Monthly Archives: March 2015

Journey’s End……..in sight.

quilting, Saving money

Hello Dear Reader,


What ever you do, the beginning and the end is always the hardest. When I started quilting, just as an example, I found everything hard. Cutting the shapes was difficult as I was inconsistent, I didn’t get the corners sharp which threw the quilt out of shape. You would think that it would get easier. As a quilt gets bigger, it gets more difficult to manage, the layering and basting almost pulls my shoulders out of my sockets. The final stage of the journey, the quilting, leaves me with aching wrists, sore hips and a painful back.

I have three UFO’s. Today, the journey towards the end involved preparing the backs of the quilts. I’m using some vintage yardage I bought off a lady who’d retired from quilting due to ill health. I’ve also cut 2.5″ strips to fold and iron for the binding.

In the meantime, my sewing room is in chaos but I’m in the final stage of the journey. I now have to borrow space to lay out my quilts as I just don’t have the space anymore.

Whilst thinking about journeys, I often think of my own and maybe you’ll think of yours. It was only two years ago when we restarted our process of downsizing and being able to live well below our means. We are again getting towards the end of a journey where we want to become mortgage free. Hopefully, we’re six years away. It is hard to keep going when you’ve been at the frugal coal face for longer than we’d like but the journey continues.

Part of that journey towards being mortgage free means on top of my main job, I’m a jobbing freelance writer and today you can find my thoughts on cutting back at Easter here http://www.dontfretaboutdebt.net/do-you-need-to-splurge-at-easter-ideas-for-saving-money-on-your-easter-celebrations/

It would be great if you could pop over and have a read.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxx

Staycation Day One.

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

Hello Dear Reader,
I shall get this quilt top finished today. It’s not just been me. Scruffy at my feet, Dolly and Bobby by my side. I’ve had my ipad set up and I watched two episode’s of Simon Rimmer’s documentaries in the Caribbean.
Dinner tonight is a sausage casserole out of the freezer with mashed potatoes and greens.
I’ve lit the fire and I’m keeping warm in this horrible weather!
I add these a few minutes ago. I added a double border. I also dug out the scrappy quilt I made previously. I must get to the local craft shop and buy some quilt batting.
The staycation is going well so far!
How about you?
See you tomorrow.
Love Froogs xxxx

Easter Staycation

staycation

Hello Dear Reader,
We have time off at home this Easter and we have quite wooly vague plans, which are quite unusual for us. Normally, there are places to go and people to see. Instead, it’s all quiet here.
We will, weather permitting, get some work done in the garden and plenty around the house.
We do hope to get a couple of trips out each week even though we haven’t decided where.
Much of the other time will be whiled away with reading, walking the dogs, a ramble around the charity shops, I’ve some more clothes to make and of course, quilting.
As for tonight, mug of de-caff and an hour of Poldark.
What’s anyone else up to this Easter?
Until tomorrow,
Love Froogs xxxx

A day out with the quilts

quilting

Hello Dear Reader,

My annual trip to Exeter to the South West quilt show at West Point Arena. It’s really inspirational as well as somewhere to stock up on fat quarters for £1 each!

I’ll show you some quilts.

Beautiful Riley Blake fabrics, I love squares set on the diagonal, I must do this. I love the colours and paisley patterns.

I love the alternative to stitch in the ditch and a bit of FM.

Another must do for me, 1″ squares, not as hard as it looks but would take an age, loved the effect of shading.

Many, many traditional quilts this year with plenty of applique, not something I want to do but I could appreciate the hours of work.

More applique and a lot of quilting, I really must get a long arm quilting machine. As usual, I tried one out and marvelled at how easy it was to set up and use.

I am in awe of hand quilting, it has such a beautiful finish. I will never do this with my cacky hands!

Now this exhibitor really inspired me. Her quilts are her impression of arial photographs.

Me #hashtagging away!

Sometimes, the most simple quilts are really the most effective.

Over quilted for my taste but the artistry is beautiful.

I can usually work out how something was pieced but this baffled me totally. If anyone recognises the design and can send a link to a tutorial or pattern, then I would be greatly appreciative. I was though, very taken with the colour palette and will use this one day.

There were so many stunning quilts that I couldn’t upload photos of them all.

An amazing burst of inspiration and I look forward to next year’s quilt show.

A mass of thanks to the organisers and everyone who had their quilts on display. They were amazing!

Over to you, who likes to get a zap of creativity every now and then and go to an exhibition?

I knew it was worth being a skin flint!

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

Hello Dear Reader,

I’ve only gone and done it. After eeking, keeping the bills down, spending less on shopping, doing lots of extra work, keeping expenditure down, I paid the last payment for my holiday yesterday.

We didn’t get away last year as we’d just moved and had to make a start on the renovations on Thrift Cottage and we’ve put away everything we can so we can go away this year. We always rented a mobile home on a very lovely site and the price just went up and up until it was cheaper to rent an apartment instead. We did that and found one for £350 a week and rented it direct from the owner although we did have to pay for it through a third party site for secure payment. See the holiday lettings website that’s linked to Trip Advisor.

The biggest expense was our dog care at £60 a day for the three of them but they deserve a good holiday too. Our ferry was reasonably priced and Brittany ferries don’t seem to have put the prices up in years and our apartment right by the beach was very reasonably priced.

I’ve dried washing in front of the fire, heated and dried washing with wood and kept a tight rein on spending. It’s a wonderful to have something to save up for and really look forward to.

It is worth being thrifty to know that me and DB get to spend two weeks together, somewhere that we really love and not one penny of it went on a credit card and was budgeted, saved up for and paid for in total months in advance of when I actually go at the end of July.

To some a studio flat in Brittany might seem like a small win but to us, it’s epic and I can’t wait!

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxx

If you’re interested, I filmed the inside of the Brittany Ferries ferry, to show what a cheap travel option can be like.

1st world problems that a thrifty person doesn’t have!

Saving money




Hello Dear Reader,

We’re all familiar with the concepts of first world problems. You know the ones: favourite barista was on holiday and your latte just wasn’t the same, you just haven’t had time to get your nails done, leather sofa cold in the winter………oh the very stress of it all, I just don’t know how some people manage.

Here’s how I avoid all 1st world problems as I’m sure the rest of the thrifty living frugals do too.

We make our own coffee and take it with us in a flask.

We do our own nails, or in my case just cut them short and rub a bit of cheap hand cream around my cuticles.

We keep the same furniture for years and got it second hand in the first place, it was in fashion once upon a time and now it’s just ‘timeless’.

We get our clothes from the charity shop, car boot sale or our own sewing machine and are not fussed about fashion but know what’s stylish for us.

We cook at home so we’re really not bothered that we can never get a reservation at Nathan Outlaw’s new restaurant.

We are really not bothered about upgrading our Sky package as we went ‘freesat’ years ago! Game of Thrones? Never watched it!

We never bother about upgrading our phone contracts as we buy our mobile phones secondhand from CEX, cash converters or ebay and stick to the minimum and cheapest tariff.

Over to you Dear Reader, carry on with the list of things we just don’t have problems with. It’s the rest of ‘them’that I feel sorry for.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx



Back in time for dinner.

frugal food




Hello Dear Reader,

Just popped in for a quick chat before I get back to lots of work I need to do.

If you are from out of the country then you might not know about the TV programme called ‘Back in time for dinner’. A family is taken back in time to eat the food of the fifties, then the sixties and so on. They get to experience the food and life style of the time for the week.

Often, the food we grew up with shapes our future eating. It certainly did mine. I grew up on cheap, healthy, homegrown and homemade food. It certainly wasn’t 1970’s food. There was very little out of a tin, a packet, a freezer or any sort of ‘convenience food’. In fact, my food was either very retro or very modern. It was retro as it was home cooked casseroles and stews, braised steak, mash and garden veggies. Fish caught locally and local food. As that type of food is now fashionable I suppose it was very modern too and for the seventies ahead of its time.

So Dear Reader, if you went ‘back in time for dinner’, what era would you want to eat from? What would you cook? What do you eat now that’s either retro? Did the era in which you grew up influence the way you live and cook now?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xx

Cauliflower cheese, fish cakes and a UFO.

frugal food


Hello Dear Reader,

I thought I’d be tired, I am and glad that I prepped supper yesterday. All I had to do was warm the fish cakes in the oven, covered in the foil so they didn’t brown any more and prepared the cauliflower cheese.


I steamed the cauliflower and made the cheese sauce.

Cheese sauce

50g of butter
50g of gluten free flour such as cornflour
750ml of skimmed milk
pepper and nutmeg.
100g of grated cheddar

Melt the butter in a large jug in the microwave by heating it for 10 seconds.

Blend the flour with the butter and add the milk.

Microwave on full power for five minutes, taking the sauce out every minute to whisk thoroughly.

Add the cheese and keep heating in the microwave for another minute until the sauce had thickened considerably.


Transfer the cooked cauliflower (don’t over cook or it become mushy) to an oven proof dish and cover in cheese sauce. Brown in the oven (180) for fifteen minutes.

Serve fishcakes with lemon wedges or tartare sauce (I buy several jars for £1 from Approved Food). I make my fishcakes with cooked fish and you can add as much or as little as you like, chopped small bunch of corriander and the zest of a lemon. Shape into fishcakes and bake with a drizzle of oil for 20 - 30 minutes at 180.

The fishcakes are equally good cold the next day for lunch.


Some one asked to see the UFO I’m working on. I’m trying to add a row of blocks a night. The design is by Bonnie Hunter and from her book Adventures with Leaders and Enders. The design is called Blue Ridge Beauty. It’s 97″ by 109″ when finished and I’ve got a long way to go yet. I’m taking ages as I unpick every seam that doesn’t line up properly. DB chose this and it’s for him so I want it to be perfect.

I have two completed quilts that need backing and quilting and this one that needs finishing. I needed to get the confession off my chest. I started making a ‘summer quilt’ and finished it last summer! and shamefully I haven’t backed it yet! I really must get on with the quilts that need finishing.

Talking of quilts, a while ago I had a give away for some quilting books and magazines that were won by a local reader who came and collected them on Saturday. It was lovely to meet Lyn from Plymouth and I hope she gets lots of pleasure from the quilting books.

Over to you, please let me know that I’m not the only person lagging behind with lots of quilting jobs left unfinished.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

Cooking from the bottom of the freezer

frugal food, frugal home

Hello Dear Reader,

It’s almost the end of the month and we’re doing our best to spend as little money as possible. I’m determined to eat from our stores and do our best with what we’ve got. All that was left in the bottom of my freezer was: a pack of minced beef - it became Cottage pie for two days plus lunches for one. Small pack of shin of beef became beef casserole, one pack of sausages became sausage casserole, cod in parsley sauce and prawns became fish pie, salmon went into the fish pie and the salmon and corriander fishcakes.


Above is what my very loose planning and shopping list looks like. I had a check in the cupboards and this was all I needed from Aldi.


I did a stock take of my pantry cupboard and gave it a clean out too. This will all be part of meals for a while.

Here’s the base of my fish pie and cottage pie, below is the fish cakes. I say fish, but there’s so little fish in them that I could call them fish flavoured cakes! Yes, that is a biscuit cutter that I use as a mould.

I cooked the sausage in a pan and then cooked the ‘casserole’ separately. I then allow it all to cool before I freeze it all. I cooked the beef casserole in the slow cooker.

My freezer will now have ‘ready meals’ for the next few days and I will have lots of time to catch up on sewing jobs and a UFO quilt that keeps calling to me.

Two quiches. The larger one will be portioned and wrapped for lunches and the smaller one was our Sunday lunch with a bit of salad. I don’t eat the pastry.

Is there anything so beautiful as a golden quiche cooking on top of the cooker?

Our lunch, soggy bottom and all………..doesn’t bother DB.


Crispy fish cakes. I will allow these to cool and pop them on a tray with greaseproof paper and place them in the freezer. When they are frozen, I will transfer them to a plastic bag and back in the freezer.

Final results from the remnants at the bottom of my freezer will feed us all week. Sticky pork, that DB will have chopped up and in a wrap with salad for lunch a couple of days. Quiche for lunches. Beef casserole, fish pie for two days, cottage pie for two days, sausage casserole and fishcakes for two days. Food a bit dark in places? My oven is on its last legs but I’m keeping with it all the way until it just can’t cook any more!

Finally a round up of my thrifty week.

Central heating now off and the only heating is the wood stove.

All laundry dried out in the garden.

Cooked the remnants of the freezer.

Did a food stock take and only bought a minimum top up from Aldi (£18 only spend this week)

Working on a UFO quilt that I want to get finished.

Saved as much as I can as I’m going to the South West Quilt Show!!!!!!! Next weekend!!! On that note, please come and say hello to Dearly Beloved and I if you see us. I will be fabric buying and gasping in utter delight at the quilts on show.

Hopefully, I’ll see some of you at Exeter Westpoint on Saturday and we will arrive at ten and leave around two. Over to you Dear Reader, is anyone else going to the quilt show? What have you done to be thrifty this week? Who else cooks from the bottom of the freezer every now and then?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxx

How to save money when moving house

frugal home

in collaboration with My Online Estate Agents


Hello Dear Reader,

We moved just a little over a year ago and it was life changing for us. We moved from a large home to a small cottage and did so specifically to save money. We loved our previous home but it really cost us more than we could afford long term in mortgage and upkeep. Financially, we have found a level that is sustainable. Our energy bills and mortgage payments have halved. Our council tax is one third less than it was as is our home insurance. It made sense for us to move even though people with similar incomes to ourselves are looking for the ‘wow factor’, whilst we just want a cosy home.


Our finished garden at our previous house, it was worth the work to get it sold.



However, the year we moved caused us financial strain and it’s important to factor in house selling costs. To start, we had to work on our garden and it cost us a lot in landscaping even when we did most of it ourselves. We had to pay a builder to relay the paths and repair the patio. We had to decorate through and even a coat of paint in every room adds to the expense. In the end it was worth it but all of those ‘house doctor’ issues had to be addressed. By far our biggest expense was our estate agent. Now we were lucky as we signed up with an agent who had just opened in their first year of trading and hadn’t earned enough to charge VAT yet and also had offers of 1% in their first year of trading to build a reputation. Those offers are not usually open to everyone and an average £250K home will cost £5000 at least to sell with agents taking 2% of the total price plus VAT of another £1000. If you then go an add stamp duty of 1% of purchase price and the legal fees on the sale and the purchase then a house move can cost nearer to £10,000. Still, it’s worth moving if it will save your family money and lead to a more financially secure future.

Currently, there are few houses on the market and those on the market sell on average in sixty five days. The house goes on the market and search engines such as Right Move help us all to find the house we’re looking for. We had an extremely good agent who worked hard on the buyers to sell them a house and negotiated hard on the part of the seller and buyer. Some agents just don’t work that hard. The house goes onto Prime Location and Right Move and some don’t organise viewings and just let the vendor show people around. You might wonder what you’re paying for? It’s no wonder more and more people are selling their house themselves using online services and paying a one off upfront fee and saving themselves a whole pile of money. (Click HERE for the evidence)


There are ways to save money when buying and selling and if you’re prepared to put in the work then the savings will be significant.

Selling - in the current buoyant market you could sell online with a company such as My online estate agent and save a lot of estate agent fees.

Don’t spend too much renovating your house before selling. We painted all the woodwork white with gloss and all the walls magnolia. I had the carpets cleaned instead of replacing them and keeping the place clean and tidy doesn’t cost anything at all.

Don’t neglect the garden. Paint the fences and the shed it will freshen the place for very little. Weed all the borders, put down membrane and mulch, again low in cost but will tidy the place. Hire a jet washer and clean down the patio and drive way. It will look like new after that. Keep the windows cleaned and consider cleaning the gutters and exterior trim or woodwork. No need to spend anything on replacing just getting the place clean and tidy and you’ll save the most money by doing the work yourself.

De-clutter and de-personalise. People can’t envisage living there if they can’t see through your possessions or family pictures. Let them imagine living there and not see you living there. Box everything up and put it in the loft, your friend’s garage or better still the charity shop and have a clear out. Also, clear out the garage and show it with the car in it so they can imagine the enhanced security of having their car locked away.

When you get to your new house only spend within your means. Our furniture didn’t suit our cottage and we sold it or freecycled it (it was mainly second hand anyway) so we bought our furniture for the cottage from a house clearance company. We then did it up by painting it and it kept the cost down.


Also, when furnishing your new home on a budget, don’t forget the charity shops and car boot sales. My best bargain ever came from a charity shop where I bought almost new curtains for £10.


I also think that the best way to save money when you get to your new home is to live beneath your means and live in it and not show it off. You did all the fussing to sell your previous home and now you can put your feet up and enjoy your home.

Over to you, what advice can you share about keeping down the cost of moving home?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx