Frugal Queen

Recipe for dumplings!

2012-02-02T11:02:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

I was asked how to make dumplings so here's how. I buy suet and follow the instructions on the side. Half suet to flour and then enough water to make it into a stiff dough. Use Self Raising flour.

I buy mine job lot from Tescos or somewhere equally cheap and usually buy the value flour.

Make a stew in a pot, or a casserole and make sure the lid is on, with enough room for the dumpling to double or treble in size. They steam! Keep the lid on whilst cooking, either on top of the stove or in the oven.
To begin with, mine were nothing special. I now have happy chewing silence from anyone who eats them. I've recently bought a mahoosive order from Approved Food and I always buy their Suet mix, which is £1!!! I have two of these stashed away and they will keep for years. Just follow the instructions on the side of the packet.

It can be used for dumplings, jam roly poly or suet pastry for steak and kidney pudding. Here's one of the resulting dinners with dumplings.

Any one else had a recent order from Approved Foods? Any one make the most of their offer of tins of tuna for 20p? I bought 30 tins as that was the most any one person could order.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxx

Feeding mind, body and soul.

2012-02-01T11:25:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

I'll start with a huge thanks to Little Anna! A fellow blogger who has sent me a huge box of fabric to cut up and use. I'll have hours of fun slicing away and cutting strips and squares. I've been spending time looking at other quilting blogs and see how organised some people are. They collect fabric for years and then spend a few days slicing and cutting it and filing it away. Someone I saw used ziploc bags and had the fabric stored really neatly. I'm going to look out for some in pesky Tescos. My next quilt will be my first to have a 'design' or a pattern and I'm researching patterns and how to sew and then cut to make alternating patterns. My next quilt will also be entirely recycled and as Little Anna has been so kind to give me old quilt covers, I'll slice one in half and use that as a backing. It's all about keeping the synapses firing and the grey matter working.

If it touches freezing in Cornwall, we think we're hard done by. It has and I'm really feeling the cold. I've been wrapped up like Scott of the Antarctic all day and have held off lighting the fire until the evening. Chicken stew came to the rescue. My son is on a course locally so is staying with us and I get the chance to indulge him with one of his favourites of stew and dumplings. I use chicken pieces and cooked them until the meat fell off the bone, scooped it onto a plate to cool just enough to handle it and with rubber gloves, pulled the hot meat off the bone and popped it back in the stew again. The dumplings go in for the last twenty minutes. It certainly feeds the body.

The soul? All of us, for one reason or another, needs each other at the moment. My soul was lifted today. Little Anna, you have no idea how much your lovely gift cheered me when I needed it most. We ate our stew, off our laps whilst sat around the wood stove. As a family, we sat and talked quietly around the firelight. Full bellies, warmed bones and still hearts. It's a good life when you take time to reflect.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs

Oh Happy Day!

2012-01-31T11:35:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

I was thinking of Foster Mummy suffering as she gets off meds and I'm having a bad time getting used to new meds! It's been a rough few weeks, I've felt as if I've been on a ship at sea. The only thing that cheered me up today was that dodgy robber boy Fred has been stripped of his knighthood. Strung up by his manhood might have been more fitting as he cocked up everything he touched and walked away with his 'gold plated pension'....oh you know, the sort that public sector workers are supposed to get fat on!

Steve Tilston can say it better than I can..........so over to him! I still think that life would be so much simpler if greed didn't exist!

On that happy note, I'll see you all tomorrow. Oh and a well done to those of us who went the month without spending (on anything other than groceries)

Love Froogs xxx

Getting older

2012-01-30T00:54:00.000-08:00

I read this today and wanted to share it - a letter from mum and dad xx

When I get old, I hope you understand 'n have patience with me
In case I break the plate, or spill soup on the table because I’m losing my eyesight, I hope you don’t yell at me.
Older people are sensitive, always having self pity when you yell.
When my hearing gets worse 'n I can’t hear what you’re saying, I hope you don’t call me ‘Deaf!’
Please repeat what you said or write it down.

I’m sorry, my child.
I’m getting older.
When my knees get weaker, I hope you have the patience to help me get up.
Like how I used to help you while you were little, learning how to walk.
Please bear with me, when I keep repeating myself like a broken record, I hope you just keep listening to me.
Please don’t make fun of me, or get sick of listening to me.

Do you remember when you were little 'n you wanted a ballon? You repeated yourself over 'n over until you get what you wanted.
Please also pardon my smell. I smell like an old person.Please don’t force me to shower.
My body is weak.
Old people get sick easily when they’re cold. I hope I don’t gross you out.

Do you remember when you were little? I used to chase you around because you didn’t want to shower.
I hope you can be patient with me when I’m always cranky. It’s all part of getting old.
You’ll understand when you’re older.
'n if you have spare time, I hope we can talk even for a few minutes.
I’m always all by myself all the time, 'n have no one to talk to.
I know you’re busy with work.
Even if you’re not interested in my stories, please have time for me.

Do you remember when you were little? I used to listen to your stories about your teddy bear.
When the time comes, 'n I get ill 'n bedridden, I hope you have the patience to take care of me.
I’m sorry if I accidentally wet the bed or make a mess.
I hope you have the patience to take care of me during the last few moments of my life.
I’m not going to last much longer, anyway.
When the time of my death comes, I hope you hold my hand 'n give me strength to face death.

'n don’t worry..
When I finally meet our creator, I will whisper in his ear to bless you. Because you loved your Mom 'n Dad.
Thank you so much for your care.
We love you. ! ♥

Quick, cheap and easy baking

2012-01-28T09:33:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

My family will descend on me for Sunday 'tea' tomorrow. Any Brit will know this is an elaborate meal not unlike a buffet! Sandwiches, quiche and of course, some cake. The best cups and saucers, the biggest tea pot and lots and lots of nattering. I'd rather just stay in bed at the moment, but a girl's go to do, what a girl's got to do! I started by making apricot slices. Take 8oz of apricots, a few table spoons of boiling water and blitz in the biff bash bosh! Leave to cool.

Make the base and topping by melting, 6oz marg in a pan and stir in 6oz flour, 6oz oats, 6 oz sugar, stir together. Press half onto the base of a tin. Spoon apricot mixture over the top, then sprinkle on the other half of the oatey mix and press down firmly with the back of a spoon. Bake at 190 degrees for 30 minutes and then check, put back in for longer if needed. Mark into squares and leave to cool in the tin.

Here's the finished result. They are a bit big so I'll cut them in half for tomorrow's tea. I then made a coffee and walnut cake. I found the recipe, which is Mary Berry's on the BBC food website. It's often the basis or source of some of my recipes.

I used a Victoria sponge recipe of 8oz SR flour, 8oz of sugar, 8oz of marg and 4 large eggs and 2oz of crushed walnuts. I put them in a high sided jug and use the end of my rolling pin to crush them into pieces. I used my hand mixer and beat the lot together, along with a large teaspoon of instant coffee mixed with a tablespoon of boiling water. I baked them, along with the apricot slices for 30 minutes. I then left them to cool, whilst I made the butter cream filling and topping. I used 5oz of marg (I used Utterly Butterly as it was 80p for 500g in Lidl) and 8oz of icing sugar and a spoon of the coffee mixture and again, beat it together with my hand mixer. A hint, I always do this in a high sided jug to save myself from choking on the icing sugar.

Here's a shot of the finished result, it will look wonderful as a centre piece to a tea table!

Ready for my close up? I use cake tin liners. I buy them from Trago Mills, in packs of 100 for £3.50. A pack lasts me for years. You can see the specks of walnut inside the cake.

Bird's eye view? If I'm making this for us, then I don't use as much butter cream, but only fill the middle and dust the top with icing sugar. This is for guests. It would cost a lot if I ordered this from the bakers but a few pennies as I made it myself.

What do you make for special Sunday 'tea'? A lot less formal than lunch and it doesn't matter if people are late.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

Tastes better than it looks

2012-01-27T10:24:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

I'm back to feeling awful and unable to eat again! Soup is very curative and I needed the nutrients. I chopped: leeks, carrots, celery, used frozen spinach and haricot beans. I simmered it all in chicken stock (from cubes) and then blitzed it with the blender stick. I'll have some today, more tomorrow. I was really tasty and just what I needed.

What do you cook when you don't feel up to food?

Love Froogs xx

Can you live off a state pension?

2012-01-26T11:13:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

Scroffles wondered how much I would budget for running a house and if someone could live on a state pension. I've used my current household running costs, but adapted them as if I were retired now. I'm hoping to downsize, have a smaller or no mortgage and then save at the rate that I'm paying the mortgage for my retirement. If I had the sense that I have now, I would have saved for my retirement from the day I started work.

So, for Scroffles - here's some idea of what I would need if I were retired. I haven't factored any money as disposable, haven't factored any holidays or hobbies as I assume I'll carry on amusing myself and having the little day out here and there.

Food and sundry supermarket costs- £2600 = £50 a week
Gas and Electric - £1344
Water - £480
Home Insurance - £150
Car Insurance - £250
Boiler Ins - £65
Council Tax - £1800!!! We wouldn't be able to get council tax benefit as we'd have savings!
TV Licence - £200? I think!
Car maintenance, new tyres, servicing, mot check, parts - £500 (a small budget - into the savings pot)
Diesel for car - a tank full a month? £780
Clothes and shoes £250 (for two)
Household maintenance (£500 - also into the saving pot)
Broadband £180
Home phone - £300
Pay as you go - £50 - for two.
Glasses every two years - we replace ours on alternate years £100 per year

£9549 per year - with a pension of around £10,000 for two people!

Paying what we pay now, if we were retired now? Er! No! I am hoping to have a bit more than a frugal life when I'm retired! I'm sure now you've looked at this with me, you can see why I save everything I can for the future. We can have the money now or later, we can't have both. Even if you can only save a few pounds a month, it's important to put money away for the future.

Over to you. Are you careful? Do you save?

Love Froogs

Good old fashioned frugal favourites

2012-01-25T08:34:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

I was asked yesterday, if I budget for household 'things'. In truth, I budget for everything. We have four free, non charging bank accounts between us. We have a list of direct debits that go out monthly: mortgage, water, gas, electricity, unions, TV licence, broadband and phone. We save to pay some bills annually: car tax, car insurance, life insurance, boiler insurance and car break down cover - we set aside money for those every month and direct debit a set amount each into a savings account for this. We then set aside money for savings, we use 25% of our income for this, unless SHTF - we don't touch it!!! If something breaks down, we get it repaired or DB repairs it. Our 'household items' such as curtains and bedding are homemade. Furniture is second hand and will never need replacing in our life time. We saved for major renovations as the doors were rotten and not secure and the kitchen was in need of a make over, even then we didn't replace but revamped with new worktops and new tiles. Our son fitted them, the doors and windows with no charge for his services. When our Dyson broke down we freecycled for parts and got one with a burnt out motor and put the motor from ours into it.

Other, household items? Clothes? I buy some new once every other year and spend around £100. I buy a new pair of shoes a year which costs around £25. Towels and bedding come from car boot sales and charity shops. Quilts are homemade.

I have short, medium and long term saving plans and I also over pay my mortgage. I aim to pay off another 10% of the balance this year and hopefully sell up and downsize, with the intention of going to a micro mortgage or mortgage free home, as and when the economy allows. Until then, I throw every spare penny at the mortgage. Debt, is debt, is debt and I'm pissing away money every month on interest and the sooner I pay it off, the sooner I will have money to actually live on.

I hope that answered the question, feel free to ask what you like. If I feel like it, I'll answer. Now back to the good old fashioned frugal favourites. If you are well fed, you will be a lot happier. I watched '15 and counting' last night. One poor mum, who was at the end of her tether was coping with her own children, her step children and her sister's children. I wanted to get in the TV and give the poor girl a hand. We saw her shopping, I didn't want to put her down, she was doing her best. But I really wanted to help her budget with homemade food and get her kids motivated to do something to help their mum. A quiche in the supermarket will cost about £2.50, it will be tiny, tasteless and full of junk, fat, salt and even sugar. Homemade is so much cheaper.

A lovely treat is a homemade dessert. I have some retro jelly/pudding pots that I picked up at a jumble sale last year, 10p for 4! I stocked up last year on some Green's creme caramel mix, so I can make 4 for 20p. I use UHT skimmed milk. Just follow the instructions on the packet. It's simple enough, but the good old fashioned original 'Tupperware' creates the most incredible dessert.

I always buy a couple of packs of 'bacon pieces' or 'cooking bacon' which has now gone up to 78p for 500g. I use it in meat loaf, faggots and of course, quiche. This quiche has leeks, bacon, 100g of grated cheese, some skimmed milk and six eggs. It was 12" in diameter and will cut easily into ten portions. I always portion before I freeze, so we can just pull some out of the freezer for our lunch boxes.

Keep your eyes open for old Tupperware. It beats the current rubbish hands down. It lasts, it's incredibly well made and some of it is really quirky. I have a wonderful beige and brown milk jug, with a snap on lid, which fits perfectly into the fridge door. Another jumble sale find for 10p!

How do you budget? I know some of you take out cash and have an envelope system. Have you got any good old fashioned frugal favourites, whether that's food or a jumble sale find?

Over to you xx

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs

Quietly stashing it away.

2012-01-23T07:11:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

I'm planning another quilt, but this will be from entirely recycled fabric. I'll use an old sheet from the airing cupboard as the backing. I'm aiming to create patterns this time and spend a lot more time on the design. I'm making my own 'jelly rolls' as I've been watching tutorials on You tube of how to use jelly rolls to create interesting patterns and designs.

I've put a wanted ad on my local freecycle, asking for men's shirts or any cotton fabric. I'm also going through my own collection of fabric to see what I can use. It's going to be a much longer process and may not be finished for a very long time. The colours may be blues and pinks but this quilt will turn out to be quite green!

Here's the tutorial that I found really useful and hope to copy - enjoy!

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogsxx

Old habits die hard

2012-01-22T09:16:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

In the autumn, I picked, cooked and froze all of the remaining Bramley apples off our tree. It's only a few years old, but last year gave us a bumper crop. My portions were large and here's the remainder of the apple sauce we had from lunch today. I don't add any sugar to my apple sauce in fact, I just add lemon juice to stop it going brown. As we had a piece of pork, with lots of veg, we didn't need any dessert. In fact, we rarely have any at all. Inactivity and age means we have to watch our portion sizes and make sure we always leave the table feeling we could eat some more! It's a good rule to live by.

I made a crumble mix with 3oz of plain flour, 3oz of marg, which I rubbed together and added a table spoon of sugar to the crumble and a tablespoon, which I stirred through the apple sauce. We'll have something small for dinner tomorrow night to leave room for a dessert. I'll keep the apple crumble in the fridge and I won't cook it until I have the mini oven on tomorrow and I'll squeeze it in somehow. We'll have instant custard with it too. I din't want to re-freeze the apple sauce as I've already defrosted it.

What old money saving habits can you not let go of?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxx

Bedding, Beef Steak and Blessings

2012-01-21T07:26:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

Here is the humbly jumbly, multi-coloured quilt. Quilted, edged, finished, laundered and drying. It's huge and it's taken ages.

Here's a close up of the backing and the edging.

Here's a close up of the vivid colours.

I also thought I would share the bulk buying I did today. Two packs of rump steak for £7, which worked out to be £4 a kilo! A kilo and a half of braising steak for £5, which worked out to be £3.69 a kilo. Also, beef skirt, which is the cut of beef steak we Cornish use to make pasties, was £5 a kilo. I will portion it out, and decant it into freezer bags. I find the local butcher much cheaper than the supermarket and I always bulk buy this way to get the best prices.

Onto blessings. They may not seem so, but we've really got to count them some times. Dearly Beloved is on his way to Plymouth to collect our twenty five year old son. He/son had a bad day yesterday and buried the third of his friends who had committed suicide. All of those beautiful young men were highly academic, had brilliant futures, came from loving families but found nothing in this world worth living for. We've had a rough week all round, a midnight dash to look after our daughter whose behaviour was so concerning that her flat mates rang us. She spent the night with us shouting, ranting at the world, crying until collapsing with total exhaustion at five in the morning. I spend many many hours convincing her, or trying to, that life is worth living.

We live in a world crammed full of expectations. We are supposed to be aspirational! Young people are supposed to 'achieve their full potential'. Like a lot of parents, I brought my children up to do well, to try hard and to do their best. If I could do it all again, I would tell them it's all bollocks! Do what you want, be happy, lay bricks, walk dogs, grow runner beans, love people and be happy with what ever you have. Tonight, home will be my son's soft place to fall, where his mum and him will sit down and talk about all the blessings worth living for. That young man's family are much in our prayers and I pray that the young man can find the peace in death that he never found in life.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxx

Loose ends

2012-01-20T08:12:00.000-08:00

The back!

Hello Dear Reader,

Give or take an hour or so, I've almost finished my latest quilt. I have to make sure it's securely edged, that it won't fall apart and all the loose ends are trimmed off.

Quilting and life are very similar.

You can make quite a good job of odds and ends, even if they don't really match and don't always go together. What people can see is often smooth and well finished, whilst the wrinkles and imperfections are out of sight. People who really love the quilt, and equally love you, know there are wrinkles and imperfections on the other side, but love the quilt, and you come to think of it, just the same. Some times, the quilt goes wrong, you have to take it apart and start again. In life, you may have to do just the same. Edges are not always straight. It will need the occasional repair and TLC and in return it will keep you warm for years to come, even if it's wonky and has the odd hole that needed sewing up. Sometimes, the best quilt is made from all the bits that other people don't want and don't value.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxx

Flash in the pan

2012-01-19T11:27:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

I thought I would share a trick, that I used to employ to get as many veggies as I could into my children. They ate anything, they were given what we had and if they didn't like it they were just left to go without. That way, they always ate whatever they were given. They loved stir fry and most children that I know also love it. The vegetables are left with colour and crunch and look and taste appetising. Today I made a variation on the theme of Chow Mein. I took: one chicken breast, one onion and one red pepper and chopped the lot into small cubes and threw them into a sizzling wok with some vegetable oil that was at smoking point. I then opened a bag of curly kale, very cheaply bought from Lidl and stirred half of it through the mixture. If you have children and you need to convince them to eat their vitamin rich dark green cabbage, such as savoy or spring greens, then finely shred them and add them to stir fry, you can also 'hide' them in spaghetti sauce.

I then added some noodles that I'd already cooked and two sachets of Chow Mein sauce (I always buy them when they're bogoffs or three for £1)

Dinner was then served in the flash of a pan. The noodles are dropped in a pan of boiling water and they're cooked by the time I chopped the onion, pepper and chicken breast. The kale and red pepper is packed with vitamins, the sauce is low fat and low calorie and it's totally delicious.

Total costs? Chicken £1, pepper 33p, onion 25p, sauce 33p noodles 40p kale 35p - Freshly cooked, Chow Meinish! £1.33 each. I also saved the hassle of walking to the take away, where chicken chow mein costs £4.40 each! I googled their take away menu and wouldn't dream of wasting £8.80 on two take away meals that I could make for pennies and in minutes!

What do you make that saves you a fortune that you would otherwise spend at the take away?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs

East, meets Provence, meets 'eh up m'duck'!

2012-01-18T12:00:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

I've got my appetite back! So? East, meets Provence, meets 'eh up duck?' - The east is the mushroom rice - from :Lidl and you just stick it in the popty-ping for three minutes and serve. Provence? is the ratatouille and the 'eh up, m'duck' is the faggots. I may have mentioned that mum is from Derby and we were visiting relatives in Matlock and, as a child I was given faggots, chips and mushy peas. I was sent to the chippy with the cousins and we ate the steaming hot food out of wrappers on the street corners. As a country girl, I thought I was in Shangri-la! It's an odd combination of the bottom of the fridge, the stock cupboard staples and faggots from the freezer!

What's your oddest combination?

Love Froogs

Household maintenance

2012-01-18T07:08:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

I really like the current shabby chic trend for painted furniture. There is nothing that can't be transformed with a tin of Farrow and Ball eggshell paint. I have a small lamp table in the living room; I painted it last summer. Having already painted it; I can dig out the same can of paint and simply refresh it with a coat of paint. I keep up with general maintenance, although I have to admit that Dearly Beloved does most of it. I can swing a paint brush around so I do try and do my bit occasionally. I've checked curtains and made sure they are all hooked, and not unsightly and in the spring they will be taken down one set at a time and washed and hung out to dry.

My home is almost entirely furnished with second hand and the homemade; I even buy white goods that have been 'reconditioned'. I can't think of any thing more hideous that buying something mass produced from an out of town retail store. I love flea market and junk shop finds and then tidying them up, or painting, or re-covering them to personalise them in some way.

As ever, I'll hand this over to you, what can you just not imagine or even stomach the thought of buying new?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxx

UFO has landed

2012-01-17T12:03:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

Managed to get a bit more of the UFO worked on today. Here it is in all its techni-colour glory. I'm just stitching in the ditch and I'm about half way there. I'm exhausted and it's beaten me today. I really need to get on with this as I have so many other UFO's hanging around, including a Christmas stocking!! Oh yes! That one's a bit behind schedule, a rag doll, two bags and a knitted baby blanket! One at a time please Froogs but I really want to get the biggest one done first and make my way onto the others as soon as I can! Hobbies are supposed to be relaxing. All I can say is, it will be lovely when it's finished and we could do with another quilt as it's become very cold again.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs

Another thing that adds up!

2012-01-16T09:08:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

I thought I would share another thing that I do to save money. I use really cheap cleaning products. I clean the cooker, the sink, the bath and the bathroom basin with bicarbonate of soda. Get a warm damp cloth, sprinkle it with bicarb and scrub away at the soapy tide marks. I use a plastic scourer on the cooker, with some soapy water and sprinkle with bicarb. It's really effective. I find a quick wipe down every day with a small bowl of hot soapy water (remember the hot water I keep from the kettle?) and a cloth with keep everything clean enough, but if I want some sparkle, then nothing cleans better than bicarb.

Windows get a wash down with a cloth and hot soapy water, not too much soap as it creates smears. Then I crumple up some newspaper (the ones that DB gleans from his daily train commute) and buff up the windows. It makes them shine and it doesn't leave any smears. I finish off by using a microfibre clothe (you can buy two of these for £1 in Tesco from their value range) and wash down all the door frames and window frames. I often have window cleaners knock on my door and I would dearly like to give them some work, but at £20 a month or as I see it, £220 a year and that's my clothing budget. So, it's worth doing it myself.

Finally, if I need to disinfect, or get rid of any odours then I use white vinegar. My house does not smell like a chippy as the smell fades in minutes. I clean the shower screen, the mirrors, the taps, work tops with a solution of hot soapy water with a splash of white vinegar. I use a separate cloth (learnt that from mum, different coloured clothes for the loo, the floor, work tops and the kitchen) with neat vinegar and clean around the loo and plug holes to disinfect. Of course, I use bleach occasionally, but not habitually. I also use value cream cleanser if I really need to but in general our homes don't warrant heavy duty cleaning when the cheap alternatives we have at hand will do.

Cleaning my house from top to bottom can take me four hours, if I 'go like the clappers' and that saves me the £10 gym session! What do you use to have a good scrub? What cheapy secrets do you have to share?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs

It all adds up!

2012-01-14T10:45:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

Tonight, I'm welcoming you into my home to see how I save money. I've been doing this for years; it's a constant struggle against the rising cost of living and every year, I have to use less, just to pay the same. We buy less food, but our bill is still the same. We use less energy and our bill is just the same. I'll start with laundry. Our washing machine is AAA rated and uses the least water, soap and electricity, well it was when I bought it. It has probably been superseded by a more efficient machine but it's a Bosch and will last me ten years, so it will have to do. We don't own a tumble drier and I watch the weather, any break in the weather, with a bit of a breeze and I can get the 'worst of it' dried outside. I'll then dry it on racks in the house. I use the winter sun through the large picture windows. You may ask if this causes damp or mould. Yes it does and I clean it up all the time so it doesn't have a chance to harm me. Also, we open the windows every day and ventilate the house as much as we can. Laundry only gets washed when it's dirty. It gets sniffed, worn again, and worn again. Jumpers, jackets ect. can go weeks and weeks. They get aired, spot cleaned and they are fine. Towels get hung over the banister and washed at the end of the week. We just have a feel of them and take the driest one!

I always keep a flask by the kettle. If I boil too much water, it gets popped into the flask. When I wash up, I add that to the bowl or if I want a coffee, which doesn't have to be boiling (unlike tea, which must be freshly drawn and freshly boiled), then I'll use the water from the flask. It's a little thing, but it saves on water and energy. If it's just me, then I measure one cup of water into the kettle. I'm always careful.

Of course, we operate a 'if it's yellow' policy. We use hand washing water for the toilet. In fact, any old spare water goes down the toilet. If I wash the floor then the water gets used to flush the loo. If I've peeled veg or spuds, then in the summer the water goes straight on the garden and the peelings into the compost. The South West of England is provided water by South West Water and we have no choice of where to buy it, and it is the most expensive water in the country. (£4.49 per cubic metre of water/1000 litres) So, we are careful! it's a simple thing to do if you have a meter. I also use a beaker of water when I clean my teeth, I've even worked out that I only need to half fill that and that's enough. We also have a shower timer and I can shower in about three minutes - if I wash my hair then I fill the sink with water and wash it in there, the final rinse to get rid of the conditioner happens in the shower. I have long hair and the shower would be running for an age if I did it in there. I could turn the shower on and off but I couldn't stand the cold before the hot!

I also watch my electricity consumption. Halogen lights in the kitchen eat electricity so I had Dearly Beloved fit low energy bulb fittings under the work top. We also have spot lights in the hall way, we don't use them! We have an eco bulb in the upstairs hall way, which lights our way. The toaster, oven, shower, kettle use huge amounts of energy, as does the washing machine and the dishwasher. We are very careful with those. When we have enough daylight, we can use a solar charger to charge batteries and run some small appliances off them, such as camera and phone charger. I also have a battery run light. They are small savings and seem inconsequential but they all add up.

Well Dear Reader, what do you watch like a hawk? What have you got your beady eye on? Do you run a tight ship with a careful budget? Or do you need to?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs

Filling the cake tin

2012-01-13T05:06:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

Oatey Mincemeat slice

I thought I would share today's baking with you. I've made Shortbread and Oaty mincemeat slices. I never go to a cook book and think I'll make that, then go out and buy the ingredients. I go to my cupboards and think about what I can make with what I have. Today I used the last jar of mincemeat. I know it could have stayed in the cupboard until next Christmas, but this recipe is so easy and it used up what I had. I also use the baking tins I have, I don't have anything square so I make them in a loose bottomed cake tin! It will do!

I used 5oz of margarine, 3 oz sugar (I had soft brown so I used that) and I melted them together in a saucepan. I then added 8oz of plain flour and 4oz of porridge oats to a mixing bowl and then stirred the melted butter and sugar mix through. I divided the mixture in half, and using the back of a spoon, pushed the ingredients to cover the base of the pan. I then poured in a jar of my homemade mincemeat and then repeated the process with the topping. Push it down firmly, don't leave any gaps. I baked that at 200 degrees for 20 minutes.

Shortbread

The next thing I made for the tea tin, was shortbread. It is the easiest to make. I added 8oz of block margarine, 4oz of sugar (again, all I had was soft brown, so that's what I used) and 12 oz of plain flour, tipped it all in my food processor, just as if I was going to make pastry, added two drops of vanilla essence and switched it on, When it all came together, I tipped it into a cake tin and again, with the back of a spoon, pushed it into and around the tin, until the base was covered. I always mark it into 8 pieces, it's homemade so no need to be stingy and then, with a tea spoon, push the sides away from the tin. It stops it burning and gives it the traditional petticoat tail pattern. I baked the shortbread in the same oven but for only 15 minutes at 200. My oven is a bit unpredictable so may not be 200, but in fact a bit cooler. You will have to adjust this to suit your oven.

Oatey Mincemeat slice at the top and shortbread at the bottom

Here's the finished results, cooling and ready to go into the cake tin. Most people serve shortbread with a sprinkle of caster sugar on top, I haven't got any, so we'll do without. Both of these would make Tesco's 'Finest' seem bland and cheap, but these cost pennies. My house smells diving and I'm looking forward to a cup of tea and a nice bit of cake this afternoon.

What's going into your cake tin this week?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs

Battle stations.

2012-01-12T07:37:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

I've had a fight with the UFO today and the UFO won! I took some very good advice I was given yesterday and stuck the backing and the batting to the floor. I used duck tape! That bad boy was going no where this time! After a few harsh words with the quilt which refused to be ironed and petulantly kept throwing itself on the floor, I then managed to carry the topping to meet the batting and the backing and the battle began. I worked very slowly and only sprayed the adhesive very lightly so I could pull it apart and get it right if I needed to.

The whole process still took ages. I now have joint pain, I'm exhausted and that's it for today. It's going to be a joy to sew it together without it wriggling around between pins. I wish I'd discovered spray adhesive years ago. I did investigate getting it long arm quilted and the costs are very reasonable but in the end, I decided it defeated the object of making it myself if I sent it away to be finished by somebody else. I'm sure they could have done with the work and the money they'd earn from it but I shall squirrel the money away to pay off some more mortgage capital.

The quilt is three metres by three metres or twelve feet by twelve feet and I'm going to very slowly get the actual quilting done. If I don't find some more energy, it will take years. I'll keep you all up to date with the progress.

As ever, thanks so much for the really kind comments and it's always lovely to hear from you. Today, why don't you all share a herculean task you undertook, that took you ages, maybe even years, and how you managed to get it done in the end. I look forward to your stories.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs

Tackling the UFO............and the many others!

2012-01-11T10:58:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader!

Usually, I make quilts out of what ever I can glean. I buy clothes from jumble sales, where most items are 20p and I cut them up, just for the material. Men's shirts are the best, you can get loads of material out of them, next to that is long flared skirts or the backs of dresses. I know, you probably think it's a waste but I've made several quilts this way and I can assure you, it is the cheapest way to get cotton fabric. Last year, I bought some 'layer cakes' and some 'jelly rolls' made by Moda and made a beautifully screamingly loud technicolour dreamcoat of a quilt topping. I even bought the spray adhesive to bast the quilt together!I sewed the backing together, bought the batting and then promptly ran out of time.

The quilt is three metres by three metres and as it's so huge, I have to put it together on the floor. This is not going to be perfect, like me......it will have wrinkles!!!! I'll just have to get over it! The backing is lime green with multi-coloured tiny flowers and the binding will be hot pink! Watch the progress of the next few days and I've a list of crafty objects to get on with and this bugger is first on my list! Today, I managed to glue the backing to the basting, felt unwell and gave up, smug in the achievement that I'd managed to do anything at all.

I just thought I'd give you another glimpse of the homemade faggots. I'm unable to eat at the moment for unhealthy health reasons, I won't go into details! So, DB's going to have to eat mine as well! All served up on one of my lovely utility petal ware plates. I won't be rooting around flea markets for any of these this year!

Ok, as ever, over to you all. What UFOs do you have lurking? What's gathering dust under the stairs that just has to be finished!

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs

Cash diets!

2012-01-10T11:25:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Readers,

Especially you! The new one, the reader who's reading this site for the first time today. My stats have grown recently showing footfall has increased by hundreds visitors a day. I can only guess it's because people have had the 'Oh Fuck!' moment when they've looked at their finances this January. Don't worry, you will get through it. I did! I survived and I'm going to tell you how I got out of the deepest shit and made it to where I am today.

I started, like many of you will, with complete cold turkey. I cut up every credit card and stopped spending any money. A lot had to to go. I looked at the stupid money wasting first. I looked at mobile phone contracts and gave notice, then I looked at satellite TV and gave them notice. I looked at contracts I was in that I could get out of, or get a better deal for. I looked at gas and electricity suppliers and got a new, cheaper supplier. I moved debts to 0% transfer deals and I turned the central heating timer..........off! I crossed everything off the shopping list that wasn't part of a 'meal' and I stopped eating between meals.

I then looked at every bill, which in my case, back in 2009, were mainly debts and looked at our income. I paid the maximum I could afford to pay on every single one and on one debt, I over paid massively and I got rid of debts, just one at a time. Most importantly, I made a budget. If I had £20 a week to spend on diesel, then I would get £20 a week out of the bank and buy £20 worth of diesel, then drive like a granny to make it get me to work and back all week. For a very long time, I could get a weekly train ticket for the price of diesel, so I did. It saved me money on tyres and wear and tear. I cancelled holidays, I know I lost the deposits, but I decided that I was not going to go on holiday ever again, until I was debt free. I stuck to that and it's one of the reasons I paid off my debts sooner.

I stopped kidding myself that 'I deserved it' or 'I didn't have time' or 'I needed it'. I used to think 'I don't have time to cook from scratch, what bollocks that was! Of course I did, just watch less TV! I didn't need hairdressers, a total stranger to de-hair my hairy bits, or a new set of clothes every year! If you, like I was, are in debt, you have to get on a cash diet and cook every thing.........because it makes economic sense, holiday at home...........because it makes economic sense and buy a pack of 21p value razors! I stopped kidding myself that I needed to go to weddings, parties, the work do, the retirement do. I couldn't afford it. If I couldn't afford to celebrate my own birthday and we'd given up buying each other presents then we really couldn't afford to go to anyone else's! After a while, saying 'sorry but no' is your standard answer. If you think you can go, but you're still in debt then you are deluding yourself!

One of the hard things to do, which I feel liberated from now as I don't do it any more, is giving up 'going to the shops'. If you still do this, just stand back and watch the zombies shuffling round for want of anything better to do. Get a hobby. Get your bike out of the garage and get on it. Take up a craft, grow veg, become a volunteer in your community. These don't cost any money. You can borrow ordinance survey maps from the library, do so and get out for a walk. Any sturdy shoes will do...........don't get suckered into needing an expensive bike, or expensive walking boots - just do with what you have.

Well, I'm not in debt any more. I still budget, I still have the lights and heating switched off. I still have a five minute shower every other day. I still wash in a plastic bowl full of water and then flush the loo with that water, we still stand in a plastic stacking box in the shower and use that water to flush the loo. We still use our mini oven, we still go to the supermarket with a list which we devised from a menu plan. I still sell stuff on ebay to make a bit more money. I still use the library and don't buy books. I still dry washing outside or in front of my wood fire. I still don't use the central heating.

I know how hard it is to set your mind to do something and stick to it! It is hard to not spend money, it is hard to not have holidays, it's hard to live in a cool house (I don't freeze, but it's certainly not hot). I understand perfectly well what it's like to go without and sometimes it is completely and utterly shite! I'll give you and example. I went on a medical appointment in a town and went for a walk round that town as I was early. I went in the charity shops for a look and even they were stupidly expensive. I did see some lovely jeans, I saw some vintage china and I saw some crafty items and I could have bought any of them. I went in some real shops, which is something I rarely do, I gasped audibly when I saw a lovely dress and it was £75! I know a cash diet is very very hard.

To those of you, in desperate need of help to stick to a financial plan, that you've got the sense to make yourself, all I can say is that years later, it's still hard. Giving up spending is as hard as giving up smoking and eating! It's what we do! It's what everyone else is doing around you when you're not doing it. I can't lie to you, it will always be hard. It was hard for me not to shop and it's going to be hard for you too.

If you've turned the heating timer down, it will be hard to get used to a cooler house. If you go shopping to Tesco with a list, guess what..........that'll be hard too. However, it's not as hard as the options of staying in debt and just throwing money at the interest which just keeps growing and growing. The only way to get on top of finance and, essentially, your future is to go on a cash diet and stick to it.

If you're a new reader, then leave me a comment, become a follower and let me know who you are. Email me if you want any first hand advice or if I can help in any way. If truth be told, I wish I'd had someone to talk to when it was really really rough. Any one else out there on a cash diet? Leave a comment and tell us all how you're getting on.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxx

Taking time to stand and stare

2012-01-09T11:37:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

This is no use to use what so ever if you're in the southern hemisphere! But! I have a confession! Not only am I a time wasting navel gazer but a time wasting night sky gazer. It's crystal clear outside tonight and Venus is visible to the naked eye. I've never been able to afford a telescope and it's just as well, as I'd waste even more time.

I've had a fascination with the night sky since I've worked out (doh! no shit!) that my sleeplessness coincides with the moon light. Full moon = no sleep for days. So, I might as well get my coat over my jim jams and wander round the garden with my binoculars. I also have an 'app' - the only useful one I've ever found, I may add, where I can point the phone and the camera at the night sky and it will tell me what the stars and planets are called.So, if you're of a mind to, get outside and enjoy a glimpse of Venus, glowing and showing herself off! Another frugal habit of mine! Take time to wonder, to look, to enjoy the view. I learnt this off my mum and dad. As children, we would sometimes just be taken some where to look. A stormy beach, a headland, a rock formation, or gulls nesting in the cliffs. It's a habit I've taken through life. Sometimes, I just take time to stand and stare.

Updated at 8.30 - as the earth has tilted some more, Venus has disappeared over the horizon and now I've had a good look at Jupiter. The app is called 'planets. Switch phone on, get the app up and running and point it at the constellation or what looks like a very big star and it will tell you which planet it is. Simples!If you step outside at ten pm, you'll also be able to see Mars! I'm just doing to wave my arms up and down to try and flap the clouds away so I can point the binoculars at Mars. Why am I doing all this...............well, I'm not going to sleep with the moon glowing like a interrogation spotlight!

I must go out and see if I can see her again............

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs

Spending nothing and eating left overs

2012-01-08T06:32:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

Today, we've been out, had coffee and cake and it didn't cost a penny. We went to Seaton Beach and walked our dogs. Most beaches in Cornwall have dog bans and it was amazing to let them play on the sand. The beach was covered in dismembered kelp which looked prehistoric as was so long and frondy. The tide was out and it was a delight to clamber over the rocks and poke around rock pools. There was a cafe on the beach and it looked well used and popular. We didn't use it. We found a bench with a lovely view and got the coffee and cake out that we'd taken with us. Parking was free, so our morning out didn't cost us anything but the fuel to get there.

On Friday, we had some slow cooked beef brisket and we ate half of it, the rest got wrapped in foil and popped in the fridge. I sliced it and made up some gravy and put it to reheat in my mini oven. I roasted some potatoes, carrots and parsnips with a spray of low calorie oil and put them both in the mini oven.

Here's the finished result. Roast beef and all the trimmings. This afternoon, we'll dismantle a couple of pallets and chop them up for kindling. I've cleaned the drive and had another scrub of the patio.We've managed to spend nothing yet this January. It's unseasonally warm and we don't need to burn too much wood or light the fire until the evening. Anyone who reads this blog for the first time today must think I'm the world's biggest misery guts but not spending money and living simply gives me peace.

In this busy world, we all need all the peace we can get.

Love Froogs xxx

Use it up and wear it out!

2012-01-07T10:29:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

My mini oven is a bit like I feel today, getting on a bit and knackered! I can't clean the bottom as I can't get my pudgy hands under the elements at the bottom. You'll just have to cope with the fusty nature of my old mini oven. I've had it since 2007 so it's doing really well considering it cost me £15 from Dixons. Just like my oven, some of my meals are just 'that'll do'. After watching Jamie Oliver mince meat in his food processor, just pop it in a use the 'pulse' button. I used a 'here's one I made earlier' turkey con carne. That too had an element of 'that'll do. I didn't have any kidney beans so I used some tinned cannelini beans. In turn, I didn't have any beef, so I used turkey. I'll always find an alternative if I've got it in store.

So, I defrosted the turkey con carne and heated it through in the mini oven along with some Tesco Value oven chips! I know how to live it up on a Saturday night! I also used had some salad for a 15p from Morrisons! I love end of the day bargains! To be truthful, Dearly Beloved made supper tonight as I've just emerged from a two day migraine and I couldn't stand long enough to cook!

Thanks DB! I really enjoy it when some one else cooks for me!

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

Memories of childhood

2012-01-06T08:15:00.001-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

I was a bookish child, happiest curled up in the back of the library but also teased mercilessly for being the 'book girl' on the school bus. I used to love to learn any thing and everything by heart, to have facts at my fingertip and still love quizzes and games. One of my favourite TV shows as a teenager, was Blockbusters. A simple game where two pairs of equally bookish teenagers would be pitted against each other in a game of general knowledge gymnastics. To us, it was the junior version of University challenge with schools submitting teams. My VIth form college sent a team.

Bob Holness lived to a good age and was an all round jolly nice bloke, but I'll always remember him from my favourite childhood entertainment. Good night and God Bless, thanks for the fun and entertainment.

Love Froogs

xx

When life gives you lemons and limes.....

2012-01-04T10:15:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

In my last shop I bought five limes for £1 and five lemons for 69p, both from Lidl. I wanted to try making my own lemon and lime marmalade from scratch. It's no more or less than using the 'Mamade' tin of pulp and zest but they don't make lemon and lime marmalade. I also added an orange to this recipe, simply because we had one left and it could sit there for weeks before we eat it. I used four lemons and five limes, 3lbs of sugar (I use half ordinary and half preserving) and three pints of water.

I started off by using my zester to remove all the zest from all the fruit and that went into my preserving pan with the water. The pith, pips and pulp all go into a muslin (I don't have that so I improvised with the muslin bag that I strain things with and tied it with a freezer bag tie). I then left that to boil for an hour.

I then let it cool and squeezed and squeezed the bag with the pith and pulp in to get as much of the pectin out as possible. It feels really slippery and slimey and helps the marmalade set. I then added the sugar and got it up to a rolling boil. I let it boil for ages (I don't time it - google how to make marmalade - that's what I did) and use a saucer that has been in the freezer to test whether it will set or not.

Here's the finished result. Six jars of home made marmalade. It works out at 60p a jar, which isn't much cheaper than buying it but I still enjoyed making it. There is something reassuringly calming about some stove side pottering on a cold evening.

What have you made from scratch recently that you haven't made before?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

Old fashioned thrift

2012-01-02T03:11:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone!

I'm having a big cook up today and I'll blog it as I go along.

I haven't made faggots in ages and they are another recipe that sends Dearly Beloved weak at the knees along with apple crumble and steak and kidney pudding. Both of us have parents who were children in war time and grew up in rationing and then brought us up in similarly hard financial times. Hence, the old fashioned recipes that we really love. Faggots are a kind of meat balls which make the most of the very cheapest cuts - offal. Mine have lambs liver and some recipes use heart, but it's actually quite expensive so I leave it out.

How to? - all ingredients are minced on 'pulse' in my food processor. Consequently, this takes no longer to make that it takes the oven to heat up. Start off by putting two roasting dishes in the oven with a covering of oil, dripping or lard in the bottom. Use what ever you have. I put some fat in so they don't stick.

Currently on offer in Tesco for £1 for 4 - but they have a very low meat content, but still a good price.

Here's the ingredients -

Half a loaf of wholemeal or any bread - whizzed up into bread crumbs in my food processor - tip them into your very biggest mixing bowl.30p

One whole pack of onions - 69p - half goes into a saucepan to make the onion gravy and half into the big mixing bowl

One whole pack of lambs liver - almost three quarters of a kilo of £1.27

Four slices of belly pork - I cut the rind off, cut into the slices into cubes and then 'pulsed' until pork mince. Check!!!! If pork mince is cheaper, or on offer, then use that instead! Today, belly pork slices were cheaper - £2.22.

One pack of cooking bacon. I use the Tesco value at 99p - this is 500g.

I then add a heap of seasoning. Paprika, sage, garlic. I minced fresh in with the onions but I've used garlic powder or granules when that's all I have, plus plenty of salt and pepper. If you have herbs in the garden, in the warmer months, finely chop those and add them. I've used chopped parsley before.

When you have all the minced ingredients in the bowl, I use my hands to keep mixing it well together. I then use a spoon to measure out similar size balls, in this case about the size of a tennis ball. I then gently rolled them in flour to help them stick together when roasting. I cooked them on a high heat for 30 minutes, turning them over half way.

Whilst they were cooking, I made the gravy. Heat some fat (any will do) in a saucepan and then gently fry the onions until almost see through. You can cook them until brown if you like that flavour. I added a tin of sliced mushrooms, just because I had some spare. I then added some instant gravy mix and poured boiling water on top. Instead of Worcestershire sauce, I simply use Tesco Value brown sauce and an equal splash of Tesco value ketchup. There you are, gravy!!!

Take the cooked faggots out of the oven and pour half the gravy over each roasting tin and then put back in the oven on a lower heat for another 20 - 30 minutes until all the gravy has taken on the flavour of the faggots.

All over the country 'gastro-pubs' are embracing the wonderful regional and seasonal dishes we have and that includes faggots. They are best served with mashed potato and peas. We usually have dark savoy cabbage with ours and they are equally delicious with oven chips and a tin of mushy peas (or make your own). In a local pub or restaurant, they usually charge about £12 for this simple lunch. I made 28 faggots for about £5.50 + 50p for the cooking, so £6 altogether. We'll eat two each. By my simple maths, that 42p a portion, plus a few spuds and peas brings this meal well under a £1 a portion. It's proper old fashioned thrift if you have a large family. It's also very easy to freeze. When cooled, I will spoon four faggots and gravy into a freezer bag and simply pop that into my freezer. Today, I made and froze seven meals for the future. Plus, I'll melt DB's heart every time I serve them to him!

Love Froogs xxxxx

How will I manage without shopping?

2012-01-01T21:41:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

Thanks to every one for your words of encouragement. Firstly, your comments on Judith Levine's book. I read it when it came out and in 2006 took part in a social experiment to not buy anything 'new' for the year. I managed it but didn't keep it up after the year. This time, my personal social experiment will try and go a whole lot deeper. I will often use free time to browse around car boot sales, jumble sales, charity shops and flea markets. I'm not going to do that this year. I justify my consuming by seeing my purchases as recycling. I want to get rid of the need to spend money on things I don't need. No really! I don't need another piece of Wood's ware utility china from the 1950's, even if it is only £1 from the charity shop! I don't need any more books as I can borrow them for free from the library. Furthermore, if we don't use the library, they will cut back funding on the basis that people don't want it. Please, dear reader, if I can encourage you to do anything this year, please use your library and don't buy any books. I'm also going to have a clear out and arrange a book swap at some time, which I see as a good excuse for a get together, a cuppa and some homemade cake.

In more recent times, since becoming debt free, I've slipped into coffee shops or bought a takeaway. This year, I am going to return to my old habit of making up a flask and taking some homemade cake with me when I go out. I'm going to replace second hand shopping with bracing cliff top or moorland walks. I'll take my library book with me and just walk over to the park and sit and read in the shade of the oaks. I will make sure that I make a monthly donation to charity as I've always looked at my charity shop shopping as how we 'give back'. I want to continue to 'do my bit' but without purchasing anything that can be physically brought into my own home. There really isn't anything I need.

I am also going to have another year of not eating out, unlike Judith though, I will politely decline any invitations to do so at someone else's generosity. I ate out twice last year and on both occasions it was because someone paid. None of that hypocrisy this year. Everything I will eat will be homemade or made in someone's home as they've invited me to lunch. We will also not buy any takeaways and will again, take food with us when we go out. We always take our own coffee and sandwiches to work and will continue to do so.

We gave up newspapers in 2009 and will continue to read the papers that Dearly Beloved finds on his daily commute by train. He gets his train from Plymouth, which is often where people 'change trains' so they stop for longer and usually change staff or drivers. He has time to get on the 'London train' which is en route from Paddington to Penzance and he will often walk from one end of the train to the other and bring home a variety of the daily papers, plus magazines. We have plenty to read and papers to light the fire.

Now onto the issue of clothing. I have one chest of drawers, with five drawers and it contains most of my clothes. I tend to wear the same things over and over. I dress modestly and simply, I can't say plainly as I enjoy colour but I dress to suit the job I'm doing and never 'dress up'. I certainly don't need anything else this year. I'm really careful with tights and mend them if they ladder and mostly I wear thick tights in the winter and go bare legged when it warms up. I won't need to buy any clothes.

You must be thinking what I will do with any spare money I have. I'm going to aim to pay off another 10% of the balance of my mortgage capital. I still want to sell my big house and downsize but that will be decided by market values, the mortgage company and the open market and as I can't predict that, I will have to wait until things 'pick up. I'll also look at earning extra money this year. Exam marking, working another job in the holidays, get another lodger and see if we can get some delivery work too. On top of paying off the mortgage capital, I'll also need general household savings which we need for car maintenance, insurance and household repairs.

Finally, and certainly the easiest to not buy, we won't be going on holiday this year. A holiday of any kind will cost a lot and will holiday at home. We'll make the point of going out on our bikes, go to the beach, walk on moors and the cliff tops and spend a week doing things for free but as a daily outing from our home. We also won't limit ourselves to having seven consecutive days of holidays at home but have promised ourselves seven days out next year. None of which will cost us any money. We will look for the free offers for days out if you collect tokens, which we do from the free newspapers we find on trains and by collecting points from Tesco. For example, we ate out twice at Cafe Rouge last year because we saved the loyalty points from Tesco and I shall do so again this year! I've noticed lots of people paying with Tesco vouchers and don't feel at all embarrassed at claiming my free lunch.

There you are then, my plans for the year but in greater detail. I will of course buy food and toiletries but will do so mindfully and carefully. I don't want to over spend there either. I'll make sure I menu plan before I shop and aim to do my supermarket shop 'online' so I don't buy anything I didn't plan to buy.

I have no idea if this year will liberate or constrain me, together, as I do this and you read about it, we'll just have to see how this works.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs

Bring it on!

2012-01-01T09:59:00.000-08:00

Here goes Dear Reader!

Plans for this year!

Don't buy anything new. Nothing new for the house, I have everything I need and what I have will do for the whole year. No new clothes, not even from charity shops, I have enough and some more! I don't need any new shoes or any new underwear either. That's it then - a year of not shopping.

Use what I have to make something else, whether that's something decorative for the house or for me to wear.

Reduce food consumption and food costs - that will be an interesting challenge.

So there it is! My resolutions out in the open.

Love Froogs xxxx

I always go out on New Year's Eve!

2011-12-31T09:21:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

Oh yeah! I always go out on New Year's Eve!!! To the supermarket! I bought no end of goodies to see the old year out and the new year in. I usually make pizza, and certainly don't run to flash of Pizza Express, nor do I usually have dips, or salami or shop bought hummous but hey! It's been the best of years and the worst of years in equal measure. My bill would have been £22 and was reduced to £7! Some will go into the freezer and some will be a treat for a two person party...............well! He is my most favourite person in all the world.

Aspects of my job and my personal life have brought me equal measures of strife and delight. My family have brought me great pride and also, heart break. There have been moments in this year that I will remember forever and moments I will need professional help to get over! Tonight, I'll put all that behind me and raise a glass to the passing of 2011 and say hello to 2012. This may we herald a new chapter in my life and you can all watch this space to see if it unfolds or not.

All my love,

Froogs xxxx

Keep and eye on prices and stock up when it's cheap!

2011-12-30T01:43:00.000-08:00

These are on offer today and tomorrow only! Beware! This might be gone by the end of the day!

Hi everyone!

You will need to check with your local Lidl store and we'll have a look this weekend but here are some offers for your freezer and store cupboard that you shouldn't miss (unless you hate bacon and beans!). If I see an offer like this, I will buy as many as the store policy will allow me to buy. Sometimes, I'll go back out and in again on a separate transaction to over ride their policy or go to another store or get Dearly Beloved to have a separate trolley!

I'm signed up to all the supermarkets and look out for their 'lost leaders' and silly offers. I use 'My supermarket' to compare prices, which Lidl, Aldi and Netto are not on! They have their own websites and I can compare there too. I even check these out before we go on trips to France and look for their 'offers' worth stocking up on and bringing home in the boot of the car. I work on this basis, if I need it anyway, or I'm passing by anyway and I will need it later and it can be stored. Then, and only then, do I stock pile. I never buy anything because it's a good price unless I buy it any way.

Some of you commented on my mini oven, which saves me a whole heap of energy and costs. They have them in on sale in Lidl on the 5th of January. Again, they will be gone on the day.

You can go to the Lidl website and read about it there.

I would add, that I'm not endorsing this shop and I'm not paid to do so by anyone. If I need something, I will research it carefully and buy it at the best price from where ever I can. I've had my oven for well over two years and only paid £15 back then. I've taken it on holiday as the accommodation we rented only had a hob and I've used it as a second oven when I've had guests and it is the main oven we use for just the two of us.

Now my lovely frugal friends. What's on 'almost give away offer' that's caught your eye, where ever you are in the world - do tell, do share.

Over to you,

Love Froogs xx

Life's too short to stuff a mushroom?

2011-12-29T05:41:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

I thought I would share one of our favourite recipes. Stuffed Mushrooms. You can stuff them with just about anything. Butterbean and lentil pate, stilton, but today, as I had some, I used some chicken liver pate.

I pulled out the stalks of the mushrooms and squeezed in some pate. I then rolled them in beaten egg and then coated them in homemade bread crumbs.

I put a shallow dish in the mini oven, with some oil in it and got it smoking hot. I carefully placed the mushrooms in, with the pate on the upper side. Every so often, I took the dish out of the oven and spooned some hot oil over the top to get them all crispy.

I served them with romaine lettuce, a tin of sweetcorn and some of my homemade spicy damson chutney. Be careful though, the pate will be really hot. I often make this as a dinner party starter but as I had the ingredients laying around we had this for lunch. I'm off now to do some bulk cooking and I'll share that with you later.

Love Froogs xxx

A glamorous morning

2011-12-28T08:01:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

We went for a partially successful trip to the charity shops of Wadebridge. I often think, if you go somewhere 'posh' the charity shops will have generous donations. Oh how wrong I am. We visited Truro a while ago and the charity shops were too expensive, today, Wadebridge was the same. The hospice shop wanted £15 for jackets! We had a mooch around the other charity shops which were equally expensive. We ended up in the Air Ambulance shop, where everything was expensive, except the Meakin utility ware dish that I found for £1.

We did have an enjoyable hour or so, we bought a book each (£1 each from another charity shop) and I got to add a lovely dish to my utility ware collection. Open message to charity shops. We the people without enough money to go to Marksies, but more ethics than to buy sweatshop shit - would buy lots in charity shops but we can't afford what you're selling. I would love to know who can afford to buy what you sell. Here's an open message to anyone in Cornwall!!!! In Liskeard, the charity shops are cheap, and the cheapest are the Woodside Charity shop and the Salvation Army shop, where everything is cheap - they need your business and you need their prices so get to them and spend your pennies!!!

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxx

Christmas leftovers

2011-12-27T10:36:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

A turkey, though expensive, is so versatile. Here's my version of minestrone soup with turkey as a chunky addition. You will need: One large carrot, one large onion, 2 sticks of celery, one leek, the outside leaves of a savoy cabbage, a good squirt of tomato puree, 2 chicken stock cubes in 1 litre of boiling water, a small amount of spaghetti cut into little pieces and a good handful of cooked, chopped turkey. Here's the how to:

1. Chop and sweat off all the veggies in a little olive oil.
2. Dissolve the stock cubes in a litre of boiling water.

3. Add the spaghetti and chopped turkey and cook for 30 minutes on a low heat.

4. I serve the soup or chunky broth with a dollop of pesto. I don't add it before as the garlic can lose its flavour.

We'll have a couple of bowls each tonight and some for lunch tomorrow. There's still plenty of turkey left so you'll just have to wait and see what I do with that.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

Food, glorious food

2011-12-26T05:42:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

A quiet day with my offspring today. I thought I would share a few recipes with you.

First of all - Key Lime Pie. You will need 1 pack or Oreos, 50g of marg or butter, 3 eggs, 50g of caster sugar, 3 limes, 1 400g tin of condensed milk. I bought the Oreo's in Poundland, 2 packs for £1. The limes were 3 for £1 and the eggs are 85p for half a dozen free range. It's very rich and will cut easily into 10 and works out at 32p per portion. Here's the how to:
1. Melt the butter in a microwave.
2.Blitz the biscuits in the food processor.
3.Mix melted butter and biscuit mix together and press into a loose bottomed baking tin. Smooth some biscuit mix up the sides of the tin.
4. Separate three eggs.
5. Zest three limes, squeeze the juice and combine with the egg yolks and tin of condensed milk.
6. Use an electric whisk (I use my Kenwood chef for everything - similar to a Kitchen Aid - mine's retro and bought it second hand) to blend until pale and fluffy and add on top of the biscuit base.
7. Whisk the egg whites to a stiff meringue and then whisk in the caster sugar.
8. Smooth the meringue mix on top of the lime custard.
9.Bake at 180 degrees for 25 - 30 minutes until the meringue is golden.

I made mine the day before and it will keep a couple of days in the fridge.

Turkey Paella.

This is a great way to use up all the bits of meat you can pull off a turkey carcass. I stripped it today and it will make a good few meals. I bought a 4 kilo turkey, which was suggested for six people and there was plenty left.

You will need: left over turkey chopped into cubes, left over ham slices cut into small chunks, some prawns if you have any, left over peas, an onion, two garlic cloves, paprika or paella spices (thanks for Foster Mummy) 100g rice, chicken stock cube. Here's the how to:

1. Chop and fry the onion and garlic in some oil.
2.When soft, add the rice, paella spice mix and 750ml of chicken stock (I use the 10p a pack cubes from Tesco) and cook for however long it takes to absorb the water.
3. Just before all of the water is absorbed, with about 15minutes left, add the cooked turkey, ham, peas or left over vegetables and prawns. You could add any left overs to be honest!
4. Cook for another 30 minutes until all ingredients are piping hot.

Banoffee pie.

I can assure you, it looked much better yesterday! I followed a recipe but think it's better with a thinner biscuit base. Here's what you need. 2 large bananas - buy the ripe ones, usually sold cheaper and even better if they've got dark. A tin of

this is expensive!!!! Not frugal at all and I can't find this cheaper than £1.50 any where! 3/4 of a pack of digestive biscuits and 100g of butter! I would use less butter in future as the base was hard to cut and less butter would have resulted in a crumblier lighter base. 1 small pot of whipping cream - again! the cheapest I could get was 65p. You will need a few cubes of dark chocolate. You can buy perfectly good dark chocolate for cooking in Tesco or Asda for 30p a bar.

Here's the - how to:

1. Melt the butter in a bowl in the microwave.

2. Crush the biscuits in the food processor.

3. Mix butter and biscuits together and press into the bottom of a loose bottomed tin.

4. Bake in the oven (180) for ten minutes - leave to cool for an hour.

5. Spread caramel on top.

6.Slice bananas and arrange on top of the caramel.

7.Whip the cream - you can buy whipped cream in a can, sometimes on offer but I don't like it as they sweeten it and cream is sweet enough.

8. Break 4 cubes of chocolate into a small jug and microwave, a few seconds at a time until soft.

9.Drizzle over the top of the whipped cream.

Serves 10 - it will also last in the fridge for a couple of days - this again worked out at 32p a portion

I fed six people yesterday and four people today and my son and daughter have 'tupperware' (old margarine tubs!) full of paella to heat when they get home and more dessert to eat later. We'll take them home later. Apologies that the dessert recipes are not frugal, but each is the favourite dessert of either my son or daughter and it was lovely to spoil them.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs

Frugal Queen's message to you all!

2011-12-23T06:10:00.000-08:00

Just a small message from me to everyone and anyone who reads this today.

As ever,

See you tomorrow,

Love Froogs

Frugal Hotpot on a cold night

2011-12-22T12:10:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

Let's see what we can make with this lot? A few spuds, a couple of onions, four slices of bacon, some almost on the turn cherry toms, a tin of chopped tomatoes and a tin of carrots! Just watch this.

First of all, I cut the tomatoes in half, threw away the mouldy ones and layered some thinly sliced potato on top.

I have then layered sliced onions, the finely chopped bacon and sliced tinned carrots, I've then poured a tin of chopped tomatoes on top.

I then mixed up 400 ml of instant cheese sauce and poured that over the top. I buy mine in a sachet from Asda, 4 for £1, it seems to keep for years. I then baked it on the highest setting in my mini oven for one hour.

The potatoes absorb the tomatoes and the cheese sauce and it's rich and yet tangy with the tomatoes and not too stodgy as there isn't much bacon.

The end result was lovely. We didn't have anything with it, it's full of carrots and tomatoes, so enough vitamins there, enough protein from the few slices of bacon and the cheese sauce became sort of crunchy but permeated the hot pot.

It was full of flavour and just what we needed on a cold night. Now the cost £1 for the bacon, 25p for the cheese sauce, 30p for the tinned toms, 20p for the carrots, 60p for the cherry toms, 20p for the spuds and 10p for the onions. There's enough for 4 portions, so approx 61p per portion. It's getting increasingly difficult to put a nutritious meal on a plate for under £1, what are you having for supper and how are you managing with costs?

Until tomorrow,

Froogs xx

We will never forget you.

2011-12-21T03:50:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

Thirty years ago, in a hurricane which measured force 12, in winds that measured 90 knots and seas that reached 60 feet high, the crew of the Solomon Browne, all unpaid RNLI volunteers answered the may day call from the coaster The Union Star.

More than a dozen men answered the call and Trevelyan Richards, the coxwain, picked the best eight man crew for the job. He made sure he didn't take more than one man from any one family. He knew how treacherous the sea conditions were; he knew they might not return.

The helicopter from RNAS Culdrose, with an American pilot called Russell Smith was scrambled and they did everything they could. The Union Star had already lost one anchor and had four shackles of cable out, they couldn't in any way steady the ship enough for a winchman (Steve Marlow) to be able to get any one off the ship. It wasn't until the helicopter was above the ship and Russell Smith checked three times in disbelief when he heard there was a woman and two children aboard the coaster. Unable to affect a rescue, it was left the Solomon Browne to try and rescue to crew and passengers.

The Solomon Brown was a 47 feet long Watson Class wooden boat. I want you to look down at your feet and pace out the 47 feet. It's the size of an average yatch and yet there it was, in a force 12, in 60 feet waves, being thrown around, under the sea most of the time, pitching and rolling, now with her crew on deck with grappling irons trying to get alongside the Union Star.

The helicopter stood down. There was nothing more they could do. The Solomon Brown had managed to get four people off the ship. It looked as if they were about to head for sea and head home............they didn't. There were four souls left on that ship and they turned back and tried to get alongside again............it was then that Falmouth Coast guard lost contact with the Penlee Lifeboat. The maritime call continued "Penlee Lifeboat, Penlee Lifeboat, Falmouth Coastguard. over". They continued to call for 45 minutes. That call was never answered.

On the 21st December, at 20.12, the Penlee Lifeboat, with an eight man crew, all local men from Mousehole, put to sea. She never returned and all lives of those on the Union Star and the Solomon Brown were lost. To this day, the lifeboat station at Penlee Point stands, untouched as it did that night as a memorial to

Trevelyan Richards, Stephen Madron, Nigel Brockman, John Blewett, Charlie Greenhaugh, Kevin Smith, Barrie Torrie and Gary Wallis.

Their incredible bravery and ultimate sacrifice will never be forgotten.

Postscript - You can listen to the news report and the radio contact between Falmouth Coastguard and the Penlee Lifeboat on the links on this page - it's haunting and, once listened to, will never leave you. Here's the link to the RNLI

Froogs xxxxxxxxxxx

Hopelessly addicted to stew!

2011-12-19T11:30:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

Firstly, thank fully Foster Mummy rescued me today from the depths of feeling miserable and I am so grateful that I am blessed with a friend who will drop what she is doing, cross counties and come and see me. xxxxxxxxxxxxx!!!! X 10 Million !

Tonight, we are mainly eating chicken stew. Here's how I do it! Firstly, use the cheapest part of the chicken, the thigh. I have a pan full for £2.25. It will feed us for two day. I get the griddle pan smoking hot, I drop the thighs in, skin side down until the fat start to render. I keep turning until it's cooked.

Now I get the oven on, I drop the peeled and sliced carrots into boiling water and leave to cook, whilst I chop an onion and a pepper.

I add the onion and pepper into the cooking chicken and cook in the chicken fat.

I add the whole lot, chicken, carrots, one large spud peeled and cut into pieces. I threw in a punnet of cherry tomatoes as they were going soft. I mixed up an Aldi chicken chasseur mix with water and poured that over the top.

I then made dumplings. 200g of SR flour, a pinch of salt and 100g of beef suet with enough water to make a dough. I spooned out dollops and rested that on top of the chicken stew. I have a domed lidded casserole dish, usually used for roasting poultry, but great for making stews or casseroles in the oven.

The finished result, an hour later, was an unctuous and rich stew with fluffy dumplings on top.

No good at all for the waist line but good for the soul on a grey and drizzly winter's day. We'll have the same again tomorrow. The cost? 75p per person, per meal.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

Why I am frugal #2

2011-12-19T07:04:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

In answer to a query, why is someone 'middle class' with a good job and plenty of money frugal? I'll try and explain.

I grew up in the council house my parents still live in, where we seldom had enough of anything. My fantastic and loving parents are resourceful people who grew veg, made clothes, caught fish and could bring us up on next to nothing. We often didn't have enough food, heat or clothing and sometimes hid behind the furniture in the dark to stay out of sight of the rent man. Mum and dad did their very very best and are struggling to this day. I know what it's like to be skint.

I didn't have a 'proper job' until I was thirty seven and it took me years to pay off debts accumulated and now I'm able to save. I can only do so by living carefully. If I ran a bath every day, if I had the central heating on every day, if I shopped without budgeting, then I wouldn't be able to save money. Un-metered water costs £1400 a year in Cornwall (so I save money with a meter and rationing what we use) Our local tax is £1800! I still have to be careful.(I have to pay this and I save up for it annually) I don't have that many working years left in me as my profession is not for the old. You can't slow down but have to keep going at a rapid pace, keep up to date, keep changing and moving forward and that will not be that easy when I'm in my 50's. I need to be ready to downsize and do a different job, which will pay less, which means I have to save every penny I earn now and to do that, I have to be frugal.

I'm also disheartened by consumerism. There are more important issues to worry about. No one needs to worry about a new sofa or TV. Let's just focus on looking after our friends and family and those around us in our local communities. We are constantly bombarded with advertising that tries to convince us to consume. Day time TV talks about the 'must have look for the party season'. We must all go on a diet to get into the 'LBD' and get the 'smoky eyes' that look 'oh so seductive'.

We save all we can and pay off as much mortgage capital as we can as I'd rather do that than waste it. I do buy what I need. Last year I bought sensible flat shoes and a waterproof coat of good quality which will last for years. I also bought new work clothes that will equally last a few years. When we've bought white goods in the past, we've bough AAA rated goods and we still have them and they have lasted years.

I was a mum at 19 and my son was 18 before I got a 'proper job' so I brought two children up on minimum wage. At one stage, to get by I worked in a school as a teaching assistant, evenings in telesales and weekends in care work and fitted in university, just to get by. I've worked as a cook, cleaner, bar maid, care worker, nanny, farm labourer, shop assistant, beach cleaner as well as fitting in being a mum. I've always had to budget, to save, to put money by for school uniforms and shoes, school trips, kid's hair cuts and birthdays, for camping weekends and books. It was only very recently that I've been able to put away money for out future. We've just faced DB's salary being cut by 10% and we're both public sector workers who will have to put more money into our pensions and will get less at the end, meaning we have to more than double our own contributions to get what we originally hoped for. We will have to be even more frugal in the future!

We all have our own reasons for being frugal and I appreciate it isn't what most people would have chosen. I always thought that I would have holidays, posh clothes, hair dos and meals out when I got a 'proper job' but in reality, I can't do that and save for the future. We all have our reasons.

Fishcakes and a message for Sara

2011-12-18T07:26:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

Thanks again for the lovely comments.

I made the cheaper than chips fish cakes today and here is how. Firstly boil the kettle and add the required water and milk 550mls into the pan, I add a dash of marg and then swirl in the instant mash 20p from Tesco and beat furiously until smooth, I then add a liberal sprinkle of dried parsley and keep stirring - whilst I was doing this, I microwave two pieces of pollack, which cost £1 for the two from the value range, again from Tesco. Flake with a fork and stir through the mash and parsley. I also add a good wallop of pepper and stir through.

Get a pan on, get it smoking hot and throw in some oil. Gently form the spud and fish mix into cake, roll in flour to make a coating and then gently drop into the oil. Turn the heat down once a crispy skin is formed and cook through.

I served three each, with salad of gem lettuce, grated carrot and sliced red onion and a dollop of coleslaw on top. I don't think it's a meagre serving or that our portions are small, just sensible. We're both 45, over weight and under active so the last thing we need is more food!

Now, to Sara, below is the message to you!

Now go and write what you like on your own blog because I'm just going to delete what you write here. Enough said!

Love Froogs xxxxx

Now here's a challenge!

2011-12-18T02:42:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

In a week, I shall have a house full of people to feed. I'm about to start cooking the extras to keep people fed for four days. I shall make sausage rolls (these are a bit different and almost a meal in themselves and something of a family tradition), quiche, mince pies, some desserts and of course a roast lunch. I have set myself the budget of £30 for the day and that'll include all food and drink.

I already have all the meals I need for the two of us for the following week and some! So, I'm hoping to entertain the family in relative style and on a very tight budget. How do I do it? Well, here's what I won't be buying this year. Crackers............what the bleep is the point of them any way! Cheese. Who needs more than a pound of cheddar in the house? I'm not making cake or pudding as, we ate it into January last year and we all prefer a mince pie. Sweets. We never eat sweets or choccies so why eat them in the middle of December?

Also, you need to take care of portion control so you are not eating turkey for a week, even though I will use up all the meat that I will pull off the carcass. In my days in catering, we knew exactly what constituted a plateful for a roast, so why any more on Christmas day. Here's how I portion the meal

Per person: 1 large carrot, cut in batons, 1 large potato cut into 4, 1 large parsnip again cut into 4, 1 tablespoon of peas, 5 sprouts, 1 tablespoon of stuffing, 6oz turkey (2 good slices) 2 sausages each wrapped with a slice of bacon. When you have that, you can multiply it by how many people you have for lunch. The shopping list looks like this: oven ready 4kg turkey, 1 bag of carrots, 1 bag of spuds, 1 bag of frozen peas, 30 sprouts, 2 packs of sausages, 2 packs of bacon, 1 bag of parsnips, 1 large box of stuffing, 1 tub of gravy granules, 1 pack of butter.

Again, look at what we don't do: Yorkshire puddings, bread sauce, cranberry sauce (I have sloe and damson jelly which is fantastic with poultry). I make gravy from the frozen giblets, add the fat from the roasted turkey, the boiling water from the veg and thicken with value gravy granules. For dessert, I'm going to make Key Lime pie (here's the recipe I use but I omit the expensive bits)and Treacle tart, (again, here's the recipe I use, but I don't make the custard as I use instant) both really cheap to make, will be hoovered by the household. I will, of course, share the frugal but delicious recipes I have for them.

As we eat our lunch at 1 pm and we won't leave the table until 2pm, we really won't need an evening meal. We might have a mince pie with a cuppa, but that's it! The question is dear reader, can I feed six on the day, for £30! I have stuffing already and gravy mix, some store cupboard ingredients for the dessert, but I will have to buy everything else.

Are you frugal at Christmas? I consider what I'm doing to be splashing out, most of the world's population will be as hungry on the 25th as they are every other day, so in comparison, we're having a feast! What will your table look like? Do you understand/do portion control so you cook what you need and don't waste? Over to you........

As ever,

Love Froogs

Get it sorted!

2011-12-17T06:44:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

Another earth shattering day here in Frugal Towers! The house is getting cleaned and tidied. I've started on the kitchen cupboards. I knew it was time to clean out the shelves as things were getting 'icky'! The next jobs is to sort out the larder cupboard, do a stock check, rotate, check dates (eat the oldest first!) and rotate if needed. I've also put lots of 'stuffage' on freecycle and being ruthless about anything that can go to good use some where else. I always amazes me how fast anything goes on Freecycle.

I actually enjoy having the time to sort the house, it's not a chore, but I actually enjoy it. Ah well, off now to have an adventure with bicarb and an old toothbrush and go to war on the grimy grout in the bathroom! Oh the joy of it! What 'odd' things do you do around the house that you really enjoy?

Love Froogs xxxx

'tis different yer!

2011-12-16T12:07:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Readers or as we'm zay yer - 'ello m'ansom

I'm shattered today. It's the first day of the school holiday and I've cleaned the house and chopped lots of wood. I also bought a few presents (mostly from charity shops, for family members who do not share my views about Christmas) I thought I would share 'while shepherds watch their flocks' but sung with tune we sing it in Cornwall. My dad was raised in the austere Cornish Methodist tradition and we were, as they say here, 'brought up chapel'. Sundays were about 'socials' and the 'tea'.

Don't mistake that for a pot with a spout full of an oriental fluid, 'tea' in Cornwall is a grand affair with rivalry of which chapel can put on the best 'tea'. Our local chapel 'Well Street' in Tywardreath is huge, with an upstairs and downs stairs, only to be upstaged by Leek seed in St Blazey, Bethel and St. John's in the neighbouring district of St. Austell.

Christmas in Cornwall, for those of use who hold it to it's true traditions is simple, plain, certainly not about the mid-winter feast or anything to do with Yule. Choirs are huge in Cornwall, carols are three, four or five part harmonies and the singing is male led and boomy and baritoney in quality, with ladies holding the descant. Voices are always lifted to God here, at Christmas, the real Christmas, which has nothing to do with garish street decorations or over indulgence but are about Jesus.

Christmas in Cornwall is also about 'brave tales' and poetry and in particular the spine chilling tale by Charles Causley, where the imagery of the St. Nicholas is merged with that of Herod and the slaughter of the innocents.

Innocents' Song
by Charles Causley

Who's that knocking on the window? Who's that standing at the door?
What are all those presents lying on the kitchen floor?
Who is the smiling stranger with his hair as white as gin?
What is he doing with the children? Who can have let him in?
Why has he rubies on his fingers, a cold, cold crown on his head?
Why, when he caws his carol, does the salty snow run red?

Why does he ferry my fireside like a spider on a thread,
His fingers made of fuses and his tongue of gingerbread?
Why does the world before him melt in a million suns?
Why do his yellow, yearning eyes burn like saffron buns?
Watch where he comes walking out of the Christmas flame,
Dancing, double-talking, and Herod is his name.

Here it is wonderfully put to music by Cornishman Phil Beer with help from the rest of his ensemble 'Show of Hands'.

As I said - 'tis different 'yer!

I'll be seeing y'dreckly!

Love Froogs xxxxxx

Blowing in the wind

2011-12-15T12:10:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

Thanks to everyone who left such cheery birthday greetings. I don't celebrate it and keep it quietly in my own way but I was truly appreciative of the kind remarks you all left for me. I'm so grateful that you read, and even more so that you would think to leave a comment for me. As ever, it would be lovely if readers would become followers so I'd know who you all are. It's just so lovely that you drop by.

Today's blog is in answer to some of your questions about the eco-fan on top of my wood stove. We did buy it, when we bought the stove itself as we were convinced it would make the stove more efficient by pushing the air out in to the room. I only realise what a good job it does when I hang washing in front of the fire. You can't see this, but the fan will move wet washing so it looks as if the washing is hanging in a gentle breeze. I swear it helps to soften the towels and linen. You see, I only use the cheapest laundry liquid, I don't go to the trouble and expense of softener as I think that work shirts look smarter with a stiffness about them, also towels that are crispy have a sloughing effect which I'm sure keeps our skin in good condition.

Is the eco fan any good? Well, it helps to dry our laundry and all I know is that when I come down in the morning, all the laundry will be ready to fold up and put away and that's good enough for me. It's the nearest thing I own to a tumble drier. Does anyone else own an eco fan? I think it makes a difference and moves the air around so making the stove more efficient....what does every one else think?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

You know me so well!

2011-12-14T10:58:00.000-08:00

I know you read this every day, so this is just for you x x x

You know that the most precious and beautiful thing to me is the written word. You know I love to cook and I also love history. You know that I love nothing better than poetry and for you to whisper John Donne to me!

You also know that the best gifts are from charity shops, that you've browsed around, that you've re-visited and taken time to choose gifts from. You know that I want any spare money we have to go somewhere meaningful and to go where it's needed and not simply to the board of directors!

You know one of the many things I love is chocolate, which needs to be ethical and fairly traded or it sticks in my throat. You know me so well and that's one of the many many reasons that I truly adore you.

Thank you for spoiling me, for knowing me so well and making my birthday so very lovely x x x x x

To most people, from Froogs, but to you my darling..................from Jane xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Keeping warm on a budget!

2011-12-13T10:50:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

Firstly a reply to Sara. I'm not mean, just skint and having to put every penny aside that I can for rainy days. No one can afford not to save these days and we all need to be very careful with what ever income we have. So Sara, I'm not mean, just living with my means. Now, onto keeping warm on a budget.

I have a huge four bedroom house that I'm lumbered with until I can get out of a mortgage deal in September and then only then if the market picks up and I can sell it. In the mean time, I can only afford to heat one room so how do I go about keeping warm. It's about 4 degrees outside this evening so I have to do everything I can to keep us all warm, Firstly, we're very well wrapped up. Tights. socks, jeans, layers, jumpers and a scarf. I block off rooms I don't use. I have thick heavy curtains over the windows where there is no heating and I have a duvet and a homemade quilt and the electric blanket gets put on in readiness.

Now, I'm paying for this year's wood so I burn it sparingly and I leave the fire to die down at 8pm and then go off up to bed to read and snuggle up in thick jim jams, with socks and even a hat if it gets too cold! It's not that cold yet, we all remember last winter when December rarely got over freezing! I'm making the most of 'warm' weather whilst it lasts. There are many way that we can and do all keep warm when the cost of heating is high.

As ever, now over to you, how do you keep warm when the cost of heating is so high?

All my love,

Froogsxxxxxx

Showing a bit of leg!

2011-12-12T11:27:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

We are being battered by storm force 10 wind blowing straight in off the sea, over the hills and hitting our house, the fire is being sucked straight up the chimney and the noise is deafening! After some quite plain and simple food over the last few days, tonight has been a royal nosh up of roast chicken, beans, carrots, parsnips, spuds and sprouts. As ever, the main ingredients on the plate are veggies, it makes a very small bird go a long way. I'm off now to pick the bones dry and we'll hopefully get three meals out of it.

What do you do with the rest of the chicken after a face stuffing roast?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xx

We'll eat again!

2011-12-11T09:55:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Readers,

Thanks for the comments yesterday, I always enjoy reading them. You will have noticed that there was no fruit on that list of meals yesterday, well...... I don't eat very much of it. I have a lot of frozen blackberries in the freezer and a lot of cooked apple, which I will use in pies and crumbles over the winter. I'll also use tinned fruit but I rarely eat any fruit in the winter as it's not in season and it's way too expensive. Most of it is imported which is why it's so expensive. We will treat ourselves to some satsumas and oranges over Christmas, but not much else. So where, you may ask, do we get our vitamins - well, from seasonal veg.

Cabbage, carrots, brussel sprouts, leeks and especially red cabbage are full of vitamins. I don't over cook them and bulk every meal with an abundance of leafy veg. Red cabbage and grated raw carrots, with a few tinned mixed cooked beans make a wonderful winter salad. Shredded savoy cabbage is a brilliant addition to stir fry and leeks, steamed and then added to mashed potatoes are just delicious, try adding a liberal sprinkling of black pepper to your mashed potato.

Anyone of my mother's age, who grew up with very little fruit, due to a lack of imports ("there's a war on you know!") functioned well without fresh fruit because they did what ever they could with as many seasonal and easily available un-rationed vegetables. Here in winter, you can buy three or four huge leeks for £1, a massive cabbage for 50p, a kilo of carrots for under £1 and a huge bunch of broccoli for around 60p. We can buy perfectly good frozen green beans, again a kilo for well under £1. Kale is my favourite, easy to grow and best after a frost, as are Brussel Sprouts, and very cheap. Today, we had a mock roast of sausages, parsnips, potatoes, all roasted in a small dish in the mini oven, with cabbage, carrots and green beans, with some gravy. With that many veggies, I only eat two small sausages and the rest of my plate is veg.

I've noticed fruit becoming so expensive, even the tinned variety that we eat. I can though recommend cooked apple, eaten with custard! A real taste of my childhood that I still love in the depths of winter when the apple is sprinkled with cinnamon. So, over to you dear reader............what is just too expensive for you to eat now and what do you substitute it with? I don't miss fruit, as to be honest, I'm not a lover of anything sweet, but what do you miss that you just can't afford any more? For me, it's deep hot baths!

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs

Feeding two people well for £30 a week

2011-12-10T02:51:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

It's case of low stock and empty cupboards here. I've just done my Tesco order and got it down to £30 for the two of us for at least a week and will probably stretch a lot longer. Here's our menu plan for the week.

1.Cottage pie, brocolli and peas - cheaper if you use instant mash on top - it's perfectly OK!

Call me peculiar! But we like this - on top of cottage pie, or for fish cakes and a pack is 20p

2.Sausage casserole, oven chips and a tin of peas.

3.Turkey casserole, half a baked potato each (2 minutes in the popty ping) and cauliflower.

I can do almost a month's washing with this! I use half of what they suggest as I have very soft water.

4.Bacon Hotpot - see Hardup Hester's recipe - I'll serve it with a tin of tomatoes and a tin of carrots.

5.Fish cakes - make with 99p white fish, some dried parsley and the instant mash potato - it will make ten - we'll eat four and freeze the rest. with some steamed mixed veg or a tin of peas.

9p!!!!! It leaves my long hair shiny and rinses out easily!

6.Turkey hotpot - turkey, carrots, onion, a stock cube topped with layers of onions and sliced potatoes served with broccoli and carrots.

7.Lasagne and garlic bread - all homemade of course!

Frozen veg is just as nutritious

8.Pasta carbonara - made with fried bacon pieces, cheese sauce (instant, cheap and it'll do fine!) and pasta swirls (still 20p a bag)

9. Veggie cheesey pasta bake - steam or popty ping some cauli, broccoli and mixed veg, cook some pasta - combine veg and pasta, stir in cheese sauce, finish in the mini-oven for 20 minutes. - Serve with homemade bread.

Supplement the lot with porridge or toast for breakfast, warmed up left overs for lunch and I've well and truly have enough there to keep me going well into the next couple of weeks. How do I do it? Most of what I buy is 'value' - a pack of value mince will make two meals, a pack of value bacon bits will make two meals, as will a pack of value turkey leg pieces. I've always got the staples of pasta, tinned veg and loo rolls. We eat a mixture of fresh and frozen veg, some of our meals are 'on toast', plenty have no meat and we eat for balance and nutrition and try to keep our portions to a reasonable size without going hungry.

I'll now be prowling the supermarkets at the end of their days trading, looking for reduced meat to freeze as I have the entire family here for Christmas. It will be cheap and cheerful, but everyone will be well fed and entertained.

I'm now off to hang washing in the garden, chop wood and sweep the house through, I may even get to wash the windows - there is brilliant sunshine here today.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

How much? How little?

2011-12-09T11:57:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

I often wonder how much or how little we need. I'm happiest when I'm surrounded by moors and wilderness. I'm happiest when I can take care of the people I love and people who need me. I don't need much and suppose I don't want much. I'm looking forward to time off, some crafting, some thrifting, wood chopping and looking after friends and family. I'm looking forward to time at home, time to take care of the house, to cook, to stack wood.

The older I get, the less I need.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxx

Moonlit walk

2011-12-07T12:05:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

As usual, we went out to walk the dogs. I love the fact that we have a lot of sky in Cornwall and very little light pollution in comparison to some of the places where I've lived. Also, in the name of local economy, the council dimmed all of the street lights which now give off a gentle yellow glow.

We went our bundled up in coats, hat and gloves for the first time this year and we're almost at winter's shortest day on the 22nd of December. I always love the winter solstice date, as from then on, the nights get shorter and day light lasts longer. It's no wonder that people used to celebrate, and of course, some still do, the turning season. I really love winter when it's cold, frosty, dark and mysterious. Of course, most of all, I love the changing seasons and actually enjoy walking around in the moonlight with my breath clouding the air in front of me.

Do share, what do you love about winter?

Until tomorrow,

Froogs xx

Now is the time to get a grip!

2011-12-05T13:21:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

It's the stupid silly season! People are tempted to spend money they just don't need to spend. The perfect gift is usually something you already have, for example, a book you bought in a charity shop, which you then pass on to a friend as you thought they would enjoy it. Some of the most wonderful gifts I've ever been given: a hand crocheted dish cloth, eggs from someone's chickens and some homemade jam. I loved them! Especially the eggs from the chickens I had a chat with!

Now everyone! Get a grip! It's not about trees, cakes, puddings, lights, presents or flashing the cash. It's about our Lord and Saviour and remembering his birth. It's a public holiday and time to spend with family; time for long walks and chats and catch ups. It's time to reflect and pray, some of us may do more and some of us may pray just as much as any other day. It's up to you. It really, really doesn't involve spending any money! I've never raised my heart to Jesus and had anyone send me the bill!

It's not about eating more! It's not about lighting the street or stratosphere with coloured lights. My prayers may be quieter than some but I know they are heard. I may treat every day with the same value and reverence but I know my prayers are answered. My prayer today is that those with less money than ever will find the real meaning of Christmas (what ever that means to them) and not drive their family into financial hardship due to over spending.

Until tomorrow, still not spending any money,

Love Froogs xxxxxxxxxx

I choose this life!

2011-12-04T09:11:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

In the outside world, some people may be really busy preparing for Christmas. They may have spent the weekend shopping. This weekend has been about housework and preparing for school work. It may seem to some people that I'm somewhat tied to my home and that I'm either working at work or working at home. What ever I do, I've chosen to do it.

I was up early today, ironing and putting away laundry. I've worked most of the day in my office on school work. It's my choice. I've had another day of not spending any money.

We had a very simple lunch 'hog's pudding' with salad. Hog's pudding is a large white sausage, made from pork and already cooked when you buy it. I've sliced it and dry fired in on a griddle pan. Served with preserved beetroot, stored red onions and some romaine lettuce, which was the 'on offer' salad of two for £1 this week. A spoon of coleslaw finished it off. A very simple meal today.

I was awake early and started another book, 'Mister Teacher' very much in the same vein a Gervaise Phinn and his tales from the classroom. I was drawn to this library book as the teacher wrote about his time teaching in a tiny village primary school, in the 70's, which was when I went to a tiny village primary school. It's as touching as it is funny. If you see it in your library, it's well worth a read. I find I read more on these dark nights, when I go to bed earlier to beat off the cold.

The more I look at my life, the more I want it to be simple, with as little consumerism as possible. Simple, frugal and with less stuff!

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xx

Cats, kindling, cooking and caravans

2011-12-03T09:45:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

Darling Daughter is relaxed and has her feet up. Tabitha has moved into my office window sill and is keeping an eye on me.

It's a bright sunny day so Dearly Beloved and I sawed and chopped kindling for the week.

The fire got going early as it's grey and damp and I've a week's washing to dry. Bobby Dazzler as usual felt he needed to help.

Scruffy/Big dog, saw no need to help but just fell asleep, legs akimbo in front of the fire.

I then embarked on a bulk cooking session. I made a kilo of pastry and then started with cheese and bacon quiche.

Chop and fry bacon, peppers and onion.

Beat together the eggs, milk (which makes it go further) and cheese. Pour the batter mix in the pastry cases first and then add the bacon and onions on top. Finally, float the slices or halves of tomatoes on top.

I then made the start on a batch of steak and kidney pies. Meat is so expensive that I add carrots and potatoes to make it stretch further. Fry the onions first.

Slice the braising steak into cubes. I find that braising steak is often the same price as stewing steak. From the front legs, but braising is usually flank. ~Finally, holding the core of the kidney (I used lambs), use cooks scissors to snip the kidney around it. Keep the chunks as big as possible or they'll melt into the gravy.

Here's the final stewed down filling; it had gently bubbled away for two hours on a low heat. Make sure the carrots are soft and the steak cubes with break easily with a fork. You want it melt in the mouth tender.

Here's the final result. We ate a quiche for 'tea' with salad. Two quiches, three steak and kidney pies and half a dozen mince pies from the left over pasty. All cooked in the oven at once.

I've also read a book today. An easy read and a romp through the lanes and byways as told by Maggie Smith-Bendall. A lovely cold day by the fire kind of book.

Nothing spent, washing drying by the fire, the kitchen smells lovely of home cooking and I even found time to relax with a book. Sometimes the simplest days are the best.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxxxxxxxx

Tabitha Twitchit?

2011-12-02T12:34:00.000-08:00

Dear Reader and especially, my darling girl xxxx

Your favourite word as a child was 'again'. If I swung you in the air, you'd say 'again'. If danced you on my knee, you'd say 'again'. If I read to you, especially if I read your favourite stories about rabbits, kittens, squirrels or hedgehogs, your pudgy little hands would thrust the book back at me and say 'again'. You grew and I thought you'd forgotten all of the stories.

Your books are consigned to a safe place for your children one day, those little hard back, paper bound gems with greasy edges and dog eared corners. I thought you'd forgotten them.

You are so well at the moment, so happy and it's an utter delight to have you staying with us. It warms my heart that your first pet of your own, that you rescued from an RSPCA shelter, who's happily residing on your bed.................is your very own Tabitha Twitchit. I'd thought you'd forgotten. xxxxxxxxxxxx

Until tomorrow,

Cobwebs go hang, dust go to sleep, I'm rockin' my baby and babies don't keep xxxxxxxxxxx

Froogs xxx

Hi mum.....I'm home!

2011-12-01T13:14:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

A rare occurrence tonight, the whole family is under one roof until 10.30 tonight. Our daughter (and the cat) is staying with us for a few days, to have a warm up and get some washing done.

Cat seems a bit bewildered, but she's coping well.

Dearly Beloved is a wonder and he's been to Plymouth and back twice today and will take our son home later. Our son has been away working without a day off since the August bank holiday and managed to get to see us tonight. As you can see, he's glowing in his health and safety hi-vi! It's still good to get to feed them and warm them up. They both live with almost no heating in their own homes and have almost been sent to sleep with the heat of the fire. He'll be on the 10.30 train back to Newton Abbot, to get his head down in his digs and then be up at six and back at work.

I got to play mum for just a few hours. It was wonderful. Where did those years go?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs

Strike

2011-11-29T20:06:00.000-08:00

Good morning Dear Reader,

I'm not going to make any personal remarks about the industrial action I'm taking today, instead, here's an article by Kate Treacy from yesterday's Guardian newspaper. P.S, if you want to use my comments to be derogatory about teachers, just remember, you can do so because one of them taught you to read and write!

I'm going on strike to make you show teachers some respect, Mr Cameron!

If the government wants to attract the best graduates to teaching, it must prove to them that they are valued.

As a teacher, I'm always a bit cagey when someone mentions time off. I have been doing my best to avoid any conversations about tomorrow's strike for the fear of the familiar retort: "Because that's what teachers need isn't it? Another day off!"

Teachers are constantly vilified as an inefficient and ineffective bunch, more interested in coasting to a comfortable retirement than unleashing the potential of the young talent of this country. But I firmly believe that this campaign is not just about how well-off I will be in my autumn years. It's about fostering respect for our profession, it's about ensuring that teachers are valued.

I doubt anyone would argue with the assertion that successful societies need successful education systems, and these need good teachers. But bright and dynamic people require some incentive to enter the profession: a bit more respect would help.

There's an awful lot of teacher-bashing about: it seems every ill in society has its roots in our "failing" state schools; even the August riots have been blamed, at least in part, on us.

Respect for teachers and teaching has dwindled in the last 20 years: not just in the media but in the minds of our peers, parents, students, even ourselves. I delayed entering the profession for fear that I might have "settled" for it.

One way for the government to attract talent to teaching is through good pay and conditions. It sends a signal that this profession is important, that the people we have slogging their guts out in our schools are worth investing in.

The new pension proposals will have a serious impact on the financial future of teachers: we are expected to pay more out of our salaries now to get less out of the pension pot in the end.

Remember, teachers do not operate in a market place. Terms and conditions are set by the government. Good teachers can't negotiate a better pension deal elsewhere. We are stuck with what the government offers us. So that offer needs to be attractive.

Yes, Mr Cameron, industrial action will be disruptive, but then that's the point. It's time you all sat up and took notice of us. We really are that important.

• Kate Treacy teaches English at a state secondary in north London.

See you later,

Froogs xxx

Gratefully received!

2011-11-29T09:54:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

Today's blog is a bit of a boast. I have incredibly generous friends and family. Dad dropped some wood in, that he knew someone had ready to go into a skip. Dad popped it on his roof rack and brought it to me, I found it tucked around the side of the house this evening. I'm so thankful of such a lovely gift and the efforts he went to.

My other lovely gift that I thought I'd show off was from Man Wonderful, so nice to have someone else think of us. I cherish such actions and they make me feel loved.

Living a simpler life has made me truly appreciate the goodness of such wonderful gift. I shall be warm for hours, I shall be able to chop this into kindling to start my fire. These gifts are gratefully received.

With much love and gratitude,

Until tomorrow,

Froogs xxxxx

Oh yeah!!!!!

2011-11-28T11:43:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader!

Today is a real 'Ta dah!' kind of day. It's the end of the month, I have not a penny to my name as I've cleared out our accounts, bundled it into one place and thrown it all (like monkeys throwing shit!!!!) at Santander! I have made it! I have reduced my mortgage capital by 10% this year! Now it's time to save for next year's payments.

There's no heating on. The lights are off. We've eated a slow cooker from stewing lamb and root veg, which cooked in the slow cooker. The clothes have dried again on the indoor rack infront of the window. we have no budget for Christmas, so just a few homemade gifts for close family but OH YEAH....we've made it and we've a month to go yet and two pay cheques to bank in readiness for next year.

When I first did this, it seemed so hard, depressing and it really wasn't any fun. Now I dance around when I write another cheque to the building society. I love giving them my money. It's doing nothing in the savings account (although we do have a contingency fund) so we might as well reduce the huge interest payment we make each month. I plan to get rid of another 10% next year....and some! Does anyone have a brilliant mortage deal they can recommend? Does anyone have an offset mortgage?

I don't think any of us can predict the financial future, or even be that prepared for it. All we can do is stuff money (if we're debt free) any where we can. In my case, whilst I've got a mortgage, I may as well keep buyng a few more bricks and try and get myself out of mortgage debt as soon as I can. But Oh Yeah! I actually achieved my financial goal in total today.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxx

Never to early!

2011-11-27T05:45:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

You all do often like the 'how to' blogs I write, so here's a how to make mince pies. These took me an hour to make, including cooking time, and I was eating my lunch whilst they were cooking. Cost - about £1.50 for 12, but the fruit was soaked in brandy when I made the mince meat, so these are quite delicious.

1. Weigh out 500g of plain flour and add to the food processor with the chopping blade in the bottom.
2. Open and cut into cubes, 250g of vegetable margarine. Place in machine and switch on, until it resembles bread crumbs in about 60 seconds.
3. Switch back on, this time dribbling in cold water from a jug.
4. It will become bigger and bigger lumps until it forms one lump, as seen above. Stop and turn out onto a floured board or clean work top.

Here's the finished pastry - so far in under five minutes. Switch the oven on, mine has gone onto 180 degrees, as I have oven chips, battered pollack in there too and that's the temperature they need!

Gently roll out, big pastry cutter for the bottom and smaller for the top.

Go get the mince meat out of the cupboard. I made this when some one gave me a basket of windfall. It keeps for years.

I cram as much in as I can, it's mainly apples, with some spices, some sugar, orange and lemon rind and a few flaked almonds.

Pop the tops on and bake for 25 minutes, mine went into the oven along with the fish and chips.

After cooking, leave the oven door open to warm the house up.

Finally, using a small plastic tea strainer, dust the little pies with a liberal sprinkling of icing sugar.

Leave to cool before eating! But, they are best is slightly still warm when you eat them. They can be eaten with cream (which I don't like) or custard, but I like mine with a cup of tea.

Enjoyxxxx

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxx

Using free winter water

2011-11-27T02:27:00.000-08:00

Hello again Dear Reader,

The weather is fantastic today. It's chilly but dry and sunny. Again, I was able to get outside to do 'garden jobs'. As I said yesterday, I don't like the gym or what seems like pointless going no where exercise, but I do enjoy hard work. I must have had a good upper body work out, both today and yesterday as my triceps are still aching, so good work went on again in the bingo wing area! I should patent this work out. Today's is called 'scrubbing the step'.

First of all, get an old broom handle, that snapped half way and you couldn't repair and run it up and down the cracks between the paving slabs and get all the moss and grass out! This makes the triceps ache!

Now your slabs are moss free, get some water from your butt! No jokes please! We've all got gallons of it sitting there, nothing to water in the garden. So now's the time to get the soap and scrubbing brush and get your patio, steps, deck or paths a good clean.

The weeds before my very sophisticated broken broom handle weed remover tackled them.

Get the water onto the step, or where ever needs it, give is a tiniest squirt of bleach and washing up liquid and now put your back into it, get those shoulders working and get scrubbing.

Now rinse, when you do so, keep scrubbing, it'll keep cleaning it.

I've only done a small section today, but will continue to do a bit more each week, using the water from the butt and not the tap. We also use this water for rinsing the car when we wash it. It also got bucketed in (whilst I remembered) and a couple of buckets are by the loo to flush it. That's another work out I should patent.........carrying buckets!

Now my lovelies, here's my challenge to you.........get out and use up the water in your butts..........let me know how!

Work it baby!

2011-11-26T05:07:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

I hate the gym and sport and keeping fit! Anything that involved lycra is not for me! I can't see the point in it. I've always thought people who enjoy it must have a lovely life with lots of time on their hands and need something to fill their time. I do exercise though. Today, I stacked away 1.27 metric tonnes of wood. Most of it, was too big, so I chopped it too. Lots of upper body exercise to keep the bingo wings from flapping. Dearly Beloved shared in this workout. Yesterday, the wood was dropped on the drive at the front of the house and he then barrowed it round to the back of the house, down a narrow path and then back up it again with the empty barrow until he'd moved all of it.

It's still relatively affordable with a tipper truck full for £100! That seems like a lot of money and it is. However, this is pay as you go heating, or pay for it first heating. I can now, for the first time in years, have my home as warm as I really like it and know I can afford it as there won't be a bill in the new year for gas. I can also dry all my washing and can keep ourselves a lot cleaner and tidier, which makes us feel a whole lot better. I'm still revelling in the luxury of heating of any kind. The last two winters have been extremely hard as we had next to no heating as we didn't dare run up a gas bill. Now, other than the hob on the cooker, we don't use any gas at all.

It has also dried my house out, and we seem to have completely eradicated any mould or damp as the fire dries the air too. The chimney is in the middle of the house and warms the stairwell, the bedrooms and the landing. It's far more efficient than I thought it would be. As for next winter, we'll be burning our own wood, from the trees we had felled, both this winter and last winter. It will also take us a while to chop up the metre wide logs and then split them even further. Carbon neutral? I'm not sure with the amount of puffing I did whilst stacking the wood. I did enjoy standing back, mug of tea in hand and admiring my handiwork.

Am I alone? Do any of you in blogosphere enjoy manual labour, chopping, stacking and sweaty toil? Do share?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xx

Our Daily Bread

2011-11-25T09:43:00.000-08:00

Baked in the bread machine, so very low energy costs - strong white flour 64p a bag from Lidl

Hello Dear Reader,

On average, we eat a loaf of bread every two days. If we bought a loaf of bread from the baker's every day, we'd pay around £1, so the cost of bread is 50p a day or £182.50 a year. That's a lot of money for a few pieces of toast and a sandwich lunch each day. We buy 8 sachets of yeast for 60p - so 7.5p a sachet and bags of flour for 69p and make four loaves from each bag. My bread costs 19p a loaf. £34.67 a year! Homemade always works out cheaper and this simple costing shows how we can feed the two of us, two dogs and a cat for £30 a week.

How much money can you save by making it yourself?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

Bloody lovely!

2011-11-24T11:34:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader!

If you are from foreign climes, you may be thinking......what the heck is that? It's a black pudding or a blood sausage. Eaten, here in the UK as part of the full monty from breakfast. The likes of Heston Bloomin' heck have been using this with fancy food such as scallops, but with my mother hailing from Derbyshire......I grew up eating this as the main part of my meal. I still love it. They cost around £1.50 for the whole sausage, you peel off the cover (unless you've got the genuine cooked in guts version) and grill it or fry it. That's it! Serve it with what you like. Don't add any starches such as spuds as the blood is soaked up by starch, with spices and lumps of fat added and that's it!

I served ours with a few lardons, salad, dressing and a dollop of hummus. The lighting has made it look very black and the outside is always a bit crispy as that's the way we like it! We've saved half of it for another day. So 75p worth of Black pudding, some salad and a few lardons have made a very special supper. Bloody lovely!

I'm sure a few of you will turn your nose up at the humble blood sausage but here's my theory. If you are going to eat an animal, eat it all, don't waste any! Not even the blood. As ever, over to you dear reader............what unusual food, that some people might find just too peasantish, do you really enjoy>

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxx

Eating the stockpile!

2011-11-23T11:35:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

I really enjoyed reading about your inconvenient food, your home cooking and the simple pleasures that so many of us enjoy from some stoveside pottering. It's at the stage of the year, where I'm driving to work in the dark and groping my way home in the dark too and I'm getting home late and tired. I've made two fish pies which are bubbling away, a shelf each, in the mini-oven. One will be for the freezer and one will feed us tonight and tomorrow night. I'm getting used to the same meal twice in a row and I really don't mind. Something else I don't mind is the occasional delve into my stock cupboard and pulling out something that makes the meal go further. Tonight, it's some Aldi beans and carrots. They are remarkably good for tinned and very cheaply priced. There's plenty more and I always stock up on tins when I get paid each month as I like to have a good stock pile to feed us for quite a few days.

I've always done this; it comes from the days when four of us lived off Dearly Beloved's wage of ten thousand a year. We never knew until years later that we could have applied for top up benefits, but by then I'd got a night shift job in a care home and we managed by being very careful. I used to stock up on plenty of tins, frozen food and cheap cuts to see us through to the next pay day. I still like to have spare food, even though we're better off.........some habits die hard.

What frugal habits do you hang on to? Whether you need to or not?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxx

Inconvenient foods

2011-11-21T10:29:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

I was thinking today about how much I like getting in from work and 'getting the dinner on'. I like standing in my kitchen and rubbing fat through flour, I like making pastry, standing in the window and washing cabbage leaves. I can't think of anything nicer. I even like the break when I've got the 'dinner in' to go and light the fire.

Of course, I like to pull something out of the freezer and heat it up or cook something I've prepared earlier. I know this is not convenient, and I know I have to wait for my food to be prepared and cooked. I know this takes time but every slice, grate or chop is done with love for myself and DB as we deserve to be well nourished.

There is nothing on earth comparable to the deliciousness of home cooking! Nothing I buy lives up to my expectations and really, I can do better! I also love 'beating the system' and not giving in to marketting, not giving in to big business!

Even better if I can grow it and cook it, or pick it for free and cook it. Even better if I can store it away and bring out a spoonful of summer sunshine onto a slice of toast in the middle of winter.

I've come home tonight and I've cooked a full roast dinner. Spud, veggies, stuffing and gravy. The meat will go through the slicer and go a very very long way. So, tonight.................here's to inconvenient food! Food that comes with scales on, skin on it, dirt that needs washing out, or even bugs in it that need squashing between your fingers. Raise a cuppa to home cooked, inconvenient food!

Now, as ever, I'll hand this over to you dear reader. What inconvenience do you enjoy?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs

May the best house win.

2011-11-20T07:27:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

I love the gentle yet pervading aroma of a woodfire through out the house and the smell of clean and drying laundry. The sun left us early today and by three o'clock it's become over cast and smoke is curling out of the houses in the valley below. If I don't get the washing smartly, then my knickers will smell like kippers!

I was watching some facile bunch of plastic no bodies showing people around their houses and the simple premise of the TV programme was that the house judged the best won. I looked at all the houses and thought: there's no where to stack any wood in that front room, where are they going to hang the washing and there's no where warm to leave bread to rise. I didn't think any of them were winners! Nil points from Froogs then!

My house is warming from the stove, the scent of drying sheets is filling the air, I have a stew bubbling away and all is good in the world. My house wouldn't win any style awards but it simply does the job. It keeps us warm and safe.

What do you love about your simple frugal home? or would you like to change?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

Saturday bargains!

2011-11-19T03:55:00.000-08:00

Hello dear reader,

I cracked under the strain today and spent £10! As it's the 19th, I broke on the 19th day, and couldn't resist a charity shop rummage. I bought a wool skirt by Marks and Spencer's - Autograph, a leather hand bag and a scarf, which came to the massive sum of £8!!!

My bargain of the day was my haul of vintage linens for 99p from eBay. I drove the 20 minutes to Plymouth to pick them up and then had a good dig in the hospice charity shop before I drove home again. I am short of pillow cases and napkins and will up-cycle the table clothes, all of which are too small for my table into pillow cases. Most are old and linen and have those wonderful 'Made in England' labels and some say 'Empire made'. There's a whole load of lace too and I'll make some decorative pillow cases too, for the spare room; I always afford visitors a lot more luxury than I need. I have ten tea towels, many napkins, some lovely decorative tray clothes which I will turn into something else as and when I need something. Nothing you can buy now meets the quality of old heavy linens.

I've also made seven pots of marmalade this morning (thanks to the friend who saves her jam jars for me xxxx). Dearly Beloved slept late this morning and was thrilled to find his favourite breakfast spread waiting for him when he came down; I prefer jam so I make this just for him. I'm now off to give the house a really good clean in readiness for visitors this afternoon. What are you up to today and have you found any bargains or made something today?

Until tomorrow,

Lots of love,

Froogs

Viva Las Vegas

2011-11-17T11:48:00.000-08:00

Hello dear reader,

Thanks for dropping by again. The nights seem to have drawn in so quickly this season and it's dark as I arrive home and by the time I've walked the dogs, it's well and truly night time. I've noticed something. Some houses are lit up like Las Vegas. They have the wide screen TV, all the lights on, the curtains wide open and no one in the room. I often blog about saving water but tonight I wanted to take time to think about light.

We make some of our own. All of our exterior lights are solar powered. We charge our phones and batteries with solar power and then use that stored energy. We put the batteries in a couple of battery powered lamps and have them glowing gently where we need to see to get by, but not necessarily read or do anything that requires bright light. We only have the light on in the room we are in. The room is heated by wood, gently lit by solar power and we only turn on the mains power if we need to read something. All of our bulbs are eco bulbs and I really like their warm glow and the fact you have to let them 'warm up' for a few seconds. I usually put my bedside light on, go clean my teeth and then come back and read.

All this may sound somewhat parsimonious but we're using a fraction of the energy we used to and every quarter, after a meter reading, we discover we're using less than before. You see, my house isn't lit up like Las Vegas and we cope just fine. We heat and light one room, live in in quite cosily, with lap tops, cosy blankets, warming cuppas and the stove glowing in the hearth. I don't even put the lights on as a move from room to room, I allow my eyes to adjust to the dim winter light and then dim lamp light and enjoy hunkering down in the evenings. I go to bed earlier at this time of year, I'm always in bed and asleep by nine at night and get up early to make the most of the low winter sun in the mornings. I like adapting to the seasons in ways I never used to when I heated and lit my house at the touch of a switch. I'm living lightly on a lot less and I like it.

I'm off to bed now and as always, I'm reading two books at once. I'm flicking through and settling occasionally on pages from...........

Also, I'm also engrossed in and totally loving this.....(Foster Mummy - I must pass this on to Man Wonderful....)

Do you save light? ~Do you hunker down and cosy up on these dark winter nights? Do share xx

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

Luxury fine dining

2011-11-16T09:58:00.000-08:00

Hello dear readers,

We had a 'roast dinner' tonight! Left over cooked veggies, sausages wrapped in bacon, carrots and sprouts. I love sprouts but I know many of you won't. It's also a bit early for sprouts and I must admit, they weren't the best I'd ever had. I shopped in Aldi this week as they have very good vegetables at very good prices and the bag of sprouts were 59p. We only eat a few at a time, so they'll last for ages. Some thick hot gravy and I think our meal for pennies is actually a meal fit for a king.

As I drove to work, I heard that families are giving up 'luxuries' to get by - well I'm not giving up my 'luxuries'. Luxury for me means I am well fed, luxury means I am warm, luxury means I am adequately clothed, luxury means I have a secure roof over my head and luxury means I have a job and I can pay my bills. We all have different views but I feel exceptionally rich when my fire is lit, my plate is full and I truly want for nothing more. If you shift your perspective; you'll find you have a lot more luxury in life and suddenly, your standard of living is raised and you're living really well!

What are your 'luxuries', what do you have that your truly appreciate and know you're lucky to have!

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

Hang in there!!!!!

2011-11-15T12:17:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

I often sit and do my school work and listen to something on the I player and tonight, I listened to Radio 5 Live as it was about 'Foodbanks' which provide emergency food parcels for families in crisis. So often, I'll listen to something like this and I wonder why I'm crying. Here's the link to the radio programme.http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b0178ggy

My son is now twenty five and he and I lived as a family unit whilst he was a little boy. For a short time, I couldn't find any work and spent a short and miserable time on state benefits and I know first hand what it is like to live well below the poverty level. I may have dug my way out of that within six months but nonetheless, I know what it's like. For quite a while, I just about managed to pay my rent, put money in my electricity meter, buy a few second hand clothes and coal for our fire. I know first hand how hard it is to claw my way out of unemployment and into a job. For quite a while, I had three jobs to get by. I worked in an old people's home as a carer at the weekend, cleaned posh folk's houses by day and worked in a local pub behind the bar in the evening. I was lucky, my mum looked after my son overnight and at the weekend. I missed him terribly but I kept a roof over his head.

I know I am one of the lucky ones who made it out the other side. There are so many people who just have to hang on! Tonight, some people will only eat because Foodbank, churches and charities have fed them. Tonight, as the temperature drops, elderly people on fixed incomes will not be able to have any heating. As food prices soar, as fuel and energy prices continue to rise, families will be making the choice between food or heating.Mark and Helen's story - those who don't make it! and there's more and more people facing real hardship Foodbanks and soup kitchens

Many families, like mine will have had pay cuts (DB - 10%) and just have to get on with it. There are those of us who are just finding it tough but we'll get through it, to those of us - hang on.xxx

Love Froogsxxxxx

Pay it down!

2011-11-14T12:03:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Readers,

Thanks to the so so many of you who sent me lovely messages about the ways that you too are frugal! After my scintillating weekend of dismantling pallets, chopping firewood and not shopping! (Other than food) I came home to my mortgage statement today. Due to being a total tightwad, I've now reduced my monthly interest payments by £100 a month. You can imagine what I'm going to do with that 'spare' £100! You bet......it's going to go straight onto the capital repayments! I can only pay 10% of the balance a year and next month's payment will see me do that for this year. I'll then put away December's payment, into the savings pot, until the new year, when I can start to pay off another 10% of the balance.

It takes some doing! As I type, whilst there is a fire alight downstairs, there is no heating else where. My taps run cold and then I recycle the water for the loo. There are days when all of this is utterly dispiriting and I could just turn all the lights on, the central heating on and run round bare foot. Then I realise what has to be done, shake myself, pull myself together and just get on with it. Paying off a hoofing great mortgage is a pain in the proverbial but I signed the papers! No one made me. No one said..........go and buy a house in a nice district, with low crime and lovely open countryside, oh and by the way, that'll make it really expensive. Dreams are all very well but they don't come cheap.

I really enjoyed the comments yesterday and I smiled as most of the money saving things we do are part of the game I play. Winning that game means I can pay anywhere up to 1% of the balance of my house capital each month. Sometimes, it isn't that much and as little as 0.5% of the balance but every month it decreases. It's tough, no one said it would be easy but I'm living proof that it can be done.

Now over to my fellow froogles...........what do you do that's tough, that's part of life's game and that you know will be worth it in the end.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

You know you're frugal when.....

2011-11-13T07:34:00.000-08:00

Hello Readers,

I thought we could all join in with this one! You know you're frugal when your best day out is a walk on the moors, or the cliffs, or the park, or through the woods, you're wearing a waterproof from the charity shop, which is where you also bought your walking boots. You love every minute of the freedom of outdoors and when you get back to the car you warm up with a piece of home made fruit cake and a flask of coffee. You wouldn't dream of going to the cafe! And, you do all this with a smile on your face!

When the oven goes on, you make the most of every penny worth of the really expensive electricity. You bulk bake, cook and you always have something in the freezer to just reheat. Everything is home made and when you see a quiche in the supermarket for £2.50 you know you could make that for less than 50p! More to the point, you feel really smug.

Your cupboards are well stocked with dried beans, you always have something soaking, you make your own bean pates for packed lunches and hummus for snacks. you get a huge part of your protein and fibre from pulses and even casseroles are bulked out with the cheap and delicious little larder fillers.

When you eat out, which is very very rarely, you only do so because you've saved your Tesco points and trebled them for gift rewards. £10 of vouchers become £30 of restaurant vouchers and then you save them for birthday, date nights and treats. You also only drink tap water with ice in the restaurant because the vouchers do not cover drinks! You walk out of the door feeling really good, that you ate a nice meal that someone else cooked for you and you were canny about how you paid for it. We do this about three times a year!

You love chopping wood! You get a real sense of satisfaction out of stock piling for next year, you even chop your own kindling. You drag home branches from the road side and you keep a saw in the car! You become really cheeky and ask for wood or pallets. You keep advertising on freecycle for any kind of wood and you'll gladly saw up broken bedsteads, you'll dismantle sheds and you'll stock up with the wooden boxes freely available outside a traditional fruit and veg shop or stall.

You have more than one job. You'll deliver pizzas, flowers, you'll baby sit, you'll clean caravans, you'll work in a bar, you'll work in an old folks home, you'll take in ironing, you'll cut grass. What ever, if times are hard and you need extra money you get off your backside and go out and earn it.You'll rent out spare rooms, you'll rent out your garage and any spare parking spaces, you'll camp for three weeks in the summer so you can rent your own home out to tourists. What ever it takes, if you have a bill to pay, then you'll find a way.

Most of your food is off the bottom shelf. You'll not be seduced by the buy one get one free unless it's what you already buy and they haven't inflated the original price. You don't care if your trolley gleams with Morrisons bright yellow value products. You know that Tesco value baby lotion is an amazing make up remover and cleanser, you buy one lipstick a year and that was £1.99 from Aldi, you keep your eyes open for the end of line and stock up when you really really know you are getting a good price. Also, you can no longer understand why people pile their shopping trollies with total rubbish and pay a fortune for it. You look at these sheep with disdain and only wish they would read this blog!

You launder your clothes according to the weather forecast. You then finish it off indoors on racks and you have plenty of these. Hall ways have secret hooks which can take a washing line in the winter to finish off duvet covers and towels. Clothes get sniffed, it they don't smell - they are not dirty! You soak clothes in salt water to get rid of any stains, you use Value or home soap powder and you use a cup full of white vinegar in the rinse to soften and freshen they clothes!

You always take your lunch to work. Doing this saves me £500 a year. I take my own coffee and UHT milk and that saves me £300 a year. You know what things cost, you instantly multiply that by 5 and how many weeks you work a year and then you have the real cost of that lunch or that coffee every day. A newspaper a day is easy - that's £365 a year. A magazine a week? That's £3.50 X 52 = £182. So, by not buying lunch, or coffee, or a magazine or a paper saves you £1347.

I have loads more, but I'll let you all finish this today. So go on, you know you're frugal when............

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

Keeping fit and warm and advice for someone new to this!

2011-11-12T08:55:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Reader,

We get pallets for free. Where ever we see them, we're really cheeky and ask for them. I can often be found driving home, hitching up my trailer and going back to where I have some pallets 'saved' for me. It takes work, but we break them down into kindling wood. If you've ever bought kindling wood then you'll know it is expensive. First of all, Dearly Beloved uses a crow bar and a lump hammer and breaks the pallet into its component parts. He then uses a claw hammer to remove all the nails - we re use the good ones.

I then join in with production line and saw them into lengths that will fit into our stove. It makes my arms ache which must be good for the bingo wings.

I then chop them into kindling to light the stove with. It may not sound like much, but if I bought it, it would cost about £2.50 a week in kindling if we didn't get the pallets for free and chop them up ourselves. It saves us around £50 over the winter.

Finally, here's all the wood indoors and ready to keep us warm, to dry the washing and keep the house aired. We're lighting it most nights, but, you'll know what I mean if you have a stove, we keep it clamped down so it burns slowly and makes the wood last. The Netto bag is full of small branches of a garnered wood, which I have sawn down. We're not using any gas, we use our solar powered lighting as much as possible and we're doing everything we can to stave off the huge expense that winter can bring. We're all fighting the best fight we can in tough economical times.

Someone wrote to me yesterday, their income has been drastically reduced, she is the sole carer of children, she has huge heating costs (Northern America - deep deep winters there). I was asked for advice. I thought of all the American blogs that I read and would like to her to take a look at CT Mom on a budget, Home joys just to start with to see some very good shopping advice and home joys for simple but affordable cooking and remembering your blessings when you are at home with children as a full time job. She told me that her chimneys have been blocked with concrete - well other than appealing to someone like Ty Pennington to come round and make over her chimneys, she's in a difficult position. I've got a very very long distance request to all my American readers, if you were in that mum's position and all this frugal living is new to her, what advice can you give her. How is she going to access affordable health care and dental care for her children? How can she budget for heating oil? How can she go about looking for a reputable builder to unblock her chimney? How to go about finding thrift stores for home wares and clothing? How to access advice - is there a TV show or channel that is interesting or informative. I'm sure she'll read this today and enjoy any help you can give her in the comments.

I've asked for help before and you've rallied to my support, today - I'm asking for someone else.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

Age shall not weary them.....

2011-11-10T11:57:00.000-08:00

For The Fallen
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Good night and see you tomorrow,

Froogs xxxxx

simple supper

2011-11-09T12:20:00.000-08:00

Hello readers xxx

Thanks for dropping by. It's freezing in here tonight and I'm snuggled up by the fire, then I'm off to bed to read. I'm too tired to cook tonight so I've indulged in one of my favourites. One tin of Tesco Value tuna, a couple of spoons of value mayonaise and two potatoes in the microwave. I ate it with some raw spinach salad with some tinned sweetcorn and that was it. Cheap, healthyish and very quick.

What simple supper can you share on here?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

Nope, no shopping today either!

2011-11-07T12:21:00.000-08:00

Hello readers,

This is for one person, you, the one who asked me. Well here it is. You asked how do you stop shopping. Well it's like this...............just stop doing it! How did I give up smoking, I stopped putting them in my mouth and lighting them! I stopped buying them! How did I stop shopping, I didn't open the door and I didn't go in! Drug addicts are always addicts but they don't always have to be users. I still have compulsive behaviour. I just direct it somewhere else.

My blog today is all about the living you can do and not go in shops.

You may well shop because you're bored..............what the duck? Emotional shopping? Do you really get anything out of it? Remember! Their job is to get your money off you. If you have so much you can spread it around then give it to Cancer Research, the Salvation Army or Oxfam, give it to the chuffin' dogs home, but do something a lot more worth while than shopping for rubbish I bet you just don't need.

I didn't run up huge debts shopping, I ran them up on keeping my house upright and fighting the ex in court to keep my children, and then on my education! I've always thought that shops were dens of sin, peddling pretty trinkets to people with no self worth. There was my answer, look down on dirty capitalism and commercialism and refuse to dirty your hands with their filth. I now have a whole host of things I do instead of shopping.

1. Read library books.
2.Walk every where, it takes up your day and keeps your arse from sliding down your legs.
3. Do the housework without electricity, it takes up your day and stops the bingo wings from flapping in the wind.
4. Grow food............most of the muck in supermarkets is rubbish anyway.
5. Volunteer in the community.
6.Visit your neighbours..........mine are smashing and I do like the occasional chat.
7. Make what you need, whether jam or sloe gin.
8. Recycle old clothes into quilts.
9. Cook everything from scratch.
10. Learn to knit or crochet.
11. Work in a charity shop.........I'm nosey, so I'd love the comings and goings.
12. Exercise, for free by running or walking - see #2 for validation as to why you should.
13. Share your faith with others and be part of a church community - or not!
14. Be a conservation volunteer, part of coast watch, take part in beach cleans...........

I'm going to leave the rest to my readers. What do you do, that costs nothing, that keeps you out of shops. How do you advise people not to go shopping. Personally I would rather gouge my eyes out with lolly sticks than even look through shop windows! There are so many ways to live, I choose to live mine away from commercialism and make, mend or grow it myself.

Until tomorrow,

Lots of love,

Froogs xxxx

No spend Sunday.............no spend any day!!!

2011-11-06T06:00:00.000-08:00

Hello Readers,

Thanks again to all 2357 of you who logged on and read yesterday, to the two newbies who've become followers and everyone who reads this. I had a fab day being fed wonderfully by Foster Mummy yesterday. We both discussed our blogs and how they let us count and see the balance of all our days. As I look back through mine, I am repeatedly reminded that I have a wonderful life. Today is another wonderful day to add to the list.

We've cleaned the house from top to bottom, all the laundry is done and drying outside in the most incredible sunshine. Four more slices of beech tree have been chopped down and stacked. I've made a huge casserole for today and tomorrow. Maybe even some to take to work for lunch too. I now have the rest of the day and evening in my office getting ready for work tomorrow. If I make a start now, I'll be done by bedtime.

This weekend, like most others, involved spending no money what so ever. For many people reading this, that will seem unusual. You may well have just gone to the shops for something to do. If that is you, and you want to change, then don't wait any longer. Commit your finances on pay day, transfer any spare money somewhere useful, such as your pension, your mortgage and especially your debts if you have any. Why not start your journey with one day a week, where you don't spend any money. Then, try and build it up until you just shop once and don't go into a shop any other day at all! Even though I'm debt free, I still make sure I do that and then it's up to me to amuse myself for free when I'm not at work!

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xx

Frugal Dearly Beloved

2011-11-05T12:11:00.000-07:00

My wonderful Dearly Beloved,

Today, you made my car completely road legal for 60p! I had a passenger's side brake light out and that incurs a mahoosive fine. Luckily, none of the constabulary saw me or caught me and I made it home. I have no idea how much it would have cost to have gone to Fiat, booked the car in and had new bulbs fitted. I have no idea how much it would have cost to simply buy a set of bulbs direct from Fiat.

You know exactly where, what ever we need is the cheapest. You know every independent motor factor who will sell just one bulb. You did that and went to Taylors of Liskeard and just bought one bulb for 60p and fixed it your self!!!!!

So, thank you my wonderful Dearly Beloved and thanks to Taylors. I am completely road legal for 60p!

No takeaways in this house

2011-11-04T12:53:00.000-07:00

Hello readers!

It's Friday night. Once, in the dark and almost forgotten past, we always used to have a take away on a Friday night. Now, we just cook every meal at home and such wastefulness is a thing of the very distant past. I defrosted some puff pastry from the bottom of the freezer. Oh, by the way, if you have time to make your own puff pastry, you have a lovely life and you don't have enough work to do. I, on the other hand have been at work all day and buy it on offer or when it's about to 'go out of date'. I rolled out the pastry and set it to one side. I then squidged the centre out of three sausages and rolled it into one long sausage. I chopped and fried some lardons, a few crinkly mushrooms, an onion and, once soft, laid that along the bottom of the savoury plait, smeared some home made damson chutney on top and then balanced the sausage meat on top.

I cut and 'plaited' the pastry and baked in a hot oven. We ate it with some runner beans and peas............it was just divine!

Here's the melt in your mouth, gooey, and yet crunchy and all found lurking in the back of the freezer or fridge savoury sausage plait. There's plenty left for lunches next week.

I'm off to sit with both the doggies, who will be trying to get inside my jumper as all the fireworks go off tonight.

Until tomorrow,

All my love, Froogs xxxx

One long siesta and paella (ish)

2011-11-03T12:50:00.000-07:00

The cheek of it...................they don't pay any rent!

Hello readers and the new followers (you've been sucked into my version of the Truman show.......welcome to my little bubble!).

I arrived home to a very quiet house. It's all right for some! Here's the resident fluffy Bichons doing what they do best......................nothing! The resident bed testers barely move all day. There is a dent in my bed..................which dogs, will you hear this! You are not allowed on! Have formed into a groove through a day of just sleeping!

Nose in the direction of the kitchen.

They soon look lively when I come home and start cooking something. It's all a bit iffits here! If it's in the cupboard, you can have it. I had the back end of a pack of lardons, some skinned and boned chicken thighs, a quarter of a chorizo sausage, some rice, some frozen veg and a tin of chopped tomatoes with basil and garlic. I made a sort of paella. (Foster Mummy bought me some lovely saffron spices back from her holiday in the summer, which I've managed to dye my hands yellow with too)

The result was a huge pan full, some for supper this evening and some for lunch tubs to heat up at work tomorrow. I'm now off out to walk off some of the supper and stretch their fluffy legs. Today's spend.....nothing at all.

Until tomorrow,

Froogsxxxx

Throw money at it!

2011-11-02T14:40:00.000-07:00

Hello readers xxxx and the new ones, and those who've become followers (makes me feel like a cult!)

Just to make sure I don't and can't spend any money this month, I've set a very tight budget. I've left £25 a week for transport, £30 a week for all groceries and nothing else! Nothing, not a bean! Every other penny is with Santander as I've paid down, or paid off as much mortgage capital as I can! Today, I paid off 0.5% of the balance! It's not much, but it's something!

It's left me skint for the month but I own a little bit more of the bricks and mortar and nothing else can be wasted as there's nothing left.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

Frugal fishy pie!

2011-11-01T11:35:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah! I ate something today!!!!

Hello Dear reader,

There is always that feeling of trepidation after days of the room rocking and feeling and being really sick when you reach the stage of being too scared to put anything in your mouth! I have a cure all recipe that's up there with chicken soup for its bland comfort value and that's fishy pie.

1. Make plain - no salt - no butter (bit ambitious at this stage) mashed potato - set to one side.
2. Microwave some plain pollack.
3. Mix up a very plain and simple bechamel sauce and add a little cheese to flavour.
4. Mix cheese sauce and pollack - place in heat proof bowl.
5. fork mashed potato on top and grill until crispy.

(Usually I would add flaked smoked mackerel, flacked smoked haddock and prawns for a special fishy pie - but today it was very plain)

Eat, with a teaspoon!!! Can't be too careful! Very slowly and sit near the door.............(enough on that!).

No GP appointments available in the end, so have to wait until tomorrow! Thanks so much for the migraine advice, I'm going tomorrow with lots of questions and names of medication. I, thankfully only get migraines at most three or four times a year and I have no triggers, sometimes they can even wake me in the middle of the night.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

Who kicked my head in?

2011-11-01T00:34:00.000-07:00

Hello dear reader,

Welcome to anyone who's reading for the first time, who's here again and many thanks to those who've become followers. If you have a blog, then I've probably popped over and had a look and signed up to keep in touch. Thanks especially to those of you who contact me personally be email, it's always a pleasure.

Well, a migraine descended on my head on Saturday night and I was tucked up with dihydrocodeine by seven O clock and out for the count. I was awake here and there, just enough to take more pain killers every four hours and the chuffin' thing managed to go away yesterday afternoon. I don't think I've ever been so sick and thrown up that much since I was pregnant!

It's scared me to the point that I'm going back to my GP as the pain is unbearable, not to mention the inability to stand, hold anything, drink, sit up and every time it happens, I think I'm having a stroke as I can't speak. The side effects of the meds are extreme too and have left me with third degree stomach upsets, yellow eyes and joint pain that requires a whole different type of pain killer! I may not get these very often but they are getting a whole lot worse.

I have a good GP practise but I need this looking into and will ask what can be done! Any advice? Anyone with crippling migraines? What treatment is out there? Also, I have a digestive disorder that's aggravated by anti-inflammatories (I can't take ibrufen or anything similar) so the migraine meds seem to get me through the head pain but leave be in agony everywhere else.

So fellow bloggies, any ideas? I know my medical practise, unless you go in there forewarned and forearmed, you'll just leave with a polite fuck off and don't cost us money we don't have and the cheapest generic medication they can prescribe. But, go in there with a request and they back down and oblige.

I'm sure someone has some advice. The GP will see me at the end of surgery tonight (or sooner if they call and can fit me it) so any advice will be helpful.

Love Froogs

Ready, steady, Bake

2011-10-29T05:59:00.000-07:00

Hello Readers; those returning and those who may be reading for the first time,

Ages ago, I bought some baking mixes from Approved Foods. To be honest, they're not great but they were really cheap and we often learn what not to buy after we've bought it! I won't waste it!

The ginger cake mix leaves a lot to be desired. I added half a jar of home made lemon marmalade. It makes it sticky and heavier but you can taste the lemon alongside the ginger and it gives it some extra stickiness. I've cut it into portions, wrapped and froze them. We'll eat them warmed with custard.

The plain vanilla sponge mix is a much better. Simply add an egg and water and whisk for three minutes, pour into cake tins and bake. I sprinkled the top with caster sugar and filled it with some home made hedgerow jam.

The final cake I made was a boiled fruit cake. No boiling involved. Take a budget cheap as you can get pack of mixed dried fruit, place in a microwavable bowl and pour the cold tea that's left in the tea pot over it. Zap in the microwave for two minutes. Pour into a mixing bowl with 300g of sugar and 300g of self raising flour, one egg and a teaspoon of mixed spice. Mix together and baked in a lined tin on 180 degrees for about an hour.

Well, the ginger and marmalade cake may not look great but it tasted fine! I just can't throw anything away, I have to make do. Have you made anything recently that wasn't great but you made do and ate it anyway? I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

Saving 11.4 years and £42,759

2011-10-28T02:00:00.000-07:00

Hello Dear Reader and welcome to all new followers and readers xxxxxx

Times are hard. No one need to worry about not having any money as no one has any! If you have any, you could save it and get sod all in return! Once you've paid off any debts, if you have any, the next step is the mortgage. We've been paying back nothing more than the minimum repayment of the capital, in our case nothing more than asked, for the past two years. Now, we're going to take every penny we previously snowballed into debts and add that to a monthly payment.

I don't make a regular payment, I actually go into Santander and pay them a cheque each month. Some months, I pay more and some times less. I can pay up to 10% of the balance a year and not incur extra financial penalties. Can you believe those blood suckers actually get away with charging you more for paying off your mortgage at more than 10% a year! Well I'm fixed into that stupid deal until 9/9/2012, when I will be telling them in no uncertain terms where to get off! I'll tart my payments from bank to bank in the future without being tied in, whilst looking for the best deal as it arises.

By overpaying my mortgage to the point at which I was paying debts each month, means we will be left with exactly what we had to live on when we were in debt. Life won't change. We'll still use second hand water, won't turn the heating on, will still use the shower timer, will still grow food to supplement our diet, still have a small food budget and still not go out to eat. It won't kill us. It will though reduce our mortgage by 11.4 years and save us £42,759 in interest payments. That will rid me of the shackles I have to the bank.

Whilst I'm on the stinky high interest rate and stuck into a deal with penalties, we only pay off 10% a year but there are mortgage deals out there that don't have penalty charges and I will keep my eyes open for one.

I'm off now to read my meters and record what I've used or not used. We've also had great success with solar re-chargables and will look into some more for the house. There's no way I'm going to commit to PV whilst I don't own my own home, but I can have stand alone and re-chargable lighting for snuggly winter evenings where a warm glow will do. I can always throw a switch if I need 'day light'. I know some people who read this are literally on your financial arse and my thoughts and prayers are with you. I know some of you, through prudence and being careful have worked your way to debt freedom. If that's the case, then why not have a look at how much you could save if you over paid your mortgage.

I may live a simple life but it's worth it to pay off my mortgage in 8 years and 6 months! (So, stuff that you bankers!)

Love Froogs xxxxx

Frugal, frugalish, not so frugal and free! P.S I've given up, giving up swearing!

2011-10-27T11:00:00.000-07:00

Some how, I don't think the paint is going to make it onto the wall of its own accord! However, I'm only heating my house with prepaid wood and not buying gas!

Hi everyone,

Many, many thanks for the messages of support. There are things I can say on this blog and things I can't say, and I can't say why. It does feel as if I have the thought police breathing down my neck and it irks me to the point of the utter fucking depths of misery, but I live in a complicated world and I'm not actually allowed to say or do as I please. Enough of that and I'll move on. And no, I don't have a book deal............but there's an idea!

Dearly Beloved and I went on a shortened and slightly later than planned anniversary trip. It was eventful. We went over to France in a force 8 gale (or as the Shipping Forecast said........cyclonic). I medicated myself with some Jack Daniels and strapped myself (I mean fucking literally!!!!) to my bunk and got there on time and in one piece! The weather instantly improved when we got there and we had the most lovely forty eight hours in Morlaix, St Pol de Leon and Roscoff. We had a frugalish 'menu formule' in of all places, a local supermarket restaurant for 12 euros for a three course lunch, with wine and coffee. We had coffee and croissants sat in market squares and had the loveliest of times. We also did what we rarely do in the UK: we shopped. We stayed in a thirty nine euros a night hotel which was warm, friendly, did a good breakfast and had lots of deep hot baths!!!!

I am no wine specialist. I've been on wine tasting evenings and after the third bottle, it all tastes the same to me. We've bought five litre boxes and many many bottles. Mostly for around 1.09 a bottle, which in UK pounds is a pound a bottle. Here, the cheapest paint stripping plonk you can buy is about £3.99 a bottle. I now have a year's supply, plus gifts for family and friends for the next year. We will go back within a year............but it's better to be safe than ~~sober~~ sorry! So, there's the frugalish - wine with a 75% discount.

We don't have a Netto store near us. Oh the very joy of the place! I noticed there were no Brit cars in the car park but kept hearing familiar accents. So, I found where the Brits abroad go shopping. We did the usual thing of buying the local cheese, wine and onions (they are pink and so fragrant and delicious) and I added a couple of new plastic bowls to my 'chariot' at a euro each. After washing our hands, in cold water of course, we use the water to flush the loo. I think it's a sin to flush the lav in pure drinking water, so we continue, even in our debt free state, to use second hand water in the toilet. (Oh, that's the frugal bit)

Finally and most importantly, a massive thanks fort Ali for sending me some Lacura eye creme and serum. She bought them for herself and didn't suit her and she very thoughtfully sent them on to me. I am so very grateful and even though life it a deep crevice of shite at the moment, I am astride it without wrinkles! (That's the free bit and it has really cheered me xxxxxxxx All my love to Ali!!!!)

Frugalish, I was sent another discount code for shoes! If you go to the Clarks website, with the discount code of BERRY, you can get 20% off and free postage. Everyone needs shoes at some time. On a deeply frugal note! I haven't used any gas for a month! I also made a payment off my mortgage capital and will be on target to pay off 10% of the balance this year and hopefully, will do so again next year.

p.s - I don't like odd numbers so if six of you, who are not already followers, could become so, it would tidy up the numbers xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Again, thanks everyone. I'm dragging myself out of this and I couldn't have done it without you xxxxxxxxx

All my love Froogs xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Time out

2011-10-21T12:03:00.000-07:00

.....it was then I carried you......

Hello Dear Reader,

I'm contractually not allowed to write why I'm not writing. I only have one 'person' that I'm talking to at the moment. I may or may not be back.

Your love, your comments and your support have truly sustained me through some hard times. I will never forget your kindness.

Love Froogs xxx

Tomorrow's chip wrappers.

2011-10-20T14:53:00.000-07:00

Hello Dear Reader,

Dearly Beloved has been a train Womble today and has brought home bundles of newspapers. He must have looked a sight with bundles of them inside his coat as he cycled back from the station! He walks from one end of the train to the other and came home with out usual evening reading material (we haven't bought a paper in years!) and we now accumulate these to light our stove with.

Have you 'wombled' anything recently?

See you tomorrow,

Love a nice and toasty Froogs xxx

Utter luxury!

2011-10-19T13:44:00.000-07:00

Hello dear reader,

It's so cold, I've worked late and come home to a lit fire. Being careful with money and putting every penny into the mortgage capital repayments leaves little money for looking or smelling nice. Every so often, I splash out on good toiletries. Then, I make them last. I race my way though a tin of lovely talc in at least six months! I keep soap dry and a bar can last for weeks and if I get hold of some shower gel, I know I can make it last for a very long time. Each day begins and ends with a top to toe wash in one bowl of hot water, which I then flush the loo with. About mid week, I wash my hair and have a five minute shower..............it's total luxury!

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxx

Cold Icy Blast

2011-10-18T13:06:00.000-07:00

Good evening dear reader,

Picture this! Lovely warm lounge, one end of Frugal towers is quite warm.............the other end has a chilly blast whistling in from the Urals! The home made quilt is on the bed, hot water bottles are in the bed warming it to gas mark 6. There is no heating other than the wood stove and the rest of the house is cold. Every cup of tea in the kitchen, or trip to the loo, requires a trip into the chill zone. Night time is like the above pictures. No details needed, just imagine it yourself..

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

Rising costs of energy!

2011-10-17T12:38:00.000-07:00

Nationwide disgrace and total numpty!

Dear Huhne the goon!

Here we go again some snotty posh Tory (Liberal in disguise!) telling us how to cope with rising prices - it takes the biscuit - it really does! I bet he's not wrapped up in a blanket with one bar of his gas fire on for one hour a day because it's all he can afford! I bet he doesn't sniff his clothes before he decides to wash them (or get his Polish cleaner to wash them!) I bet he doesn't have a shower timer or always have pee swishing around in his toilet! Why is it that some wally like this slimy toad thinks it's OK to give us advice. Chris! You should be wringing your hands with shame!

Gas and electricity costs more than the average family can afford. Families on low incomes, pensioners, ill people on disability benefits, young mothers on small part time incomes, sick people on statutory sick pay recovering from surgery are going to have a cold, cold winter. According to Huhney's advice, all we have to do is find the lowest tariff, get your walls insulated and put a sweater on! Well here's a message for you Huhney! A saving of £100 a year on average bills of £1400 for a family would hardly be noticeable when you're bringing three children up on minimum wage!

"We want people to check their tariffs, we want people to switch to cheaper tariffs and we want people to take advantage of the free offers that there are to insulate their homes so they can protect themselves from rising bills this winter,"

I want us all to go a stage further. I want to see consumers do a lot more to say 'get stuffed' to the energy companies. Get a thermostat and set if to 17 degrees, get a lot of jumpers, use wind up torches and lanterns, go to bed early with a hot water bottle and have more cuddles. Just boycott the flamin' energy companies as much as you can! I've not used the gas for anything but the gas hob for two weeks and I'm going to keep going. If I have to grope around in fluffy slippers with a battery lamp charged by the sun then I flamin' well will!

OK, so I'm a bit extreme but the prices are a national shame and I am not going to give them my money! I would appeal to all of you to find any affordable alternatives you possibly can. Stuff them! Don't give them your money!

Huhne! You can take your hollow advice and stuff it in your ministerial brief case!

Until tomorrow,

Froogs (blowing raspberries at said twonk on Channel 4 news)

Keeping down the costs

2011-10-16T12:55:00.000-07:00

Hello dear reader,

I'm really beginning to worry about the constant rise in prices; even sausages are expensive. I'm now buying my meat from a local butchers close to here who specialised in bulk amounts for customers. So, I buy 3 kilos of bacon pieces at a time and divide it and freeze it myself, I also buy pork loins, chicken pieces and sausages as well as beef of all descriptions but in larger portions. Even if you save money that way, it's still expensive. The answer is obviously meatless days (which we have plenty of) and smaller amounts of meat when we do eat it.

Our supper tonight consisted of one and a half sausages each, with some bacon chunks, all fried together with onions and mushrooms and a sauce made of tinned tomatoes, water and some gravy thickening. Plenty of peas and carrots and a desert spoon of mashed spuds each. It's certainly a big meal to have on a Sunday evening, but DB has built another shed today (it's beginning to look at bit like the little house on the prairie out there!) so I thought I'd rustle up something hot. I made sure I cooked the veg on one gas ring with the steamer and nothing took too long to cook. To save on energy, I've cooked tomorrow's supper (play it again Sam) and it's in the fridge ready to be dinged tomorrow night.

It's a constant struggle to stick to a budget and eat relatively healthily. Not exactly the lean chicken breast and salad that I would prefer but it's hearty, honest and nutritious. When any of us think of the struggles our grannies had to feed our mums and dads on rations and a nationwide lack of food, I really shouldn't grumble about prices.

Photo above is who Froogs will turn into if she does any more scrimping! Or may be she's already there?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs

Answer to reader questions.

2011-10-16T03:59:00.000-07:00

Shoes from Cotton Traders - originally £22, but I used a 20% off and free delivery code to get them for £17.60

Hello Dear Readers,

One of you asked yesterday why it took two of us to lift one log onto the log splitter, well, the answer is in the close up photo above of one log! It's freshly cut Beech and is from a forty year old tree that blocked most of our view and all of our light after 10 am in the morning. It had to go and now we're chopping it into logs to store to burn next year.

Here's the finished results and a mere fraction of the entire wood pile we worked our way through yesterday. Working with your own wood involved short journeys from one pile to another. This current pile, left exposed to the sun light and wind, will lose a lot of moisture in just a few week. We cover it in tarpaulines when it rains and then uncover when it's dry. We'll need to build another wood shed near to the house to store it in but as the garden is on a slope, we'll have to carry the wood up, one basket at a time. It can stay where it is for a while. Dearly Beloved, who I can honestly say seems very happy to chop all of this wood, is also making sure I have enough kindling to light the fire for the week as I always try to get home before he does so I can get his supper ready.

Our solar battery charger is from Amazon (about £15...we've had it a while but only recently started using it) and we bought it with gift vouchers from my brief survey stint (not enough reward for the time as far as I'm concerned) and the re-chargeable batteries can be bought anywhere.

We have a battery powered lantern from a car boot sale, I suppose it was originally bought for camping and we paid a few pounds for it. We mainly use it in the shed. We've brought it in recently and used it in the house as we've run it on batteries charged by the sun. We are doing everything we can to give as little money to the N Power as we possibly can. It seems to work and we have no complaints.

I'll finish with my wood powered 'tumble drier' - three racks of washing drying around the wood burner. It was outside until mid day, the sun hadn't shown up and there's little breeze, so I've lit the fire and ranged the clothes around it to dry. Again, sticking it to N Power!

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xx

Frugal anniversary celebrations.

2011-10-15T08:23:00.000-07:00

Hello Dear Reader,

To start with, here's the photo of my lamp that runs on re-chargable batteries, that I recharge with a solar charger. It gives me the extra light I need to mark books on a dark night. I couldn't make my computer 'find' the camera memory card, although today, the computer seems to have 'fixed' itself!

Dear Beloved and I have known each other for twenty four years, since he was a friend of a friend. We've lived together for fifteen years today. We enjoyed a busy day at home. The winter preparations continue. My very own man mountain has been out demolishing a pile of green wood. We've borrowed a hydraulic log splitter off an friend and we're able to get through tons of logs in one day. We can both swing an axe but, even with gloves, we end up with numb hands and aching shoulders. We still have to move piles of logs from one place to another.

The results of one day's work is fantastic. This is wood that we will burn next year and we'll make sure we have enough to see us through next winter. It's amazing how much wood you can get through. Now the novelty of the wood burner is starting to wear off, we're not lighting it every day as we've had to pay for the wood we're currently burning and we have to be frugal with that to. Everything has to go that little bit further these days.

We've worked together on the wood today. The large 'rounds' are impossible for one person to lift and they need steadying on the log splitter. I've also moved logs closer to the house and into the store, I've also chopped two bags of kindling. It's very easy to get through a lot of that too. We don't buy that, we chop waste wood (thanks to Foster Mummy and Man Wonderful for bringing two sacks of waste wood) and start the fires with that. We glean newspapers from Dearly Beloved's train rides home and I bring home paper from the recycling bin at work. No wasting money on fire lighters in this house.

We won't be going out for a meal, we never do. We won't be going to the cinema or theatre as we never do that either. We will light the fire, have a home cooked meal, share a bottle of local cider and just enjoy having time together. We've never let money define our happiness. We've been happy enough without it for years and years.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxx

a message for N power

2011-10-14T13:14:00.000-07:00

Here's an open message to N Power, my utility provider!

You along with the other robbing country folk have now increased our energy prices by 20% this year. I'm being so very very careful. I have not used gas for the last 10 days. I've not heated any water, or used the hob or had any radiators on. I'm loving the warmer weather as I can dry washing outside and I'm heating the house with wood.

Tonight, I moved lots of wood, stacked it and sorted it, chopped some and brought the weekend's wood indoors and placed it in baskets. I gardened, put hanging baskets and the last of the tomato plants in the compost heap. I didn't light the fire for a while because I was so warm from the jobs I had to do. I washed clothes and they are drying in front of the wood stove. None of this has involved much bought energy. Again, I'm lighting the room with one eco bulb and this blog is being typed from the light of a solar charged lamp. I've had micro mini showers, I've flushed the loo with shower water caught into a huge blue plastic box. To all the energy companies.......................you can take your price increases and stuff them! I've no spare money for lights and gas so bog off......I'm not paying and I'm doing without!

How very dare you!

2011-10-14T11:25:00.000-07:00

Here is an open message to the unsuspecting fool who tried to promote debt consolidation on my blog - just **** off and never darken my blog again! Debt is debt is debt. The only way to get rid of it is pay it off, not run up more debts by paying more interest over a longer period. If you email me, I'll give you my address and if you've got the b**s, then you can come here and I'll personally give you the message. Now jog on!

Love Froogsxxxxx