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) Fresh flowers make me happy but paying full price for flowers doesn’t make me happy so I’ve perfected the art of sniffing out flowery bargains. It means that I don’t always get my favourite flowers but it does mean that more often than not, I have fresh flowers in my house. This bunch were reduced to £1.25 and as they’re from Tesco, they have a 7 day freshness guarantee which is actually really good so I bought these last Saturday night and they’re still looking OK now although I’ve had to remove a couple of pathetic looking ones in the last day or so!
2) OK, I know you can buy gift tags ridiculously cheap gift tags but they’re just not what I had in mind for our gift tags this year so I thought I’d see how cheaply I could make some of my own – I love the results and I think you’ll be impressed with just how pretty they are.
I made them with some cheap card luggage labels that I bought from Amazon (50 for £1.49) and all I did was replace the brown string with some more festive red twine and used a festive hole punch that cost me £1 from Hobbycraft. I think they’re a great cheap option that’s going to look brilliant on presents.
3) I was at a big posh party in London on Tuesday night with my work and instead of spending a fortune on a new outfit, I decided that I’d wear a dress I already had. I even used a handbag, shoes and jewellery that I already had which has saved me a fortune.
I must admit that I really did want to treat myself to something new for the occasion but when I thought about what else I could spend that money on, I decided I was happy to use something I already owned.
4) Last weekend we went to York to do some Christmas Shopping which, if you follow me on Instagram, you’ll have seen wasn’t exactly a huge success. It was a lovely day though and as we always do when we do our annual Christmas shopping day, we planned to have a lovely relaxing child free lunch.
We headed up to the food court area of the designer outlet with the intention of going to either Wagamama or Pizza Express but we saw some Pizza Hut Express vouchers by the entrance. The vouchers were 2 meals for £4.99 which meant that for less than a fiver we got two six inch pizzas and some fries which was a fab deal. The drinks were 99p so that took the price up to just short of £7.
I know I’ve said this a million times but to me, being frugal isn’t about doing without. To me it’s about reducing waste, saving money and making sure I get the best deal possible for the things I want. This voucher meant that we got to have a meal out, including drinks for £3.50 a head. It might not have been a fancy meal but we enjoyed it and it was as cheap as just the drinks would have been if we’d gone to one of the posher places there which made it all the nicer!
5) Last weekend was Mr Frugal’s Birthday so while everyone was at the football, I made a cake. It was just a plan old chocolate sponge cake made using the recipe that I have committed to memory after making it so many times with my Nana when I was little and the buttercream recipe I shared here a few years ago. I had everything in so it was a much cheaper (and tastier) option than buying a cake.
I did get a bit carried away though and I turned it into some sort of chocolate indulgence cake with some chocolates that I had leftover from our movie night and some chocolate fingers.
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