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.
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1) Right, earlier this week I shared my Mexican Style Mince recipe which I used to make a pasta bake and some Instant Pot enchiladas. What I didn’t share in the post was the way I also upgraded some almost stale ciabatta bread when i was cooking the last batch.
All I did was slice the ciabatta and layer it on top of the mince mix as it bubbled away in the pan so it soaked up lots of the spicy tomato-ey goodness. I knew they’d be a bit squidgy at this point so my plan was to then bake them in the oven with some grated cheese on the top to almost dry them out a little bit but as I scooped them out of the mix, we had a sneaky try and they were so nice that we just had them as they were.
An amazing way to use up half a loaf of ciabatta instead of wasting it!
2) Still on the subject of my Mexican Style Mince. 😂
I made it into a pasta bake by stirring some pasta in and topping with a mix of parmesan cheese, breadcrumbs and olive oil.
The breadcrumbs in the mix were from my freezer where I have a bag that I add breadcrumbs too whenever I make them which is often lately for some reason as we never make it through a loaf of bread. I just use my mini food blender on bread that’s just past it’s best and make breadcrumbs to pop in the freezer bag. We use them for toppings like this, for homemade fishcakes and corned beef bakes mainly but it’s fab to have a stock of them in the freezer.
3) This one is a vague one but… there’s something I wanted to buy a certain 15-year-old for Christmas but I missed the boat on the pre-orders and by the time I was aware there was even a chance to pre-order then I was one of many who missed out. I tried everywhere on a daily basis but all I could find was people re-selling for a huge premium on the actual price.
So, I signed up for the stock updates on Amazon, applied all the gift cards that I’ve been collecting throughout the year and made sure that the payment card in there was the one linked to my Christmas account as I there was a small amount of difference in the amount I had in vouchers and the amount of the ‘thing’ I wanted. Then I made sure that I had my notifications turned on so I was ready to strike if and when the item became available.
The first time I got the email to say there was stock in was a let-down as I was on there within a minute of getting the email but the only one available was selling for more than double the price it should have been. The second time, I was on five minutes after the email and they were sold out again but the third time, I managed to get there in time and managed to buy what I wanted for the actual retail price using mostly vouchers that I’ve been saving up. I’m so pleased because even though I know that they’ll probably come in stock again before Christmas, I didn’t want to worry about whether I’d get one and I also really wanted to get one from Amazon as I had the vouchers to use.
4) Monty and Buddy have had another lockdown haircut which saves a fortune on groomers and actually, I feel like I’m getting the hang of it now so they don’t need to hide their little faces in embarrassment when we take them out!
Just look at how cute my little guys are right now!
5) Something I bought the other day came in a great little see-through plastic packet with a little zip at the top…
It’s perfect for my hand luggage when we’re finally able to travel again and will save me scrabbling to put everything into one of those bags that you can buy at the airport for £1. Not a huge saving but it’s more sustainable and will help me be organised before we travel so I’ve popped it in my travel bag in the garage so when future me gets that out to pack, I’ll find this and be please with past me.
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As always, we’d love you to join in with us by sharing anything you’ve done that’s been thrifty or frugal from your week – whether it’s an Instagram picture (#5frugalthings), a blog post or even a video. Just add your link to the Frugal Friday linky at the bottom of this post.
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I’m linking up with this Cass, Emma and Becky in this week’s ‘Frugal Friday’ linky.
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