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| Little shortbread men made in the air fryer |
How nice to have sunshine, with the patio doors open all day, almost every day. The cats rush or amble in and out between whatever busy things they do out there, washing dries quickly on the line and difficult things are easier to get through when the sun's out.
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| The view from the bottom of my garden on a real Summer day |
I've been cooking quite alot, batch cooking in late July and early August to fill the freezer, and we're mostly living off those meals this month. Don’t you just love the sight of a row of boxes cooling ready for the freezer if you're a batch cooker?
I want to save extra in August for our holiday in September, so I'm cutting the grocery bill as much as I can and trying to buy less generally.
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| Vintage postcard jigsaw from a charity shop which I absolutely love |
To help me resist, I've made a list of all my unread books and set myself a Summer Reading Challenge to read every day and to decide after each book if I'll keep it to re-read or donate it to a charity shop. Since mid-July I've read:
- The Strawberry Thief by Joanne Harris
- The Button Box by Lynn Knight (non-fic)
- Rebecca's Tale by Sally Beauman
- The English Seaside by Peter Williams (non-fic)
I've also put two other books in the charity bag; one I read half of a couple of years ago and lost interest in and one I kept in case I wanted to re-read it but I didn’t.
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| Half way through a wedding gift embroidery |
At the end of July I joined the Fashion On The Ration Challenge on the Money Saving Expert forum. It runs for the rest of the year and you get 66 imaginary clothing coupons (the same as people in the UK hot in the early part of World War Two) to last the full year on new clothes, fabric and yarn.
I'll write a post on that soon, but I'm hoping it helps me to buy even less new things and make better use of what I have.
With no spending on books and clothes, and cutting down the grocery budget I think I'm on track to meet my extra savings target.