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.
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1) I didn’t bother with a Sunday dinner on Sunday as I had some meatballs in the freezer so I made a pasta bake with them and my homemade tomato sauce. It was lovely and there was so much leftover that we ended up having it for tea on Monday night too with the addition of a couple of slices of homemade garlic bread.
I do try to make extra when I make meals like this so I have spare for lunches the next day but I seem to have a serious lack of judgement when it comes to pasta quantities so I ended up making even more than usual so there was enough for tea rather than a small lunch. 😂
2) I’ve sold two dresses on Vinted this week and made just over £20 from them – both are dresses I’ve worn myself over the last couple of years and are just a bit too big for me now so I was happy to make some money from them. It’s absolutely the right time to list any dresses that might be suitable for Christmas parties judging by these two being sold and the other outfits I’ve listed this listed that have been favourited this last couple of days.
I know I mention Vinted all the time and I promise I’m not affiliated with them at all but I’m having a great time selling my unwanted or grown out of clothes and buying newer things on there. You can withdraw the money into your bank account obviously but I generally choose to reinvest. 😂
If you want to have a go yourself then here’s my how to sell on Vinted post.
3) I’ve been trying to have a smoothie on a morning for breakfast to make sure I do actually have breakfast each day as I often used to skip it and then be starving by lunchtime so I’d not necessarily take the time to make something healthy and nutritious. I would just grab the quickest thing I could and have that.
Smoothies can be expensive when you’re using fresh fruit so I try and freeze fruit that I buy in the reduced section from the supermarket or I buy packs of frozen fruit that’s already prepared which work out much cheaper than fresh fruit.
This one is frozen cherries, bananas that I peeled, chopped and froze them in a bag, some cinnamon, some ginger, and a couple of drops of vanilla extract,
I used either almond milk or coconut for this one (both cartons look the same 😂 ) and this was amazing as well as filling so I’m not rushing down to raid the fridge as soon as I get a gap in calls.
4) I bought myself a couple of new bras this week after an incident where the wire popped out of one of my old M&S favourites and nearly caused me actual bodily harm. 😂
I’ve actually bought my last couple of bras from Ann Summers because the fit of them rivals that of M&S where I’ve always bought them from but the styles are much more fun as well as being really well priced. And they cater for bigger boobs too. This is the design of the one I buy which I now have in about five different colours.
The actual bras that I bought weren’t the point of this post but to be fair once I started writing about them then I realised that they were in themselves saving me money as they are actually the cheapest ones that I’ve come across for my size in a long while and add that to the comfiness of them and the cost then they’re actually great value for money. I only realised that Ann Summers did everyday kind of underwear when they came up in a Google search I did looking for somewhere other than M&S for a bra (who says I’m stuck in my ways) so I’m guessing I’m not the only person who wouldn’t head there as my first port of call for a new bra.
Anyway, I bought two of these bras for £15 each which I think is great value as it is but because I have the Honey Browser extension installed, I got a pop up when I went to check out asking me if I wanted Honey to check for discounts. It searched through a number of codes and the price in my basket was reduced by £6 which was 20% of my overall order price before delivery costs.
I’ve written about Honey before a couple of times and I know lots of you have joined up already but if you haven’t then my post is here if you want to have a read about it. It’s one of those no-brainers that costs you nothing but saves you money so I’d definitely recommend it!
5) The tomato sauce I used up in Sunday’s meatball pasta bake was the last one from my freezer so I made a big batch of my homemade arrabbiata sauce on Monday night. This is basically a spicier version of my tomato sauce and is just as versatile to have in the freezer. I did make it spicier than usual though as I grated in some frozen chilli into it and was clearly more enthusiastic than I should have been.
I also made some Instant Pot shredded chicken while the arrabbiata sauce was bubbling away and cooked some pasta at the same time – check me out, three things on the go at once.
I made some chicken pasta bakes for tea on Monday as well as topping up my freezer supplies with some portions of the sauce and bags of the chicken.
It was so tasty but it did make my nose run which is a sure sign that it’s spicier than I’m used to! 😂
Come over and join our fab Facebook group – Spend Less, Live Better! We’ve hit 35,000 members in the group now so it’s a great place to be and I’ve got Miss Frugal in there helping me out now.
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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