Five Frugal Things we did this week {8 March 2019}….

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) We have a prom dress!  I repeat we actually have a prom dress and shock horror, it didn’t cost the earth!

I’m not going to tell you how much it actually cost as it’s Miss Frugal’s special dress but I can tell you that it absolutely did not break the bank.  The lady in the shop we bought it from was lovely but did keep pushing her to a dress that was literally twice the price but looked very similar.  

I didn’t want cost to be a factor in her decision but so I just sat with my fingers crossed hoping she chose the cheaper one so we didn’t have to have the ‘that one costs twice as much for about three extra beads’ conversation and lo and behold, she popped her head out of the changing room and said she loved the cheaper one.  She said she also loved the more expensive one but couldn’t justify the price difference due to their similarity so she would be more than happy with the cheaper one.  

I sat there with a smug grin on my face as the Mum next to me spiralled into panic as the woman in the shop started on her daughter and actually thought to myself how lucky I was that Miss Frugal had a good head on her shoulders.  

Until we walked out of the shop that is, and she suggested that we could use the money saved to buy her a pair of Jimmy Choos!  

Seeing as that’s not going to happen and I did, in fact, save a reasonable chunk of money when prom dress shopping then I’m totally counting this as number one for today.  

While we’re on the subject of prom dress shopping, some of the prices were astronomical for a dress that for most, will only be worn once.  Judging by the number of dresses that were £500+, I can only presume that it’s the norm for people to spend that much on one.  Ours was just a little bit more expensive than the cost to hire one so I think we did well.

I’ll share a photo after the big night!

2) Did you see our meal plan on Monday?

We’ve managed to stick to it really well this week and have only had to have one top-up shopping trip last night which has saved us money as well as time which is just as valuable to us at the moment!

3) I had a few dollars left over from our trip to New York but as the exchange rate is always worse when you’re changing money back, we’d decided to just hang on to it for next time we go to the US.  But someone we know is actually travelling to the US this month themselves so we sold them to them for the same rate we bought them at.

4) Master Frugal needed three lemons for school last week but when I went to the shop to buy them, it was actually cheaper to buy a pack of five rather than three singles.  We bought the five and sent three to school with him the next day to make this delightful looking lemon meringue pie which believe me, despite its appearance tasted AMAZING!

Anyway, the other two lemons would have gone to waste as I had no time to do anything with them but rather than let that happen, I’ve sliced them up and popped them in the freezer so I have some lemon-slice ice cubes ready to go when I need them.

They’re great for popping in anything from water to gin and even work with fish when you’re steaming it or to throw in with some roasted veggies.

5) I did some batch cooking at the weekend! It took me about five minutes of prep to get my mince and onions ready to go and then the slow cooker did the rest of the work for me.  

I didn’t even have to batch it up into containers as I delegated that to Mr Frugal who did that bit for me when he came in from work.  I can easily make three meals for us all out of what we’ve now got in the freezer.

And even better, the mince I used was from the reduced section so it’s three bargain meals that I have ready to go!

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You don’t have to share five things you’ve done, anything thrifty or frugal that you’ve been doing is perfect.

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I’m linking up with this Cass, Emma and Becky in this week’s ‘Five Frugal things I’ve done this week’ linky.

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