Every week (ish) 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.
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1) OK, we’re going old school today and starting this post with some bargain flowers. These little beauties cost me £1.50 from the flower shop on our village High Street last weekend and have been sitting on my kitchen windowsill ever since.
I love that I got a bargain well supporting a small High Street business at the same time. I actually just popped into the village for a Sunday afternoon wander and I popped back into the shop to let the lady know just how well the flowers did.
Considering they were reduced because they were just about to be passed their best, they’ve given me a full weeks worth of prettiness in the kitchen.
2) A couple of months ago, Miss Frugal had a car accident which really shook her up. I’m not going to go into all the details but she rang me straight afterwards and we were able to get to her very quickly and my partner was able to sort her car so she could drive home.
The other driver admitted fault immediately but the insurance companies are still battling it out.
Her car was written off which she was gutted about as she’s not had it too long so because my partner is pretty handy with fixing cars, we decided to go along the lines of buying it back from the insurance company and fixing it up ourselves.
Rather than spend a fortune on new parts, we visited a local scrap yard last weekend which is filled with thousands of cars of all makes and you literally take your toolbox, find the parts you want, take them off and then go buy them. To give you an idea of the money you could save doing this, a wing mirror from the Audi dealership would have cost upwards of £200 for the full unit whereas one from this scrapyard would have cost around £30.
As it happens we actually couldn’t find the parts that we needed as they already been stripped from the cars that we found which matched hers but It was worth a try.
3) We did a car boot sale last weekend following a last minute check of the weather which said there was only 10% chance of rain.
The heavens opened about an hour in and there was literally no sign of it letting up so we (along with the majority of other people) ended up packing up really early which was a disappointment considering it cost us £17 to get in but when we got home and we added up our takings, we had still managed to make £85 and it encouraged it to have a really good sort out. I think the saw I was probably the main benefit for me as I moved in here without really bringing anything from my old house.
I’ve learned that things aren’t really important so I never brought most of the things over which means they’re just sitting gathering dust in my old house where Master Frugal and his dad live at the moment. trust me, they have no use for some of the things I’ve left over there so sorting it all out for a car boot sale was good for us all. I made some money, they got some space and….
I got custody of the omelette maker which is the most unnecessary gadget ever but I love it and couldn’t part with it – it’s now sitting on my kitchen counter and has been used a good three or four times this week for lunches.
We have a summer house filled with car boot sale stuff now so the next time there’s a sunny Sunday, it will be packed into the car and we’ll try and sell the rest!
4) We sold our car last week.
I was gutted as I loved having a seven seater to have all four kids in it so we could do days out together but in reality that’s only happened a few times and the Q7 cost a fortune in tax and drank diesel quicker than I used to drink Pepsi Max so we reluctantly (very reluctantly) sold it to someone who would get the use out of it that would make it worth it to them.
It really was a tank and I did struggle to park it with it being longer than an average car so I told my Partner that I needed something smaller. This is what he came up with….
This is my new mini which we got for an absolute steal. It’s so well looked after and the girl who we bought it from cried when we drove it away.
We also bought a new grown up family car too which is so much better on tax and fuel consumption. It even gives us tips on how to drive more efficiently as we drive.
5) And the last one is just a small one which I wanted to include because it’s not just the big things that save you money each week.
Here’s my shopping trolley from Lidl this week – note the shopping bags which I remembered to take into the shop for a change. They saved me buying three bags which would have been an extra 90p on my shop. Not much in the grand scheme of things but better in my pocket.
I always have them in the car but rarely remember to take them into the shop so I’m that person who ends up packing in the car park normally.
So, there’s this week’s five frugal things!
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