A frugal and thrifty week #5frugalthings

Welcome to this week’s five frugal things round up. It certainly has been a frugal and thrifty week.

As we approach the expensive festive season, I have been watching the pennies carefully and trying to save money wherever possible. This means tracking our expenses carefully so I know what is going out.

Sticking to the grocery budget

One of my November goals was to stick to a £60 per week budget for our groceries, toiletries and cleaning products. I have been through our receipts and bank statement to review spending so far (and made sure I didn’t forget the little £5 spends here and there when we have run out of milk or had the urge for chocolate)!

So far I have spent just £92 on groceries for two weeks. This included some things for Christmas and also some items for my reverse advent food bank collection. I think I have actually only spent around £40 a week, which is great!

I am going to keep our basic shop at a frugal and thrifty £40 from now until the end of the year, although I will spend extra on Christmas food inevitably.

Here’s how the food bank collection is looking now. I added toiletries, tinned fish and tomatoes this week.

Another goal achieved

Again in my November goals post I said I wanted to clear and clean the greenhouse ready for winter. We had a sunny day last weekend so both got out into the garden to make the most of the fine weather.

Mr S mowed the lawns, cut stuff back and dug over some of the flower beds whilst I was busy sorting the greenhouse. He got to do the heavy stuff whilst I cleaned the snail poo off the greenhouse glass…

I found some more chillies ready to eat. We grew some nice yellow ones, which aren’t hot at all and are more like mini sweet peppers. We have been using them up with a couple of lovely red peppers I got from Lidl for 25p each.

Now the greenhouse is ready for the spring, when we will be able to grow more food for our frugal and thrifty lifestyle.

Walking more

As I said on Instagram yesterday, I keep meaning to walk more. This is to save money, to get some fresh air and exercise and, most importantly, to reduce my carbon footprint.

I have got into the habit of whizzing to the local shops or the post office in the car, when it would take 10 minutes to walk there. It makes me feel so much better to get outside so I plan to do this as much as possible in future.

Cut the wrap

Zoe from Ecothrifty recently started a campaign to encourage people to stop using single use wrapping paper this Christmas. Some of it isn’t even recyclable, especially the shiny foil or tinsel coated stuff.

For the past couple of years I have bought cheap plain recycled parcel paper and tied it with a bit of coloured twine. I actually think presents like this look quite striking and attractive.

However, I like the idea of reusable wrapping, so have been looking out for suitable fabric. I found this duvet cover and pillow case in the charity shop for a couple of quid, so I grabbed it. It will be perfect for wrapping.

If you want to sign up to Zoe’s campaign and receive newsletters with more information about how to do it, have a look here.

We do have a box of gift bags that have been collected up over the years, so they will be reused too. I would never buy a new one, though!

Off to the jumble

I went to a jumble sale with my eldest daughter last weekend. It was brilliant as everything was so ridiculously cheap! Shoes were 50p a pair, clothing was 25p and most of the bric-a-brac was no more than £1.

The scouts organise this jumble sale once a month, so we shall go again. They told us they have an arrangement with a local charity shop, which sells them excess stock at the same price they would give the rag man. This is a win-win. They scouts can raise funds, the charity shop doesn’t have to store it for long and the clothing gets reused.

I absolutely love a jumble sale and I am glad they seem to be making a come back.

So that was my thrifty and frugal week. How has yours been?

As ever, I’m linking up with this Cass, Emma and Becky in this week’s ‘Frugal Friday’ linky.