Five little things that have saved us money this week {29th May 2026}….

Every week I share five small things we’ve done to save a bit of money, make life easier or help us spend more intentionally.

None of them are usually huge on their own, but that’s kind of the point. Those small choices add up over time and give us more room for the things that really matter — whether that’s days out, holidays, home projects, treats we’ll actually enjoy or just a bit more breathing space in the budget.

Hey! 

1) Last weekend, we rescued the old water feature in our garden and I genuinely can’t believe we managed to get it working again. 😂

We think it’s probably about thirty years old and when we lifted the lid up, the original pump was completely submerged under years of murky water and general garden gunk. It took a lot of cleaning up and persuasion to get it going again and even now it’s definitely more gentle trickle than dramatic fountain, but honestly, we love it.

We wanted some slate chippings to finish off the top so we popped to B&Q and managed to spot three reduced bags for £3 each because the original packaging had split and they’d been repackaged into plain bags. Exactly the kind of bargain that makes me disproportionately happy. 😁

We only used one bag so ended up using the rest of the bargain bags elsewhere in the garden and it’s made a huge difference to the look of the house. I’m over the moon!

2) I’m lucky enough to have a job where I can work from home most of the time, although I do go into the office twice a week which I genuinely enjoy because I’m definitely a people person and I miss being around people if I’m at home too much. 😁

My first few days back at work a couple of weeks ago were basically filled with hugs, catch-ups and lots of “come and have a cuppa” invitations which was lovely, but I also quickly realised that I’d fallen straight back into the habit of buying cans of Pepsi Max from the vending machine without even thinking about it.

The problem is that one can turns into another and before you know it, you’ve spent far more than you realised over the course of a week on drinks that I could easily take in myself.

So I’ve started taking the giant Stanley cup that the kids bought me back into work every day filled with ice cold diluted juice instead of me buying cans which is saving me money and helping me drink more water at the same time. 😂 And it was so hot this week that I drank the whole thing and refilled it again while I was at work and drank some more. 

3) I had a bit of a spring clean in our utility room this week as we’ve just had the ceiling plastered in there which meant it was VERY dusty.  We kept the dust confined to the one room and the mess in there was incredible and I was itching to get in there and start cleaning when the plasterers left. 

I used a batch of my homemade orange peel cleaner in there as it felt like the kind of scent that I wanted to use in a utility room and also, I knew I would need a LOT of cleaner in there and I wanted something more natural which had the added benefit of costing less – especially as I used the unused orange segments along with some mint from my rebellious mint plant from the garden to make infused orange and mint water which is one of my favourite Summer drinks. 

4) Talking about our utility room, we knew pretty much as soon as we moved in that the roof in there needed replacing, so that was one of the first jobs we tackled. We shopped around for quotes for it and I know you’re supposed to go for the mid-range quote but we actually went for the cheapest because we really liked the young guy who came out to give us a quote. He was so friendly and when I asked if I could borrow his ladders as there was a mark on the outside of a window we couldn’t get to easily, he took my cloth and went and cleaned it for me. I was a fan from that moment even before his quote came through.

When we saw his price compared to the others, we did have a wobble as it was substantially cheaper so we checked out his reviews online and made the decision to take a risk and give him a chance.

When he came round to do the job, he couldn’t stop laughing because apparently the previous owner had built parts of the roof using a garden gate, a fence panel and an old door. He’d basically just used whatever bits of wood he could find at the time.

I feel like he had a “that’ll do” approach to DIY. 😂

So the roof was done and we booked in our plasterer for earlier this week. He always gives us a good price as he knows my partner will always help him with advice on his van if ever he needs it so we

Now that the ceiling has been plastered, we’re at the stage where we can start thinking about giving the whole room a proper clean and refresh and actually turn it into an actual utility room rather than a big room where the washing machine and drier live if that makes sense. 

The walls are painted brick and we did briefly consider having the whole room plastered while we were getting the ceiling done, but the more we thought about it, the more we realised we actually quite like the slightly rustic look in there. We’ve got an old Belfast sink and stand in there too which definitely needs a bit of TLC at some point, but the random walls and old old sink just seem to work together.  

Choosing the roofer we did who’s trying to build up his business to fix the roof saved us about £300 and painting the walls as they are rather than plastering throughout means that we’ve saved about another £600+. 

5) I planned this week’s meals last Sunday (did you see my Sunday reset post?) while sitting out in the garden and I tried to choose some meals that we haven’t had in a while. 

Now that I’m feeling better and back at work, I’m trying to get a handle on the rest of my life again and meal planning again is one of the things on my ‘must do better’ list. 

I also did an online shop because it was way too hot to spend time in a supermarket last weekend and I used a 20% off voucher that Ocado sent me so it was a good bit cheaper too – always a bonus.

There you go, hope you enjoyed seeing what I’ve been getting up to this week!

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