5 Frugal Things post 20
I’ve had a lovely busy weekend which actually started on Friday where I took the day off and headed over to Essex to spend the afternoon with my uni best mate Gem. It was her 40th birthday celebration on Friday night. Saturday night was back in Knebworth for a charity school ball. I’m a tad late in posting my 5 frugal things post 20 but have lots of pics to share from 2 big nights out.
Free Train tickets
I booked my train ticket from Knebworth to Chelmsford on Wednesday to pick up from the machine at the station rather than buying on the day. Prior planning with tickets pays. The return ticket was £39.50 and I used £20 worth of clubcard vouchers to get £40 of spend at Red Spotted hanky so saved myself the £39.50 train fair.
Sensible Drinking on Friday night
I’m not sure if this counts as frugality, definitely not sensible but I am going with it! The entertainment on Friday night was dinner and a disco and dinner included drinks until 10:45. So we made sure we drank more than enough of our allocation, the butlers (in the buff!) were more tham happy to bring us one last bottle at 10:40. I didn’t actually buy another drink that night, so it really was a night that just cost the price of the ticket.
Dress purchase for my 40th birthday
In 3 weeks time its my 40th birthday party and of course I have to get a new dress for it. On Wednesday my personal shopper (Jack) and I hit John Lewis and looked at every single dress in the shop. The theme for my party is Hollywood glamour so only certain dresses are going to work. Every dress I looked at was either not right or Ted Baker/Karen Millen and costing £250!! In the past I would have just bought the £250 dress, but not this time. After 6 months of saving and frugality I had to look for something cheaper.
The last brand I looked at was Phase 8 and found 4 dresses, hurrah, to try on. The perfect dress was found and it came in at £130. Its a really pretty pale pink knee length almost 50’s glamour dress that can be worn for plenty of other occasions. So I’m really happy and relieved to have found my birthday dress. Its frugal for me as in the past I would have spent double!
Colouring my hair myself
Unbelievably I only just started colouring my own hair around 6 months ago. I never trusted that I would be able to do it properly so never attempted it. And a colour and cut used to cost me £80. Last week I bought a £5 box of Garnier hair colour and got rid of my greys. It actually looks okay..am happy and it only cost me £5.
Chocolate cake
Last weekend we did some experimentation with baking. I am working on a new idea for a cake creation using Aldi ingredients so Josh and I tried out a cake as a potential for the project last Sunday. We had all the ingredients already in the store cupboard and it satisfied our chocolate craving over the weekend. Recipe and post coming soon. I love it when you make something really special, particularly with chocolate involved when you have the ingredients already.
I’m linking up with Cass, Emma and Becky in this week’s ‘Five Fabulously Frugal things I’ve done this week linky.
5 Responses
You often hear of how train tickets can be extortionately priced so it certainly does work well to plan in advance.
The train tickets tip is gold! I love it when you can get a bargain like that 🙂
Tis a good one. I sort of hate paying for train travel as well!
Oooh I can’t wait to see your new dress – sometimes you need to treat yourself and a birthday is definitely one of those times x
Agree, there is deffo a time to treat yourself. Cant wait to share birthday pics.