Frugal Things Post 13 – A cold and quiet chilled week

5 Frugal Things Post 13

How cold has it been this week? I have struggled with it and have not really wanted to go out this week. I’ve done the school run obviously but not a lot else. I have stayed at home in the warm, plugging away at the website. This of course means quite a bit of content for 5 Frugal things post 13!!

So, what have I been doing this week to save money and be more frugal?

Shopping every 2 weeks

Our cupboards are pretty bare and the boys hate it!! I do a big shop every two weeks on a Monday, and that is this Monday coming! The big shop from Aldi will normally cost around £80. We of course need to do a bit of topping up during the 2 weeks with fruit and veg, milk and rice krispies normally. When it gets to now or three to four days before shopping there is no food left and we have been creative with what we eat and use up food from the freezer and left overs. I believe this bit of frugality saves us much money on the food shopping.

Savings Pot with Piggypot

I have written about a fab new app this week where you can save towards very specific goals in pots. Its mega simple to use and set up. You can set up goal pots such as holidays, mobile phones, Christmas maybe and then set up weekly or month transfers into the pots. I love the concept of saving up before you buy rather than buying and paying back afterwards. A concept that I am really trying to get my head around.

Here is my post take a look and why not download the app and give it try.

Listing Items on Facebook and EBay

I have finally made a start on listing my unwanted stuff on Facebook and EBay for sale and I have the coolest post and vlog coming next week to give you my top tips. The wonderful Emma Drew popped over to help out with my clutter and gave me tons of ideas on how to sell stuff, where to sell it and how much money I could make.

I have some designer bags that I no longer use so it makes sense to sell them as they could be worth a bit of money. To test the water (as I am really scared about selling bags that cost £100’s for £1), I have listed a Louis Vuitton wallet on EBay. 10-day listing that started on Thursday night and already it’s up £50 in the bidding. It ends next Sunday 29^th Jan so fingers crossed the bidding goes up and up. I would love to get more than £100 for it. It cost £355 originally so I hope so!

Turning down the heating

I checked my energy bill this week and got a bit of a shock. I know it’s always loads more in the winter than the summer, and the direct debits should even themselves out. However our December bill when we really were home a lot of the time was £100!! Our direct debit is only £66. So, I did a meter reading and registered it to hopefully give accuracy and take the bills down a bit, but action is needed to save some money.

Yesterday I managed to work from home and keep the temperature to 20 degrees rather than the normal 22 degrees that I have been leaving it at. I wore warm clothes and wrapped up in my blankets. It was actually okay. I managed the whole day with the temperature lower. We also need to use the oven less and the hob more and use the tumble dryer less.

Banana pancakes

I had 6 brown bananas in the fridge and did a shout out to my Facebook followers for ideas on what to do with them…the discussion was 40 comments long!! With 4000 people seeing the discussion, obviously, lots of people get brown bananas!! This week I experimented with one of the ideas and made banana pancakes. Mash up on banana to 2 eggs. I fried them and then spread peanut butter on top! They were yummy. My blogger friend Kelly from Reduced Grub then shared a fantastic post with me about food you can freeze (but didn’t know you could) which went live this week. The inspiration being that you can peel and then freeze bananas, perfect for smoothies.

So, there you have it, another frugal week. And actually, a very low spending week. The great thing about not going out and doing very much is that the purse stays shut and you spend very little money. Hurrah.

I’m linking up with Cass, Emma and Becky in this week’s ‘Five Fabulously Frugal things I’ve done this week linky.