1) What do you do with your spare change?

Mr Frugal empties out his wallet every night when he gets home from work and transfers his change (20p and below) into this vase on the kitchen windowsill.  It’s never going to make us rich but all those small coins add up to a reasonable amount over time.  We usually change it in a Coinstar machine (I know 8p per pound charge but so much easier than counting it, bagging it and taking it into town) and use the amount towards our shopping.  When we get home, if we remember, we’ll then transfer that amount to our little savings account.

Speaking of savings accounts, this week we’ve downloaded a new app that we’re hoping is going to help us with our savings goals but I’ll tell you all about that in a couple of weeks if it works for us.  With the new Open Banking regulations, there are so many new ways to manage your money out there at the moment so I’ve been trying a few of them out lately.  I’ll share the ones I like with you over the next couple of months but I want to see if they really are as good as they say they are before I do so bear with me.

2) Shall we talk about bulk buying?  In the past, I haven’t done the bulk buying thing too much for a couple of reasons – storage being the main one but also because, in my head, I don’t like paying out a big amount even though I know it works out better in the long run.  Silly, I know but I’m getting better.   This week, I ordered this:

When I say this, I actually mean 6 packs which will mean I have 54 toilet rolls in the house for the grand total of £16 something – around 32p per toilet roll.  I could probably get own brand for that sort of price when I do my shopping but I’d have a mutiny on my hands if the toilet roll was anything other than super soft.

3)  Did you see my recent puppy trauma where Monty escaped from his playpen and decided to use Miss Frugal’s bedroom as a chew toy?

He also pulled up all of the underlay and there was no way the carpet could be salvaged.  We shopped around and got what we thought was a good deal for the carpet and got a quote for the fitting from the shop too which seemed reasonable but decided to ask for a few recommendations on Facebook and we were recommended a great guy who has quoted us less for the fitting and has a contact where he can get the same carpet for around 10% less.

Look how pretty it looks too:

4) The carpet we chose was one of those carpets with a deep pile – you know the kind that your feet sink into when you’re wearing them?  That’s was brilliant thanks to the great deal we got but it did mean that the door barely opened and closed over the new carpet.  The carpet fitter told us he knew someone who would take the door off and plane some off the bottom for us for £15 but we decided to borrow a planer from a friend and have a go ourselves.  It’s not the easiest thing we’ve ever done but we managed in the end and Miss Frugal can now open and close her door without breaking a sweat!

5) I didn’t buy a new handbag!  I’m aware that this might seem like a no-brainer for someone who writes a blog about frugality but I do have a thing for handbags and I was sorely tempted this week when Mr Frugal tried to break our no spending money on Valentines Day presents by telling me to treat myself to a new bag.  I spend a good half an hour browsing my favourite second-hand designer websites Vestiaire and HEWI (Stands for Hardly Ever Worn It) before I realised what I was doing and shut my laptop before I could buy one.

It did remind me that I got a referral code for you guys ages ago which gives you £15 off £100 spend on Vestiaire.  I didn’t share it at the time because designer purchases aren’t part of frugal living and I didn’t want you to think I was encouraging spending on wasteful things.  I’ve had a think though and seeing as I believe that being frugal is as much about getting a good deal on something as it is about scrimping and saving so I thought I’d just leave it here and if you ever plan on making a designer purchase then just know that second hand is just as good and you can get a discount using this link.

As usual, we’ve been having some really good discussions this week over in our Live Well, Spend Less Facebook group.  We’d love to welcome you to our little community if you fancy popping in.

Come over and join us!

As always, we’d love you to join in with us by sharing what frugal and thrifty things you’ve been up to this week – whether it’s an Instagram picture (#5frugalthings), a blog post or even a video.  Just add your link to the linky at the bottom of this post.

You don’t have to share five things you’ve done, anything thrifty or frugal that you’ve been doing is perfect.

You’re more than welcome to copy and paste the badge above but it would be even better if you could let your readers know that you’re linking up with us by adding a little line to the bottom of your post like this one:

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

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The post Five Frugal Things I’ve done this week {16th February 2018}…. appeared first on The Diary of a Frugal Family.