Leveraging Loose Change

So I took all the loose change I had found when MissShoestring moved out, down to the Coinstar machine yesterday. I was very surprised to be able to get a Tesco voucher for £18.83 ! The machine even counted out of date £1 coins and 50Ps, which saved me a trip to the bank to exchange them.

With the voucher I was able to purchase 6x 550g Pilgrim's Choice mature cheddar cheese which was on special offer at £4.32 a kilogram; 4 packets of special offer ham; a packet of 6 tomatoes and a chocolate bar. I was especially pleased about the cheese, as this is a lovely quality cheddar and the special offer makes it cheaper than the usual cheap cheese. It was also great to effectively get those items for free, as MissShoestring and USAShoestring have been collecting small change for years without doing anything with it !

If you have any small change lying around now might be the time to check it for out of date coins !

Frugal Friday

Although we have done a few, small, frugal things this has also been a week of big, unexpected emergency spending ! To keep things real I shall tell you what we had to spend big money on and how it taught a couple of our children a valuable lesson !

First of all the frugal stuff:- buying lots of snacks for very little money; making soup and putting it in the freezer rather than letting things go to waste in the fridge; getting a £5 Love2Shop voucher from the Royal Mail survey; swapping a birthday present for a gift card; cooking dried chick peas and freezing then to make felafels later; borrowing a free ebook from the library; getting a free whiteboard from MissShoestring's 'getting rid of ' pile and finding lots of change from clearing out her drawers after she'd moved and swapping hot meals for cold ones !

Now to the spending ! First of all the van we helped MissShoestring move in was hit in Central London and since no collision damage waiver was offered when we picked it up we had to pay for the £700 worth of damage that was done ! Ouch ! We were glad that no-one was in the van at the time, that no-one was hurt and that our emergency fund could cover the whole amount ! Then on Monday we discovered that all the plaster work was damaged in MissShoestring's old room. There was a bathroom leak behind the bath and the water seepage caused the damage. We hadn't been able to see what was happening before, as MissShoestring's stuff covered every wall ! MrShoestring discovered the problem but couldn't reach the pipe , which had a hole in it. On Tuesday the plumber came and used a special tool to reach the pipe and replace it at a cost of £192 ! Ouch! It was at this point that MasterShoestring said "I guess this is why you guys have a big emergency fund !" "Yes!", we replied. "That's right !"

Later in the week MissShoestring called with a few DIY problems of her own in her new flat and MasterShoestring told her all about the emergency fund and what a good idea one is and shouldn't she think of having one now she's got her own place ? We were proud of him and then MissShoestring asked her Dad for budgeting advice so she could could build an emergency fund of her own !

The final Ouch ! was buying Prom clothes and some other new clothes for MasterShoestring as he has grown again and nothing fitted when we tried it on. We did manage to bring the cost down a bit with the use of voucher codes and other discounts but the final total was still just over £160 ! However, this bought: a smart shirt, a smart pair of trousers, 5 pairs of underpants, 3 T shirts, 2 pairs of shorts, a complete tuxedo set including a dress shirt, a pair of sunglasses and a cabin baggage roll along case, so that actually seems good value for money !

Phew ! I hope July will be a bit less 'spendy!'

Cold Meals

This week's hot weather has meant that I have had to completely re-jig the menu plan. I was not keen on having to buy anything to add to meals so the original plan was looked out and then changed to make a series of cold meals.

Monday - Enchiladas became hand held burittos which can be eaten cold.

Tuesday - Gabriel potatoes became frittata, also eaten in slices cold. 

Wednesday - Sausages and chips became barbecued sausages and salad

Thursday - Soup and bread became pizza and salad

Friday - Quiche, boiled potatoes and vegetable becomes cold quiche, potato salad and lettuce

However, we are nearly out of ice cream, as that is all anyone has really wanted to snack on !

Anyone else have 'go to' meals for when the weather gets hot ?

Ten Ways to Keep Cool for Free

The great thing about all this sunny weather is that I can do the washing the night before, hang it out and it's dry by lunch time but it can also be a great way to break your budget. Here are 10 ways to keep your cool and some money in your pocket !

1) Open up the house early in the morning and late at night to let the cool air in and the hot air out.

2) Put jugs of water in the fridge to cool down, this is just as refreshing as bought fizzy drinks.

3) Cook early in the morning or late at night for the following day or plan cold meals.

4) Draw the curtains on the sunny side of the house.

5) Wear a wet cloth on your neck.

6) Wear a hat in the sun.

7) Put your feet in a basin of cold water.

8) Walk and exercise early in the morning or late at night.

9) Take a siesta in the middle of the day.

10) Read books set in the Arctic !

Gift Card Surprise

Clearing out over the weekend I found a blue bracelet that I had been given for my birthday and the gift receipt from Marks and Spencer to go with it. I don't wear bracelets as they get in the way when I work, so it was a toss up whether I would exchange it or donate it. At first I thought that I would just donate it, but then I saw on the Marks and Spencer website that I could exchange it at their nearest store, even it was a Food Hall.

We have a Food Hall in our closest town, 5 minutes drive away, unlike the real store which is half an hour's drive away. I figured that the bracelet might be worth £5 so I did not really want to drive an hour's round trip just to exchange it for that much, so I thought that I would try in the Food Hall in town. It was very quiet in the Food Hall because of the weather so although the first person did not know what I was talking about she did direct me to someone who could help.

It turned out I could get a £15 gift card in exchange for the bracelet, so that is exactly what I did and I shall use it to buy a few treats for our holiday. I was so glad that I had taken the trouble to find out Marks and Spencer's exchange policy before I just put the bracelet in the charity box. Now I have had a lovely gift card surprise and am very grateful to the kind relative who always thinks of me on my birthday and is also considerate enough to know that people might want to exchange a gift !

June Challenges 4

After a very busy weekend helping MissShoestring move into her new flat we are all pretty tired and that is always good for 'no spending' !

Last week I bought petrol and eye drops on Monday and then groceries on Friday, Apart from those essentials we did not spend anything, I even made some money as I found a lot of loose change as I was clearing through MissShoestring's things and then some of USAShoestring's things that he still keeps here. So that makes 5 'no spend' days and I think I might go and visit the Coinstar machine and see how much loose change there is ! Quite a bit of the change was from the USA, so that can go with MasterShoestring next week when he flies over to see his brother. I can imagine them using a Coinstar machine over there as lots of the money is 1c and 5c pieces !

MasterShoestring has still done nothing about an outfit from the prom but I did find some old suits belonging to his brother, so if we have to, we can use one of those !!

Finally, the 'eat from the garden' challenge is going well, except we have so much in the freezer, I'm having to think of new ways of serving up the abundance, a nice problem to have !!

I hope you have time to enjoy the lovely weather this week !

Moving on the Cheap

Early this morning we went to collect this van. It cost £84 in hire fees for a 24 hour period. This together with the cost of fish and chips for Mr and Master Shoestring is the sum total of how much it is costing MissShoestring to move into her new flat this weekend. She was quoted over £300 for a firm to do it, so quite a saving !

She also saved on boxes by having us rescue big ones out of the paper and cardboard recycling and she saved on transporting things she did not need by having a radical wardrobe pair down before she went and getting any new pieces of furniture, such as a sofa, delivered direct to the flat.

She has also saved money by re-using stuff USAShoestring left behind when he moved out. If you don't have a couple of strong people at home who only ask to be paid in fish and chips then it is worth putting up a card in your local further education college, church etc. and find people to help that way.

Moving house costs a lot of money anyway, so a bit of a saving is a great help ! An extra bonus was that all the vans we wanted to book were already hired out on Saturday, so she got the whole flat painted yesterday whilst waiting for the van to be available !

We shall miss her, but are so glad that she has been able to get a place of her own so quickly as it will cut down the commute by over an hour !

Snack Food Bargains

In the bargain section of the supermarket yesterday they had these large packets of Hula Hoops for 20p a packet ! That makes each small packet just over 1p each ! I quickly put three packs in my trolley.

Then I noticed they had other snack foods priced at 10p for a multi-pack. So to my Hula Hoop stash I added 3 packs of  6 pack Discos, 1 packet of 8 pack Chipsticks and 3 packs of bacon Wheaties with 6 in a pack. We normally only eat this sort of thing in packed lunches for holiday picnics but my fingers are crossed that some of the 98 packets I bought will still be left when we go away in the middle of July.

This was a great bargain as I got 98 individual packs for a grand total of £1.30, making each pack just over 1p each. I resisted the temptation to clear the shelf and left some for other people as you can have too much of a good thing ! However, MasterShoestring's eyes when I came home made me wonder if I should go back and see if they had any left !

Frugal Friday

Midsummer Friday and what lovely weather we have been having. This has meant a few changes in the menu and a frugal loss when a cheap pineapple we bought went bad before we could eat it !! We did get some more reduced sausages for a barbecue and some yellow stickered pitta breads to go with them !

MissShoestring has been clearing out her room ready for the big move tomorrow and we got an extra £15 towards removal costs by selling some of her old books on Ziffit.

We made pizza for Father's Day rather than going out and everyone said that it tasted much better than a restaurant one ! I also made tortillas, chicken fajitas, bread, felafels, soup and a rhubarb and raspberry crumble. We enjoyed some more strawberries from the garden and the newly planted lettuce has come up, which is good as the older ones are starting to bolt.

Another bonus from MissShoestring's clear out was a couple of cashmere jumpers for me. We took lots of her old stuff to the charity shop too.

This weekend we are moving her into her new flat and plan on having a do it yourself removal, I'll tell you how it all goes in another post !

Enjoy your weekend !

A Normal Family

Henry Normal, poet and script writer has written a memoir with his wife, Angela Pell about living with their son, Johnny, who has autism. It's Johnny and Angela you can see in the photo here.

I work with children and young people on the autistic spectrum and know lots of families, including my own, which are living with this condition. So many of the memoirs written concentrate on people with high-functioning autism but this is the first uplifting one I've read where the condition is severe and the individual affected is not considered 'high-functioning'. For a variety of reasons I'm not keen on the labels 'low' and 'high' but this is the first book I've read which I think accurately reflects family life for the millions of families living across the world with someone on the ASD spectrum.

This is not a miserable book, it has pictures, poems and lots of joy but is also accurate. This is the book that Henry Normal said he would like to have read when they first heard Johnny's diagnosis, do read it if you get the chance, I found it inspiring and based on facts at the same time !

Packed Lunch

One of the nice things about taking a packed lunch every day is that you can choose where to sit to eat it, this rose was my companion yesterday.

I always take the same packed lunch :-

8 ryevita

1oz cheese

1oz butter

1 tomato

This makes for a cheap and tasty midday snack.

MrShoestring has a formula as well:-

1 sandwich

1 muffin

1 piece of fruit

This saves us each around £3 a day compared to buying lunch which is £30 a week or over £900 a year, which almost pays for our annual Summer holiday ! Well worth bringing your own in my book !

Solar Hot Water Boost

As I write this it is a beautiful sunny day outside and I'm waiting for our solar panel hot water booster to heat the water hot enough for a shower at no cost !

We have a photo voltaic system on the roof and when there is excess electricity produced then it diverts the excess energy to heat the water in the hot water tank.

At present the government's feed in tariff presumes that you keep 50% of the energy you produce for your own use but if you are out during the day then you are unlikely to use that much so it all goes into the National Grid but you are only paid for half of it. By using some of the energy produced to heat the hot water we can keep some of the energy and use it when we need it.

Of course, this system means that sometimes it can be hard to get a shower when you want one, as the water is more likely to be hot in the afternoon than the morning. However, really sunny days heat the water to such a temperature that it is still hot in the morning the following day as the hot water tank is well-insulated.

Over the four years that we have had the system we have rarely had to turn on the hot water between April and September and I think we have saved well over the £400 the system has cost us.

If you have the chance to get a solar hot water system fitted and would whole heartedly recommend it !

June Challenges 3

How are you getting on with your June challenges ? 

The first one for us was to eat more out of the garden and we did eat some frozen courgettes, use some frozen pumpkin in muffins and picked lots of lettuce and herbs. I also made a rhubarb and raspberry crumble. We are just waiting for the next lot of strawberries to ripen, but the weekend was not very sunny so that slowed them down.

My second one was to have some 'no-spend' days and I have done well over the past week. I bought petrol on Monday, nothing on Tuesday, nothing on Wednesday, nothing on Thursday, the groceries on Friday, nothing on Saturday and nothing on Sunday, making a total of 5 'no spend' days last week.

The final challenge to spend as little as possible on the 'prom' is still pending, as although MasterShoestring has now finished his exams he is helping his sister to pack up all her stuff ready to move next weekend so he hasn't given a thought to the prom, apart from collecting his ticket. I only hope he isn't going to leave things to the last minute as that can get expensive !!

Happy Father's Day

We have not always celebrated Father's Day but now the children are older they do like to acknowledge the things their Dad does for them, including :-

1) Go to IKEA to carry all the stuff you need to move into your first flat.

2) Put together all that stuff from IKEA

3) Mend broken IKEA stuff

4) Being a removal man

5) Staying up late when you missed your train just to check you got in OK

6) Taking your part when your Mum still thinks that 16 is too young for a mobile phone

7) Still beating them at tennis

8) Catching and releasing all the creepy crawlies

9) Mending bikes

10) Mending cars

Happy Father's Day to MrShoestring and all the other Dads out there !

Whipsnade Tree Cathedral

The Whipsnade Tree Cathedral is owned by the National Trust and admission is free. It is just the right distance from us to make a nice trip out.

The idea of the cathedral came from a soldier in the First World War who wanted to remember his fallen comrades. Mr Blyth worked on the project as long as he could and then his son finished it.

All sorts of species of tree and shrub are laid out in the pattern of a Medieval cathedral to form a living memorial to those who were killed.

In this year of the 100th anniversary of the ending of that war it is quite something to go there, remember all those young men and then look at the memorial which will take around another 100 years to reach it's full potential.

Trees are truly marvellous and what a great free place to visit !

Frugal Friday

Friday already, where do the days go ! Final GCSE exam today, hurrah ! But in amongst all the revision help we have also managed a few frugal things !

I used a £4 off a £30 spend at Tesco for the groceries this week and managed to get everything for £30.65-£4 = £26.65, so I thought that was very good for a whole week's groceries. The shopping was supplemented with strawberries, celery and lettuce from the garden.

We cooked ahead for several busy nights and made granola, yoghurt, soup, bread, rolls, felafel, quiche, gabriel potatoes, chapattis and vegetable curry. the fridge defrosted itself all over the floor one day when I was out, but fortunately we have plenty of old rags to help with the mopping up !

I started a free Level 2 course to complement the counselling one, all about understanding mental health problems. It is very thorough and by using government sponsorship I have saved myself around £400. It is well worth having a look at your local further education college's online course as there are several free ones being offered just now.

MrShoestring picked up a couple of packets of greatly reduced sausages one night when he went out for petrol, they have been out in the freezer for a barbecue at a later date. Perhaps when we have our young home stay student visiting in August. He's only 7 and coming to learn English all the way from Cameroon !

I hope that you had a great, frugal week !

Leaving Unpleasant Comments

I hope nobody saw a very unpleasant comment left after the post yesterday about using excess strawberries. The last time it happened I found it upsetting and appealed for a spirit of harmony and co-operation between all who read. I also said that I never post to make people feel bad and encouraged people who do feel bad to seek help. You do not have to read what I write and I only started writing to help people out the way I like to have help and encouragement on our frugal journey. I don't like swearing and I don't like anonymous hurtful comments, so this comment has now been deleted so it doesn't upset anybody else.

I do understand that people feel overlooked and that the anonymous commenter may feel that no-one cares about their situation. I do care, that's why I try and post helpful, uplifting ideas and why I'll be lighting a candle and saying a prayer for that person who felt bad enough to want to post a nasty comment.

This corner of the internet is very small but I value everyone who reads and hope that that level of respect will be valued and adhered to by all the readers here.

Blessings !

Strawberry Leather

I read the other day that another blogger has a problem with too many strawberries ripening in the garden. This is not a problem we have, as we just eat them, jam them or freeze them. However, if you really do have too many strawberries fruit leather can be a great way of preserving them.

1 1/2 lbs strawberries hulled

3/4 cup sugar

Puree the strawberries and sugar in a blender than put the mixture into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Then simmer on a low heat for between 45 minutes and 1 hour until you have a very thick mixture. Pour out onto a non-stick liner in a baking  tray and bake at 200F for 2 - 3 hours. The result should be just a bit sticky but not sticking to your fingers. Leave on the baking tray to dry in a cool place for 24 hours than roll up on parchment paper and keep to enjoy for up to 1 month.

Delicious !

Celery Regrowth

I don't know if you can remember but I tried to re-grow some celery which we had over Christmas time and eventually had 3 stalks sprout, which were planted out in the poly tunnel. I have been cutting the stalks regularly and you can just make out the remains of one here, in front of the cucumber plant. The picture is all steamy because with the sunny weather inside the poly tunnel is like a tropical rainforest at the moment !

This is the tallest of the stalks we replanted and I might let it carry on growing so that produces free seed to save.

Here is the last of the stalks just before I cut some to use in tonight's vegetable curry ! 

Please excuse the less than clear pictures, but I wanted to prove that you really can regrow celery from the supermarket from the base up and get something useful that you can use !

Free Events at Decathalon

Hop on over to the Decathalon website and search under events to find lots of free sports opportunities over the summer.

Master and MrShoestring have their eye on a kayaking course near us, so it is well worth having a look and booking up for the Summer holidays before all the places are gone !

Art Trail

We are off out today to follow the Art Trail around the town as part of the county art weeks. This is a great idea when all the artists and crafts people in the area open up their studios so that you can see what they are doing, have a peek at their latest work and even buy something if you want to. There are also exhibitions in large public spaces.

This year their are 20 exhibitions and demonstrations of work by local artists and it is possible to walk between all the venues, so we are looking forward to a free day out.

It is well worth having a look in your area to see if something similar is arranged as it is a good chance to see art and craft work which can give you ideas for your own !

Frugal Friday

Busy week again so I'm glad that I cooked ahead earlier in the week ! I made bread, yoghurt, quiche, victoria sandwich cake, pancakes and chips as well !

I got a £10 Swagbucks voucher and used it to order an ebook for my course, the ebook was cheaper than the print copy and meant that I did not have to add any money. We got price reduced bread and sandwich fillings one night at the supermarket and made sandwiches ahead for the freezer so that was lunches sorted !

We have had plenty of salad from the garden and a couple of cut-price herb plants were planted out. I made chicken stock and elderflower cordial for the freezer and also enrolled in a free course from the Skills network ! There were even a few no-spend days this week !

Skills Network

As part of my volunteer work I have just been offered a chance to enrol in a Mental Health Awareness course with the Skills Network for FREE ! This is a proper level 2  certificated course paid for by the government and there are others on offer which look equally as useful. It would normally cost over £300.

Apparently if you look under 'Distance Learning' at various further education websites you can find other similar courses. Mine is with Burton and South Derbyshire College and when I looked at their website:-

https://www.bsdc.ac.uk/explore/course/index/12

I found lots of free distance learning certificated course in social care as long as you are over 19 years old. Well worth looking in to if you want to try out a subject before paying money over for a course at a higher level !

Gabriel Potatoes

These are delicious and very easy to make either in the oven or in the slow cooker.

1lb sliced potatoes

3/4 pint milk

4-6oz grated cheese

2 eggs

Grease a shallow baking pan or the slow cooker and cover the bottom with sliced, uncooked potato, later with cheese and then another layer of potato until all the cheese and potato are gone. Crack the eggs into the 3/4 pint of milk and whisk in. Pour the egg and milk mixture over the layered potatoes and cheese.

Bake at 200C uncovered for 40 minutes or on LOW in the slow cooker for 7-9 hours. This is very tasty the way it is or add some chopped onion and bacon pieces for added flavour.

Enjoy !

Batch Cooking

We are pretty busy for the next few weeks as in addition to all the other things, such as exams and my course, MrShoestring is working full time in London, so no time to see to the odd household chore, such as cooking ! So yesterday I did a lot of batch cooking to make sure that we have something for supper and snacks all the way to Thursday.

I made slow cooker curry and chapattis, a big salad, some bulgur wheat, salsa, refried beans, a big pan of gabriel potatoes, a crumble, some muffins, rolls, felafels and a loaf of bread. Phew ! That should keep us going without having to wait to eat when we get in late.

One problem I have had recently is loaves of bread going mouldy before we can eat them up, so I've resolved that this Summer we're going back to what I used to do in the USA, which was kept the bread wrapped up in the fridge. I don't normally do this as it can go hard quickly, but I'm going to try it to see how it works out, as I've already thrown away 2 almost complete loaves this month !

Do you have any bread keeping tricks ?

June Challenges 1

So our first challenge of eating things from the garden is going quite well, we have had lots of salads and I also found a parsley plant and a rosemary plant for 31p each reduced in Tesco on Saturday night, so they have been planted out to add to the herb garden. I also made a rhubarb, raspberry and strawberry crumble from fruit frozen last year and we had courgettes from the freezer with a meal on Friday.

The 'no spend' days are not going so well. On Friday I spent 29p to order a book with a gift token I had been given for my birthday. I thought it was worth it as the gift token was for £25 so I was able to get a book for my course for only 29p, but it was still spending ! On Saturday we spent £11.26 on marked down food in Tesco, which did give us some tremendous bargains, like the herb plants, but was also still spending ! However, we didn't spend anything yesterday and I won't be spending anything today either, so that means 2 NSDs this month already !

MasterShoestring has said that he can't possibly think about the 'prom' until the exams are over, next Friday, so I won't have to worry about any spending there just now. The savings challenge we will have to monitor as the month goes on but so far it is looking alright, with the transport money eating into it as expected.

How has your month begun ?

Ten Things to do  on a Summer Sunday

It has been beautiful weather here over the weekend and I have not felt like doing anything that felt like work, such as weeding. Instead, I have concentrated on enjoyable things that mean I can enjoy the fact that Summer has arrived ! Here are 10 things to enjoy on a Summer Sunday !

1) Sit in the garden.

2) Have a picnic in the park.

3) Play an outdoor game.

4) Eat a meal al fresco.

5) Meet up with a friend.

6) Go for a walk.

7) Climb a tree.

8) Take a picture.

9) Read a book on a rug.

10) Watch the clouds go by !

Challenges for June

Well our strawberries are not quite ready yet but they are flowering strongly, so I am hopeful of getting quite a few to enjoy if we beat the birds to them ! That will be our first June challenge, making the most of the produce from the garden !

The second will be to see how many 'no spend' days we can have. Mostly we are pretty good about not spending but I need to pay back the savings fund which was raided last month for MasterShoestring's air ticket so that might be a good way of watching what we spend. We will be earning a bit more as MrShoestring has extra work in London but that also means spending more up front on transport, another reason to watch the pennies.

MasterShoestring's exams will finish in the middle of the month but then comes the 'prom'. I've written before about how to keep down the costs for this so I shall endeavour to out them all into practice, but it will probably also mean some unplanned for spending. So the third challenge is to keep the 'prom' spending low.

Fortunately there are no other big expenses in June so I'm hoping that we will also be able to out a few pounds into savings, so I guess that is challenge number 4 !

Have you any challenges for June ?

Frugal Friday

Frugal Friday and the end of the month, so time to reckon up the accounts and see how we did ! As I said at the start of the month this is a more expensive month for us, with 5 weeks shopping to pay for, additional biscuits required for 'exam fuel', four family birthdays and an MOT and service needed for the car. So that meant no savings this month, but this is alright as we did not overspend either. We were even able to pay for an international flight for MasterShoestring to go and see USAShoestring in July, so all the penny pinching was worth it. It was also good to have a fully funded CAR REPAIR fund so when the brake pads and discs needed doing we could just ask them to go ahead. The brake pads have been needing doing since last year, but we wanted to save up and pay for them when we had the money, so it was good to hear that they actually had 1mm of wear left on them and the car did pass the MOT. But with such a small margin of error we knew that now was the time to get them done! So quite a bit of essential spending this month but also a few savings this week.

We got a free Sunday paper and a free evening paper, so that is building up into a good fire lighting stash for the Winter. I also bought cheap dental floss over the internet, much cheaper than the one I usually buy. I need unwaxed floss which is woven specially to get in between very tight teeth and normally I have to buy special floss designed for cleaning behind braces. This new offer gave me 10x as much floss for the same price, so I hope it is good. I also bought cheap, generic hay fever medication for MrShoestring at two and half times less than the named brand and it has exactly the same active ingredient.

We made granola, yoghurt, bread, gabriel potatoes (these turned out so well I'll be sharing the recipe), pizza, birthday cake, soup, breadcrumbs and quiche. We cancelled a trip away when one of us did not feel so well and saved the petrol money and just had a nice day at home instead. I also got a birthday present for free, paying for it with Love2Shop vouchers from the Royal Mail survey. I filled a stamp card from Waterstones which entitles me to a free book, cost up to £10, so I'm saving that for a Christmas present . I picked lots of lettuce out of the garden and got 3 packets of free seeds from our free subscription to 'Kitchen Garden' magazine.

I downloaded a few free ebooks and got the car washed and valeted for free as part of the MOT and service. It was a 'Thank you' for making us wait whilst parts came in, but we didn't mind waiting and the car looks like new now ! We enjoyed a birthday meal at home for much less than the cost of a restaurant meal and enjoyed some lovely weather so we could dine outside !

How was May for your spending goals ?