I thought I’d struggle to write a Five Frugal Things post this week because it feels like it’s been an expensive week but actually, on reflection it hasn’t been as expensive as it could have been….
Five frugal things I’ve done this week:
1. I went out for a meal and on to the pictures with the girls this week. Not very frugal, I know but it was a lot of fun and not as expensive as it could have been as we timed it for happy hour at the restaurant we were going to (2 courses for £8.95), went to the local cinema rather than one of the big chain cinemas (£4 a ticket instead of £9 ish) and we smuggled our sweets in our bags. Our local cinema is renowned for it’s squeaky, slightly uncomfortable seats as well as the rapidly changing temperature which swings from Artic to tropical in seconds but I thought that it might have improved since I was last there a few years ago! How wrong was I? I spent most of the film with a spring sticking in my leg alternating between hot sweats and shivering – the things I do to save money! 😉
2. Our toilet developed an issue this week where the water seemed to be dripping though into the toilet as if it was on a very slow but constant flush which meant that the cistern was re-filling every ten minutes or so. The plumbers I contacted (see number 3) couldn’t get there until later that day but said it would be OK to leave until then. Rather than waster water, I consulted my good friend Google and found a Youtube video telling me how to turn the water off on the toilet to stop it from filling up until the plumber could get there.
3. I had no idea how hard it would be to get a plumber to come and fix a dripping toilet and not just because all the plumbers I called were busy! As soon as I described what the issue was, they all knew what I was talking about and quoted vastly different prices for exactly the same job. The lowest quote was £30 and the highest was £80! As Google told me it was quite a simple job for someone who knows what they’re doing I went with the second cheapest (the cheapest was booked for a few days, no doubt because of his prices). Altogether I rang about six local plumbers but if I’d gone with the first quote, I would have paid much more that what I actually paid!
4. It’s my birthday in a couple of weeks and this week we’ve been planning what we’re going to do to celebrate another year closer to 40. Instead of going out with our friends to celebrate we’re having a bit of a Come Dine With Me style dinner party where each couple is going to bring one course. Obviously I’m in charge of dessert and even if I make an extravagant chocolatey affair, it’s still a LOT cheaper than a night out.
5. My home insurance renewal came this week and it’s gone down ever so slightly from last year. As I always to, I’ve compared quotes to see if it’s worth me changing to another provider using comparison websites combined with cash back websites. In the end I decided to stay where I was as I have a deal where I get £50 cash back every year that I keep the policy and it was working out just as cheap if I took that into account.
What have you done this week to save money?
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