Every week 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.
Hey!
1) I’m officially back at work now after my operation and I’m so excited to have that routine back in my life as I genuinely do enjoy my job and I whilst I love the odd week off work for annual leave where the inevitable lack of routine is welcome, an extended period with no routine or focus is not good for me so this last couple of weeks especially, I’ve been climbing the walls ready to go back. 😁
I’ve been off work since before we moved house so I’ve used the energy I’ve had over the last few weeks to set up my home office where I’ll be working from 3-4 days a week now that I’m back.
We decided to use the fourth bedroom as an office instead of the dining room where I’ve always had my desk set up so that needed clearing out before we could get started as it’s been a dumping ground for all sorts since we moved it as it’s a good sized space. We popped a few things on Facebook Marketplace to get rid of them and moved everything else out leaving me with a blank canvas with one wall painted green and the others cream.
If you saw April’s Pre-loved bargains post last weekend then you’ll have seen a few of the things we’ve bought to decorate the room and I was loving how it was coming together but I really wanted a desk that was a bit bigger than the one I’d been using when I was working from a corner of the dining room in our old house. I feel like if I’m going to spend so much time in there, I want to be comfortable and have space to spread out as I have two screens, notebooks, whiteboards and all kind of things that I need on a daily basis when I’m working.
We decided to go as large as we could and to custom make our own desk as we were finding that desks that were the size we wanted were fancier than we wanted if that makes sense. I literally just wanted a piece of wood on legs. 😁
So we popped to Ikea to see what they had and we hit the jackpot in the bargain basement (or whatever it’s called now) when we found a huge piece of wood for £15 which I think is actually a dining table top – it was in a damaged box as it was a customer return so we got a bargain for a perfect product.
We brought it home and used the legs and base from my old desk to make our new tabletop into a desk and it’s perfect! It actually doesn’t look that big in the photo but it’s 16ocm x 80cm which is huge compared to what I’m used to.
2) Another office one to share this week…
I love the room as it’s starting to come together and I have a plan for the wall space on the opposite desk as I’m definitely not a minimal person and I really want the wall to be filled with prints and pictures that bring me joy. It’s going to be a gradual process as I want to add to it as and when I see prints that I love and that mean something. This is what it looks like now…
One thing I did want to see back up on the wall was the print I made a few years ago using buttons from my Mam’s button box.
It means a lot to me and it was hung on our dining room wall before we moved until my son somehow managed to miss the dart board and smashed the glass. 😁
Well this week, we found a big pile of 8 photo frames – all the same style but lots of different sizes – for the grand total of £3.50. They were still in their wrappers so it looks like someone has bought them to make a photo wall and then given up before they’ve started which means that we got a bargain bunch of frames to stash in my bureau ready to be filled as I come across things I want on my wall.
The largest was A3 sized which is perfect for my print…
The print itself is a bit battered as I printed it out on paper rather than card over 10 years ago now and glued on the buttons to that but I’m absolutely not going to redo it or try and smarten it up. It is what is and I love it in its new bargain frame. ❤
The other frames are stashed in my bureau ready to be filled with happy prints and photos.
3) Since my operation in March, we’ve pretty much used up our freezer stash of batch cooked meals and I have to say that it’s been fantastic having so many home cooked meals ready to go when I’ve not had the energy to cook. Even on a day when I’ve been in pain and had no energy, I’ve still been able to serve a home cooked meal with minimal effort.
I’ve just checked my notebook from the week before my operation and it says we had:
- Two portions of bolognese
- Two cottage pies
- One mince and onions (with added grated carrots 😁)
- Two portions of pork loins cooked in gravy
- Five portions of pulled chicken
- Three small portions of corned beef hash
- One lasagne
Having these meals ready to go in the freezer has meant that I’ve been able to just throw them in the oven and add some veggies or salad with any extras like Yorkshire puds or dumplings when I’ve been having an off day.
But now it’s pretty much all gone which is great timing as I’m now feeling good and I’m back at work. So, last weekend, I spent some time in the kitchen batch cooking a few meals to start stocking the freezer up again.
I had the slow cooker on all day Saturday, through the night on Saturday and again on Sunday making three different meals that went straight into the freezer so now I’ve replenished my mince and onions, corned beef hash and pulled chicken. They’re all in different portion sizes so I can just pull out what I need when it’s needed.
I also cooked a gammon joint for lunches throughout this week and made a butterbean tikka.
4) When I popped into town last weekend, I found a stall of a local artist selling some brilliant images of some of the iconic sites from our area.
I was drawn to some of the images as the areas they depict genuinely mean something to me and have special memories associated with each place. The problem was that there were four that I really loved but they were between £30 and £40 each which I have no problem with as they’re just brilliant but I couldn’t pay £150 for four prints when we have other priorities at the moment.
Then I spotted a box on his table filled with what looked like smaller versions of the prints and when I looked closer, they were actually A5 sized greetings cards that were 2 for £5.
So rather than buy the full size prints, I bought the four prints I loved for £10 and will make a mini display out of them when I find some frames for them.
5) We cancelled Sky Sports and Sky movies last weekend. 📺
We got them free when we had Sky installed in our new house but that free period ended this week so we decided that we’d not watched them nearly enough to be worth paying for them going forward. We already have Netflix, Disney Plus and Amazon video so if we can’t find something to watch on there then there’s a problem. 😁
We cancelled them via Live Chat with Sky which was a very interesting experience, taking almost an hour to cancel the subscriptions which is ridiculous but it was a nice day so I was sat in the garden while waiting for them to get their act together and stop transferring me from person to person.
There you go, hope you enjoyed seeing what I’ve been getting up to this week in the new house!
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