1) Last weekend the kids (and us if I'm honest) really fancied a cheeky takeaway but we managed to resist the temptation by making homemade pizza. ;-)I'm sure I've shared my recipe for pizza dough before but it's basically 500g bread flour, 1 teaspoon sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, 300ml warm water and 7g dried yeast.  We've always made this by hand before but I've been making it in the breadmaker since I got that for Christmas and it's just as nice.  The tomato base is my homemade tomato sauce but I blend it down some more for pizza sauce when I'm making it for the kids as they're not keen … [Read more...]

1) We're still saving to replace our living room, hall, stairs and landing carpet which was the first thing I wanted to tick off my house to do list this year but when I popped into TKMaxx last weekend with Miss Frugal I found some lovely Orla Kiely bathroom accessories which were so much cheaper than the ones I've been drooling over online.  They had some great orla Kiely towels too which matched the accessories so I thought I'd do a mini makeover on our en suite bathroom which still looks almost the same as it did the day we moved in.I got a big towel for £12.99, a smaller one for … [Read more...]

Do you always have some month left over at the end of your money?(I've loved that phrase ever since I saw it on a fridge magnet in Blackpool a few years ago)If, like lots of us, your money seems to run out before the end of the month but you know that you should still have some money left according to your monthly budget, then you need to figure out where your money is actually going.For me, it used to be things like my weekly treat at Costa when I did my food shopping and the odd magazine here and there that I never thought much of.  When I was trying to figure out why I didn't … [Read more...]

1) On Monday I made a Budget leftovers version of a beef wellington which I shared with you here but it's basically a giant puff pastry sausage roll with the sausage being the leftovers of our Sunday Dinner!  It was so easy to make and turned some random leftovers into a whole new meal which is the way to go with meal planning!2) I went to Ikea and only spend £18 and that was on things that I actually needed!  I bought some tea-towels, some freezer bags and some new freezer bag clips, a new cheese grater and some storage boxes.  The damage could have been much worse considering I went … [Read more...]

This week's five frugal things post is a little bit different because I wanted to share with you five frugal things that I'm going to be doing in 2017.1) I'm going to be doing my own affordable weekly savings challenge again next year because as much as I love all of the ones you see floating around the internet at this time of year, they're just un-manageable for us and I think by about week 10 we'd be struggling.  My version means that you don't save as much over the year but at least it's easy to stick to so you won't end up giving up part way through the year.  Do you fancy joining … [Read more...]