Shower timers!

Frugal shower. Get in....straight away! Don't worry if it's cold; it will warm up in a few seconds. Wet hair. Turn shower off and lather. Turn on and rinse. Wash your body as you rinse. Use "washandgo" to save two lots of hot/cold/hot! hot!/too cold showering! When shower timer beeps: get out! Do all of the above whilst standing in a big bucket and then use water in bucket to flush loo.............or wash urine off floor from Dearly Beloved wetting himself laughing at my ridiculous attempts to save water and electricity!

Save water, save money, save the planet!

Can you guess what it is yet??? I have an old 1970's loo. Unlike modern small cistern loos it takes a lot of water. We try to flush as little as possible. No need to flush pee..........just poo. So here's what's inside the cistern in my house. A brick.........we had to cut it in half and drop in a half at a time. A Waterhog, which is a bag that holds a litre and half of water. The loo 'broke' and needed a new ball cock and arm, so we improvised and used and elastic band and a mouth wash bottle to keep it afloat. The result: a repair for free and 2.5 litres less water wasted when we flush the loo.

Save money and the planet

We have every device you can think of to save energy and money. We have water hippos and bricks in our toilets (which we rarely flush) We have power down adaptors so our appliances switch themselves off when we leave them on standby. We have energy monitors so we can see what uses to much energy and then use it as little as possible. All of these appliances and adaptors are free and given away by the water board and energy companies. We watch out to see who is giving them away for nothing and often give them as gifts or we even sell them on ebay. All of our low energy light bulbs were free and came from the local council and we've used the same ones for years. I've cut my energy bills by £850 this year and I'm going to make sure next year's bill stays as low. How much can you save with these nifty free devices?

Menu planning and bulk cooking.

I don't do what I do just to save money but also out of genuine concerns for the environment. The average family uses1.29 tonnes of CO2 on cooking alone. I try to use my big main oven as little as possible and bulk cook when I switch it on. I then re-heat with the microwave or in my mini oven.
My menu this week. Saturday - Bacon, cream cheese and mushroom cannelloni with salad. Sunday - Bacon wrapped chicken, boiled potatoes and veg. Mon - Cottage pie and veg. Tuesday toad in the hole, onion gravy and veg. Wednesday - Chicken casserole, cous cous and veg. Thursday - Sausages, onion gravy and veg. Friday Cottage pie and veg.
It also means that I don't need to shop this week, again saving tonnes of CO2 as I don't need to take the car out. I got to defrost the freezer today as I emptied it. It will be more economical and environmentally efficient when I use it now. I also save time in the week and a lot of electricity as this was all cooked at the same time in the same oven.
The cannelloni could have done with some more tomato sauce but I was trying to use up a half opened jar that the lodger had left. (I even watered it down to go further.)
So the bulk of the meals are prepared for the week and I've done my bit.

How deep is your bath?

Saturday is bath day in my house! I've rearranged this auspicious event as Meanqueen, alias Ilona, is coming to visit and we're off to the land of my father........FOWEY!! for the day so I'll get ahead of schedule and perform the weekly ablutions today.

I used to bath once a day in my wasteful past but I got over that and now wash in the sink, have a mid-week shower and a bath on Saturday. Not that we waste the water. Firstly, I have a bath and wash my hair.........which is a Herculean effort with my long hair, I get out and Dearly beloved has a bath, he gets out and then the dogs go in. They are white so they need a bath a week to stop them changing colour! But we don't stop there! We then use the water for the next 24 hours or so to flush the loo.

As the loo uses six litres of pure drinkable water for every flush; I make the most of every opportunity to use 'grey' water. It's an incredible waste. But.....my weekly bath may be an ecologically disastrous luxury but we don't let the water go to waste.

Making a planetary difference!

I do what I do to save money and to do my bit for the planet. I now save all my jam jars, pasta sauce jars, mushroom pots, tin foil dishes and reuse them on a regular basis. When there is an Autumn glut, then I make apple sauce and chutney and use it through out the year. I use the mushroom pots as seed trays and of course the tin foil dishes are used over and over for freezing food.

I also do what I can to reduce my energy consumption. Everything is switched off, turned down or just not used. In the last year we have used £864 less gas and electricity than we used in the previous year. Selling the big American washer and dryer saves gallons of water and hundreds of units of electricity. Every bill I get is considerably less than last time. It all might be slight but I know it makes a difference.

To pee or not to pee?

I hate South West Water! There...I've go that off my chest. I have no option but to buy water off them and they force the price up by us having to pay for the crud of tourists, (no offence to anyone who holidays in the South West but we pay for you to have clean beaches) so big businesses make money and the tourists cost the ordinary folk!!! (I think they should bag it and take it home with them!!!!)

I can do what I can to save money but there is nothing I can do to save water. I think I'll get Dearly Beloved to rig up some Heath Robinson type affair to collect water as we're using too much. We had our water meter fitted on the 17/02/2010 and had the meter read on the 19/04/2010 and have used 27 cubic metres of water! At £1.69 per cubic metre to buy it and £2.76 per cubic meter to dispose of it! So my bill for two months is £126.96!!!! It comes to something when you have to cut back washing to save money! I am though saving money as my bill for un-metered water was £1224.13 last year! and a direct debit of £122.40 for ten months of payments!

Well that's it then! I'll be nipping into the sports centre for a two or three showers a week, piddling in my compost heap and 'airing' clothes instead of always washing them! It comes to something when an ordinary person has to cut back on groceries and lighting to pay to have a poo! GGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!! It's time to get a few of these and save my own rain water!

Washing clothes by hand.

For years on end we went on camping holidays in Carnac in Southern Brittany, where washing clothes by hand is still popular. How do I know this? Because every supermarket has plenty of soap for handwashing clothes, usually beautifully scented and in every variety. There really is no need to use a washing machine for all of your laundry and delicate underwear always needs to be hand washed. I use very little laundry soap or water when I hand wash and after I have rinsed them I just use my washing machine to spin them. Take a look at your own washing machine....I'm sure it will have a spin cycle. There is always a percentage of my washing that is hand washed, saving me lots of money and giving my arms a good work out!


My washing is always hung outside as I have no dryer and they come indoors onto a 'clothes horse' if I have days of rain and really need clean clothes.
But I do have the most incredible ironing machine! He's called Dearly Beloved who loves to do nothing more than watch the Grand Prix or a film and iron; he always puts the clothes away too!

My filthy work worn cooker gets an eco clean!

The vlog speaks for itself. Take one very greasy cooker with food baked onto it for good measure and rub all over with a damp scrubby sponge. Sprinkle with bicarb and rub - give it welly! When degreased, use an old cloth to rinse off, keep rinsing it out in the washing up bowl. All shiny and clean in three minutes! I think this beats watching paint dry, but only by a small margin............cooker cleaning!

We're in it together!

I love the simplicity of weekends. I have a leisurely lie in on Saturdays and get up around 9 am, which is four hours more sleep than I have on a week day. I strip the beds and 'get the washing on' - it then goes on the line if it's not raining and comes in later to finish on the clothes racks. I go shopping on a strict budget of £40 for everything. I cook. I garden. I read. I watch TV or go out for a walk with the dogs. I blog or read blogs, I forum and email and catch up with the newspapers on line.

I have the most wonderful weekends just pottering about with dearly beloved. I have no doubts about my life choices or the route I have taken until some one asks me about my weekend when I get to work on Monday. "Did you go anywhere?".................."Did you eat out or go to the theatre/cinema blah blah...." and my answer is invariably the same. Those I work with are incredulous that I don't just drop the suits to the dry cleaners, pick something up from M&S and leave the money for the cleaning lady! They just can't see the pleasure I get from pressing onion sets into the soil or turning my compost. Well, we've had a wonderful weekend and our journey is amazing as; we're in it together. The simplicity of our frugal life has united us against the banks, the shops, the retailers and the 'life style' brigade and it strengthens me against the side ways glances that are either pitying or piss taking. I was delighted at the incredible support from readers of yesterday's blog and know there are a lot more of 'us' out there doing our bit to live the simple life and long may we continue!!! Here's to us! Long live the frugal!
Fridges of the frugal are always packed with cheap and nutrititious veggies and not much else. Notice the lack of bottled water or beer!
Ovens of the frugal are usually mini and use a miserly amount of electricity. Every frugal kitchen has a lidded bucket for kitchen scraps, which are composted and never wasted. The simple money saving life is very light on the planet. We know who we are!!

"I'm frugal to pay off debts, to tread lightly on the planet and to live a simple life." Frugal Queen

Luna on the i-player

I was mesmerised. I held my breath and like so many who watched this film; lamented the inevitable death of such a beautiful creature.

Luna the orca whale was separated from his family and maybe because he was lonely; sought human attention. He was curious and followed boats and was eventually killed by the prop of a boat. The 'first nation' local people saw him as the spirit of an elder who had returned and wanted to protect him. In the film, the orca is lured into nets where the authorities want to put him into captivity but the local people in canoes lure Luna away by singing and beating the sides of their boats. I have lots of reasons for being frugal and one of them is to look after this world, to not clog it up with waste and to leave plenty of clean space for every other creature who has every right to be here. I've provided a link to the i-player and enjoy the film if you didn't catch this on the BBC. The link to the film is below xx
Here's the film on i-player................enjoy!

The Ministry of Food would be proud of me!

Oh Marguerite Patten would be proud of me today. Yesterday we used up what we had lying around and today I used up the leftovers from that! The WI should make me an honourary member!! CLICK HERE
Chicken Chasseur with 'veggie burger rice'! Here's how you do it. Take 200g of chicken breast, chop into cubes along with a pepper, small onion and four carrots. Sauté them all together. (Notice the Ministry of Food influence - lots of veg and not much meat!)
Mix up the casserole sauce, which of course was on offer in Lidl and were 3 for £1 - bargain!! Leave to simmer for half an hour whilst waiting for dearly beloved to get home.
Next take the veggie burgers and the half bag of spinach left from a previous dinner. Wash the spinach so it's clean and wet.
Stir the veggie burgers into some left over rice, that I had previously put in the freezer 'for another day' and stir them together.
Add the spinach, a knob of utterly butterly, the rice and spinach into a microwavable bowl. Add a splash of lemon juice (I always have a bottle in the fridge for cooking and cleaning purposes) cover with clingfilm and cook for three minutes as dearly beloved comes through the door. Sorry I didn't get a photo of the finished dinner but the batteries are flat in my camera and I haven't charged any yet - but it was lovely. Not quite £1 each due to the chicken and there was some spare for lunch tomorrow, already in a plastic pot ready to take to work and heat up for my lunch. So that makes it leftover, from my leftover from my leftovers!!!! Nothing but nothing gets wasted here - I tell you !

Cooking by date order.......best before manky!

Take one pack of broccoli and cut off brown bits and dried bits of stem; there's nothing wrong with the rest. Cut the manky bits off the mushrooms that have started to turn a bit brown and wipe with a kitchen towel. Use of the rest of the dip that you got two for the price of one and some salad that's lurking in the bottom of the fridge. Salad consists of what is left of the red cabbage, the tomatoes, the iceberg and a grated carrot with some olive oil and vinegar. Cook the broccoli first and then add the pasta (reduced to 69p in Lidl) in at the end.
Mix the salad well. When the pasta and brocolli are well cooked; add the mushrooms that you cooked well through in a little butter and salt and add them along with the sour cream and chive dip and heat well through. Serve with the well seasoned salad.

Using up all the 'if it's' makes sure we don't waste any food, eat well (good nutritionally) and supper is really colourful and exciting. We end up eating masses of the good stuff so we don't need any snacks in between meals which is supposed to be healthier for us and again this meal came in around £1.20 per person, so not too expensive either.


Eco? I save the mushroom cartons and use them as seed trays.

My car is a luxury and not a necessity

I was reading a forum this morning that asked the question 'is a car a necessity or a luxury' and if we define necessities as 'what we need' then I don't need a car. I go to work by train as it is cheaper and saves wear and tear and depreciation on my car, which I bought two years ago and will be the last car I will ever buy. I can get any where by train or bus if I don't expect to travel outside of timetabled times. It does mean I get to work slightly earlier and leave slightly later but I often walk to Lidl, which is next to St Austell station and pick up a 'daily' and bring home only what I can carry each day.
I'm sure people reading this will think 'well I don't have a bus service and I don't live near a station'. Well here's our secret. We lived in Plymouth for thirteen years and moved to the same street as our kids' school so they could walk on their own as I believe all children should. Mike walked to work, so did I and I went to college on the bus. We chose where we lived based on transport as well as the house and schools.

When we moved to Liskeard, we found a house within 20 minutes walk of the station and I purposefully wanted to work in the school I work in as it is next to the railway station in St Austell. So, choose your next address if you want a car free life.

Most of the journeys that dearly beloved and I take are on our own and there is no way we would have two cars and the train does take the strain, especially when we hear of the regular fatalities on the A38 between Liskeard and Plymouth.

We do use our car and it is for luxury trips, days out, to the moors, to Looe but we still choose the train if it can take us where we want to go at the times we want to go there. If I ever shop to the point that you need to fill a car up then I ask myself.......am I buying too much?

Cleaning with bicabonate of soda and other eco products

The kitchen.

In a spray bottle (from poundland) half fill with water then add about half a cup of vinegar - I use Lidl malt vinegar and then a squirt of washing up liquid - spray where you like and wipe off with an old pair of undies, half a t-shirt or old flannel

The cooker - wipe down the worst of the grease and old peas, when the cooker top is still damp - sprinkle sparingly with bicarb, use a scrubby sponge to get any burnt bits off - then use a warm damp sponge to finish off.

Work tops - just wipe down with a wet cloth and wring out in the washing up water before you make it too greasy.

The fridge - wash out once a week with warm water and again a sprinkle of bicarb,, rinse and wipe dry.

The floor - sweep whenever you can - use a bucket and old sponge or cloth and some warm water and dash of wash up liquid and dash of vinegar to soap, wipe over and dry down with a dirtyish towel that's about to go into the wash anyway.



The dining room and living room - sweep the floor and mop/wash the same as kitchen.
Furniture - damp dust and once in a while mix a tiny drop of olive oil and vinegar together and wipe down old wood furniture, buff with dry cloth to make it shiny - usually when your mum is coming or trying to sell the house! and don't worry my house doesn't smell of salad dressing or vinegar as these natural smells pass very quickly.

Windows - wash with soapy water with dash of vinegar and buff dry with newspaper.

Bathroom - scrub out with a brush and sprinkle bicarb around the loo - when you flush clean out the brush so you don't leave any 'residue' and clean the seat down with neat vinegar as it gets rid of any splashed wee that mights have got there - I stick this on a bit of loo paper and have a wipe round.

Sink and bath - splash around to make damp and sprinkle with bicarb and rub around with a scrubby sponge - rinse off with some water and dry with a towel about to go in the wash - clean the floor with warm soapy water and again dry with the towel you dried the bath and sink with.

So no expensive cleaners (although I do buy a bottle of ecover washing up liquid and it lasts a month and it cleans everything including the car!!) just water, a cloth, scrubby sponge, olive oil, half a lemon and a bit of elbow grease - no need to even use electricity and no internal pollution either. I like a clean house and give it a good going over once a fortnight and keep the kitchen and bathroom clean as we use them and I must have saved myself £10 a month in cleaning products that I no longer buy.

Frugal clean

Windows washed with warm water and tiny drop of washing up liquid and then buffed with newspaper. The workout also got that thick fleece off me by the time I had cleaned all the downstairs windows and now I can enjoy the view.
Kitchen sink and bathroom and loo cleaned with bicarbonate of soda, an old sponge and some warm water - this costs 39p and lasts for about a month of cleaning and really is the only cleaning substance that I buy.
The week's washing out to blow in the winter air and even though there is very little sun; it's nearly dry and will finish off in the lounge window. I used to have a cleaner at the cost of about £25 a week and used to have a tumble drier a few years ago and cost the planet and my pocket. I'm more aware of the need to exercise and as I'll never be seen in a gym; rigorous housework is a good substitute and I'm very warm after a couple of hours of it. Saving money and looking after the planet does take a few minutes more and a bit of organisation but I have money left at the end of the month and I use a lot less carbon than I used to........which has got to be a positive. House is nice and clean as well and without any chemicals.

Frugal domestic eco girl's at it again!

Until recently, four adults lived in my house, all washing clothes and having showers, flushing the toilets and consuming masses of water. Not now, now Mr Frugal and I are left to our own devices we have had a water meter fitted and it came today! We waste lots of water in this country and this will ensure that we don't and we'll save money. Any one, who has South West Water as a provider knows that we have the highest water bills in the country and this will ensure that our bill will be less than half of what it used to be.
I was pleased that they cleaned up all the mess and left the meter with a tidy cover that's easy to lift up and check on our own consumption (p.s I haven't flushed the loo yet today!!) ADDED AT 8PM - JUST HAD A SHOWER AND BECAUSE I'M CURIOUS - I MEASURED HOW MUCH WATER I USED AND IN MY FIVE MINUTE SHOWER - I USED 18 LITRES - COST? 0.86 FOR 1000 LITRES = 0.015 (SAME COST AGAIN FOR DISPOSAL) = 3P (BEFORE VAT) FOR A SHOWER! I LOVE SAVING MONEY! - STILL HAVEN'T FLUSHED THE LOO YET
This side table has been in our possession since we moved in together over 13 years ago and we've just made do with it. It was in our first 'home' along with other furniture and useful items such as a washing machine, which had been abandoned by the previous owners and their frivilous ways have meant we've had bits and bobs of their 'free' furniture which have been put to good use for years, but as you can see.....it's starting to look shabby.
However, when this is dry; it will be shabby chic! There's a lovely shop in Liskeard that sells all thing French: beds, quilts, kitchen units and I found a paint that is very popular with those painted pieces of furniture. My bedside cabinets, which I brought with me when I left mum's home in 1982 and I've put to good use ever since, are also painted in this colour and I'm using what's spare. I'll give it another coat tonight and by tomorrow morning I'll have a 'brand new' side table.
Speaking of drying. As we have no tumble drier, I've mastered turning washing around on a 24 hour cycle. It's not as convenient as a tumble drier but here's how I do it. Firstly, I watch the weather reports and wash when I'm going to have a dry few hours. I wash my heavy clothes first as they take longest to dry and whilst they are drying; I keep my lounge shut up so it gets as warm as possible from the sun hitting the patio doors. The lounge is stiflingly warm as the house is south facing and the lounge and dining room never need heat in the day time, even in the winter. Now the room is warm and will stay warm until later; I will be able to dry the washing without putting the heating on. So a truely frugal day where I've saved the planet, my money and resued a tatty piece of furniture that will live to see another day.