Five Frugal Things we did this week {15th November 2025}….

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!

I don’t know about you but I always find November to be one of those months where my spending can really creep up without me realising – I start to rely on the heating more as the weather turns, there’s more pressure to spend with Black Friday and Cyber Monday and Christmas is approaching ridiculously quickly. 

That all means that I’m trying to be really conscious and intentional about everything that we spend this month – even more so than usual!  

1) Last weekend was a no-spend weekend for us. 

We chose a weekend where it was just the two of us and it worked out well for us as my partner was on nights Friday and Saturday night so there was less opportunity to want to spend if that makes sense.  On Saturday, he was in bed until lunchtime after his Friday night shift and then out again for his Saturday nightshift just after five. Then Sunday he was in bed again until lunchtime on the Sunday.

While he was sleeping, I did a little bit of batch cooking but mostly just watched TV if I’m honest as I’m still not very well so lazy time was welcomed. 😁

Saturday afternoon, we had a drive to the local garden centre to have a wander and I really enjoyed looking at the Christmas decorations and having our free monthly drink in the cafe there as members of their membership scheme. Does that make us old haha?

We went home and did a few jobs around the house and made a bit of a to do list for jobs that we wanted to do over the coming week as we have loads on at the moment and lots that we want to do. I say we, but I’m still not feeling great so my role is more supervisory at this point!

When he woke up on Sunday, we jumped in the car and drove over to Whitby for a wander. 

I made a flask of hot chocolate to take with us which I wouldn’t usually do but on principal, it was a no spend weekend so I wanted to keep it that way. 

2) On Monday, I spotted these big trays of tomatoes at the farm shop and since I’m off work and not doing very much at all, I thought I’d buy a tray and have a go at making tomato soup. 

Bearing in mind the last time I tried to make homemade tomato soup, I tried in the soup maker and it clicked off half way through with a warning message of ‘BURN’ flashing at me. I haven’t tried again since despite me being a soup-a-holic who loves having a batch of homemade soup in the freezer at all times! 

I chopped them all up (in four batches) and roasted them with onion, garlic and chilli and then turned them into soup. 😁

It tasted amazing and I now have a freezer full of homemade tomato sauce right now.

3) I’ve been sucked into doom scrolling on TikTok a few times this week while I’ve been at home and I seem to have a feed filled with batch cooking and cooking from scratch, people up-cycling furniture and second hand shopping which I’m not mad about. 😁

I have seen so many people baking bread this week that I thought I’d try my own as it’s been ages since I made bread and even longer since I baked it by hand rather than using the bread maker which I believe is still gathering dust in my old house on top of the fridge freezer! 

I used my usual bread recipe but substituted wholemeal flour and I shaped the dough into what I thought was going to give me subway style bread rolls but they actually turned out a bit of an odd shape that didn’t in any way resemble what I was after. 

They were still perfect for my partners packed lunches and he says that he loves them although he could just be being nice.

I actually really enjoyed making them so I think homemade bread is going to be a regular feature. 

4) I popped some potatoes in the oven for tea on Thursday and then went to bed for a nap as I was a bit wiped out thanks to some medication that I’m taking right now. That meant I didn’t end up eating my potato so I used it up the following day in a quiche with half a pack of bacon that I had left in the fridge to use up, some grated cheese and a million of the eggs that I bought from the farm shop.

A million eggs may be an exaggeration, but only a slight one! I forgot how many eggs this particular quiche dish uses up and ended up using 10 eggs for this quiche. 😁

It was lovely although I overcooked it very slightly so the edges of the quiche were a little bit rubbery so it wasn’t as big a success as it could have been. 

5) I switched energy tariff this week and saved £5 a month on my Direct Debit which I know is a small amount but when the trend is that bills are going up, I think that’s an OK saving.  I stayed with the same supplier (Octopus) as I’m pleased with the service I get from them overall.

I got an email from them to tell me that my tariff was coming to an end and I just went online, looked at what they had available for me and switched in less than five minutes from opening the email to switching tariff so a worthwhile few minutes spent there. 

Hope you’ve all had a great money saving week!

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