Frugal Friday - Time for a challenge?

How do we feel about a late-in-the-year grocery challenge? With Christmas around the corner, we can all expect a higher than usual cost month to come, and "every little helps" (yes, I know, sorry) in the run up after all. I've also spent much of October building stocks and resilience and as a result have full cupboards, 2 full freezers, and a slightly more depleted than ideal grocery account, so November could be the right time to challenge ourselves to spend less. 

Some rules for this one then:

- I will be buying odds and ends towards Christmas as I see things at a good price, and will not count those for the challenge.

- Household goods aren't being included - I will be buying another pack of loo rolls for example, and probably washing liquid. 

- We will be going to the farmer's market and shopping there as normal. This will include a loaf of delicious sourdough bread. I will not be taking questions on this... ;-) 

- Storecupboard items will be replenished as they are used but further stocking up will not take place.

- There will be a focus on using up things that have been lingering in the freezer for longer than ideal too - 2025's green bean harvest, I'm looking at you! 

- As and when I have accumulated any coupons or vouchers that may be useful, we can take account of those to reduce the money spent if we wish. 

The first thing we'll need to do to help with this will be a freezer audit I think because as always knowing what we have in will be the key to success on this sort of challenge. The other reason for wanting to do this challenge now is in order to get some freezer space created ahead of Christmas - when I will be wanting to buy a couple of hams to glaze and roast to provide meals into the beginning of next year, and of course there will be the turkey leftovers to make the most of, too! 

Second step will be equally as dull I'm afraid - yes, the good old meal plan! I'm inclined to attack this slightly differently to the standard though by making a list of meals that we will cheerfully eat, and that we have the makings of, and then allocating them as we feel like it through the month. I'm also intending to stick to a rough - although not set in stone - pattern of types of meals - on a Monday I rarely feel much like cooking anything complicated, so something batch cooked that will come straight from the freezer to the microwave to our plates works well. Tuesdays are traditionally some sort of grain/couscous based bowl, often with halloumi. The rest of the week is going to be a variation on pasta or stir fry, or soup and bread, an omelette or perhaps a curry. I am very open to the idea of a low-effort mid-week tea. At weekends our main meal is often at lunchtime on a Sunday, and MrEH is frequently out at lunchtime on a Saturday so I often use that as an opportunity to see what needs using and finish things up - "stuff in a bowl" if you like, maybe a toastie (what the Americans would call a "grilled cheese" sandwich) or even just that classic stand-by of a tin of soup! 

I don't forsee this being as low-spend as the good old days of grocery challenges when we had loads of vouchers to use against any spending, and prices were far lower anyway, and I'm also not setting any sort of goal spend on this one either - I really don't know how it will end up - but if we finish up with some extra slack in the grocery account ahead of Christmas, I'll be quite happy! 

Anyone fancy coming along for the ride? 

Robyn

Frugal Friday...

 

As those who read my monthly reading posts will know, I am a fan of a Jack Reacher book, and Reacher has a phrase about "hope for the best and prepare for the worst" which could easily be a sub-heading for this post! 

There has been plenty in the  news about the expected poor weather this winter combining with the knock-on effects of the summer's drought conditions and the increasing cost of transport, with some news sources suggesting that shortages on the shop shelves could be an issue. While I wouldn't encourage anyone to stockpile in a way that leaves them with more than they can possibly consume, and results in shortages for others (as we saw during the Covid19 pandemic), a degree of common sense in having sufficient stocks laid in where possible to ensure that if things do all grind to a dramatic halt, we don't have any immediate cause for panic is logical. Living as we do in an urban area with a choice of shops within walking distance, I don't imagine we are likely to be severely hit with any shortages, but it is nice to think that we have good supplies in to make our lives easier should any occur. If you are in a more rural location though, you may want to ramp things up a little more. 

Right now our freezers are well stocked with home grown produce of course, but the freezer isn't really the ideal place to have emergency food supplies because if the brown smelly stuff really does hit the spinny cooling device, then power cuts are of course a possibility, and while most modern freezers will survive a good few hours with almost no drop in internal temperature, that only applies if the door isn't opened! Tinned and packet goods are without question our friends here, and have the added advantage of lasting a really long while without degrading too. Tinned beans and lentils are wonderfully versatile in that they can be eaten cold directly from the can, or heated up, and will take the part of either a protein or a vegetable. the packets of microwave-heatable rice and grains also fall under that useful heading, although those are mostly nicer reheated, they can almost always be eaten straight from the packet and combined with a couple of tins of different pulses and perhaps a simple dressing, you have a tasty bean salad to hand. Assuming that the power remains on, these sorts of ingredients become even more versatile as well - some mince from the freezer, some frozen veg, a tin of tomatoes and another of beans, plus some herbs and spices and served with rice or pasta you have a hearty and warming dinner.

We're changing plans on our re-purchasing of toilet rolls - so often the first thing to disappear from the shelves in any form of crisis. Until now we have always bought the new pack when we have reached the point of having 2/3 rolls left - now we will purchase a new pack as soon as the "in stock" one is opened, ensuring that we always have a couple of months, rather than a couple of weeks, supply. I've always tended to follow that pattern with washing liquid, and we'll be doing the same with other household goods now also. For those who have periods, ensuring a decent supply of sanitary towels and/or tampons in stock is a good plan - there were supply chain issues with some brands of those during Covid so if you are a fan of particular brands this is even more important. If you are able to then switching to a menstrual cup or period pants can be a great and sustainable option, but these don't suit everyone, and they do require an outlay at the beginning.

Small habits can make a difference to the way that creating a storecupboard can feel to your pocket. I'm trying to add a few items to each shop that are intended for setting aside rather than for using immediately. When I need to pop in to a supermarket because I have used their carpark, I'm picking up three or four small items - tins or packets - that will go into stores to build resilience. Keeping an eye out for special offers on things we use routinely is something we do anyway, but I'm keeping a bit of a closer eye at the moment and pouncing on any unmissable deals. 

Remember also, a "storecupboard" doesn't have to be a walk-in pantry with shelves filled with beautifully labelled jars - over the years ours has been a cupboard in the spare room, the hallway cupboard, and now a spare kitchen cupboard (top picture) with backup from one of the pullout units (above) and a wardrobe upstairs. My big bag of rice sits in the cupboard under the stairs! You do ideally want to ensure that the space you choose isn't subject to extremes of temperature as that will shorten the lifespan of the items within it. "In store" cleaning materials might be able to live at the back of the cupboard under your kitchen sink, and a spare pack of toilet rolls in the  back of a wardrobe. For packet goods a drawer under a rarely used spare bed might be perfect. It's a myth that you need masses of spare space though! 

Robyn

Frugal Friday...

 

Kettle Cottage - North Uist

After a busy few months, we've agreed that it is very much time to get our eyes back on the financial ball. While we're not careless with money - we've spent too many years ensuring that our income works hard for us for that - nonetheless it would be fair to say that the past little while HAS been spendy - albeit mostly planned and budgeted, and the unplanned bits were necessary and have been covered by our emergency fund of course - the reason we have it! Even budgeted spends can start to feel a bit much when they all come one after another though and we definitely need to feel that we have a level of financial control back again!

Starting point has been the allocation of funds from a couple of maturing regular saver accounts - and the replenishment of our short term emergency fund. We had also borrowed some money from our Christmas budget pot to pay the deposit for next year's Lundy trip, and that too was replaced. The long term pot had of course covered the costs of our beautiful new front steps, and the balance of the regular saver money  was returned to the ISA where that money came from, leaving us all squared away there too. 

The Old Light - Lundy

We discussed what to do relating to Regular Saver accounts, and have opted to re-open one where the interest rate is still of a level to make it worthwhile - that will be funded from monthly income going forwards. The other one which ended has not had a new one opened as the provider no longer offers the same product or anything similar at a sensible interest rate. Another - in Mr EH's name - matures next month and that will go straight into a holding account to fund a couple of new Regular Savers that will be on the go then. 

Homegrown produce is enabling lower shopping bills at the moment - but of course that will begin to tail off shortly. That said, we won't be needing to purchase garlic, tinned tomatoes or pesto for the near future! The aim with the food account is now to build up a healthy surplus in there ready to cover the extra food costs that come along with Christmas, and we've made a good start there with £50 left over from the September budget, even after taking £100 of the month's budget towards holiday food spending!

White Tailed Eagle - Ronay

On a personal level, another focus has been ensuring that money is claimed back where it is due to us. MrEH is able to reclaim the costs of his newspaper subscription for the copies he didn't get while we were in the Hebrides, and my Delay Repay claim for the late train on the way back from Lundy has also been made. That won't amount to very much - probably £6.25, although I may be fortunate and get paid at the higher level, but it is still money I am entitled to have, so I wasn't planning on missing out!  I will now be setting my sights on replenishing the money in my own short-term savings that I "robbed" when I bought my new camera - I like to have a basic emergency fund of £1000 sitting there and at the moment it is several zeroes short of that level, so the majority of any surplus from my personal funds will be diverted there for the foreseeable. 

Joint account surplus will revert to being sent across to a combination of the "end of month" mortgage overpayment which usually takes the form of clearing down to the next £100 level to leave a tidy figure for end of month, and we will probably send anything spare after that to the Stocks & Shares ISA which forms part of our very long-term financial planning! The drill there is that any money sent to it is there for the long haul, so is sent and effectively forgotten about. More than likely an odd £50 here and there will head into Premium Bonds too, although we're never likely to win the million, we do pick up enough wins here and there - particularly when the holding size is larger - to make them worthwhile. 

Beach Huts - Eastbourne 

We've also been focusing back on the small financial habits - bank accounts which have renewable bonuses have had those bonuses renewed - it makes sense to keep them as up to date as possible to get the maximum benefit should they be discontinued! Checking the banking most days to check everything is in order. We'll be returning to meal planning and shopping from a list, and of course load-shifting our electric use to the most cost effective times on our Octopus Agile tariff - although those seem to be few and far between at the moment! With the costs of fuel for the cars escalating hugely we have been careful to shop around there - with a petrol station near to my work proving to be a good bet at anything up to 10p a litre cheaper than close to home.  In the interest of saving fuel, I’m using a free trial of a supermarket delivery pass to cut down on the cost of getting shopping - and yes, a reminder has been set to cancel it before the end of the trial! Although those are all seemingly small things, over time they do mount up and are relatively low effort to help us keep on an even financial keel, 

Robyn

(Not so) Frugal Friday

 

We needed diesel yesterday- the first time we have fuelled up on-island this trip, and we knew it was going to be painful. My car doesn’t have the biggest fuel tank, but the final bill here ended up at an eye watering £84 - by far the most a fill-up has ever cost me! 

The islands benefit from a reduced rate of duty - the per litre price here would be even higher without that in place, and before the current conflict that the giant orange toddler in charge of the USA decided to pick with Iran, prices have since that was introduced been not so much higher than at home. Last year the difference was just pennies. This year though it’s a chunky 20p difference, and a full 60p a litre above last years pricing. 

We fuel up as far as possible before coming across - this time round getting as full as we could at Fort William although we have been known to top up a final time as we drive through Skye too. In usual times with prices not so dissimilar from the mainland we would fill up before leaving too, but I’m afraid this time the opposite will be true and we will be leaving enough in the tank to get safely back to Fort William again. I imagine most islanders will be doing the same at the minute! 

Robyn

Frugal Friday...

 

Portreath Harbour - May 2026

You know we have talked before about the value of having an emergency fund if at all possible? Well - we have just found ourselves in one of those periods of time where we are reminded exactly why that is such a good position to be in! 

It started back in May when you might remember we had a nice camping trip down in Cornwall at the start of the month. All was going wonderfully on the way back until MrEH's car suddenly threw up an engine fault. Uh-Oh, we thought, that's not ideal! It was still driving fine, so we decided to chance driving it back rather than calling for breakdown recovery, and then get it looked at on our return. A few days later lovely Neil - a good pal and also handily a mechanic - popped it onto his diagnostic thingummy and, as we feared, agreed that it looked like the Diesel Particulate Filter ("DPF") was almost certainly blocked - not something he could fix, sadly, but he did confirm that the car was drivable enough until it was repaired. We opted for using it a little less than normal while MrEH started finding someone to deal with it (not something Neil could do unfortunately) and so my car got a bit more exercise than she is used to (AND was the one popped onto our ferry booking for our upcoming Hebrides adventuring - hurrah for that!) In true MrEH style it took a rapidly approaching MOT Test for him to get around to this, but sure enough in mid July, off went the car...

The car, pre-problems, lurking quietly on the campsite!

I don't think either of us were expecting "cheap", but nonetheless the options of a bit over £1000 to remove the DPF, get it cleaned, and re-fit, or nearly £4000 to replace it completely were a bit painful. Even more so was the fact that the "clean and replace" option might not actually solve the issue...OUCH! Conversations were had - the car itself was worth less than the higher figure, so we rapidly came to the conclusion that we wouldn't be spending that much on it, so the repair and some crossed fingers seemed to be the way forwards. Still though - that's a big old chunk of money to find isn't it! MrREH gave the go ahead for the clean, and the garage got cracking. Meanwhile we set to thinking about the money. Of course we DO have the emergency fund - but needless to say we really don't want to dip into it any more than we absolutely have to, so the first mission was to see where we might be able to round up any oddments of money to at least put towards it. The surplus in the joint account - which would usually be steered off towards savings - netted £200. A "spare" £100 in the account that funds payments to one of the Regular Saver accounts also got siphoned off, as did a balance slightly higher than needed in the account where we budget for logs and coal for the winter - another £100 there. Our car costs pot also has a tiny bit of slack in it - although we have insurances and breakdown cover on the horizon so need to account for those too. 

Tintagel

All in all our scraping together of bits of money from here and there has netted over £550 towards the £1020 repair bill - so more than half. The balance will of course come from our Emergency Fund - but we'll be focusing all savings we can make elsewhere into paying that money back into the pot as fast as we can - it makes me uncomfortable not knowing that money is there ready in case the proverbial hits the whizzy thing! We will also be ramping up efforts to put money aside ready for a car replacement without having to hit the long term pots more than necessary as it is fair to say that we've both lost a bit of confidence in his car now, and we know from experience that once one major thing like this goes wrong, more things tend to follow! For now though the DPF clean seems to have been effective - indeed the MoT test has been passed with one of the cleanest emissions test results I have EVER seen - so that at least is something! The bill itself was paid on the cashback credit card so there will be at least a small amount of money to come back on that, which is something! 

I will be sitting down at some stage with my budget book and working through some figures for the next few months - there may be some rejigging of what goes where as we want to bolster the car account a bit as well - neither of us are comfortable leaving it running on empty for long! Maybe that will be another Frugal Friday post..? 

Robyn 

Another garden project…

When we moved in to the house our sellers offered to leave us their garden furniture - and as we had none of our own, saying yes was a sensible decision even though it had clearly seen better days. As it turned out - two of the four chairs were pretty much fit only for the tip, which was fine as we only needed two anyway, and the table was far bigger than we needed, but was “OK-ish”. Fast forward to this winter, and we decided that a smaller table was a must as we want to fit an additional water butt - we already have one which collects the water from the office/shed roof, and the giant blue bucket deals with what comes from the log store roof, but there is a huge amount coming off the back of the house and the extension which is currently just going straight into the drain. The search started for a replacement table that was the right size, the right height, and not extortionately expensive. Let me tell you, it was not a successful search! 

After an awful lot of “too big!”, “too small!” And “we’re not paying that!” we came to the conclusion that what we wanted was something roughly the size of a standard pallet,  at a height we could use for seed sowing and potting on but also for just putting a beer on when we are sitting outside relaxing - but we also came to the conclusion that this didn’t actually exist…which was when our eyes lit on the pallet we happened to have lying around, and a plan was hatched.

Obviously there was a little more needed than just the pallet - but a quick scout through the shed revealed that in fact we already had timber for legs (gained when a store cupboard at my work was being cleared out) and screws are something we’re never short of- we found that all we were likely to need to buy was four right angle brackets to brace the legs to the tabletop. Having confirmed we were all systems go, we cracked on with measuring and cutting legs, then getting all the various components rubbed down and painted - in the same “Cornflower” paint we’ve used for the office and shed walls, of course! 

The pallet was one of those with quite open slats which wouldn't really be ideal for a table, but handily we had another one which could be cannibalised so filling the gaps proved to be as simple  just drilling and screwing them in place. Attaching the legs in a way that would ensure that the whole structure was sturdy enough was the biggest challenge of the project really- the screws we had weren’t quite the ideal length - but we couldn’t get anything longer in place as there wasn’t space to get a screwdriver in with a longer screw. Thankfully some very meaty right angle brackets saved the day. 

Our other main concern was whether the base of  the legs would rot as a result of being in contact with potentially wet ground through the winter months at least - it felt like it would be a shame to put the work and time in only to find that it didn’t last because something as silly as that. That problem was solved when I suggested a small piece of timber screwed to the base of each leg effectively as feet, and MrEH went a step further by cutting a square of plastic to fit between the two pieces to prevent water being drawn up from one piece of timber to the other. As and when the feet do rot, we will simply cut and attach new ones. 

Once all assembled we really were quite impressed - I mean yes, it looks like a pallet on legs, sure, but that’s what it is after all! It’s good and sturdy, exactly the height we wanted, AND it should easily give space for the water butt to be fitted alongside it. Most importantly it looks far nicer than what was there before, especially with the addition of my two wine-box herb planters on top! 

A new garden table for £7 plus a bit of time and effort? That will do nicely! 

Robyn

Frugal Friday…

 

I was tempted to call this a “Thrifty Thursday” post instead when I decided to use the photo above as the header - resisted temptation though! This is of course a bank of Thrift down at Gunwalloe on the Lizard Peninsula, taken on our recent week’s holiday down there. As you know, we budget for our annual fortnight up in the Western Isles, that money is set aside and only used for that purpose and things related to it, so any other trips we want to take during the year are funded separately, and this one was no exception.

We knew we wanted to do a full week away, but we’re also determined that it couldn’t cost a fortune as the budget simply isn’t there for that, so decided from the start that careful choices around where we spent money were going to be the winner here to let us have a really enjoyable week without breaking the bank. Accommodation is of course always the big ticket item for a holiday - thankfully we have the tent and are more than happy to use it - and our chosen campsite is a very reasonable £15 a night for a tent, two people and car. To that was added the single night  in a Premier Inn on the way down - £53 there, but it made the difference between getting a full day in a Cornwall on our arrival day and not, so worth the spend. It also provided us with a good breakfast that day for no additional cost, and full travel mugs for the onward part of the journey. Accommodation total then: £158.

When staying in self catering accommodation of any type when away, it is extremely easy for food to become a really significant spend - when in the Hebrides we tend to have lunch out and about, then cook our evening meal back at the cottage, and we took much the same approach for this trip too. We have two camping stoves, a saucepan and a frying pan, and can rustle up some tasty options using those, this time round we mostly opted for salads of some description with an added protein element, and sometimes some cooked pasta thrown in to the salad. It’s straightforward to cook, fairly healthy and balanced, and most importantly tasty. Breakfasts were eaten at the campsite each day - either bacon & egg butties or simply toast - and an even got a double-Yorker in a box of supermarket eggs! Lunches out and about were mostly toasted sandwiches or pasties, with an ice cream or cake for pudding - not cheap in that part of the world, but also not the most pricey choices. Food totalled a fraction over £200, plus some odds and ends that were purchased directly from our own spending accounts - and some household purchases such as topping up our levels of the delicious Cornish Salt flavoured blends. 

Of course there was diesel - for the journey down and travelling about while there. We used the petrol prices app to find the best priced filling stations, and managed to fill up more cheaply throughout than we would have done at home, including stumbling across one exceptionally well priced for the current time option on the Lizard where the service was still attended too - definitely not something you see in many places these days! We put in £152 worth of diesel while away, including a tankful on the way back which will see us through the next week or so of regular driving. There was also some additional travel - two days spent using a day Ranger train tickets (£11.30 each with our railcard) and buses totalling £12 on Saturday to save using the car on a day when we knew we would be visiting some pubs. Parking in a few places too - although generally we opted for reasonable street parking and a short walk to our destinations - another £6 or so - £63 odd in total there then.

Spending not mentioned here came straight from our own spends accounts - beers here and there, oddments of food as mentioned, and I’m not totalling that up simply because it was all stuff we might well have spent during a week at home anyway. 

The total then - roughly £575 for the bits mentioned above. Not “cheap” - but still an extremely good price for a thoroughly enjoyable week’s holiday. There were ways we could have saved more - by choosing to make sandwiches at the tent to take with us for lunches for example, or by taking more food with us. We try not to do the latter in particular though - because when visiting places that rely on tourist spending for their income we’ve always felt it’s important to try to support that. For that reason we choose independent stores over chains where possible, try to buy local products, and aside from things like tea bags, coffee and condiments, take relatively little from home. We do always empty the fridge and fruit bowl of anything perishable- so the remainder of my bottle of oat milk went with us, plus some apples and citrus fruit. Our trusty plastic box full of gleaned sachets of salt, pepper and sauces came in handy as always - including helping out a fellow camper who had found himself without sugar one morning! 

A truly lovely week, funded from a mixture of personal fun money, a surplus accumulated in our food account (deliberately accumulated for just this reason) and some surplus from our bills account too - it will mean a little less into savings this month, but so be it. We’re fortunate to be able to take trips like this, all the more so at a time when many folk are struggling with the increasing cost of living- and we definitely do not lose sight of that privilege. We didn’t consciously choose not to spend on entry fees to places - there just wasn’t anywhere much we found ourselves interested to visit which had such fees. At Tintagel we arrived after the main site was closed and were delighted to find that we could still explore the area up to the bridge for free. Our time on the trains let us see huge amounts of the county as we passed through it, and included a trip across the Tamar Rail Bridge and back, something I’d never done before. A lot of the things we enjoy are simply free anyway - just wandering about and exploring different places.

Robyn

Frugal February…

 So there we are then - the end of the month. Were we frugal? Reasonably I think - it was after all far more about intentional spending than “spending nothing” - and it does feel as though we’ve used the month well in terms of refocusing.

The final main food shop of the month is the one above - Lidl again, and that shop earned my next level of the threshold spend coupons too - a free pack of biscuits this time! I made use of some special prices through the app again too - apples at a very advantageous price, and 15% off our favourite butter, plus pate and salad. The bakery item was the freebie from last week’s bakery spin to win thing -  I don’t make a special trip to claim those but if I am in there anyway, then I may as well grab them. 

Total shopping for the month came in at just over £200 so a long way above the previous month’s tally. I expected that though with stocking up various bits and the farmers market trip too, and it still leaves us with a bit of credit left from the months budget, so that is a win. 

Planned spending:

- The electrical works we had anticipated having done have been pushed back a little which is fine, the money is still set aside for those and they will happen early in March.

- my car needed two new tyres ahead of its upcoming MoT Test -  this isn’t a surprise though and again money is budgeted for that. As usual I shopped around, although happily our local independent place turned out to be cheapest.

- both cars needed their tax renewed in February -  both have now increased from the previous zero band to £20 per year, it will be interesting to see how long it stays at that level now! 

- we booked a well priced hotel room for an overnight stop ahead of our planned camping trip in a couple of months. It will give us a free breakfast on the way down which means we’ll be able to just head straight for the campsite and get set up rather than needing to find food when we arrive in Cornwall.

Elsewhere, we had a couple of Thursday evening beers, a Chinese takeaway with visiting friends, and I had a lovely day out in London with another pal, just beers in some cracking pubs and a lunch in Wetherspoons, the company and conversation was the most important thing! A good chunk of my personal spending money for the month remains intact, which is very useful!

Blogging about stuff like a Frugal month certainly keeps you accountable - I’d forgotten quite how much! I don’t intend to continue with a full-on frugal month through March, but I will definitely still be keeping an eye on spends, and the meal plan will be made up from the fridge, cupboards and freezer again. I will continue with keeping an eye on Olio as well as that’s proved a nice bonus. 

Robyn

Frugal February…

 

Food spending was budgeted to be up quite a bit this week as it was our favourite local farmers market, and having not gone last month there were some bits we were low on. 

First up was Peter for lamb - £1.75 for a bag of “bones for stock”, but these as usual have plenty of meat left on them and will make a fantastic stew. Also sausages, a pack of meatballs (I do have some in the freezer still but those are already featured on the meal plan) and his final pack of liver - always popular and it makes a delicious liver, bacon and onion tea!  We had our usual treat of a sourdough loaf from lovely Adrian, then popped back outside to see Catherine on the other meat stall. I made the decision to buy the big 2kg pack of beef mince, plus a smaller pack of pork mince for a change - those have been portioned up before freezing. A piece of haslet for lunches - our weekday rolls frequently feature yellow stickered bargains so this is significantly more spendy than usual but it’s something we absolutely love so we’re very happy to buy it! I grabbed a minute steak too - so good for stir fries. Total spend at the market was £53.10 - and for great quality food, and especially meat where we are happy with the provenance, I’m very happy with that. One of the reasons I can squeeze a lot of meals out of a relatively small amount of meat is that meat this good has so much flavour- so you actually need less of it in a dish. Of course we are aware that we’re fortunate to be able to afford to buy like this, and certainly that’s a privilege that not everyone has, but often simply because you do end up using less, it really isn’t that much more expensive than a standard supermarket budget option.

Elsewhere the main weekly shop cost £24.69 - in Lidl again this week, and I claimed a free bakery item from the spin to win and chose a big punnet of mushrooms as my coupon plus threshold spend reward. Not the best value thing I could have had, I usually opt for the 7.5kg sack of potatoes but we still have enough of those from the Christmas veg wars so the mushrooms were chosen as something which I was going to buy anyway. A separate trip to Aldi for tomatoes saw a spend of £1.38 - and the rarity of having literally just bought the thing I went in there for! 

Spending elsewhere has been mostly guided by necessity- we have both been hit by the nasty lurgy that’s doing the rounds - and various over the counter medications have been purchased as a result. We’ve plans for a project in the garden which will require a fair bit of sanding - so a pack of basic face masks are winging their way to us, and my car has had a tank of fuel - although both MrEH’s diesel and oyster credit have been stretched by him sensibly electing to work from home for much of the week to avoid infecting his colleagues! Well, at least there is some benefit! 

Robyn 

Frugal February…

"Story Telling" - Devon. 

Why when the idea of this couple of months of keeping purchases low, are our freezers currently pretty full again? Batch cooking and free food - that’s why! Batch cooking saves on both time and whatever energy source you use for cooking - even making sufficient for a second meal of a dish you enjoy and popping the spare portion in the freezer works - and the time savings are at both ends too, as it gives you an “easy win” meal for a night when just popping something in the microwave or air fryer to reheat is an absolute bonus! 

How does this translate into reality for us then? Well first up was a big batch of dried chickpeas - the well priced tinned chickpeas I often purchase weren’t available, and they’re something we eat a lot, so I turned to the large bag of dried in the cupboard, half filled the slow cooker with them, soaked for 12 hours or so then slow cooked overnight - this turned into about 8 tubs for the freezer (I freeze them in roughly the same drained weight you get in a standard tin), plus a portion that I turned into humous. The last of the Christmas “veg wars” 5p parsnips and shallots were turned into a batch of soup - 4 portions there. I planned to make cottage pie for an evening in the week, so made double, using lentils and finely chopped mushrooms to make the mince stretch further - and while I was at it cooked sufficient lentils to give 5 tubs of those for the freezer too! 

Free food has come from two different sources. First off, the Olio app - an anti food-waste organisation that takes end of life food from various supermarkets and aims to distribute that to those who will use it, in this area Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Co-op all get involved. A couple of Saturdays ago I spotted some bread going begging just half a mile away so requested it, got the nod and walked up and back - 4 loaves of various sorts stashed away in the freezer saving us from needing to make rolls for lunches for a while, and providing several weekends worth of breakfast toast to boot. Earlier this week we gained some potted supermarket herbs, a couple of sticks of lemongrass, and a pack of Lebanese flatbreads - again, all free, and will all get used!  Then my Mum offered us a couple of packs of “beige buffet” type bits she had bought for Christmas and not used, and now didn’t fancy - so those too got stashed away in the freezer! We’re quite happy to take food other people won’t eat - as long as we know the origin and it’s things we will actually use ourselves it seems to make sense to avoid it going to landfill after all. We’re also not shy about using food past its “best before” date - “use by” is of course a different matter, but best before are ultimately advisory, and if you’re confident to trust your eyes, nose and taste, you soon find out that most things last a lot longer than you expect that they will! We have a local friend who isn't as brave on this front, but she's quite happy to give us a shout and say "can you use..." - and generally, yes we can! 

If you’re interested in saving yourself some pennies and preventing some food waste, then have a look at a couple of apps - Olio I’ve already mentioned, and there is also Too Good To Go -  not free, but much reduced “surprise bags” of reduced food from supermarkets, coffee shops, bakeries and even restaurants. It works particularly well to grab food on the go sometimes - especially around stations or in town centres. You never quite know what you might get, particularly with the supermarket bags, but if you are content to be inventive in the kitchen there are bargains to be had.

Robyn 

ps - I've been really enjoying just using relatively random photos that catch my eye for blog posts, rather than taking something "for the sake of it" - and it's made me think that I may well start a "looking back" series of posts too, with the story behind particular shots that I find in my archives and think deserve an airing! 

It all adds up…

Windows - Manchester

 Trying to refocus on the finances this month has looked a bit like this…

- Opting to terminate a regular saver account a month early in order to re-open the same issue of the account right at the end of its release- this means losing a months interest on the one as closed, but then keeping the 7.5% rate on the reopened one for the 6 months of it’s term AND being able to open the new issue account once that was released.

- Remembering that I was due a £25 Amazon voucher from a bank account switch I did at the end of last year, tracking down the email and claiming it while I remembered!

- Doing the quarterly review of our savings so we can keep track of where we are in relation to our savings goals - we’re fortunate to be able to save and so try to ensure that those savings work hard for us.

- Emailing to cancel a magazine subscription I took a trial on - 5 issues for £5 was a good deal, the main subscription is more than I’m willing to pay though. 

- Renewing my car tax as soon as the reminder came through - my car now costs me £20 a year in tax, but forgetting to renew could work out a lot more expensive! I write a quick note on the reminder confirming when I renewed too in case I need to check it later.

- Remembering to check my loyalty apps for shopping coupons and offers - the 20p off milk at the co-op is always useful, I made use of reduced prices for a couple of bits in Lidl and will claim a free vegetable item next week. I don't generally specifically plan my shopping around making use of offers, but once I know what I need, I will look to see if there are offers I can use.

- Ensuring I have a reminder set for cancelling a free trial of Apple TV before I get charged for it. We’ve had a 3 month run to enjoy watching some different bits and bobs, and may pay for a month here and there in the future, but right now it’s not a priority.

- Free seeds with a magazine subscription - 10 packs this month, and almost all things we’ll use. There will be some seeds we will buy for the season, but the freebies shape what we choose to grow. Yes, we pay for the subscription, but £35 a year for 12 magazines and lots of seeds is a decent deal.

- Free kindling for the fire - we save almost all our cardboard, and use a combination of that and MrEH’s newspapers (that he would buy anyway) for the base of our fire. On top of that we use twigs and short lengths of stick (always gathered from places to where the council would otherwise clear them up, never from woodland) or pieces of broken down pallet.

- Free fuel for the fire - MrEH’s newspapers again, pulped up then squeezed into a brick shape in a former - they then get placed on metal racking to dry out. We make a big stack of these through the summer, and use 1 or 2 each night the fire is lit - they give off stacks of heat and help to make the logs we pay for last longer. It also means we're re-using the newspaper rather than recycling it. 

- Sorting out a return for the new toaster we had to buy which turned out to be absolutely DREADFUL! Think toast on one side, plain slightly warm bread on the other, then burned edges within a few moments when you try to re-toast to even things up. Were we keeping it? Absolutely not - it will be winging its way back and we're searching for a better option! 

- More goodies from Olio- flatbreads and herbs, this time. 

All these on their own are small things, but it’s those small things, and doing them consistently that makes the difference. A few pounds saved here, finding a way to do something for a bit less cost there, and before you know it that’s money freed up to improve your quality of life in other ways. 

Robyn

Frugal February…

 

A 3-tube day at Leytonstone…

A Friday with no other plans generally means I opt to get the shopping done, freeing up weekend time for far more interesting uses. This week was no exception, as we combined our usual Friday morning walk with a trip to Tesco to top up stocks of our preferred wholewheat couscous and also some branded orzo on offer at £1 a box. I don’t usually buy branded pasta but this price was very competitive indeed - and in the absence of the discount supermarkets stocking it at present it made sense to pounce. 3 packs of each = £6.90 spent, and were stocked up on two staple items that get well used in this house. 2nd stop of the day was the main shop - Lidl this week. An impulse spend of £2.99 of personal money for one of their beautiful miniature roses - a bright yellow one. We have a red one of these bought several years ago and it’s thrived, so I’m hoping this one will do the same. I made use of 2 coupons for free bakery items - one from a Moneysupermarket email gave us a free croissant, and the other was my free item from last week’s shop being over the first spend threshold on the app. That sorts out a nice treat after tea today! £25.75 spend on the shopping, with just a couple of items still to get over the weekend and a fair few bits and bobs stocked up on too. Finally for grocery shopping was Farmfoods - somewhere we visit occasionally mainly to stock up on a few particular items - this time round two big jars of MrEH’s coffee, 12 tins of tuna, 4 bags of sugar (at 2 for £1.60 this is by a long way the cheapest place to buy it, and this will stock us up ready for any preserving we decide to do) and a couple of tins of sweetcorn too, total spend £23.18 there thanks to another voucher for £2 off a £25 spend.

A planned general spend on Friday was a couple of frames needed for various pictures - some more black & white prints of my photos, and a mounted railway poster print from York last weekend (we wanted a souvenir of the weekend and this seemed perfect, and at £10, very reasonably priced too). The frames totalled £9.98. Final spend for the weekend was another £5.12 for the yogurts and tomatoes I didn’t get on Friday, plus a box of seeded oatcakes.

Part of the reason meal planning works for us is that we treat it flexibly. For various reasons the original rough plan for Sunday lunch didn’t work this week - instead I opted to get some turkey chunks and bacon bits out of the freezer along with a lurking roll of puff pastry and made pasties - two of which were eaten on Sunday, with the others getting popped into the fridge for swapping in to the plan on Wednesday evening. A flexible plan - albeit one that takes account of ensuring that food that needs using gets eaten - is far more pleasant and practical than one that is so rigid it’s difficult to stick to.

We did end up with one unplanned spend this week as our poor old toaster finally toasted its last - can’t complain, it was a wedding present nearly 26 years ago so it’s given good service! We’re replacing with a “long slot” version, better to cope with different sizes of bread - our old one dated from a time when bread came in a fairly standard square-ish size, and we’ve often found ourselves having to repeatedly turn slices round to get them evenly toasted. If the replacement lasts as long as the old one we will be very pleased! 

Robyn

Frugal February?

Stunning rainbow over the river - Dartmouth, 2025

Shall we? I've debated about this the past few years but the month has always come along and had lots of plans in it, which involved (budgeted for, and so acceptable) spending, but that in turn feels like it slightly defeats the object of a frugal month! This year there ARE some plans - but nothing particularly major, and  so it feels like a good time to give it another go.

Aims this time are as much about being mindful around spending as around "not spending" as such - there might be beers on a Thursday evening after work, or a trip to the pub on a Friday, but that will be thought through and we'll ensure that we'll get value from it. We've got friends visiting mid month - and that will probably mean a takeaway. I may make a trip to Waddington later in the month to see the Reds training - hoping for more success on ALL counts than the last trip up! As usual the challenge will cover the food spending, general household spending, and my personal spending, but not anything that relates specifically to MrEH only. 

We still have plentiful food stocks, so are aiming to continue the good work of last month's careful shopping and detailed planning. I'm intending to turn my attention to the cupboards as well now - there are lots of odds and ends of things, and bits that have been hanging around for a while and that we either need to use or just to acknowledge that we're not GOING to use them, and to get rid. If it came with us when we moved house, and hasn't yet been used, then we will be taking a hard line! First step on this is going to be a bit of an inventory I think, and from there I'll start planning how we can incorporate various ingredients. The fridge is already looking a little barer than it was, and freezer 1 in particular now has very obvious space in it, maybe by the end of a month we can aim to get freezer 2 empty and turned off - that would be a win! 

Food wise then:

• Use what we have
• Audit cupboards and fridge and target lingering contents for use 
• Aim to get working through last year's home grown fruit and veg from freezer 1
• Remember that we still have kale in the garden to use
• Start gradually moving over stuff from freezer 2 as room appears!
• Continue to be considered and mindful about special offers and bargains
• Make sure that meal planning continues - it's not only cheaper, it's also easier!

If nothing else, I'm aiming to treat this as a bit of a re-set, and a good chance to stop and think before spending. A return to the "money mantra" of "Do we need it, do we have anything else we can use instead, have we checked whether that's a good price". The food account in particular is looking lovely and healthy at the start of this month and it would be nice to continue to build on that. 

Food spending this month has started off with a £20.97 spend in Lidl on Sunday - we opted to stop in and shop on our way home from the weekend in York which was slightly risky as I had no access to the meal plan - I took the approach that I could if needed modify things later though, and it was better to get the shop done rather than having to squeeze it in after work on Monday. It included the purchase of 3 packs of the Deluxe branded West Country butter which is a favourite, and I had the offer of 15% off, making it several pennies a pack less than the regular (not so nice) one - win! Also a pack of an interesting looking Polish (I think) cheese for £1.99, everything else was our standard sort of weekly purchases.  Awful traffic necessitated parking near my office on Monday so a purchase was needed to allow using the supermarket car park - that was one of my usual "defaults" - an 85p pack of noodles. 

Anyone else fancy making this a Frugal kinda February then?

Robyn

Frugal Friday…

 You would be forgiven for thinking that perhaps meals have been a bit stingy over the past few weeks, but there there you would be wrong. As much as the challenge has been about keeping costs low, it was also about the fact that we had an awful lot of food in stores and frankly it seemed like a good way on focusing on using some of it! 

In the course of the month the meal plan has included leftover Christmas turkey in roast dinner form, and as an ingredient in a stir fry and a risotto, a rather tasty cottage pie using venison mince, a stew made with some of the meatiest lamb “bones for stock” I have ever encountered - only £1 for the bag of them and they produced three good portions of stew. That was a very budget offering actually as the veg involved was mostly from the Christmas veg wars! Also a quick cheaty biryani which combined a yellow stickered  sachet of sag aloo rice plus a reduced price chicken breast, along with some added veg - one of those meals that delivered way more taste than the sum of its parts!. I made katsu curry sauce for the first time on Friday - just a BBC Good Food recipe…well, actually 2 recipes which I sort of combined, but very tasty, and it’s nice to have a different form of curry to add to the repertoire. 

For this final week of the challenge spends started a little earlier than anticipated - on the way back from the theatre we called in at Sainsbury’s and spotted a couple of packs of branded falafels reduced down to 71p a pack - not much debate was needed about that, they went straight to the freezer when we got home and will get used as part of a couscous/veg bowl over the coming weeks. £1.42 well spent. The first main shop was done the following day - £7.46 in Aldi including a couple of packs of toasting muffins with 30% off - straight to the freezer for those, too. Other than that, the regular citrus fruit and apples, a pack of peppers as they had the “wonky” ones with plenty of red included, and a bag of coriander to use with the curry on Friday evening and through the week too. 

Saturday saw a trip to the farm shop as of course it is marmalade season- Seville oranges were required! I took the chance to buy a bulb of smoked garlic - and ingredient I use a lot but not easy to get- and MrEH made a convincing case for one of his favourite brand of yogurts - this is the only place he can get the brand locally. We also pounced on a decent looking rustic bread baguette reduced to 50p which got eaten through the day. Total spend £6.88 there, and we called in to the supermarket on the way back for milk, tomatoes and a couple of bananas- another £2.82. 

Only other spend of the week was another couple of bananas - but MrEH bought those and must have paid cash I think so they’re not forming part of my calculations!  By my reckoning that is a total of £18.58 for the week, and there will be no further shopping trips this month, so that is us officially DONE! A quick tot up suggests a sub-£60 spend which quite frankly I’m really pleased with. The grocery account has started the year with a nice little boost, we’ve made a bit of a dent in our food stocks, and it’s made us get our act firmly together with meal planning, too! 

Now- time for February, I wonder…can we have another go?

Robyn

Frugal Friday

Last Saturday was our local farmers market’s 200th market - congratulations to Don who has been organising these markets for so long now and has made the monthly trip out there such a delight. We wanted to go - but had a proper chat about it, and agreed that as there was nothing we needed, and we were already up against it on time due to another commitment, we’d skip this one. It would have been lovely to grab a sourdough loaf from our favourite local baker, but instead we opted to use the things we have (ingredients and equipment!) and instead bake a loaf at home instead on Friday evening ready for toast the following morning. Had we gone, undoubtedly we would not just have bought the loaf, and while I love supporting our fab local producers, I really do want to focus on "using up" rather than buying more, at the moment. 

I bumped our usual “main shop” day from Friday to Sunday due to other commitments, but that gave me a bit of time to make sure my meal plan and shopping list were both done before heading to the shop. I know I mention this a lot, but I really do find that shopping with a list is the best way by miles of keeping grocery spending properly under control, and the meal plan means I’m not trying to manage shopping AND working out what we might want to eat through the week too, always a recipe for spending more. It also cuts down on time decision making on weekday evenings when, by the time we arrive home, we usually just want to be eating as soon as possible!

This week was a pretty standard week aside from the fact that we needed some frozen veg - peas and sweetcorn. Both things we always have in the freezer as they will work as a main veg component of a meal or a handful thrown in to a dish to bump up the veg element. Frozen veg is brilliant too - frequently fresher than the so-called “fresh” options due to often being frozen immediately after  picking, meaning far more of the nutrients are retained. Bonus of course is that it also tends to be cheaper than fresh, too! As can be seen from the receipt, that "main shop" was a £14.74 spend. 

MrEH has a banana for his breakfast most days, but the quality in Aldi on Sunday was terrible - he stuggled to find the single good condition one he eventually opted for. Generally he will opt to pop in on a Tuesday morning to get those for the remainder of the week, but on this occasion I needed to  make use of the supermarket car park near to work on Monday as thanks to the traffic we opted to park closer to my office than normal - this means needing to be "a customer" and so that was the obvious time to purchase the remaining 'nanas! 3 of them cost me a further 48p. 

Further use of the supermarket car park on Tuesday meant "being a customer" again - this time the purchase was a bag of onions - at 99p not the absolute cheapest option I could have gone for but the cheaper-per-kg bags were full of teeny tiny onions, of the sort that one might lose the will to live peeling, so I felt the 19p extra was a small price to pay for sanity! I would have needed to buy onions next week anyway, so this seemed a sensible choice.

Total spend for the week then £16.21 - so the highest week so far, but that figure also includes the frozen veg and onions which will carry forwards to future weeks, of course. The fridge is starting to look quite bare now - there are still some parsnips and the last couple of carrots, plus a red cabbage from the Christmas 5p veg. Plenty of potatoes and shallots out in the shed too. Bargains like that are brilliant for stretching the budget - just be sure to keep the items in the right conditions and get them used before they pass their best. Food over Christmas costs most households a pretty penny so we absolutely have to make  sure we get the best use out of it.

Time to move forwards into the final week of the challenge, then! 

Robyn

Frugal Friday…

 

Week 2 then - and we’re still going well. I usually work my grocery weeks from Friday to Thursday as generally speaking it works best for me to do the main shop on a Friday - it’s quieter than weekend shopping for a start. This week fitted that pattern, so I started by checking my Lidl app for anything too good to miss - nothing this week though, the things I was given offers for were all things we already had plenty of. I’d made a few mental notes of things that appealed from the freezer, and so put my meal plan together along with a list of things I planned to batch cook this week, then built my shopping list from that to include the usual bits and bobs like fruit. Milk and bananas go on the list as standard but tend to get bought later in the weekend. 

The photo above shows the starting point with this week’s “main shop” done at Aldi - and yes, includes some off-list bargains which were definitely worthwhile purchases. The tomatoes are a staple item - I have a small box of them daily with my lunch and I know they usually last well, so buying them reduced doesn’t bother me as long as - like these - they still look really fresh.  Citrus fruit and apples are regular buys too - I had a single pack of apples on the list this week as we still had a few left, but the packs of small ones were on offer and are better value - we will just take two each of those to work with our lunches. The family pack of mushrooms I have started buying recently - I prep and cook the lot then pop them in the fridge so we have them ready for throwing in meals during the week. I was keeping my eyes peeled for good reductions - the pate came up first, 75% off but an unknown original price - however I knew these had already had a price reduction, so I was reasonably sure they would be 25p each at most with the reduction, and each pack does two days lunchtime rolls for both of us, so good value, and one of each flavour grabbed - even better value when they ended up costing just 7p a pack! Further round the store were a few other Christmas reductions - the final two packs of Lebkuchen on the shelf for 29p are weekend evening sweet treats for a couple of weeks - and I couldn’t bake something myself for that price. The salt flakes I had been debating about since they appeared on the shelves before Christmas - I had already bought the garlic and smoked ones, but was unsure how strong the chilli might be in these. For 49p though I think they are definitely worth a try, and will keep us going until we can stock up on the Cornish brand we usually buy. Finally the little pack of Christmas themed sprinkles were just too cute to leave behind for 29p - they will look great decorating mince pies or cupcakes next Christmas! A £7.46 total spend then, and that felt like good value. 

We had to make a trip to Farmfoods over the weekend as I had spotted they had a really good deal on the washing liquid we use - although this comes from the same budget as the groceries I’m not including cleaning stuff in this challenge, but while in there MrEH found a reduced to clear section we hadn’t previously noticed and nabbed a couple of 6-packs of big-brand crisps at 67p each and a couple of sachets of flavoured microwave rice at 34p each so we nabbed those - £2.02 food spend there. He takes a bag of crisps daily to eat with his lunch and those work out nearly 5p cheaper per pack than the supermarket variety pack we usually buy, so well worth having. The rice sachets are Indian spice flavoured, so I’ll almost certainly use those to make some sort of quick biryani inspired meal. 

We popped back to Aldi for bananas and yogurts and handily MrEH spotted jars of mincemeat for 29p each - the “Specially Selected” range too, so we nabbed two of those to stick in the cupboard for next Christmas. £2.39 spent . Final spend of the week was also in Aldi - some more bananas and the milk - plus a box of mince pies for 9p - well, as MrEH said, it would have been rude not to at that price! 

That gives us a total of £13.93 for this week, and a few extra odds and ends stashed away with that too. Now- time to get my head around next week’s meal plan I think! 

Robyn

Frugal Friday

 

Unrelated Alderney Sunset - May 2025

Well here we are at the end of week one - and so far we do seem to have been sticking to the plan!

In the spirit of using what we have, I decided to have a little review of various reward card points we might be able to use for things that are needed this month. As I mentioned last week we had a £6.75 balance on an Aldi gift card which got used against last week’s “main” shop. A good start to the month! We do have £10 in claimable vouchers on the Morrisons card - but we are saving those to assist with the shopping we always do ahead of getting our ferry to the Hebrides - when we call in to Fort William Morrisons and stock up on some bottles of beer and odd and ends for the first couple of days, so those will continue to amass until they are needed.  I do have Tesco club card vouchers - but generally prefer to use those for rewards rather than against shopping- that said, if I reach a point where any are expiring better by far to just spend them! I have a £2 voucher in my Asda rewards wallet at the moment, and £2.50 ready to spend on my Nectar card as well. The real winner here though is an £11 balance on my Boots advantage card - I must remember that should any toiletries be required! I try and remember to review the offers on the Lidl & Co-op apps weekly as well to see if there are any that would be foolish to let go - this week for example the Co-op app offered us 25p off MrEH’s daily paper and 20p off milk - as he has a subscriber voucher for the paper (so pre-paid) that meant the full 45p of savings came off the price of the milk, taking a 4 pint bottle down to £1.20

We had agreed that if we spotted any real bargains in terms of stuff we would definitely use, we’d buy them, and so when a large chunk of Stilton - one of MrEH’s favourite cheeses - appeared in front of us in Tesco for £2.47 we agreed it was worth a purchase. We also bought bananas - 55p for 3.

I had to make use of the supermarket car park local to work during the week, and that did require me to be a customer (not unreasonably) so a packet of noodles got added to stores for 85p.

Total cash spends for groceries this week then - £8.61. We have used various bits up - scraps of pastry from the Christmas baking made into tartlet cases and filled with a potato, onion, ham, cheese and cream mixture (so tasty!) The last of the Christmas sprouts, chestnuts and bacon (chucked in the freezer on Boxing Day to avoid them being wasted) were used with couscous, toasted seeds and some bargain priced mushrooms I’d bought on New Year’s Eve and promptly forgotten about. The last of the Christmas ham formed a nice sauce for pasta with home grown tomatoes from the freezer, some of the 5p shallots from the Christmas veg wars, some more of those mushrooms and a blob of crème fraiche, and the last of the Christmas sausage rolls were reheated and teamed with mash and beans for a tasty tea. I've been adopting an approach of "what catches my eye first" when I open the freezer this week - but intend to revert to proper meal planning for the remainder of the month as I know that works best for us. 

And today we start the weekly cycle again with a visit to the shop, so I had best get my list written! 

Robyn

Frugal Friday

A frosty morning view!

The time feels right for a bit of a challenge to start the year - December was unsurprisingly a spendy sort of month - in between various Christmas foods, presents to be bought, and a few trips out, and ending with a long weekend in Norfolk just after Christmas. January will also have a few (planned!) trips out, but we can certainly do a lot better on the food spending front!

We have two full freezers, and a well stocked store cupboard thanks to making use of vouchers for money off a set spend in Lidl a couple of times during December. We also made excellent use of the cheap Christmas veg - and we’ll be aiming to use every scrap of that.  Christmas left us with plenty of leftovers as well - the turkey got carved up and divided out into portions  - sliced with gravy to make future roast dinners,  chunks for pies, pasta or curries, and “gribbly bits” perfect for risotto and similar. I also purposely over bought on a few bits, and did my usual thing of buying two large gammon joints while they were on special offer - once cooked they were each cut into two with one feeding us over Christmas and new year, and the remaining three bits stashed in the freezer. 

As we were away between Christmas and new year we didn’t have too much chance to pounce on any Christmas bargains, but we did happen upon a big pack of chicken breasts in Waitrose for a bargain price - those were cooked immediately with three being turned into a big pan of chicken orzo bake with plenty of 5p Christmas sprouts, a jar of sundried tomatoes and half a pot of cream left over from making cheesecake. Very tasty, and fed us both for two main meals with a final single portion being set aside and squeezed into the freezer for a lunch one day when one of is on our own on a Saturday. 

Money wise - the aim is simply “as little as possible”. To assist with this I’ll be meal-planning. Asked around items we have in already - so the shopping list should consist of pretty much entirely fresh stuff. I also started out with a small balance left on an Aldi gift card acquired when we did an insurance renewal last year. 

We are always pretty hot on avoiding food waste round here, and we’ll be keeping the focus there. This morning I’ve taken the final scraps of some pastry and turned that into a couple of little tartlet cases - the pastry scraps were a mix of sweet and savoury so I need to have a little taste of the cooked edges I trim off to decide if a I can get away with a savoury filling or not! MrEH had the oven on anyway as he was making a batch of rolls for lunches next week - so it made sense to pop the pastry in at the same time. Lunch used up the last of a focaccia I made for Christmas Day tea - we ate very little of it on the day as we were all still stuffed from lunch, so it had been in the freezer! Slices of the Christmas ham, and pickle (me) or chutney (him) turned that into a delicious sandwich. 

One of the main things for me to focus on with this challenge will be avoiding the temptation to shop for bargains - remembering that it’s only a bargain if you actually needed it in the first place! If we are in a shop anyway we’ll check for reductions, but there will be a proper thought process employed about the purchases. If my list for a week’s main shop is short enough that I can just walk round to Aldi that is what I will do - as that in itself is money-saving too, of course, saving on fuel for the car to go elsewhere. That is what I did this morning in fact - with a list consisting of just fresh fruit, some tomatoes and yogurts.  Total spend for that first shop was £10.28, with a cash spend of £3.54 once the voucher was employed. Well still need to pop somewhere else over the weekend for milk and bananas. 

So that sums up what the plan is - I know we are far from alone doing this sort of challenge this month too, on all counts a focus on “using what we have” is a solid start to the year, after all. I intend to try to make weekly Frugal Friday posts during the month updating how we are doing - so a proper old school blog challenge! 

Robyn

Into 2026 we go!

 

A seat with a view - Sheringham

Happy new year  - I wonder what 2026 has in store for us all? 

As usual, no New Year’s resolutions here - the closest I will get will be some planning in my notebook and some intentions set out. There won’t be umpteen new habits, a diet that smells of sadness, or a “New Year, New Me!” plan that’s guaranteed to make me feel like I’ve failed by February 1st! 

There are some odds and ends I would like to do - for a start to work on my fitness a bit more - firstly by getting back to some regular yoga again. My lovely pal Jenni over at Not Really A Farm did a fantastic challenge during December of starting her day with Yoga - often by candlelight - and I’m in awe! The only thing I can usually manage to consistently do first thing in the morning is to have a cup of tea, so I certainly won’t be making any plans to copy her, but I would like to get back to doing some regular stretching and flexibility work again, and for me, structured plans often work best, so I will have a look for a suitable monthly programme to start me off - very possibly something from Yoga With Adriene on YouTube.

Later today we will be sitting down to revisit our financial goals for the year, something we always do at this point in the year. Talking things through means we can ensure we are both on the same page with our plans, and that we are both happy with the money that goes into our various savings pots each month as well. That in turn streamlines things through the year - and means we can make the best possible use of our funds. 

We’ve got various plans already for this year - with more time available to us now that the Great British Beer Festival is no more, we want to get back to doing more regular camping trips, I’m hoping to squeeze in a few more air shows, and we already have some fun stuff planned with friends too including a trip to York to help a close friend celebrate a milestone birthday. As usual we’ll be heading off to the Hebrides later in the year, and we intend  to get back to a Cornwall for the first time in a few years too.

We also have plans to get at least one major job done on the house this year - hopefully this will be replacing the rather perilous front steps, although depending on how things go through the timer it could turn out to need to be the roof - we’ll have to wait and see on that one! Like so many of these sorts of tasks the biggest step will be in deciding exactly what is to be done, and by who - we need to take a deep breath and get started I think, and once we have started I suspect it will become far less scary! 

I’m intending to start the year with a bit of a financial reset and challenge - prompted by the two groaningly full freezers and an expensive month on the food front in December - I’m going to get things planned out in my head (and very possibly that notebook!) and will get a blog post sorted on it once that’s happened though - as we all know, writing it here = accountability! 

Robyn