Every now and again (used to be weekly ;-), maybe it will be again) I share five frugal things that I’ve done during the previous 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.
Hey! 👐
Has anyone else had this dreadful cold and flu bug? I’ve had it since the week between Christmas and New Year and even with some amazing medicine from my doctors that suppresses the cough (needed as my cough is always so dramatic), I’ve still been pretty ill and reluctant to leave the house too much as the cold air on my chest starts me off.
It’s been a couple of days now since my cough has been so bad that it’s made me either wee or be sick so I think I can safely say that I’m over the worst of it now. All I need is a couple of good night’s sleep and I’ll be ready to start my year properly.
I’ve still managed to do a few things this last week to save some money though so here’s last week’s five frugal things…
1) As I was scrolling through Facebook when I wasn’t well, an ad came up for Sky Mobile in my feed which advertised some great offers for new customers (well great compared to what my partner was paying as an existing customer).
I took a screenshot and sent it to him so he could check the MySky app which is where existing customers can see what offers are available to switch to. He had a look and there was nothing like this available to switch to so we rang them up and they said it was because we were existing customers. Honestly, that’s one of my pet hates when I feel like loyalty isn’t rewarded or acknowledged by a company so on principle, we decided to cancel and switch his SIM to the same provider as me to get a better deal.
We called again and let Sky know that we were going to cancel and shared our reasons why and after being placed on hold for a couple of minutes, the above deal was magically added to our account and we were transferred to that. Worth a call if you’re with Sky as we got more than double the data for the same price we were paying.
2) I often sign up to marketing emails when we plan to visit a restaurant as they frequently thank you for signing up with a cheeky money off your next visit email. I can’t remember if Toby Carvery sent me an offer for signing up but ever since I did, I’ve had emails on a monthly basis offering me 50% off at my local. We love a Toby Carvery so when it’s £3.75 each for a really good meal, we can’t say no!
With me not feeling great this week, I actually had water to drink which was free but we’ll usually get a refillable soft drink which is great value. I know eating out isn’t necessarily saving money but I couldn’t have cooked what we ate this week for under £4 a head – we had gammon and turkey, giant Yorkshires, mash, roasties, carrots, peas, cauliflower cheese, mac and cheese, parsnips and cabbage and it was just what the doctor ordered.
It also served as a mini date night which I can’t complain about when I’ve been too ill to leave the settee for the last two weeks.
3) On the subject of food, the slow cooker has been in action this last couple of week’s massively as it’s just so easy – I can make a lovely meal with no effort! This week, we managed to find a large pack of mince reduced from £6 something to £2.09 so I popped that in the slow cooker (following this recipe for my slow cooker mince and onions).
It was a huge portion of mince so there wasn’t room for anything else in there with the mince and onions so I waited until it was cooked and the took half out which I added some tinned peas and carrots to the mix, threw in some dumplings and finished it off in the oven for an amazing tea one night.
There was still around half of the mix left so for the next night’s tea, I served the rest with some giant frozen Yorkshire puddings and that was another easy meal boxed off.
I’m all about cutting corners and taking the easy route – especially when I’m not feeling great so I’m more than happy with the frozen and tinned additions to the meals we’ve had this week.
4) Over the last week when I’ve been feeling well enough, I’ve tried to have a bit of a declutter and listed a few things on Facebook Marketplace – all of which sold as I went in low with the prices. I went low as I was conscious that people don’t necessarily have much at this time of year but also because some of the things I was listing were things that I wanted gone from a clutter perspective so I’m super happy that I got rid of them and that we made some money at the same time.
5) We’ve renewed our National Trust Family pass for 2024.
We had so many days out this year using our National Trust passes and I think we worked out that they paid for themselves by about week 6 of us having them as we like to take the kids out to more outdoorsy places when the weather allows and some of the brilliant properties we have near us are around £30 entry for the family. At £12.99 a month, it works out to be great value.
We did lots of the properties near where we live a couple of times – especially the ones which are really family oriented with great activities and play parks although we’ve had a few afternoons there ourselves where we’ve enjoyed some love walks.
We also planned some days out to National Trust properties when we were camping and over Christmas, we looked at what the properties near us had on and visited a couple just to see their Christmas displays and join in some fun activities.
It’s saved us so much over the year and we always know that we can have a ‘free’ day out with our passes when we’re planning what to do.
Don’t miss out on future posts like this – receive updates directly to your inbox by email by adding your email address here and hitting subscribe. You can also follow me on Twitter or BlogLovin and I’d love to see you over on my Facebook page and on Instagram. If you’re interested, you can find out more about me here and while I’ve got your attention, if you’re wondering why some of my posts lately are a little bit less frugal then have a read of this post. 😉
Do your future self a favour – Pin this post for later!
