After last weeks attempt to follow the Sainsbury's Feed your family for £50 challenge, I've decided that we do need a bit of variety on our menu. Apparently nine out of ten people make the same eight meals over and over again and looking back at my recent menu plans it looks like I'm one of those nine. Not that there's anything wrong with that but we did enjoy the variety of last week so I'm going to try and introduce some new meals to my rather limited repetoire....Monday: Sweet and sour chickenTuesday: Macaroni cheeseWednesday: Jambalaya Thursday: Sausage pie (see … [Read more...]
How to Save Money….
In our quest to try and live a more frugal lifestyle (note the word try ;-)) we regularly review our monthly budget and try to shave off a few pounds here and there. In the last year or so, we've actually saved quite a bit so I thought I'd share our top tips with you all. I blogged about using cashback companies last year here and I can't recommend them highly enough. Basically, if you register with a company like Quidco you can earn cashback on your internet shopping. I always review my home and car insurance when they're due for renewal along with my telephone and internet deals … [Read more...]
Family Friendly, Frugal Meals – Chilli….
Inspired by the lovely Jen at the Madhouse whose brilliant article about feeding your family on £50.00 a week has just been published in the Guardian, I'm determined to reduce the amount of money that we spend on food each month. We have a grocery budget of £250.00 a month at the moment which is for 2 adults and 2 children. This covers all of our meals at home, packed lunches for me and the kids as well as all of our other household stuff.We used to be pretty good at sticking to the budget but lately I've been so busy that I haven't been doing our shopping online or been meal planning as … [Read more...]
My Wedding Day (on a budget)….
We've just seen the most beautiful horse and carriage go past our window, all done up with white and pink flowers and looking as though it was on its way to collecting a blushing bride and take her to one of the most special days in her life.It made me think about my wedding day (not that we had a horse and carriage) and I decided to hunt out some of my wedding photos to show you....Our wedding was a bit of a last minute thing, we'd been together for almost five years and were trying to decide what to do for our fifth anniversary - we were thinking of a night away or a nice meal … [Read more...]
School Uniform Moneysaving….
I'm starting to get ready for the kids going back to school in September, we need new book bags, new packed lunch boxes, new shoes and new uniforms!!! There's no money saving to be done in the new book bags and packed lunch boxes as the kids are extremely choosy about what they want here, apparently, Miss Frugal could not possibly go to school with a plain pink packed lunch box as it's absolutely essential that she has the new Hello Kitty one that she's seen and as for Master Frugal, I tried to suggest he used the same Scooby Doo book bag and was met with absolute outrage. I have been … [Read more...]
Bogies and Marbles….
I've just had a strange conversation with Master Frugal who has just informed me that it's actually OK to eat white bogies as long as you never eat the green ones. He says his teachers says that the green ones are poison!!!! Miss Frugal has also decided to share someof her pearls of wisdom with me, apparently 'If it's yellow, let it mellow but if it's brown, flush it down.' When I looked a bit puzzled she explained that it will save money and the planet if you only flush the chain when you have a poo.I've also just been treated to a lovely home made tea from Miss Frugal, I wondered … [Read more...]
