Recent frugal happenings

Let's do one of these posts again 🙂

It's been quite a productive month, frugality-wise. It's not even always intentional, but I'm just taking advantage of the summer, with the hot temperature and produce in abundance. 

Free things: 

We got a bag of prickly pears twice- once from my father in law and the other was from my brother in law. My family loves prickly pears (and so do I, but unfortunately I'm allergic to them... )

We also got a few melons, very tasty ones. It's been hard to find very nice (soft and sweet) melons lately so I definitely enjoyed those melons. 

A relative from Europe brought us some goodies such as Gouda cheese and chocolate bars. It's been so long since I had Dutch cheese! After such a long time, it seems like it even tastes better than it did ever before. 

Reusing/repurposing: 

Our cat found a cardboard box that wasn't used in which she's sleeping everyday now. It's become her favourite spot in the house! I put a small blanket in the box to make it a bit copier for her. 

After organizing my wardrobe and putting quite a lot clothes in a 'donate bag', I cut some clothes that were worn out into rags, to use instead of disposable paper towels. This saves us a lot of money as well as it being way more environmentally friendly. 

I saved up some food package materials, such as pasta and rice bags, to use to freeze foods later, as well as small yogurt containers. The yogurt containers here are very small, containing just 100 grams of yogurt, but I like using them for my homemade garlic paste, among other things.

Saving energy: 

Due to the hot weather, we're taking only cold showers. "Cold" is relative, as the pipes are outside and so the water still heats up enough to have a comfortable shower. 

Used only cold water for the washing machine as well. And obviously cold tap water for the dishes.  

There have been some cooler nights, so didn't use the fan during those nights. The air conditioning is never switched on during the night. 

Cooking, preventing food waste:  

As always, I cooked a lot of homemade meals, of which some were double batches so the only thing I had to do was to reheat the food. 

We also had mostly homemade bread. And homemade treats. 

I made citronnade a few times with lemons from our tree. 

I cooked up watermelon rinds, used up a lot of leftovers, used some leftover cookie dough to use it up and make something new out of that, saved some not very good tasting buttermilk so I can make biscuits with them (hopefully tomorrow). Saved goat and chicken bones in the freezer (they're still not enough for bone broth, but I'm being patient!)

I also dehydrated a lot parsley and mint. Hopefully it will last about a year. I'll probably dehydrate some more mint, as we use that for tea during the winter when there is no fresh mint available. 

Bargains: 

Found peaches for a very good price and now I miraculously ended up with a big pot of peach jam 😂

Chickpeas were also for a very good price- much cheaper than a few weeks ago. At the refill store they don't really do sales on purpose, but sometimes it's just that the price suddenly drops- or increases. So we now have 4 kg of dried chickpeas, which hopefully will last us a long time. 

I thrifted a very nice skirt in my size. 

The prickly pears are still a bit green 

Dehydrated parsley 

Our cat in her cardboard box ❤️