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) A free cup of hot chocolate tastes better than one that costs £2.50, right?
Not that I’d know about what it tasted like as I didn’t actually drink it myself (thanks Diabetes) but Big A assures me that it was very tasty. 😁
I used the offer from Octoplus (Octopus Energy’s loyalty program) to get a free drink from Greggs this week which we picked up on our way to take our little Beetle to a car show. It was a chilly night and I would have usually taken a little flask of hot chocolate as there’s nowhere on site at this particular venue to buy drinks.
Instead, we used our free voucher to get a hot chocolate and then I bought myself a cup of tea using my loyalty card which took us to what we needed to hit the free drink threshold so next time we go in, we can get a free drink and if we can get another one of these daily offers on Octoplus then we’ll get two free drinks.
I am genuinely impressed with Octopus and I promise I won’t keep sharing this with you but if you want to split £100 with me and sign up for Octopus for your own energy – just use this link and we’ll get £50 each.
Also, read about why I call my partner Big A here – spoiler alert though, it’s pretty boring.
2) Have you hear of Airtime Rewards?
It’s a way to get cashback when you spend in person with lots of different shops with no effort needed from you other than to register your card on the Airtime Rewards app.
I’ve written about Airtime Rewards a few times in the past but basically, it’s a completely free app that you download onto your phone. You can then connect your bank cards which is as simple as just scanning your card or typing in the details – no faffing about with authorising via your bank’s app or anything like that. Once you’ve connected at least one card, you’ll earn some money back from participating retailers when you spend with them using that card. That money then accumulates and can be redeemed to reduce your phone bill.
I’m a huge fan of Airtime Rewards as I have saved money off my phone bill quite a few times but because it’s so easy with no action needed from me other than to make sure my debit card is linked, I forgot to update my new debit card in the app when I got a new one earlier this year.
Normally, I’ll get to £10 every couple of months but when I went to check how much I had this week, my balance was lower than I thought which was when I realised that I hadn’t linked my new debit card so I’ve been missing out on cashback earnings.
I’m all updated now so I’m back on track with my cashback.
Just in case, you want to try Airtime Rewards yourself and get a boost when you start, you can enter my referral code ECBBDBYY when you join and you get 50p just for signing up. You’ll then get another £1 if you spend at one of the shops linked to Airtime Rewards within 7 days. There’s shops like Tesco, B&M, Superdrug, Lastminute.com and Booking.com in addition to so many more places.
I promise that I’m not just trying to get you to sign up for stuff today but I did just want to tell you about this again as it’s at the front of my mind this week.
3) You know how much I love photos and being surrounded by photos and memories at home – it’s good for my soul to see so many happy memories around me.
I have framed photos all around me of our family and it always fills my heart with love when I look at them. 🥰
Like many of us, I have thousands of photos in my phone but my favourites are always printed out and the best ones get framed and displayed. I don’t want to spend a fortune doing this though so I use Snapfish to print out 50 free prints a month. They do 50 of the 6 x 4 prints free every month with just postage to be paid for.
I use Snapfish simply because it was the first company that came up when I did a Google search and they have a super easy app which lets me just upload the photos I want to print out but there are so many other companies that do the same so you can take your pick or you can use more than one a month and print more out if you want to.
I just got my April batch of photos delivered and they made me smile as much as my usual monthly photo delivery does.
Try it – I guarantee your photos will make you smile more printed out than they will sitting in your phone.
4) I am getting good at batch cooking again. 😁
At the moment, in my freezer there is a portion a barbecue beef that is the perfect portion size for the two kids, there’s a potion of mince and potatoes which is ideal for a quick tea for us, some soup and a family sized portion of bolognaise.
None of it has included any extra cooking, it’s all just been cooking extra food when I’ve been cooking anyway or freezing leftovers.
5) My monthly budget has never looked healthier and not because I have a ton of money but because I know that I have the best deal for everything I’m paying and that there is nothing in my budget that is ‘waste’.
It was payday this week and I couldn’t help but be proud of myself when I was able to quickly move money to where it needs to be and then be able to see clearly how much I had left over for the month. It feels good to be this organised no matter how much money is left over after the bills.
I can manage my money better knowing exactly how much I have left over to last me the month.
So, there’s this week’s five frugal things – I hope you’ve all had a happy Frugal week!
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