Spring is in the Air

Better late than never, as the saying goes. Spring has been a long time in getting here so it was great to finally get a completely dry day of sunshine that didn't end with a deluge. It was a good day to work by the ponds. 

So far, all the plants here have been donated or else cuttings taken from elsewhere but I did splash out and buy some reduced price lilies and marginals. They all got planted today. I also checked the fruit hedge in cuckoo corral, which was planted in August 2023. It comprises 40 mixed berry bushes - red and white currants, red and white gooseberries and josta berries. Again, these were all end of season bargains that seemed like a good investment. Here's hoping the hedge is fruitful in the future.

I remembered to water the courgette seeds and the hardy kiwi in the potting shed and weeded out another small raised bed, ready for transplanting seedlings. No Olio this week but did get a lovely pair of black stretch jeans, spotted in charity shop for £3 by a friend. Absolute bargain and very comfy work wear. 

Chinese New Year

What a busy month February is!

Frugaldom's 28-day 'fight the flab' challenge, Valentine's Day, Pancake Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, Chinese New Year - the year of the sheep, or year of the ram - and several others that have come along more recently, like Harry Potter Day, on February 20th! Frugal living can be fun for everyone, so celebrate in affordable style!

Valentine's Day is the midway point for our Frugal February Fitness Challenge. The sun shone, so it seemed like a good idea to get back in the saddle again... by giving the bike its first short trip of the year. I didn't go far, but stopped for photos along the way, regardless.

As you can see, the sky was blue and the loch was calm. There was a huge flock of migratory geese grazing noisily on the far shore and a number of ducks and other waterfowl on the water.

All along the lochside, through the surrounding woodlands, there were snowdrops flowering. By my front door, I have crocuses, snowdrops and a profusion of miniature irises in full bloom, adding a splash of colour to an otherwise dreary time of year.

Pancake Tuesday, or Shrove Tuesday, is tomorrow, 17th February 2015, and we're all set to have a super frugal use-it-up day from dawn until dusk. As February represents the first 28 days of our annual 'get fitter, not fatter' challenge, it is also fitting that this year's grocery challenge has been reduced to £5 per person per week for all meals, so zero tolerance on food waste means everything gets used up as normal, not just on Shrove Tuesdays. (This challenge is being recorded on a daily basis at www.frugalforums.co.uk to include some recipes.) I will continue the pancake blog tomorrow. In the meantime, I have my flour, eggs and milk at the ready, along with the usual lemon and sugar or syrup toppings.

Chinese New Year begins Thursday 17th February and this year is the year of the sheep, or ram. Having seen a lovely example of a willow woven sheep in a garden by the abbey on the island of Iona, I had shown the photos to resident artist. This is the result - his first willow sheep, woven from willow grown in the Thrift Cottage garden! It is very fitting that it was finished this week, just in time for the Chinese year of the sheep beginning on Thursday. Who knows how many may have joined our Frugaldom flock by this time next year. You can see how this sheep was made on our designated eco arts photo blog at www.ecoarts.co.uk

As time marches on, taking February through to March, we have been having fun finding out how far a fiver can stretch, while measuring how many pounds can be lost during this 28-day kickstart to the 'Get Fitter, Not Fatter' challenge. This fabulous little fashion watch, which is available in an assortment of colours, cost just £2.60 including postage and packaging, after using a 10% discount code on our all time favourite fashion site. Better still, you can collect loyalty points as you shop and the company ships globally.To find out more about this and thousands of other bargains that we'll be researching and reviewing, you can visit www.frugalshop.co.uk It is from there that we will be featuring all the offers, discounts, voucher codes, products and services that help to finance the running of the Frugaldom Project, along with the supporting web sites, blogs, forums and chat room.

Our next live chat will be scheduled soon, so don't forget to register a username and password via www.frugalforums so you can take part. This week, we will be discussing the 2015 monthly moneysaving challenges plus offering support to those taking part in the fitness challenge. We'll also be mapping out the other monthly challenges that will be set throughout the coming year.

Chinese New Year

Cheap and Nutritious Meals

More than halfway through January and we are already looking ahead to see how we can save extra and do more during February. Time flies when you are enjoying yourself, especially when juggling a fresh, new budget. Meanwhile, we still have meals fit for a King, priced for paupers and easy enough that even the kids can make them - what could be better?

The new regime for 2015 involves slashing the grocery budget to an average of just £5 per person per week for all meals, so it is taking come creative thinking. The above soup no longer will have just a carrot grated and an onion chopped into it. Instead, it will have a portion of mixed vegetables served with every bowl to make it up to 2 portions of our 5-a-day in one meal.

We do have the advantage of a well stocked kitchen and the additional benefit of home-grown and freely foraged foodstuffs in the freezer, plus a full cupboard of preserves, all made from free fruit, but in order to reduce the overall average, I now need to focus carefully on both the nutritional values and the costs. I guess that's why we Scots love our oats - we can eat them with practically anything! So, after a hearty breakfast of porridge, sometimes with a handful of sultanas or berries to boost the '5-a-day', it's onwards towards soup-making for lunch.

At the moment, you can buy cooking bacon for 80p per 500g pack, so I recommend this for making your stock. Along with a 500g pack of split peas or lentils, plus a grated carrot and chopped onion, this combination can cook you up 3.5 litres of soup without a problem and leave enough stock for flavouring the meals you make with the resulting cooked bacon. I made the most of the current Asda offer for half price lentils and now have 10 kilos of them in stock, as they worked out cheaper than their split peas!

After slow cooking the 500g of bacon to make stock, this left about 350g of what looked like streaky bacon, so it was all chopped up and separated - lean meat in one tub, streaky bits in another. I salted the water, as the bacon isn't smoked. This is how I intend using the meat:

7 Main Meal Suggestions: Continued…

Frugal Laundry and Fabric Conditioner

Frugal Laundry and Fabric Conditioner

"You may be well aware that domestic products have become very expensive recently and as a result it is more economical to buy in bulk from online cleaning suppliers and more importantly from those who are recognised and appreciated for their quality..." said the latest email request for inclusion in the frugal blog.

So, I took a closer look at some bulk buys. Mainly, I hasten to add, because white vinegar is becoming more difficult to source in any affordable manner anywhere near where I live. (As you know, I make my own laundry cleaner and previously used the vinegar as a fabric conditioner.)

If, like me, you use an assortment of vinegar, lemon juice, basic soap, oils and washing soda as the mainstay for your cleaning and laundry, then you will have noticed the escalating price changes in white vinegar. Everywhere seems to be moving to malt or else only offering small bottles, rather than the gallon containers we previously bought… Read more here

Scottish Multimedia | Frugal Holiday to the Scottish Isles

Frugal Holiday to the Scottish Isles

Who needs the Caribbean when we have golden sands, shimmering turquoise sea, azure sky and sunshine in Scotland. Yes, this really is Scotland and it really is April. (This is a photo blog, apologies for any slow loading.)

You can reach Glasgow from most places, so that's where we headed in order to set off on our whirlwind, whistle stop frugal tour. I was very lucky in that I was able to hitch a lift from Frugaldom to Lanarkshire, so £10 covered my share of the fuel costs. As it was Easter holiday weekend, I spent four nights with family and friends before setting off on our island hopping adventure.

Being based in Wishaw gave us easy access to Glasgow, so we opted for open return train tickets at a cost of £40, allowing us to travel from our original destination via Glasgow Central, Queen Street and then on to Oban, which is a lovely little harbour town on the Argyll coast. It was a bit overcast when we left Glasgow but the clouds lifted the further north we travelled… Read more (photo blog includes my home made souvenir.)

Frugal Shop

Frugal Shop

In an effort to revive yet another dormant project from past frugal challenges, I rediscovered the old Frugal Shop and it came as a bit of a surprise that I still had the site. I think several of us set these up when the powers that be decided to give all new start or small businesses without web sites the opportunity to claim a free one through their ‘Get British Business Online’ challenge.

As you’ll see by the top left counter, today marks 457 days since I launched the Clan McGonk enterprise – making hairy wee Scottish McGonks that have, since, been winging their way around the globe.

So now I need to shake up this site and make it earn me a little bit of income to help financially support Frugaldom. Bargain spots will be posted on www.frugalshop.co.uk as I spot them and I won’t be posting anything that I wouldn’t buy myself, so don’t go thinking this is a sell-out.

Visit the Frugal Shop now and you can subscribe to the updates so you never miss any of our offers.

Day 28 of Extremely Frugal February - Pizzas and Cannelloni

It's the Final Day of February! We Got Triple Nominated!

First of all, some exciting news! Our frugal blog has received three nominations into the 'MAD Awards this year - isn't that great? If you would like to nominate, the web address for this blog is http://frugaldom.blogspot.co.uk and you can vote for us either via the badge on the right hand side of this page or else by going to http://www.the-mads.com/ and nominating from there. We have been nominated into categories for BEST THRIFTY BLOG as well as BLOG OF THE YEAR and MOST INNOVATIVE BLOG, but I'm not quite sure how that happened. :)

Now look away if you are easily offended by weird food concoctions and past BBE dates!

Cheap bread and roll mix - 99p for 3.5kg

Last night was a late one - we met up with neighbours and went walking in the hope of catching a glimpse of the Aurora Borealis after seeing the alerts for sufficient solar activity to bring it this far south. We stayed out until about 1am and saw nothing. I was so disappointed, having convinced myself that we would catch a tiny glimmer. It just didn't reach our corner of Scotland, despite being reported as far south as Essex. I did spot four meteors/shooting stars streaking overhead, though, and the sky was amazing with the millions of stars on display.

By way of compensation, my Approved Food* order arrived today, all £15.01 of it! 400 bread rolls' worth of mix for £3.96, so that's less than a penny per roll and enough to see us to the end of the year. Bit disappointed in the quality of the potatoes but I have my seed potatoes at the ready to start chitting (sprouting prior to planting) them soon. With luck, we'll be eating home grown by summer.

Now for some really extreme frugaling!

 

When opening the orders, they are always strapped with the nylon braided tapes. I have used these in the past to make streamers to hang in the garden as bird scarers but I thought I would try a bit of weaving. Seems to work, so I won't be throwing any more in the bin - I'm sure there are plenty of other things that can be made from them.

 

I used up the remaining 4 mini-naan breads from the open pack with another tin of tomatoes, herbs, pepper and a single portion of cheese for each of us - I had my usual pickle with mine.

Last night's chilli con-coction was too much for two people and H doesn't really like chilli, so I can't serve it 2 nights in a row. I went rummaging again and came up with a plan - but now the leftover chilli and rice has turned into another 6 meals! Look away now if you don't like to see the 'before' version of frugal meals...

Mixing the rice and chilli concoction with sage & onion stuffing

I mixed a cheap pack of stuffing with last night's leftover chilli and added the rice into this, as well.  I haven't a clue how this is going to turn out but I do have a vague idea of how I expect it to taste.

Filling the Cannelloni tubes with the mix 

I've less than half a box of the cannelloni tubes left but after filling the 11 of them, I still have some of the chilli mix left to use - I spy cabbage!

Filling in the gaps to use excess mix

 I peeled off a large cabbage leaf, split it and wrapped this around the remainder of the chilli concoction mix - haven't made stuffed cabbage in a while! The last scoop of mix got packed into the corner of my dish.

Frugal version of cannelloni - Frugalloni

I poured the jar of tomato and herb sauce over the filled pasta tubes and used half of the 25p tin of cheese chopped over the top. The other half has been wrapped in tin foil and put in the fridge for later use. This is my largest lasagne baking dish, which usually provides enough for 6. Everything was crossed in the hope this tasted OK.

Looks OK to me! Tasted lovely!

Baked the dish in the mini oven for about an hour and then gave it a quick blast under the grill to bubble the cheese. It tastes excellent to me, even H was quite impressed with it! We followed our Frugalloni meal with a bowl of 10p strawberry instant whip - not the healthiest option, but there has to be some vitamin and calcium content in milk dessert, hasn't there?

This living on £4,000 for the year is still fun! I have been doing this for years and, as all the debts slowly disappeared and savings began to build, I stuck with it to enable me to build up more savings. This year is no different and it's certainly no easier, what with the price of electricity, coal and fresh produce forever increasing in price. Hopefully there will be a point at which the garden has been sufficiently reclaimed and redeveloped to provide all the fruit and vegetables needed by the household but, until then, most foodstuff needs to be bought. Spending during February has been kept to an absolute minimum, although there were still a few pounds spent on non-essentials.

My £4,000 is for absolutely everything relating to the household except Council Tax, as I have no control over the price of that - it is compulsory and costs just shy of £1,000 for the year. We don't pay the waste water part, as there's no drainage system where we live, but we do have mains water here, so that chare is included in your Council Tax if you live in Scotland. Extremely frugal February has seen the following spends:

Groceries: £36.39
Electricity: NIL - I topped the pre-payment meter right up to last us all winter
Coal: £70 for 5 bags
Other: £6.32 + £7.52 in vouchers for coffee filters, firelighters and some thermal mugs.
Telephone & Internet: £15.79 (line rental paid in advance for 12 months)
Deliveries: £10.50
House Insurance: £145.78 (buildings & contents for 12 months)
Donations: £5.00 to a very brave friend who is doing a charity abseil down the Forth Bridge in May. (See here for details)

Total cash spends for February £289.78

Monthly average budget is £333.33, so I am about 13% under this month, despite a couple of big spends. I haven't ventured further than neighbours' houses other than our late-night walking expedition in search of the Northern Lights.

Tomorrow is day 1 of 'Making it in March'. It's about making absolutely anything except debt - food, gardens, clothes, gifts, recycled goods, savings, money, changes, amends... almost anything goes, you decide! You can join us free in this forum (registration is free). Before anything else, I still need to sew my blanket together!

NYK, Frugaldom

*Friend referral link.

#Win with NYK - What Type of Savvy Shopper are You?

What Type of Savvy Shopper are you and what are 'Freedom Rewards'?

I’m a Bargain Hunter Gatherer and proud of it!

Frugaldom is giving you the chance to learn about Freedom Rewards while taking a short quiz to determine what type of savvy shopper you are, plus the chance to win £60 of Amazon vouchers, courtesy of our sponsors at Barclaycard. 

A new consumer study carried out by Barclaycard - which processes nearly half of all card transactions in the UK – together with consumer experts at Brunel University, shows that the recent economic climate has made a lasting impact on how we approach shopping and saving money. Bagging a bargain goes far beyond just saving cash, people now place far greater value on the emotional investment of smart spending, giving rise to our four new modern shopping 'tribes'.

•  The Bargain Hunter Gatherer
•  The High Street Pounder
•  The Screen Saver 
•  The Profit Prophet

I took the quiz and am pleasantly surprised at how accurate the results are! Now it’s your turn to see what you think and share your views. An extra £60 to spend is a much appreciated opportunity and, thanks to our sponsors, we have just that!

 

Take part in the quiz here

Edited in: Results of the free draw can be found here

(Original image URL: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mukumbura/4052671706/)

Homemade, Recycled Cushions

Homemade, Recycled Cushions

Decided to take the Janome for a spin this afternoon and saved myself £20 on a pair of really glamorous, glitzy cushions that, coincidentally, match the soon to be completed Velux blind exactly.

 

No cushions? No problem – make your own. Read more here

 

 

 

NYK, Frugaldom

Cheap Coffee Beans

Cheap Coffee Beans

Seeking out the best bargains isn't always easy! Prices don't necessarily determine what is and what isn't a bargain, that's for sure, and all too often we can fall for those fluorescent stickers and stars that have us brainwashed into thinking they represent a cheap and cheerful buy. Lookalike names fool us into mistaking them for something better and, as a household of coffee drinkers, I have been caught out by this when searching for cheap instant coffee. Read more…

 

NYK in Frugaldom

What's a Girl to Do when it's Lean, Mean and Flaunting Itself at Me?

Dear Musclefood,

We aren't body builders, we're just muscling in on your bargains! :)

 

Please note that I am using my personal 'refer a friend' links in this post. This is simply too good to miss, so grab a friend or neighbour (or anyone you care to grab, for that matter) and combine your orders so you can benefit from superb overnight free delivery. Fresh produce straight to your door, ready for portioning up and then filling your freezer. Shortened link is http://bit.ly/1bDkSEK
 

Premium Chicken Breasts - 1-1.15kg
SPECIAL OFFER: Buy one get another FREE!

Simply add to basket and enter code JUST8 at checkout to claim.

 

It's a definite win/win situation here and I can honestly, with my hand on my heart, personally commend this company. I think we shocked them a little by shopping on their site as frugalers, rather than bodybuilders, but there's nothing wrong with muscling in on a lean, mean bargain when it's flaunting itself at you, is there?

Here's how to make the most of the deal: visit the website - this is where you can claim your four free chicken breasts - and then go to the link that says 'lean meats', scroll down and select 'chicken'. From here, look for "Premium Chicken Breasts - 1-1.15kg, Was: £9.75 Save: £1.75 From £8.00" - do not click to buy, instead, click to view the offer. Once you do this, you will see some additional information on left of the page that says "SPECIAL OFFER: Buy one get another FREE! Simply add to basket and enter code JUST8 at checkout to claim."

Good luck with this, the offers are all on limited timescales, so I hope you are quick enough to be able to make the most of them. On a gram per gram comparison, not even the cheapest supermarkets within a 50 mile radius of here can compete with these prices. Perhaps you could set up your own food co-operative for local friends and family - any excuse for a get together when the order arrives!

Chicken is one of the main sources of meat protein for many of us who follow a frugal lifestyle, owing to its versatility, availability and price. When we get the opportunity to stock up on chicken breast fillets, we take it! I thought my bargain was superb at £5 per kilo but this is even better.


For those who prefer cooking a whole chicken, there's another deal available, whole chickens for £4 each. In a frugal household, one single chicken breast can feed 2 to 4 people, depending on portion size and meal type, but one single chicken can feed many more.

 

Frugalers can make even a small chicken feed a dozen people no problem and still get a pot of soup out of the bones. (See forums for stretchy chicken recipes.) So, when I also spotted this offer, I almost fell off my seat!

 

Whole fresh chickens for £4 each - that's 5 chickens for £20 and enough there for 60 meals plus sufficient stock to make soup enough to last the entire winter. What's more, if it's delivered free then there's no added expense of driving to the supermarket or trying to balance 5 chickens on a bike! Call a friend now, make the most of free delivery or else fill your freezer... if you have any space in it.

 

By splitting an order with friends, all of these bargains are yours for the taking. My freezer is going to be over-flowing at this rate! It saddens me, somewhat, that I have almost no space to fit in any more bargains. I hope home of you can take advantage of this fantastic, lean, mean offer! In addition, there's usually a free sachet of seasoning and all that lovely packaging to be recycled! Also of importance to my fellow frugalers, your very own refer-a-friend link and bonus loyalty points when you become a customer of Musclefood.

 

Thanks to a couple of lovely fellow frugalers who have already signed up and ordered these bargains, my loyalty points credit has now increased to 1224. You can earn points by spending, referring friends and by writing short reviews of the products once you have tried them. It's like a frugal living dream come true!

Off in search of more money-saving opportunities now, catch you all later,

NYK in Frugaldom.

A Mystery Dessert and Thank you for my Free Chocolate @Approvedfood

137 Days and Counting Costs

My latest order from Approved Food* has just arrived and everything was present and correct. It was ordered and paid for before I blogged about the 137 days, so has no impact on my remaining budget, but it does contain some extras along with all the usual stuff, like handy packaging boxes, bubble wrap and free chocolate - this time it's Fairtrade Cadbury's Dairy Milk.

 

The reason this order was placed was to take advantage of the Hovis strong white bread flour.

 

My local village store sells bread flour but it's well over £1 for a 1.5kg bag and nearly an 8-mile cycle to go any buy it. The opportunity to buy 12kg for a measly £2 is certainly not to be sniffed at, so I didn't sniff, I ordered.

 

In Frugaldom, homemade bread is usually the only bread available unless you bring your own, so flour is looked upon as an absolute essential. Thank you to 'flourgirl' for pointing out this bargain in the Frugaldom Forum.

 

Extras are difficult to avoid, even the very strictest frugalers can find reason for spending a few pounds extra, especially if it looks like a bargain. I needed a new brush for sweeping the floors, as my old one is almost worn out, so I bought a nice new brush head for £1.49, then popped a roll of bin bags into the order, another 99p. Some people won't consider such things as bargains but those people have obviously never lived in the country where we have no shops other than the local village stores. We tend to pay premium rates for most things and there's a limit to what can be carried in a bicycle basket. Speaking of bicycles, that was my next bargain buy - a pair of leather fingerless gloves for each of us. At 75p per pair, these are both fab and comfy.

 

Things like biscuits and crisps got added, as I really cannot expect house-sharing H to bake his own and I can't bake them at the rate he can eat them, nor would I even try, so this is a small concession, about £5 worth of snacky things by way of assorted biscuits and crisps. I treated myself to six tins of tuna in brine at 99p per tin - something I love but he hates. And now for some rather more far-fetched bargains... mice! £1.20 for two and hopefully no more problems getting the touchpad to work on the laptop when my hands are cold, I'll simply plug in a mouse!

 

Grow some nuts... peanuts, I mean!

 

These just looked like too much fun to miss, so I got two tins for £1.20 and will keep them for my grand daughters to plant in the hope we can grow some groundnuts, or monkey nuts, as many like to call them. (It's been about 6 years since eldest grand-daughter planted her apple pip and peach stone and both little trees are now growing, safely transplanted to the Frugaldom mini orchard.)

 

What else did I buy? The order came to a total of £32.14 after getting bread flour, spaghetti, tuna, crisps, biscuits, the replacement brush head, bin bags and extras, let me see... oh yes! A toast stamp! I simply couldn't resist this!

 

What with the spare room now being ready for guests, I thought it would be good to invite eldest grand-daughter to come for a weekend to try out what she calls 'her room'. She's very independent for a soon-to-be nine year old, so I know fine well that this will be 39p well spent to make her morning toast extra special after she has helped bake the bread the evening before, don't you think? I'm sure she'll love it!

 

There's one item that would normally have been seen as an extravagance but also one that I know many of my friends wouldn't be able to resist either - a cookery book!

 

I'd looked at it on Amazon with RRP of £20 reduced to just over £12, so when it I saw it on the Approved Food* site with a price tag of just £2.99 (for a brand new hard back book), I was hooked. If for no other reason, I bought it because it's a manly enough foraging, hunting, gathering cookery book to give to my son, so he has more of a choice of meals than just spaghetti or chicken with rice. I should have read it by the time Christmas gets here, when he'll get it as an extra from Santa!

 

Back on the frugal food train, I did drop something into my basket that I class as a mystery item. It's foreign and I think it must be mix for some sort of Turkish sweet rolls or biscuits. Has anyone else tried these? The packs weigh 400g each and they were being cleared at 8 packs for £1, so I reckoned, 'what the heck, give them a whir'.

 

My Turkish isn't good, so I'm currently trying to work out what to do with this using an online translator. There are basic photo instructions on the pack but I can't see what the quantities are or what the other ingredients are that need to be added.

 

OK, the instructions seem to translate into something alone the lines of cook in a small pot with 350ml water, 50g margarine and 25ml oil.

 

Even if the above turns out to be instant mashed sweet potato cakes, 8 bags for £1 is still a whopper of a bargain IF I can decipher how to make them and they turn out edible!

 

I'm off to experiment in the kitchen with this product now.  I'll be back later, wish me luck!

Edited in: Thank you, Tad, for pointing me in the right direction. This is a pre-mix and just needs the water and oil/marg adding, so I'll try making some tomorrow. According to recipes and descriptions for flour Helvas shown on other websites, this product contains nuts. It certainly tastes nutty. (I tried the flour to ascertain whether or not it was just flour or premixed with the other ingredients.)

 

* Denotes a sponsored, affiliated or friend-referral link

My Official Entry into #TheCharcoalChallenge

Frugaldom's Big Summer Barbecue(s) on a Budget

 

 

I was recently invited to take part in 'The Charcoal Challenge', a bloggers' competition run by Moneysupermarket.com, so I jumped at the chance to throw the ultimate summer barbecue and the chance to win £250! (See www.moneysupermarket.com/home-insurance/competitions/the-charcoal-challenge/ for full details.)

 

Not being the most organised of people, I still haven't got around to building a barbecue in the garden since moving here, so the fact that we were each being given £50 to fund this challenge was brilliant - first thing I did was order a small barbecue, which arrived within about 48 hours. Brilliant! Next up was decide on a date and hope that it fell within the current spell of sunny, summer weather.

 

The date came sooner than planned, when not one but two lots of friends, none of whom I'd seen in years, contacted me to say they were coming to visit. Trouble was, they were visiting on different weekends! Hmm... I wonder if I can make £50 stretch to two barbecues? The Charcoal Challenge was now on!

Luckily, I have a stock of charcoal for frugal emergencies like power cuts, so carrying a sack of that home on the back of the bike wasn't going to be an issue, but the fresh food for the BBQ was going to have to be bought from the local village store. We don't have any supermarkets here, nor do we have a car, so nipping out to pick up some groceries isn't an option.

 

The 7-mile cycle at a rate of knots along the shore late on a Saturday afternoon in blazing sunshine was actually quite enjoyable, even with the basket laden on the way home. I had also asked a neighbour to get me some sausages when they were in town at the supermarket, so we ended up with rather 'posher' ones than we would normally have bought, albeit on offer at 3 packs for £6.

 

So, here we go for BBQ #1 on Sunday 14th July 2013 from a starting total of £50.00

 

£  8.65 - BBQ from Amazon (inc delivery)
£20.68 - Chicken fillets, sausages, bread, peppers, red and white onions, tomatoes, snacks, sweets, kitchen rolls (cheaper than napkins) and reduced packet trifle.
£  3.80 - Plastic cups

 

[b]Balance remaining - £16.87[/b]

 

I set about printing out a few 'Welcome to Frugaldom' pages, cut them up and threaded them onto some garden wire before hanging them across the garden path (left of photo) and then looked out some bunting and flags from previous events - these have been in a box for the best part of 10 years, but looked as good as new - you can tell we're in Scotland by the beautiful blue sky and sunshine? (No political statement is meant or intended here.)

 

The new barbecue had only just been ordered, so it hadn't arrived in time for the first BBQ. Fortunately, I had a disposable one that we'd rehomed from someone, so it got put to good use!

 

Foodwise, I roughly chopped the onions, peppers and chicken then made up kebabs, adding a few

mushrooms to the combination. More peppers got sliced and added to a shredded garden lettuce, tomatoes and half a cucumber donated by neighbours. I made up a strawberry trifle, hard-boiled a few duck eggs - which I forgot to add to the salad! - and raked out the most important BBQ tools of all ... assorted herbs, Avon Skin So Soft, citronella candles and the Factor 50! These are all very, very important ingredients for a Scottish summer barbecue - as are liquid refreshments, which most folks bring along for themselves. I did have a choice of  homemade elderflower or mixed berry 'champers'.

The herb arrangement is made up of lemon balm, lavender, rosemary and bog myrtle. It does help a bit, even if it is just to swat at the pesky flies and midges if it doesn't keep them at bay. These herbs are all growing around my patio but they still don't stop the midges having a bite now and again.


Finishing touches for this barbecue included inviting the immediate neighbours, raking out all the picnic plates (plus reusable plastic 'glasses' bought from local shop), borrowing some extra patio chairs from next door, finding the radio/CD and digging out some music. By 7pm, we were cooking with charcoal to feed our impromptu party of 7 and a jolly decent evening was had by all.

I apologise to my guests for subjecting them to a photograph and sorry that all concerned weren't captured in this freeze-frame for posterity, but I'm sure all would agree that the evening went quite well.

The new barbecue

Monday morning dawned fair and dry (it's also Glasgow Fair Weekend, meaning this was a holiday weekend in some parts of Scotland) so we decided to head out for a walk before having coffee and cake on the patio. We'd just sat down to the mid-morning cuppa when the postman arrived, with this...

Well, you know what that means, don't you? We have the BBQ, we have charcoal, we have 2 chicken breast fillets plus some peppers, mushrooms and onions remaining, plus some wine and 'nibbles' leftover...

You got it! BBQ #2 in Frugaldom - the all new, 'use it up' barbie on Monday 15th July 2013. Leftover diced chicken breast, yellow peppers, mushrooms, white and red onions. Add to that a half bottle of elderflower fizz and it all adds up to yet another tasty al fresco meal. Yum!

This £50 budget was stretched to the limit. The next visitors to Frugaldom arrived on Saturday, 20th July! I'd ordered some savoury vegetable rice, sparkling elderflower and apple juice, marshmallows and Texas style BBQ dressing from Approved Foods* and my £50 had already bought a new barbecue and fed 9. Let's see how much further it can stretch and how many more can be fed and entertained. I had a balance of £10.89 remaining to pay for enough food to allow for BBQ #3.

Summer socialising in the sunshine is great fun - and I did check my home insurance to make sure we are covered for any third party liability and I do use some basic health and safety plus food hygiene common sense, despite my absent-mindedness. However, I can't wave a magic wand and alter time.

Trying to get friends and family all in the same place at the same time to fit in with work and home commitments can be a nightmare, so I chose to take the only other route possible - split my ultimate summer barbecue into several smaller, yet equally fabulous, frugal barbecues.



1kg of marshmallows!

Of the original £50, I had already spent £39.11 including buying the brand new mini barbecue. My next visitors arrived on Saturday 20th July - frugal friends from Birmingham whom I hadn't seen in some years, along with Max, their little dog. It's all so exciting managing to catch up with friends and celebrating the occasion with an al fresco meal - I love it, even if I do end up chasing my tail or forgetting my head sometimes! (Or burning pots, breaking eggs, forgetting things and spilling stuff.) 

So far, my £50 had fed 9 and then there were another 7 mouths to feed. To all intents and purposes, people must think I keep a pet gran, but it was just too warm for my eldest guest, my spritely, eighty-something-year-old next door neighbour, to sit outside in the garden. Instead, she sat indoors, next door in her own house, but I made sure she was well fed and didn't miss out on the chatter. She even provided music from her conservatory, which is adjacent to my patio, albeit separated by the garden wall and gates between is.

BBQ #3 - To make the most of the remaining few pounds, I called in the help of my son, who popped into the supermarkets in town with my list, got the best deals he could and then delivered the groceries to me on his way home from work. This was a great help, as it meant I got all of the following:

£10.02 in supermarket

• Chicken breast fillets - £3.95
• Mixed peppers - £1.98
• Mushrooms - 95p
• Onions - £0.25
• Sausages - £1.60
• Tomatoes - £1.29
• Lettuce, herbs, fresh eggs and chives from the garden to make up a bowl of salad.

Spend - £10.02, so I still had 87p remaining from my original £50.
But hold on, I must be able to do something with 87p, surely? Dessert, anyone?

87p for 8 desserts

A cupboard and garden scavenge turned up the following:

Strawberry jelly bought for 19p from Asda (19p)
Angel Delight bought 3 for 99p from Approved Food (33p)
Tin of sterilised whipping cream bought 4 for £1 from BB4L (25p)
Tinned mandarins bought 10 for £1 from Approved Foods (10p)

Dessert

(The tinned mandarins have now increased in price to 8 for £1)
Fruit picked from garden (Free)
Chocolate - already had some but there was also a free Yorkie bar with last week's Approved Food order

Total cost - 87p

Dessert

That's it! My entire £50 was spent. The 87p worth of assorted items got turned into 8 small desserts, so there was plenty to feed seven that afternoon. In fact, I had two desserts left over, as someone didn't want one. (Only small hiccup was that I couldn't get the cream to whip up properly, I'll blame the heat.)

It was brilliant catching up with the Birmingham guests, especially as I hadn't seen them for four years! Everything that got cooked got eaten and the last of the berry fizz got drunk. Max, the visitor's little dog, even had a BBQ sausage.

From the supplies bought, there was still salad stuff, several bottles of elderflower and apple juice, savoury rice, two desserts, a pack of veggie sausages that never got used and masses of marshmallows. Most of it got used up the following day, when we polished off the leftovers.

It was excellent weather throughout both weekends and everyone said what a great time they had. Neighbours had supplied extra lettuce, cucumber, a couple of extra chicken fillets and beer. Last weekend's guests brought wine, flowers, juice and fresh bread, then my further-travelled friends brought a superbly thought out frugal gift of cheese, milk and dried yeast for bread-making!

You can tell they all know me well!

Not content with all of that, my lovely next door neighbour gave me a wooden dining table that was, otherwise, being ear-marked for the dump! Add to this the fact that we were unable to eat and drink all the leftovers and it makes the £50 look like a fabulous amount. I could easily have fed 25, even after buying the barbecue!

For all of these things, I am truly grateful. I love it when friends visit and this challenge was a real tonic. Thank you to all who helped make the days special and thank you to Moneysupermarket.com for providing me with £50 and the chance to show how much frugal fun can be had, not to mention feeding an overall total of 20 over the space of four barbecues, on such a small budget. And lest we forget, here's what was left over for future use. There are also the 30 reusable plastic glasses that have been washed, dried and stored away for future use.

All in all, this was a great challenge and showed me that it is still possible to feed partying guests for £1 per person and approximately £2 per person for special occasions such as the above barbecues. I love money challenges!

This is Frugaldom's entry into The Charcoal Challenge. I hope you have enjoyed reading how I spent the £50. You can catch up with all the other entrants by using #TheCharcoalChallenge on Twitter.

Until next time, Frugaldom.