Monthly Archives: June 2014

Can quilt making be affordable?

frugal quilting


Hello Dear Reader,

I’ve had a rummaging through my fabric night. It’s been sorted, graded and the box storage system has been juggled about.

I have a box or random 2″ strips that will all become tiny blocks and may become a border.

I have a box of 1″ strips that will become tiny partition strips.

I have a box of tiny off cuts that I will cut down into strips and squares.

I have boxes of cut down shirts and items of clothing. These become the bulk of my quilts and form my darks and lights.

I’m in the middle of two quilts and I’m at that stage where I’m struggling to find the motivation to finish either. One is a pattern and needs to be exact. I make myself create ten blocks when ever I can get the will power t to sit and work at it.

My other quilt, is a random scrappy quilt. I just sew bits to bit and a few bits more to that. As long as dark goes against light then it works just fine. The shapes are random but when I have sizeable ‘bit’ then I use my rotary cutter to make it regular enough to fit into another strip for the quilt.

I’ve reminised over fabric tonight. My biggest haul came from an older lady, who had quilted all her life, who now can’t sit at her machine any more. I bought her entire haul of fabric and she only asked a very reasonable price. She also gave me patterns, cutting mats, rulers, templates and threads.

I’ve had fabric gifted to me, from friends, colleagues, dear readers, fellow quilters and thrifters. I’ve always loved quilting with shirt fabric, it’s soft and really good quality.

There is something very soothing about a rummage through my own fabric. Every now and then, I re-sort and colour co-ordinate and then I also sort into larger fabric pieces which require more folding.

That’s where I’ve been tonight. It’s reinvigorated me. I’ve had a good tidy and have fallen in love with fabric again. For the rest of the week, I’m going to get some sewing done!!

Over to you Dear Reader, who loves sorting and de-cluttering? Who loves fabric? Who loves re-using pre-loved fabrics?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

Never mistake contentment with boredom!

frugal home

Hello Dear Reader,

Never mistake my life for boring. I’m very much in the middle of my working career, which forms the mainstay and most important part of my life. I look forward to my working days and I’m lucky that I have a job that I love. We leave early in the morning and get back around six in the evening. Evenings are all about grabbing time, whether it’s for a run, a walk, reading or time at my sewing machine.
It might be easy to think that our lives are boring as we don’t go out much, we don’t take our selves shopping and we don’t take a holiday every year. We don’t go to music festivals and it’s been eight years since we went to either the theatre or the cinema.
You might think that we’d be bored to tears with our own life but I really wouldn’t have it any other way. After a busy week at work our weekends are all about catch up. Catch up on the cleaning, laundry, food shopping, ironing and a modicum of gardening. We love to find time for entertaining friends, visiting family and walking our dogs.
For us, it’s about purposeful simplicity.
I can proudly say that there isn’t one ounce of life that causes me any stress. Not many people can say that, but we’ve designed our life to be as peaceful as possible.
We live in a tiny cottage, with a postage stamp garden, we have a quiet social life. We purposefully shun anyone or anything that could, does or might bring drama into our life. We even go so far as to avoid crowds, noise and even the local pub doesn’t tempt us due to boozed up people.
Like I said, never mistake my life as boring.
We’re not bored and we love every minute of it.
We make it our business to spend very little money but to devote a lot of time to being happy our own way.
Over to you Dear Reader, are you mistaken for boring? Let’s hear from you, take a moment to declare how good the simple life is.
Until tomorrow,
Love Froogs xxxxx

My biggest bargain……ever!!

frugal home

Hello Dear Reader,

Today has definitely been the case of putting the cart before the horse. I know I should decorate the living room before I put up curtains and make upholstery but I found these curtains in the Salvation Army shop in Liskeard today. We saw them there a few weeks ago and I couldn’t believe they were still there. I checked the size and chatted to the lady there who said they were not £20 but £10. I knew they would fit one of our windows so I decided to buy them and got them home as quickly as I could.

When I got home, I checked ebay and found similar curtains for sale between £250 and £350, people were selling off cuts of Sanderson curtain fabric for around £150 for for 5 metres. On the Sanderson website, their fabric is £48.50 a metre ($82 a metre/ 1 and 1/10 yard!) These curtains would have used 9 metres. The curtains are by far the best bargain I’ve ever found in any charity shop. Also, Sanderson don’t make curtains this large ‘to go’, they are always made to order. If I’d had these made, the cost including making them and delivery would have been £850. It might sound ridiculous but today, I saved £840 by buying used. I feel like one of those shoppers who didn’t have to pay for their shopping because I had so many coupons!

I also found another dress today, I just love wearing dresses……….especially ones that only cost £3.50 from the animal rescue charity shop! Am I the only one who gets such a thrill out of finding and buying lovely items at very low prices? Weather permitting, we’re off to a car boot sale tomorrow to hunt for bargains for the cottage.

I then decided to use up some linen fabric that I had and recover the window seat and make tie backs in contrasting fabric. I have enough left over to recover some cushions too. I’m really enjoying the challenge of renovating my home on a small budget. It’s a fun challenge. One of the most satisfying points is having an old enough cottage that eclectic and shabby chic actually looks OK.


Our plans are to strip wall paper and have plain painted wall in pale colours so we can look for old water colours or prints to hang around the house. the wallpaper in the photo above will be removed soon.

We will be waxing our painted furniture tomorrow and I’ll come back and share the results.

If you are in the UK, you might have had some incredible rain over the last twenty four hours. It’s been a total blessing here on our new turf. It’s been good to stay inside, sew and hand curtains.

Now, over to you Dear Reader, who else has found the most incredible bargain? Is anyone off to a car boot sale tomorrow?

Today’s spend? £10 and the fun has been massive!

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxx

Ta-Dah!!!!

frugal home

Hello Dear Reader,

It’s done!

Sorry, there are no chickens, or veggie patch just a lawn to sunbathe on, or sit in a deck chair and read a book. When we downsized, I wanted more time for walking, spending with friends, going on walks, the gym, running or crafting. Neither Dearly Beloved and I are great gardeners. This suits us just fine.


Two small trees came out, as did a lot of shrubs. The trees will be burnt in the stove, the shrubs were moved or Freecycled. We will add borders later but for now, a quick wizz up and down with the lawn mower and it will be done. Our next job will be to relay our slate patio and add a few more slate slabs to extend it under the shed. The turf was a lot cheaper than you would imagine and we bought it locally.


We have a whole pile of wood to sort and rocks we removed from the garden. A few more trips to the recycling centre (the tip) and another of our house renovation projects will be complete. I will be planting out the border in front of the lawn over time as and when I can afford to.

It’s not quite a bowling green fit for Francis Drake but we are delighted to have a low maintenance garden. As I’m typing, we’ve had thunder and rain. Sorry if you are at Glastonbury but we could do with rain all night.

Over to you, have you ever drastically changed something in your life to make it a whole lot easier?

We have lots of thrifty fun planned for our weekend and I’ll be back to share with you.

Have a lovely evening and I’ll see you tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

Notes from the frugal kitchen

frugal food

Hello Dear Reader,

Our son was home with us tonight and I didn’t think that Tofu would quite satisfy a hungry carpenter so I dug around in my store cupboard. Aforementioned son’s girl friend is a vegetarian and I keep Granose products in the back of the cupboard for when we cater for her. She has the appetite of a bird so we don’t buy a lot of products but keep some that can be made into small portions for her. I don’t know if any of you can remember ‘Sos-mix’? It wasn’t the greatest and was full of fat, well this is much tastier. I can’t eat these as they’re full of wheat but it’s great for a hungry chap who needs some thing substantial. Dearly Beloved loves vegetables but he certainly doesn’t like ‘veggie’ alternatives and I think he’s still suffering from the last time someone tried to feed him Quorn sausages. He enjoyed the Granose sausages and my son loved them. I had some pepper sauce mix in stock and served their supper with that, and both were more than happy with it. I’ve not been given this product and I’m certainly not endorsing it but I stock up when it’s on offer with Approved Food in any of our local supermarkets.


I worked late yesterday and came home with no desire to eat that late. We ate the Tofu stir fry tonight.

Here’s my recipe

1 pack of firm tofu, cut into cubes
3 tablespoons of sweet chilli sauce to marinate the tofu for a few minutes
1 finely shredded savoy cabbage
1 finely diced red chilli
1 sliced red pepper.

Stir fry the cabbage until wilted.
Add the chilli and tofu
Stir for another 5-10 minutes.
Serve with rice to make it go further or on its own.
I had mine with a dash of soy sauce (now I’ve located the GF variety)


Both the Tofu (£1.60 - easily serves 2) and veggie sausage mix - makes eight sausages (£1.39) can be bought in any supermarkets. They are very affordable alternatives to meat and both are totally delicious. I bought both of these in Morrisons - also, I’m not promoting them either!

Over to you, what does your other half need a lot of convincing to eat or just won’t eat at all?

I always love hearing from you,

Love Froogs xxxx

Thrifty make over #1.

frugal home

Hello Dear Reader,

I was late home today and got just a bit done. Here’s some hints of our thrifty make over. We hope to reveal everything by the weekend.

I like a simple home and a simple garden.

You will have to wait and see.

Needless to say, it’s going to be a low cost affair.

Over to you Dear Reader, can you guess what I’m doing?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

Getting ready for July’s challenge?

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



Hello Dear Reader,

As a mum, I well remember the end of the summer term. It meant a massive outlay for the coming term. New uniforms, new shoes, new PE kit, subscriptions for after school clubs, sports and music lessons. It meant that I had to be careful with every penny from the end of the Easter holidays. I also had to put money aside for the school holidays. I’m used to making economies in June and July every year.

This year, in my summer break, I will be at home getting some jobs done around the house and working on the garden. As with last year, July is all about ‘Just make do with what I have July’. It means I have a complete spending break in July. I hope to put aside money from my household budget to buy paint and fabric to keep my busy in the summer break.

Tonight, I did my first stock take. I have enough in the house that I’m going to start the shopping hiatus this week. Here’s the challenge.

1. Eat down the stock cupboard.
2. Use up all the ingredients, no matter how unusual.
3. Use up all the odds and ends of toiletries.
4. Go through fabric scraps, no matter how small and make blocks for my scrappy quilt.
5. Use up all the cleaning products and eek them out to make them last the month.
6. Use up the tinned goods, in my case a lot of tinned fruit.
7. Eat down the freezer.

 It’s a great motivator to see how much money you can save by doing this towards the summer break.

To start - here’s my menu for the rest of the week.

Tuesday: Tofu, chilli, red pepper and cabbage stir fry with rice.
Wednesday: Veggie pasta bake - use up Camembert
Thursday: Butternut Squash and Chorizo risotto
Friday: GF pasta and tomato sauce with bacon
Saturday: Spinach and feta quiche with new potatoes (neighbour has loads of spuds and mint)
Sunday: Slow cooked Brisket with roasties and veg.
Monday: Same again (I don’t cook on Monday and we have ‘ding cuisine’.
Tuesday: Spicy stir fry quorn with veggies and rice
Wednesday: Brisket, new potatoes and veg


That’s as far as I’ve got. I’ve not planned a lot recently as we’ve mainly eaten salad of some sort or another.

What I will be doing with the money I’m saving? I’ll be off to a few car boot sales, charity shops and keeping my eyes open on ebay for curtains, fabric, shelves and a few items to make our house a home. I will be hiring a wall paper steamer and we’re keeping our eyes open for some affordable floor tiles for our dining room. We are sure we can renovate the cottage and stick to our usual household budgets by simply cutting back in some areas to have to money to spend in others.

If you want to have a go at this, why don’t you do a stock take this week and see what you can do with what you have.

Over to you, who’s up for the annual challenge?

Just make do with what you’ve got July?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxxxxxxxx

One from the bucket list! The Race for Life

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Hello Dear Reader,

I have always wanted to take part in the Race for Life! Today was just the most amazing and humbling experience and I had to share it with you. I started the race with Monique to my right and Helen to my left. We put ourselves as far to the front as we could. The advice is, if you slow down, others can pass you but you’ll never speed up through the crowds if you start nearer the back.

Helen was always determined to do her own thing whilst Monique and I who have been training together wanted to do the very best we could. We tried really hard even though the heat just got hotter and hotter and there was no breeze. We witnessed one lady collapse, I can only assume from the heat. Our aim to was to walk-run and run as much as we could. I would estimate that we ran over half the distance.

If you look for the little girl in a hat and a crowd of three directly in front of her, you’ll see me in my lilac vest top, Monique is to the left. It’s like ‘Where’s Wally?’ but if you look, you’ll see me. We ran all the down hills.

We turned at the bottom of the hill and took a slow and very hot jog back up.

I’m third from the right, and still walking back up the hill.


Now, far right disappearing from where DB can photograph us.

I did it in 40 minutes and 19 seconds. Admittedly slow but I did it.

I ran with those who had lost loved ones, those like Monique and I racing because we know a child with cancer, with parents who had lost their own children to that shitty disease. We ran with people with cancer and those who had survived it. We ran past proud older ladies walking by with signs on their back saying ’20 years clear’. We ran past heavily pregnant mums walking it as they just wanted to be there. We ran with mums pushing babies in prams, some who had only had their babies weeks ago. We ran with children with such poignant messages on their backs that just said, in naive handwriting, ‘mummy’ or ‘daddy’. It was an utter privilege to run with such amazing women. I will do it all again in a heart beat.

My heart goes out to everyone who has or is battling cancer. My applause goes out today to the ladies running on prosthetic legs, with a pair of eyes and rein guiding them or pushing a loved one in wheel chair so they can be there too.

Your messages on the ‘Just giving page’ were amazing, someone you knew, your parent, some one close or you yourself have cancer or have had cancer. It could happen to any one of us. You have donated £560!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You are all so amazingly generous.


Now Dear Reader, here’s the rallying cry. You don’t have to run, you can take a gentle stroll and chat with your friends as you go. You can do the route on a disability scooter if you need to. Look for the Race for Life in your area, whether it’s this year or next and take part. I recognised a few Dear Readers in pink and trainers today, sorry I didn’t stop and chat but if I did stop them I’d never get going again.

It was an amazing experience to get my breath back and run the last stage, run through those crowds and run across the finish line.

Thanks to all of you for your incredible love and support. Now, what challenge do you all suggest I do next?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

#raceforlife



Up cycling my auction room buys

Uncategorized

Hello Dear Reader,
I’m blogging by phone tonight as blogger is being really stupid but it works on here.
Just a quick chat tonight.
My thoughts are on The Race For Life tomorrow, all the reasons why I’m running and my gratitude for the £550 you have donated to Cancer Research.

We bought a bedroom chair and a corner shelf. They were both given a good scrub and then painted with. ‘Gris’ chalk paint.

We ‘ve had a great ‘at home day’. The week’s laundry has been washed, dried, ironed and put away. The bed has been changed and the linen cupboard is full for the week. We also had a trip to the butcher to buy meat for the month.

The chair now has a home in our bedroom. I will make a slip cover for it when I find some suitable fabric. Probably some simple ticking.

It ‘s a small start. We intend to slowly work our way through the cottage and garden and make it our own.
We will have a garden ‘ta-dah ‘ for you, hopefully by next weekend. We’ve busy evenings ahead .
We’ve a tiny house and garden budget but it will be fun hunting in the summer car boot sales for home items.
Until tomorrow,
Love Froogs xxx

How to save water and money

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Hello Dear Reader,

We’ve been working on our garden. We dug up and moved plants and in turn, those plants need watering. The weather has warmed up considerably and our garden is bone dry. We don’t have a ‘down pipe’ on our guttering as it’s a terrace and don’t have a drain in our garden if we did. Consequently, we can’t have a water butt even if we wanted on. If you wonder why I’m worrying about the cost of water, I live in the most expensive water region in the country. Even if we are careful and use very little water, our bill is still around £600 a year.

So, what the problem and what are we doing to save water? The first problem with water useage and consumption in our new home is that our water is heated by the gas boiler in our utility area by the kitchen. This means that we have to draw a lot of water before it starts to run hot. To compensate for this, we keep two buckets in the bathroom and fill those as we are running the shower to get hot water. We use that water to flush the toilet as required. We also keep small washing up bowls in the bathroom and downstairs loo sinks for the same purpose. The very worst offender in our house, even though it is luxurious, is the power shower. For now, we have no choice but to keep it but in the future we will change it for a cold water supply electric shower. We are very thrifty with our showers and make sure that we are in and out as soon as possible.



We keep a careful watch on our water consumption. I’ve written about this many times before but my increased water consumption in the garden has me thinking about the ways I try and keep my bill down.

Bathroom - short showers, using the ‘if it’s yellow’ policy, not leaving the tap running when we clean our teeth, in the winter when we have a bath we both share the same water.

Kitchen - I don’t rinse dishes, I just scrape them and put the in the dishwasher and we only run that when it’s full. If I run the tap for hot water then I keep the water in buckets in the downstairs loo and use that to flush the toilet.

Laundry - we only wash dirty clothes, clothes are often hung up and worn again. As I often have a bucket of water spare, I soak dirty clothes in salty water and then wring the clothes out and wash them in the machine…….the salty water goes down the loo for a flush.

Garden - we have installed guttering on the shed and collect rain water, I also leave bowls and buckets out in the rain and transfer then to the water butt. This is used to wash/rinse the car. I also use water butt water to wash the front step and if I’m scrubbing down the garden path. I always water with a watering can instead of a hose as I no longer have an outside tap.

Over to you Dear Reader, who else has some water saving tips? Who else lives in the South West Water region and has to watch ever drop? Who has un-metered cheap water and doesn’t need to watch the taps?

As ever, I look forward to hearing from you,

Love Froogs xxxx