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) This week, I’ve given my washing machine a good old clean because it hadn’t had one for a while and cleaning it not only helps it to work better but also prolongs its life which is important as I really don’t want to shell out for a new washing machine until I absolutely have to.
I also spent some one-on-one time with my Shark hoover cleaning the spinny bits at the bottom and all of the filters which was long overdue. I could show you a photo of the amount of hair I got out of the spinny bits but honestly, I’m too embarrassed to share.
I really need to get into a habit of doing these kinds of jobs more consistently as the more care the appliances get, the longer they will last so the longer it will be before I have to spend money on replacing them.
2) I’ve left my Christmas shopping quite late this year as the kids haven’t been great at telling me what they want and I don’t want to just buy ‘stuff’ that they don’t need or want. I’m going to make a start over the next week or so though so I’ve had a quick look at the various different places where I save up points throughout the year that can be redeemed for vouchers in time for my Christmas shopping. This is pretty much what I have saved up…
- £20 Amazon vouchers on Honey.com (find out how to collect points with Honey here)
- £110 Amazon couchers on Swagbucks (find out how to collect points with Swagbucks here)
- £60 vouchers from work which I’ve saved up and can redeem for lots of places as well as Amazon – just waiting to see what Miss Frugal is after before I choose where to redeem them.
- £25 Boots vouchers
- £28 Tesco vouchers (after my treat day out below 😇 )
- £10 Oh My Dosh referral credits (find out how to collect points with Oh my dosh here)
I also have a little cash set aside that I’ve saved using the round-up to the nearest pound and double it using my Starling bank app. Every time I spend, it automatically does this and moves an amount over to a savings account for Christmas.
Seeing it all written down, I’m actually super pleased with what I have!
3) I spent some of my Tesco vouchers on a day out at The Deep in Hull last weekend! It was a lovely day made even more lovely by the fact that I didn’t make have to hand over any money to pay for the day.
Had we paid for the day, it would have cost £63 whereas I just redeemed £20 of my vouchers and paid £3 when we got there to make up the difference.
With a picnic packed from what we already had in, the day was almost completely free. We did buy ice creams in the cafe but they were super reasonably priced and a nice little treat halfway around the aquarium.
4) Poor Monty has had a couple of ear infections over the last six months or so and each time, we take him along to the vet and get charged a small fortune to get him looked at and get the same antibiotics prescribed to clear it up – which they do in no time thankfully.
This time, I asked if we could have the same antibiotics prescribed without an appointment seeing as I could tell it was the same thing and he’d had it more than once in the last six months. The receptionist checked with the vet and agreed that they would do this which meant I only paid for the medication and not the appointment.
I’d never try and save money at the expense of the dogs’ health but I was confident enough that it was the same thing as before so managed to save £21 just by asking the question on the phone.
5) I forgot to share this with you last week but it’s definitely one to share as it saved me some money recently when I switched to Sky from Virgin Media. Actually, it saved my friend some money on their subscription but I also got some compensation following a complaint which covers my Sky bill for a couple of months so definitely worth me telling you about it!
You can read more here but basically, it’s worth a read if you want to pay less for Sky and I’ve shared the direct contact details for the team who helped me.
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