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. 😉
If you follow me on Instagram then you’ll know that we were away on Monday and Tuesday. It was nothing exciting but every year since the kids were little, we’ve been going to Manchester for a couple of days. We always stay in the same hotel and do pretty much the same things so it’s like a family tradition now. I thought I’d share a few of the things we did to save money on our little mini-trip with you to start with…
1) Let’s start with last Sunday night’s tea:
We realised about 3.30 on Sunday that we hadn’t bought snacks for our trip so we popped to the shop at the last minute and got some snacks (see number 2) as well as some dips and pitta bread for our tea which cost just over a pound for the lot! We also got some profiteroles reduced to 87p so we had them for pudding. Yum!
2) We always try to take snacks with us when we go because (a) the kids are ALWAYS hungry and hungry children are not happy children and (b) snacks, when you’re out and about, can cost a small fortune. We bought an eight pack of fizzy pop and some bottled water to drink and some jaffa cakes, crisps, apples and popcorn to snack on so there was no snack buying needed.
3) Every year, we book the Premier Inn Trafford Centre West when we go to Manchester as it’s which is just a few minutes walk from the Trafford Centre, where we spend our evenings playing crazy golf and laser quest. The difference in cost between the Flexi rate (which can be cancelled up until the day before and is paid on the day rather than upfront) and the non-flexi rate which can’t be cancelled rate was around £30.
We didn’t want to lose the rooms but last time we went to the same hotel, the non-flexi rate price came down even lower a couple of days before we travelled. We couldn’t do anything about it last time as we’d booked the rate that couldn’t be cancelled but this time, we took a chance and reserved the room on the more expensive flexi rate and kept an eye on the non flexi-rate price until we saw it come down a bit more. When it did, we cancelled our flexi rate room and booked the non-flexi rate room, saving another £20
And yes, I’m aware how many times I said the word flex in that last paragraph – I do hope it made sense,
4) I have a Taste Card that Mr Frugal and I use when we go out on a date night so I knew that we would eat somewhere that we could use it while we were away. We ended up at Frankie and Benny’s which is one of the few places that you can use your Taste Card for more than two people and managed to save around £30 is off our bill.
5) You’re probably going to laugh at me for this one but for the last couple of years, I’ve really wanted to learn to play golf. I’ve even gone as far as to learn some techniques using the information on this golf website and my neighbour’s golf clubs but I’ve never braved an actual golf course yet. The closest I’ve got to actually playing golf is every year when we go to Manchester as we always go and play Mini Golf indoors at the Trafford Centre but it’s not the cheapest thing in the world to do! I found a 25% discount code which I had hoped to use it off the family price of £26 making it £19.50 which, although still not cheap, it’s at least cheaper than full price.
When we got there, it turned out that we couldn’t use it on the family price as that’s already a deal apparently but we could use it off the individual prices so we managed to get it for £22.50.
As it always is, it was worth every penny and despite the cheating and sabotage that went on during our game, it was definitely the highlight of the trip.
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