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) Did you see this week’s meal plan over on Instagram earlier in the week?
I’ve been trying to find some new meals recently that are reasonably priced, Slimming World friendly as well as being meals that we’ll enjoy. Price wise, I get that this doesn’t look like the cheapest meal plan but it actually was as we were using up a lot of things that we had in the freezer.
This week, the homemade pizzas were courtesy of Master Frugal, the sausage traybake was made by Miss Frugal and Mr Frugal is in charge of the Paella for tomorrow night (which is super easy as we cut corners and make our own version in the Instant Pot).
2) A local cafe is selling amazing Easter Egg Cheesecakes for £3 a go so last weekend, I thought I’d make my own version and I’m pretty sure that mine not only looked better but also tasted better too as well as been a great deal cheaper per cheesecake.
They weren’t super cheap to make when you add up the ingredients but I reckon they cost less than half of what the shop bought versions would have set me back and I got to spend some time with Master Frugal who saw me making them and joined me in the kitchen where he ended up pretty much taking over. He’s really enjoying cooking at the moment so I’m trying to encourage him as much as possible!
3) I have some dry clean only clothes that were overdue a wash but I’d been putting it off – partly because I didn’t want to shell out more money than I had to and partly because I actually have no idea where the nearest dry cleaners are.
I decided to bite the bullet and wash them in the washing machine on the lowest heat and gentlest cycle and they were absolutely fine. Looking at prices online, I reckon I’ve saved a good £25.
4) We had a wander to the car boot sale last weekend where I picked up some bargain books for a weekend away that I’ve got coming up. Look at this little lot which cost me a grand total of £1.20!
5) I got a new car this week which I know isn’t particularly frugal but in my defence, I do need a reliable car for my commute to work and my old one was a bit of an OAP.
I absolutely LOVE it.
Here’s the frugal thing though – I’ve been making full use of the trip function which is where I can monitor how many miles I’m getting to the gallon. I’ve done one journey where I’ve driven down the motorway at 70mph, one where I’ve driven at 65mph and one where I’ve driven at 60mph and the difference in mpg is pretty significant! 63mph seems to be a sweet spot for speed vs mpg and a journey where I travel at that speed gives me a miles per gallon reading of 61.2 which is brilliant when I consider what I was getting before.
I can drive almost one more full journey to and from work on £20 worth of petrol which is going to save me massively over the course of a month when you consider how much I was spending before on my 80 miles a day round trip.
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As always, we’d love you to join in with us by sharing your five frugal things from your week – whether it’s an Instagram picture (#5frugalthings), a blog post or even a video. Just add your link to the linky at the bottom of this post.
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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