Frugal Friday

Another Friday and a week of small savings but good ones ! I planned out all the meals for this month and the shopping. I split it into two sections, one for whilst we are home and then a menu plan and a shopping list for when we are away. I did most of the shopping in Aldi and a bit in Tesco. I'll go to Aldi again before we go away, whereas I normally only go once a month. We're planning on taking most of our food with us as that should ensure that we stick to the budget, I've allowed just a bit for ice creams and fresh stuff and hope that it will be enough. So far I've only spent £72.71 ! A big saving was £10 for 10 litres of sunflower oil in Tesco and I also picked up a copy of their free magazine. The only slightly disappointing thing about not shopping much in Tesco now is that my vouchers were only for £4.50 this quarter.

The garden is still producing well but not quite so copiously in the wet weather . We managed to harvest courgettes, a cucumber, blackberries and potatoes. We planted more lettuce and I made bread, tortillas, stuffing and cake.

I gave MrShoestring a home haircut and downloaded some free Kindle books, including one on how to live for free. The book is by the founder of the website LatestFreeStuff and although I don't find the website so good, the book contained details of a few swapping sites, including one for garden vegetables which I might try.

I got a £5 Amazon voucher from Swagbucks so used it to get a copy of Marlene Stevens new book on Homemade Gifts. It is really good and has lots of good ideas I could definitely try out, a great buy ! I used a comparison website to see if I could find a cheaper home insurance price and then when I found it was with the same company we were with already I called them and asked if they could match the online price. They were very polite and even managed to knock off 2p more. So now we have home insurance at £11 cheaper than last year.

The final frugal thing is not a saving but an earning, the feed-in tariff payment for the solar panels was calculated and that worked out at just over £211. When it comes in I'm going to use it to buy second-hand copies of the books I need for next year's course. If I buy now the prices tend to be lower as last year's students get rid of their books. If I wait until I need them, the prices are often higher.

I hope you had a frugal week too !