with fish, some with meat and some without either. We take a packed lunch to work every day and eat mostly the same old same old for breakfast and lunch every day. It doesn’t bother me, food is fuel to me. I plan my meals because I’ve got a lot made already and in the freezer. I cook for the week on Saturday and that’s also my ‘at home’ day when we get the cleaning, cooking, bed changing, laundry and ironing done. Going back to teacher talk, this is what I would describe as my medium term planning where I look at my finances for each month.


If you’ve never made a monthly financial plan, then you may not have any idea of what one looks like or how anyone goes about it! So, warts and all, here is my monthly balance sheet. The £400 a month savings is for everything, including car tax; car and house insurance, dental costs, hair cuts, household maintenance, the cooker breaking down and anything else we need. We don’t spend all of that every year and year on year it rolls over into the next and when there is a comfortable amount, we skim off what we don’t for see needing and add it to long term savings. We are saving for a new car at some time. You can see at the end of every month, even though both of us work that there is £77.33 spare. We try not to use that unless we have to.

Then there’s my weekly planning. Why the chuffin’ eck do I go to so much trouble? We’re busy working people. It would be easy when we are worn out to reach for the take away, for easy entertainment or to end up running out of clean clothes or not having something ready to eat when we get home from work. We get our fuel on the way to work and get our fortnightly shopping on the way home from work. We have a small shopping list that might include milk, fresh vegetables or salad. We sort all of our clothing for the week, all our ‘jobs’ we have to do at the weekend. It means we have a week that runs smoothly and we can come home from work and relax by the woodstove.


You will also see that there are plenty of things I haven’t planned. I haven’t planned a holiday next year. I’ve been two years in a row and got bored both times and could think of a million more purposeful things I could be doing with my time off. Hyperactivity and holidays don’t really go together. I haven’t planned any nights out as I went to a restaurant last year and it was rubbish and by all standards it was a posh place and if that’s anything to go by, I won’t bother again. I won’t be going to the cinema as I’m just as happy to wait until something comes out on TV. I won’t be going to the theatre as tickets cost in the region of £30 each. I won’t be going to any pubs as I only drink two glasses of wine a week (one on Friday night and one on Saturday night) so there’s no attraction there either.

I do plan to continue to live a simple life, to walk in the countryside, to use the library, to sit on the beach in the sun, to read in my garden, to visit friends and to take time to be peacefully me. None of this is a manifesto, none of this is for anyone else to do. I know people who live in cold houses so they can have nights out and holidays and that’s up to them. Each to their own.

Over to you, is planning important to you? Where do you save money by planning? Do you budget and menu plan? What’s your plans, financial or otherwise for 2013?

The last one, the biggest one is saved for tomorrow,

Until then,

Love Froogs xxx

The final Countdown!

money saving, no spend days

Hello Dear Reader,

I’m getting excited now, I always do when I approach a new year. I love a challenge, in fact, what ever life throws at me, even if I don’t like it, is to be tackled, stamped through and pushed into as I will never be beaten! I am always best with a deadline, with a target and with a to do list. It doesn’t matter to me if it’s work related, house work, to do with money or just the poop life throws us every now and then, bring it on!

Now I know I’m a tough old bird, a bit battle scarred and I live in the world of not giving a fig but here is the totally bleedin’ obvious route to a frugal 2013. Here comes resolution #3.

3. No spend days!

So chuffin’ simple isn’t it? Or is it? I’ve had more comments than I can mention telling me that Uncle Bert saved all of his money and died the day he retired. I’ve been told that we all deserve a treat, that we all need holidays, that we all need to ease up and we’ll all get there eventually. Well those are not the words of winners. Winners resolutely stick to a plan, keep at it and don’t give up. Winners do not need nights out, paid entertainment or to go on holiday. They do the opposite. They keep going no matter what and they achieve what they set out to do. Just like me, they will get narked with the whole chosen lifestyle every now and then but the long term rewards are certainly worth it.

No spend days are all about planning carefully budgeted spending. They are about setting a budget at the beginning of the year and making sure you have thought of all eventualities. How much does it cost to service the car, to pay for a set of tyres, for the fuel to get to work and save money to replace it as it will not last forever. How much does household maintenance cost? How much to repaint a house every four years? How much to replace work wear annually? When you’ve sat down and worked all that out you will not be surprised how little there is left.

So what do I mean by having no spend days? I get paid on the last day of the month and on the first day of the month all the money is gone! I pay my mortgage, into our savings fund for everything I have to budget for throughout the year, I make my monthly mortgage over payment, I pay the direct debits for utilities, insurances and local taxes, I put money into my diesel and food account and I eek that out so I have a bit of money if I need clothes or thread. I don’t leave myself with money to play with and I’m so used to it now that I just live that way. I went away twice last year and got married so that accounts for any holidays in 2013 or 2014 and we’ll just potter around locally on days off and look forward to a week away in 2015. It’s a goal and we will get there.

I no longer spend without saving and planning. If I have any food money left at the end of the month and either of us needs a hair cut, new pair of shoes or new clothing, or item of furniture then that’s what we buy it with. Now, most days are no spend days and that’s the way I need to keep it for 2013 to pay down my mortgage.


If you are thinking of stopping spending, then initially this will be difficult. You will have to master the art of saying no, mostly to yourself. To begin with, it might be easier to make up excuses as to why you are not attending a wedding, birthday party or day out. I just brass it out now and tell them no and don’t give a reason. People stop asking in the end, they know me well enough that I no longer spend money. If this is going to become a new way of life for you then it will be hard to begin with as you may be used to paying to be entertained and used to going to the cinema, theatre, restaurants or gardens or attractions. I haven’t been to any of them since 2008 and although I miss the theatre, not going hasn’t killed me and I assure you I miss it so much that I still read reviews.

Even now, I get ‘ I would like’ pangs. We relented this year and used Dearly Beloved’s ‘ebay fund that he’d made selling stuff to buy me a really good sewing machine. We haven’t relented and bought a new sofa, even though we both would love one. We are now in the process of finding ways and means of earning extra money to save up for items of furniture and for household maintenance but it will be all done on a strict budget and with the aid of ebay, ‘preloved’ and freecycle. A sofa will turn up in the end!

What about you? Up for the challenge? Mine is to have two spend days a month (which doesn’t mean running round spending just because it’s a spend day) and the rest to be no spend days. All spending will be planned for and only that which we really need is on the shopping list. What do we actually need? As ever, I always love to hear from you.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

Final Countdown 4-3-2-1 to 2013

Earning extra money, frugal quilting, Frugal weight loss, money saving

Hello Dear Reader,

I’ve had a lovely day, busy but useful. I’ve been and collected a chair I bought from an ebay seller, would be £1800 new and I got it for £23. Hand made English armchair, recently recovered but will be recovered again as soon as I’ve saved up for it, along with my good sofa. All part of my house renovations. I also freecycled my large, many times repaired and far too low for my long legs, old sofa. It was twelve years old and we’ve mended it many times over. It now has a new home and a couple who were very grateful to have it. Talking of being grateful, thanks so much to ‘Stash busting nurse’ for sending the most fabulous parcel of fabric; there are so many lovely ideas all wrapped up in that fabric and I’m really looking forward to setting them free.

So, where was I? Arm chair here, sofa gone and fabric arrived! I’ve also finished some quilted table runners that I started before Christmas. Even though the decorations are boxed and back in the loft I’ve still enjoyed finishing them and they will be carefully put away for next year.

Here’s what you’ve been waiting for, my second resolution:

2. Make good use of everything you have.

Let me think of all the things I have that I can make good use of. Firstly, those long legs! I can and will walk more. I always walk to the local shops and carry my shopping home. I can walk on beaches and the moorland, I can meet up with friends and go out for walks with them. I can take a walk at the end of the day instead of even thinking of joining a gym (which we all do in the new year). We all have bodies, do they do enough for us? Do we make good use of them? Or do we leave them sat on a sofa? Next, I have time. I need to use my time really well. It takes me fifteen minutes to give one room of my house a quick clean and I can do a room a day. Do you use your time well?

I have a really good sewing machine and need it to pay me back for what it cost me. I shall make quilts for sale and now I have a paypal account will link them to my blog so they can be bought. I have skills and need to use them to hold more workshops. If there’s something I do, that you want me to teach you to do, then contact me and we’ll see, distance permitting, what we can arrange.

I’m going to make really good use of my resources, from my bread machine, to my sewing machine that I’ve already mentioned. I’m going to learn new quilt blocks and designs and I’m going to use up all my odds and sods to make a scrappy bargello quilt!

I shall use the library more, if we don’t use them this ConDem nation will close them down. I shall use the coastal footpaths more, I shall make good use of the moors and beaches. I will use my garden furniture more and sit more often and enjoy the view. We all have a lot that we can make good use of.

Let’s hear from you all on this one. What do you have that you don’t make enough use of?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

5 - 4- 3 - 2- 1!! Prepare for frugal 2013

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


Hello Dear Reader,

Now all that Christmas shizzle is out of the way, I can get on with the part of the year that I really enjoy. I love a resolution, or a target or an aim! I like each year to be better than the one before. It doesn’t just happen, I have to make it happen!

I’ve a different resolution to think of everyday for the last five days of the year. This has been a great year and next year can only be better again. Here’s the first resolution.

1. Fix broken stuff!

Simple isn’t it? I’m going to look around and mend the things that need mending. The heavy rain and water sodden ground has dislodged stones in the raised bed in my garden. I need to fix that. I have hems that have come down on clothes and even if I’m going to take them to the charity shop; I need to fix them. I have teeth that need work so I’m going to save up and get them fixed even if I have to go to the medical school and have the trainee dentists practise on me. My garden was a mess last year, it’s still a mess and the only way for it to stop being a mess and become beautiful is if I fix it. Let’s face it, Monty Don is not going to come round and sort out my herbaceous border so I might as well get on with it!

Now none of this might sound very exciting but it will make a positive difference to my life. I have habits which slow me down and stop me from getting on with the things I actually like doing. I need to fix that too.

This is going to be a year of mortgage over paying so there’s no money for anything new so fixing the stuff I already have will lengthen its life and make sure I have ‘enough’ of what I need. There’s nothing complicated about living with less money, you just have to buy less, make do with less and look after what you have.

Over to you, who else has a whole pile of ‘stuff’ that needs fixing and needs to make that one of their resolutions for next year?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxx

Turkey Pie and Bubble and Squeak Parcels

frugal food


Hello Dear Reader,

I found these ‘gems’ of information on the Love Food, Hate Waste site….

“We throw out the equivalent of 2 million turkeys, 5 million Christmas puddings and 74 million mince pies. That’s a staggering quantity of food. And not only is it a shocking level of waste, it’s also money that we’re scraping into the kitchen bin.


In fact, 230,000 tonnes of festive food worth roughly £275 million gets thrown away across the UK during Christmas.”


Not a scrap gets wasted here! Unless giving bits to the dogs is considered wasted. Here’s what I did with the ‘leftovers’.



There’s not much left in the house as we had an early lunch and the same again for supper in the evening. I had a boneless stuffed breast and thigh joint of Turkey from Aldi and it was lovely. There’s a bit left, along with a bit of homemade stuffing and although we could eat it again today, some days we’re just not hungry enough for any thing more than a boiled egg! Here’s what I did with the rest of the leftovers.


I chopped the meat into cubes and mixed it with the cold mashed swede (rutabaga to some). I added some left over gravy and some of the left over veggies.

I made up some suet pastry which is lovely for pies.

Here’s the result of two pies which will be wrapped in foil, labelled and popped into the freezer for another day.


I cooked extra veggies yesterday with the intention of us eating them today but no one wants any. If you don’t know what bubble and squeak is then I’ll try and explain. You take leftover mashed potatoes and add crushed cooked and cooled veggies, the best is a dark green savoy cabbage but I had sprouts, peas and carrots. You mix all of that together, and it’s lovely if you add some chopped and gently fried onions too, or sauted leeks. You then form them into patties and fry them in a non stick frying pan with the smallest amount of oil. You can eat them with anything you like. I often stir two beaten eggs through the mixture and we just eat that as a meal in itself.


I’ve stored ours in old margarine tubs and they’ve gone into the freezer to be used another day.


If you are freezing left overs then make sure you label them as I have lots of old margarine tubs in the freezer and I’ve defrosted cheese sauce when I thought it was mashed potato!


I now have the basis of four meals from my left overs from the Christmas lunch. We don’t buy anything very different at this time of year, the fridge has the usual ingredients and there’s no waste what so ever! Who else is using up left overs to make something else.

I hope you are all warm and tucked up from the weather and I’ll see you tomorrow.

Until then,

Love Froogs xxxxx

Frugal Feast

Frugal Christmas, frugal food


Hello Dear Reader,

I was up early and trotted off to Radio Cornwall to give my twelve tips of saving money at Christmas and here’s the link to listen to it. The poor staff at the Radio station were bleary eyed due to non-stop broadcasting from the terrible floods around the county and there is another very high tide tonight and heavy rain forecast which means there could well be floods again tonight, especially on the river Fowey. You are all very much in my prayers.

I arrived home and have spent until this evening cooking with a bit more cooking thrown in! I started with stuffing. I finely minced half a pack of cooking bacon and also finely diced two onions in my food processor and added three crusts of bread which I have turned into bread crumbs in the processor. I fried the onions and bacon until cooked but not brown. (I missed that bit previously) I combined the lot with enough water to soften all of it and two beaten eggs to mix it together. I then buttered a baking tin and put it into the oven for half an hour. It doesn’t cook it right through but part cooks it and warming it through on Christmas day for twenty minutes will finish cooking it. This will go with poultry or pork and could even be a meal in itself.


I then glazed a gammon joint with runny honey and whole grain mustard with a dash of soy sauce and wrapped it in foil and baked it for two hours. I like to fill the oven and make the most of all that electric. I’ll allow it to cool and then slice it with my electric slicer in the morning and we’ll have cold meat throughout the next week when we just need to put our feet up and have a rest. I’ve spooned some of the cooking juices onto the cooling meat and it will absorb it as it cools.


I have guests dropping in tomorrow evening and need something for them to eat along with a cup of tea and I make sausage rolls with a little added extra. I take puff pastry (I buy it, it’s too much effort to make it) and roll it out. I smear caramelised onion chutney onto the pastry, then added the sausage meat and roll them up.


I then added some of the honey and mustard glaze and a few sprinkles of grated cheddar cheese.


So here’s my frugal feast with my sausage rolls, they look burnt but they are just dark from the sugar in the honey and crispy from the cheese. We’ll also have quiche to nibble on too.



Nothing here has cost that much but there’s plenty to eat and no one will go hungry! Does anyone else make their own stuffing? It’s really good to stretch a meal. Does anyone else have any special snacks they will be making as I would love the ideas.

Come back tomorrow for the Queen’s Speech!

All my love,

Froogs xxxxx

Delicious and cheap Christmas goodies

Frugal Christmas

Hello Dear Reader,

I’ve made the mince pies and iced the cakes today, one is for us and one is a gift, another has already gone as a gift and the recipient didn’t want any icing. To make royal icing for the tops of two cakes, you will need 250g of icing sugar and one and a half egg whites and a few drops of glycerine. You add the egg whites and glycerine to the icing sugar and beat with an electric mixer, it forms a stiff paste in the end and you can use it straight away to decorate a cake and it takes a few days to set hard but will still be soft underneath as the glycerine stops it from becoming rock like.

I only ice the tops of my cakes as I think that is plenty sweet enough. I just roll the marzipan and ‘glue’ it down with apricot jam. I then trim the excess off the sides.

I spoon half the royal icing onto each cake and spread out from the centre and then use the pallet knife to create snowy peaks.

I have some vintage looking cake frills which I wrap round each cake and secure with a dress making pin, which I stick into the cake.

I use the base and the cake frill year after year and they have nostalgic look about them.

I made two dozen mince pies. If you have no icing sugar left to dust them glaze them with egg and sprinkle with granulated sugar. These are so quick and easy to make and I used my homemade mincemeat. I have no idea why shops charge £1.5o for six!

I made the pastry with butter as it’s a special occasion and all I have to do now is resist them until tea time of Christmas day!

Is anyone else struggling to not eat the mincepies! They are very very moreish! My house smells a lot like Christmas now.


p.s electric radiator has been consigned to the porch and is switched off.and I’m keeping an eye on the kwh’s.

Until tomorrow,


Love Froogs

Lovely Rita, Meter Maid

Saving money

Hello Dear Reader,

What is a kilowatt hour? We all use them but I have no idea what one is. I have used 7.5 kwh of gas a week since the 7th of December and 175 kwh of electricity since the 7th of December. I must have left the iron on for too long whilst sewing and had too many lights on as it seems very high! I know kwh has no correlation to the amount of real hours of energy use.

I changed energy suppliers to Scottish Power who have an online system where I can submit meter readings daily and check out your exact energy usage. I know I have used £62 of energy in two weeks since I changed suppliers and this is mostly electricity. I’m now home for two weeks so I can expect the cost to be higher but I will be keeping a very close eye on this.


I’m going to make it my challenge to use a lot less electricity over the following week and to keep a much closer eye on my energy usage.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx