1) This week I proved to the kids that homemade from scratch was better than shop bought packet mixes!  We had a bit of a bake off and I'm pleased to say that they are completely on the side of homemade!There was no way that even Betty Crocker herself was going to beat my homemade chocolate chip cookies!2) I made a bath of my homemade tomato sauce last weekend and added some homegrown fresh basil to it.  This might not sound like a huge achievement but it felt really domesticated and grown up to be able to use my own basil plant.I'll be sharing how I made the containers … [Read more...]

1) Last Friday, Mr Frugal finally got round to painting my kitchen!  We went with white, which is pretty much my plan for the whole house at the moment.  We have stacks of white paint in the garage as I bought it on offer a while ago when I decided that the goal was a white walled house - we're going room by room though and doing it gradually as we're not fans of painting!Rather than buying new accessories, I decided to update the things we already had with a can of copper spray paint:I spray painted the clock, a vase, a money box, some tin cans and even the bin (stay tuned for a … [Read more...]

1) I made fajitas for tea on Monday but I'd bought some peppers reduced that I wanted to use them up so I added them all to the pan which left me with a fair amount of leftovers!  I never have fajita leftovers so I wasn't sure what I could do with the big bowlful that I had but in the end I mixed them in with some rice the following day for tea and served it with a chicken breast marinated in peri peri sauce.  I have no photos as it smelled so nice that my tummy took over and by the time I remembered I wanted to take a photo, we were all almost finished!Next time I'm going to deliberately … [Read more...]

1) I've been after some houseplants for a while now, nothing fancy, just something small to go on my kitchen windowsill. I don't have a great record with plants to be honest though so I really didn't want to pay too much but at the same time I wanted something that would look nice - I don't want much, do I?I found two little plants at Tesco last week though in the reduced section. They were clearly in the reduced section because they looked past the point of saving but at 25p each, I thought I'd buy them and see if I could bring them back from the dead. I decided it was highly unlikely but … [Read more...]

Last week we had a week away in the Isle of Wight where, despite the rain and the wind which was ridiculous at times, we had an amazing week.  I actually wrote this while we were there (we came home last weekend) and intended to share it with you last Friday but the wifi was so bad that I didn't manage to post it so I hope you're OK with this week's five frugal things being a week behind....1) We’ve only eaten out once as we’ve made full use of the caravan’s teeny tiny kitchen.  It’s not easy cooking for five in a small, not very well equipped caravan kitchen but we’ve tried our best and … [Read more...]