Frugal Friday

This week has been frugal living on autopilot as MasterShoestring was not well and we tried to find out what he had eaten that caused it. Thank goodness he is better now and back at school, so that was a few journeys back and forth that we did not make. I also filled up the car for 114.9p a litre at a cut price fuel day coming back from a job. We never have petrol prices that low in our local area so that was a real saving.

I tried to go looking for food reductions over the Bank Holiday but no luck ! The reduced things were still too expensive compared to regular cheap prices. The free lettuce and rhubarb from the garden have certainly helped with meals this week and we also cut chives and parsley. I made yoghurt, granola, tortillas, re-fried beans, salsa, bread, felafel, muffins and crumble. All much cheaper, healthier and nicer than I could have bought. I kept the food shopping bill down for the big shop at the start of the month to just over £60. With a top-up shop to fill in the gaps I have spent just under £90 for the whole month. There will still be the cost of school lunches and some fresh fruit but I am hoping to meet my goal of having some money spare for topping up food stocks.

I got a lift to the local polling station to vote in the local elections and picked up a free local paper at the same time. Two monthly magazines arrived, both free with Tesco vouchers and I earned a £5 Swagbucks voucher. I also used a Tesco voucher which I had forgotten about to bring down the price of a new sandwich toaster to just £6.

We had a lovely free day out in the bluebell woods for the Monday Bank Holiday and posted birthday presents to USA using stamps I had earned from the Royal Mail Postage Survey. It did mean that the presents had to fit in a large envelope but I don't think the recipients will mind. I also hand delivered some other birthday presents.

We carried on using cloth napkins, eating leftovers and using up what we have rather than buying something new and I enjoyed getting some free e-books for the Kindle including the new one about frugal homemaking by Kate Singh. I'm looking forward to trying out a few new ideas !

I hope that you had a frugal week too !