Every week I share five frugal things that I’ve done during that week just to show you that the small things you do all add up to a great frugal lifestyle where you can learn to live a fabulously frugal life.
Before I start though, as always feel that I should say that being frugal to me is about getting the best value for our money – it’s not about doing without for us or about not having nice things. We all have different financial situations and we’re all frugal for different reasons. 😉
1) I made Spanish Chicken this week for the first time and I decided to use chicken thighs rather than chicken breast which is something I rarely do as I just always go for chicken breast.
Chicken thighs are so much cheaper and the meal itself was AMAZING. I’ll share it with you over on my Meal Planning Made Easy blog if you want to check it out.
2) This one has made me a bit sad but last year, Mr Frugal bought me some tickets to go see Robbie Williams at the British Summertime Festival at Hyde Park next weekend. I was looking forward to it but when we looked for a hotel, the cheapest we could find even close to Hyde Park was £200. I didn’t want to be too far away as it finishes quite late so I booked in on the proviso that it could be cancelled up until the day before.
The train fares were then £130+ for when we needed to go so we’d already decided to drive which wasn’t my preferred option as a five-hour drive there and back wasn’t exactly something I’d look forward to.
Then Mr Frugal discovered that he couldn’t have the Monday off work so we’d be up at the crack of dawn to drive home in time for his late shift at work.
It felt a bit like the fates were against us on this one so we decided not to spend the money on going and cancel our tickets which made me a little sad but also relieved that we weren’t spending that much money on one night away. I sold the tickets for face value through Twickets (who I love as you can’t sell for more than face value so no touts) and cancelled our hotel and now we’re just going to do something closer to home.
3) Last Sunday we went out for the day but rather than take a picnic, I looked up restaurants in the area we were going to that we could use Tesco vouchers. They have a new faster system where you don’t even have to wait for vouchers to appear on your statement to be able to use them so I ended up with £21 worth.
I used the Tesco Clubcard Boost to treble their value and booked a table at the Chef and Brewer in the town we were going to. Not only did it save us time and effort making a picnic, but it also saved me having to go to the shop for picnic bits and bobs so in this case, it actually worked out cheaper to eat out.
4) Did you see my blueberry syrup post yesterday?
I made a batch of it yesterday ready for a BBQ with some friends that we’re hoping to have this weekend which will hopefully be made into some blueberry mojitos using a bottle of Bacardi that I won in a raffle before Christmas and some mint from my herb garden.
I haven’t opened the bottle of Bacardi yet as the taste of it takes me back to my teenage years when I may have drunk too much of it on the first night of a holiday with some friends. I’ve not drunk it since really but I’m hopeful the blueberry syrup, lime and mint will disguise the taste enough that I enjoy it and if not, I have some amazing cocktails to offer everyone else.
I also have some burger buns in the freezer that I bought reduced this week for 9p and some sausages and burgers that I bought for a BBQ last month when we expected but didn’t get nice weather. I’ve been clever and have someone responsible for bringing all the salady bits and someone else bringing some cakes and ice cream.
5) We’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about our life and our finances and we’ve realised (not a shock I know) that we’re not really in the place that we want to be in just right now. It’s not that we’re not happy with the way things are, it’s more that I just know that they could be better. Kind of like that school report we’ve all seen at one time or another – Cass is doing well but could do better if she put some more effort in.”
I know this isn’t something frugal that I’ve actually ‘done; in the last seven days but it is a conversation from this week about our finances that I think is going to change our future for the better.
We wrote a list of things that we know we can do to help us get to where we want to be and I’m keen to get started on some of the things we have planned.
Wish me luck!
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As always, we’d love you to join in with us by sharing anything you’ve done that’s been thrifty or frugal from your week – whether it’s an Instagram picture (#5frugalthings), a blog post or even a video. Just add your link to the Frugal Friday linky at the bottom of this post.
You’re more than welcome to copy and paste the badge above but it would be even better if you could let your readers know that you’re linking up with the five frugal things linky by adding a little line to the bottom of your post like this one:
I’m linking up with this Cass, Emma and Becky in this week’s ‘Frugal Friday’ linky.
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