Frugal Friday

It has been half term all week and Shrove Tuesday and Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year so a busy, happy week with plenty of celebrating without too much expense !

We enjoyed a trip to the cinema for free using the vouchers from the Nielsen shopping survey. The film was sold out the first time we went so I learned how to book online and will do this in future to save wasting petrol. However, whilst we were in the town we discovered that petrol was 3p a litre cheaper than close to home so I filled up the car !

I also enjoyed reading my free copy of " The Countryman" magazine, a free local paper from the supermarket and some free ebooks after I read all the library ones over the weekend and had to wait for the library to re-open on Tuesday to get some new ones !

We have mostly been taking it easy at home as it has been so cold outside, good job there are plenty of free exercise programmes on YouTube and MrShoestring was able to do some training for work online instead of having to travel to a centre in London, saving money on travel and food and saving a lot of his time !

With everyone at home all week the detailed menu plan was very helpful and we even ate leftovers quite a few times so I've got plenty of spare ingredients to carry over into next week. This week we made yoghurt, chapattis, tortillas, blackberry and apple crumble, pumpkin soup, leek and potato soup, vegetable curry, pancakes, jam tart, bread and biscuits. We re-used foil and washed out some plastic bags and decided not to buy a new sandwich toaster as everyone seems to prefer grilled cheese anyway!

With an eye on the arrival of Spring I planted some more lettuce, radishes and strawberries and re-potted the tomatoes which are growing like mad. I also ordered some more seeds and got a bargain with 11 packets costing £8.71 and getting free delivery, so under 80p a packet. We made each other homemade Valentine's cards and made a lovely meal at home to enjoy. We also got the Tesco vouchers in the post this week and I ordered a mindfulness magazine which I can't get via the library and which will come in handy for the counselling course I am doing. Any resources I can get for free are great as the course and the extras that go with it, like books, are quite expensive !

A pretty good week and no unexpected expenses, oh and we really enjoyed the 6 Nations rugby as well as the Olympics !