Frugal Friday

So this week we have been striving to keep costs down but with a very busy couple of days it was more a case of looking for the cheapest petrol price rather than staying home to stop burning petrol all together.

Sunday we  tried out a new dish with some leftover wine which I had frozen since Christmas time. It was the end of a bottle which people normally pour away but I thought that it might add a bit of flavour to something. We tried it out in a chicken dish a bit like Coq Au Vin. MasterShoestring thought it was delicious, MrShoestring did not like the wine taste and MissShoestring said it was 'alright' code for I don't like it but you'll be offended if I say so ! So I shall not be making it again, however, it did use up some of the wine !!

Monday we saw that the building site had left out more pallets to be used as firewood. We only took a few of the more broken ones as the rest were too big to fit in the car. We had discussed getting a trailer but that meets a tow ball on the car etc so in the end would be more expensive than the savings in wood. So we shall just enjoy the scrap pieces of wood we can collect.

Tuesday I found the cheapest petrol station to fill up the car to drive into North London for some voluntary work, I do prefer the train but this place is nowhere near a station. The cost was £116.9 per litre of unleaded as opposed to £121.9 from the petrol station on the main route. This is a saving of 5p a litre and on a full tank saves me 35p.

Wednesday I made my own bouquet using only a few flowers that I had to buy and signed us up to get a Smartmeter fitted for gas and electricity. We have had one before for the electricity but never for gas and are hoping that it will mean we no longer leave the hot water on by accident !

Thursday I saw 3 pupils for tutoring, so that is  bit extra in the savings coffers and used a Swagbucks gift card to order a book for my course for free. Swagbucks have a good promotion on just now where you can get £5 gift cards for 200 fewer points than normal. So I'm trying to get as many as I can before the offer closes.

Today I ordered a book for MasterShoestring using a gift token, making the cost nothing. I have made a batch of granola and yoghurt and have left the supper ready as I'm going to be out again tonight !

I'm looking forward to a quieter week next week when I can do some more serious penny-pinching !