Time to Refocus!

As is customary for me, I have neglected this blog and am back again after quite a long break.

Last time I was here, we were living in Devon and loving it. A lot has changed since then and we have a lot of plans for the future so I thought it would be a good idea to resurrect this blog so I can use it as a place to write these plans down and our progress towards them.

So, where are we at right now? Well, we are no longer in Devon for a start! We moved to the Scottish Highlands just over a year ago and live near a seaside town. Mr Mischief is now 6 (!) and Baby H is not a baby anymore as he is almost 4 years old.

Now to get on to our plans. Well, it's one big plan really: we want to move back to Devon! It is lovely where we are now, but it is not home for us and we miss Devon dreadfully. We recently made the decision to try and get back to live there this year so all of our plans this year will be working towards this goal.

In order to move, a number of things need to happen.

Firstly, jobs. Hubby might be able to transfer in his job or there are a few other options we are looking at. I run my own business working from home so that is not a problem, I can work anywhere :)

Secondly, money. It will cost us a lot of money to move. Aside from the cost of removals, we will need money for the deposit on a house, fees, etc. We have worked out how much we will need for this and opened a savings account to save this money into. I paid the first little chunk of money into this savings account today and it felt great!!

Thirdly, stuff. We have a LOT of stuff. We need to have a huge clear out. When we moved here, it all happened quite quickly and we moved a lot of stuff we probably didn't really need anymore. The kids are also getting older so we can now get rid of all the baby and toddler things we have accumulated (there's a lot!)

We would ideally like to move over the summer. The main reason for this is that we would like the kids to start new schools at the start of the new school year. Logistically, the timing of the school years in Scotland and England would mean the summer would be an ideal time to move as schools here in Scotland break up at the end of June, whilst schools in England don't go back until the start of September. Moving over the summer would give us almost 9 weeks of summer holidays so would minimise any disruption to schooling.

I've probably rambled on enough for today now! I'm going to go and make tea. We are having cajun spiced chicken with rice and peas. Pretty cheap meal to make (we use chicken thighs) and it is one that we will all eat, the kids just have their chicken plain. I'll leave you with a photo of Teignmouth, one of our favourite places that we used to go to and a reminder for me as to why we are doing this :)

New year, new start :)

Bit of a cliche, but like many other people one of my new year resolutions is to be more organised with money and make savings where we can.

I started this blog a couple of years ago with the same aims in mind, but life got in the way! A lot has changed for our family since then and I thought keeping up with my blog would be a good way of keeping us focused :)

So, last time I posted we were living in Shropshire and my hubby had started a new job so the pressure was off us slightly. Mr Mischief was 2 and I'd not long had a new baby. Lots has changed since then!

Mr Mischief is now 4 and the tiny new baby is 20 months old and rivalling his big brother in the mischief stakes! The biggest change is that we upped sticks and moved over 200 miles to start a new life on Devon :) This wasn't planned but has turned out to be a fabulous decision for our family and we are very happy here :)

We now live in a small village just inside Dartmoor National Park. It really is very beautiful here and I'm so glad that my boys are getting to grow up in such a beautiful place. We are also within 20 mies or so of lots of other great places such as Exeter, Teignmouth, Totnes, Torquay, etc so lots of places to go for (cheap!) days out.

When I last posted, I'd just started a little business making handmade goodies and happily, this is ticking over nicely and I have lots of plans for the future in this area too :)

So, why am I posting? Simple. We are looking at our long term goals for our future. Devon is lovely, but can be an expensive place to live. We currently rent our home but would love at some point in the future to be able to buy our own home. To do this, we need to save a deposit!

In addition, both hubby and I are keen to live a more sustainable life. We grow veggies, reuse and recycle, make do and mend etc and I'd like to document our adventures and maybe meet a few like minded bloggers along the way :)

If you've read this far, thank you! I'll leave you with a pic of my latest crochet project, the blooming flower cushion from the Attic 24 blog. I plan to spend the next hour or so in front of the log burner with my crochet whilst the boys are watching Stick Man :)

What's cooking?

I like to cook in bulk and often use "leftovers" in our meals. One thing I do very often is to buy a whole chicken, roast it and then use this as the basis for some of our meals.

Yesterday we had roast chicken with veggies and today the leftover roast chicken is going to be yummy enchiladas. This couldn't be easier to make, although I am cheating slightly today as I am using a jar of enchilada sauce I bought in Home Bargains for 79p ;)

So, to make easy yummy enchiladas you need:

Leftover roast chicken
Veggies (whatever you have lurking in the fridge, I'm using peppers, onions and mushrooms)
Tortillas
Tin of tomatoes
Tin of chilli beans (the ones I'm using are from Sainsbury's, but Heinz 5 beans also work well, or just ordinary beans!)
Paprika
Chilli powder
Cheese

Chop up the veggies and gently fry them. Add the tomatoes, paprika and chilli powder and simmer until the sauce thickens. You can add a bit of tomato puree to thicken if you like.

Place some of the enchilada mixture into a tortilla, roll up and place in an oven proof dish. Do this for each tortilla. Pour any leftover sauce on top of the tortillas. Grate some cheese over the top and pop in the oven on 190 for about 20 minutes or until the cheese melts.

You'll notice that I've been quite vague about ingredients and quantities etc? That's because this dish is meant to use up what you have in and also be really easy to make! The beauty of it is that you can easily adapt it :) Sometimes I use leftover chilli instead, so they are more like burritos :) We've also used left over pulled pork to make a similar dish.

We normally have this with salad and dips (salsa and sour cream), but tonight we are having wedges with it as I don't have any salad in and am not driving to the shop (8 mile round trip) just to buy salad!

Hello again :)

I have shamefully neglected this blog, but have decided to restart it to keep us focused on our goal of saving money and living a frugal lifestyle.

There have been some big changes around here, the biggest of which is that we have a new member of the family! Baby H arrived just before Easter! He has settled in beautifully and Mr Mischief is delighted with his new baby brother :)

I was quite ill during the pregnancy with hyperemesis so it was quite a difficult time in our household. Thankfully since baby has been born, there has been no sign of the sickness and I am feeling so much better :)

In other news, I have also started a small business making handmade goodies for the home and for children. It is still in it's infancy and I have taken some time off to have my baby, but I have lots of plans for the future regarding this and feel excited about it :)

With the pregnancy and the new baby, we have been less frugal than usual, but this is going to change. We are going to get back into the routine of meal planning, growing veggies, cloth nappies etc with the aim of saving money for Christmas and also with the longer term aim of moving to the seaside :) This blog will be a place for me to document our frugal adventures and also fun activities for the kids that hopefully don't cost much money! 

Knock, knock...

Hello, is anyone there?

That was an unintentional break! Still lots of frugal activities going on in the Frugal Mammy household, but we have taken our eye off the ball slightly and need to get focused again!

When I started this blog, back in February, things were quite tough here. My husband had not long been made redundant and was working part time. Money was very tight indeed! Happily this is no longer the case :) We are by no means well off, but things are not as precarious as they were.

For such a long time we had been struggling so it has been quite nice to be able to relax a little. However, we have got big plans for the future so we need to focus our attentions on being frugal again :)

So, we didnt go completely mad. We were still doing a lot of the things we were doing before, like using cloth nappies and keeping chickens (we have 3 now), but we were getting a bit lapse about menu planning and food shopping so this has to change :)

Me and Mr Mischief are going into town shortly to pick up a few odds and sods. We need loo roll, dog biscuits, custard, broccoli, cheese and pineapple. I will get the cheese and broccoli at lidl (much cheaper than Tesco or Sainsbury's) and the rest of my list I should be able to get at Home Bargains.

Tea tonight is gammon steaks (2 packs of 2 steaks for £4 at Sainsbury's), jacket potatoes, tinned pineapple and broccoli. Pudding will be Eve's pudding, made using apples from the garden and eggs from the chooks :)

Right, I've rambled enough. Off to town...

Today's plans

It's a lovely sunny day here in North Shropshire so I have nappies drying out on the line rather than in the tumble dryer, which always makes me smile :) It is a bit cold so they might not dry completely but at least they will be in the dryer for only a short time!

Hubby will be back home from work soon so we will have a spot of lunch (soup and a butty) before the three of us head out to town to do a few errands. He's just rung me to say he is bringing some pallets home from work so that is good as we will have some free kindling for the fire :) I have a ton of stuff I am going to list on ebay so when we get back from town I will start on that and get at least some of it listed as it is in boxes in my hallway at the moment and getting on my nerves.

Tea tonight is chilli from the freezer and nachos with dips so we will have that and then cosy up in front of the fire and watch "Child of our Time", which has followed the lives of 25 children born at the millennium. I've watched it since it began and have found it really lovely to watch all the children grown and change so I'm looking forward to seeing this latest instalment :)

Frugal bums!

One of the frugal things we do here is to use cloth nappies. Lots of reasons for that, but one of the reasons is to save money! A pack of pampers costs £10, whereas my entire cloth nappy stash has cost us less than £80 and can be used on more than one child (in fact many of our nappies are onto their second baby already!)

We like to use fleece liners in the nappies because they are nice and soft and they also act as "stay dry" layer. These can be bought online, but I begrudge paying out money for these when I have mountains of fleece in my sewing cupboard! This afternoon I have sat down with a fleece blanket from ikea which set me back the princely sum of £1.59 and have cut it up to make liners. I got 40 liners from the blanket so each one has cost me just 4p, bargain :)