Last Day of February, Ins and Outs and Frugal Bits

 As usual I've been keeping a note of a few Small Frugal bits from the month...........

• Made a huge pasta,salmon and broccoli bake which divided into 6 portions (Salmon tin £1.69, broccoli 58p, Pasta.15p, 1½ pint milk from milk powder 30p?, 1oz willow butter 15p, tablespoon flour.... pennies, grated cheddar 50p?)
• Dried some bay leaves in the boiler cupboard
• Made a batch of chicken and leek pasties with one chicken breast and leeks from the garden 1 to eat and 4 into freezer ( Flour pennies, baking fat approx 50p chicken breast approx £1, leeks negligible white sauce of butter, flour milk approx 30p)
• Eating homegrown mange tout, peppers and courgettes from the freezer 
• Reading free library books
• Bargain offer of fruit bushes and plants from T&M via the Money Saving Expert website
• Beetroot from the garden ...... now finished............ the last lot were cooked on the 21st.
• Batteries from car boot sale saving a little.
• £1.50 Tesco voucher 
• Picked up  a whole wheelbarrow full of twigs and bits from the meadow and put them in to dry for kindling wood.
• Discovered a random Lemon Balm plant growing in the veg bed when I weeded so don't need to look for one in boot sale after all (where has it appeared from?)
• Using the leeks from the garden, made a big batch of veg curry with leeks , apple,onion. spinach from the freezer and small potatoes. Ate 1 portion and put 4 boxes in freezer (leeks cost negligible, apple 16p, frozen spinach approx 15p, curry powder pennies, flour pennies, onions approx 20p , dried apricots approx 20p, home made chutney pennies) 

(So this month I've made 16 meals for around  £6.50, if my maths are right, and most are still in the freezer)

The Planned Expenses for February were.............

House and contents insurance, negotiated to last years price;  6 Month water bill; Food for me and the cat; Diesel for the car and petrol for the mower; Phones and broadband direct debits; Seed Potatoes. Dual membership for small WI; Walking shoes.

Unplanned Expenses
More peanuts for the birds - they are suddenly eating them like crazy!; The special offer fruit plant collection;
Bulk online purchase of soda crystals which I use for laundry(better overall than driving to Ipswich and car park charges just for slightly cheaper washing soda at Wilkos).

And I'm still sorting and getting rid.......OUT  went

• Some shirts and tee-shirts  of Colin's to the charity shop
• A suit of Col's to charity shop
• Suit cover to son
• Jug to charity shop 
• Vase to the charity shop
• 2 Metal Filing Cabinets from workshop to son's garage 
• 2 Wooden trestles and some tools as above
• Jigsaw Puzzle into the car-boot box
• Couple of old strap things from workshop into bin 
• Small bag of bits of electrical and plumbing odds and ends from the workshop into the bin
• Few old books to charity shop
• Craft Papers and some other card making stuff into the car boot box
• Old useless leaf blower that was here when we came off to the Household Waste Recycling centre AKA The Tip
• Old Pressure Washer that no longer worked .....as above
• Old Radio that was falling to bits......as above
• Pipe bender and a handful of tools from workshop to Brother in Law S.
• 3 small things that had been in the present cupboard for ages went to the Charity Bring and Buy stall at WI 
• Books from the cupboard to granddaughter
• Biggest out was the grey Fiesta..........finally I got organised to use the new car all the time and sold the old one to the local car repair workshop where they want to use it as a cheap-to-run  loan car.

Quite a good list

Back Tomorrow
Sue