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) Let’s start today with some fresh and frugal flowers…
You probably know me well enough by this point to understand how much I love having fresh flowers in the house but also to know that I usually only buy them when they’re reduced. These little beauties were part of a bigger bunch that was definitely looking the worse for wear with some flowers having no petals on at all and some looking like they were about to drop what they did have.
They were reduced to 78p so I bought them, discarded all of the flowers that were beyond help and I’m now left with these guys. They’re definitely not going to last a week – I’ll be lucky if they see the end of the weekend but I’ll take what I can get when it comes to bargain flowers. 😉
2) Did you see my amazing homemade houmous last Saturday?
It doesn’t include tahini or olive oil but it’s still a pretty good substitute if you ask me and it costs so much less than shop bought houmous.
3) I feel like every week I include one thing that’s a bit dubious as far as actual money saving is concerned – mainly because it involves spending in some way. This is one of those is it frugal /isn’t it frugal ones which I’m including because it’s saved me money this week.
So… Prom is approaching rapidly and I know I’ve shared the fact that we’ve bought the dress already but this week it was time for the shoes and bag combo to go with it.
I’m not allowed to reveal actual photos but we found a beautiful sparkly pair of shoes that look amazing with her dress along with a matching clutch which complements the outfit perfectly. Together they cost less than I’d budgeted for shoes alone as we found them in the closing down sale of a local department store – they’re a great brand so I know the quality is there and they’ll be able to be used again after prom as we went classy rather than blingy.
We looked at more expensive shoes and I’m so proud that Miss Frugal picked the ones she did because, the same as I did with her dress, I didn’t focus on the price as I wanted it to be more about her choosing her perfect dress/shoes/bag. She looked at more expensive pairs and loved them and then she looked at these shoes and loved them too – she consciously decided to go for the cheaper pair because in her own words…
I don’t love the expensive pair enough to justify the cost difference
I feel like my work here is done. 😉 😉
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And in case you’re wondering why I wanted her to choose based on something she loved rather than worrying about the price too much, it’s because I wanted to spoil her a little bit. I’m so proud of her – she’s studying really hard for her exams at the moment and I’ve never once had to tell her that she needs to study. In fact, I’ve had to tell her to stop revising at times as I don’t want her to overdo it.
(Just to be clear though, I absolutely wouldn’t have paid a fortune and wasted money on a ‘wear once’ pair of shoes – I deliberately chose shops where I knew even the priciest things would be within budget)
4) I have finally converted everyone into the family into using reusable straws – Mr Frugal was the last to fall into line with the rest of us as he had the attitude that he’s just one person and him boycotting plastic straws wasn’t going to make a difference in the grand scheme of things.
I get that but if we all thought like that then nothing would change, would it?
We’ve had reusable straws at home for ages so he’s had no choice to use them at home but he’s not really been on board and I know that he used plastic straws at work. Our nagging has worn him down now though and this week I caught him taking a stainless steel straw to work to drink his energy drink with – he even brought it home at the end of the day to be washed.
We’ll take that as a win for the world. 😉
5) We were planning on making Slimming World style wrap pizzas for lunch on Bank Holiday Monday and in my head, I was going to make tuna and mushroom melt pizzas which I was really looking forward to.
I went to make them but it wasn’t to be – first I discovered that I actually had no tuna in the cupboard and then I realised that I had none of my homemade tomato sauce in the freezer and not one of us could open the jar of passata that was going to use in its place.
So, did I head to the shop where I would inevitably buy more than just tuna and passata that can actually be opened?
No.
I used Laughing Cow cheese triangles as the base and just made a cheesy mushroom wrap pizza to save me a trip to the shop.
It actually tasted really nice and did save me both time and money so I thought I’d share it here as a reminder that it’s always cheaper to work with what you have!
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