This week it has been easy to embrace frugal living and I have found loads of second hand bargains.
As you probably know if you are a regular reader, I am on a challenge to buy only used items during 2021. This isn’t difficult generally, but sometimes if there is something very specific you need it can take a while to source. I have been lucky this week and found a few things I had been on the lookout for.
1# Village sale trail
We had an absolutely brilliant day on Bank Holiday Monday, at a sale trail in the village where Mr Shoestring’s mum lives. I knew there would be plenty of car boot sales on, but I have been so disappointed with those I have been to this year. In the end, we decided to save our pennies for the village sale and I was so glad we did.
There were a lot of homes taking part and none of them were selling any rubbish. It all seemed excellent quality, with very little junk in evidence.
Three things that I have been looking out for on Facebook Marketplace and elsewhere appeared at the very first house we visited. I found a great quality garden fork and spade, some deckchairs and some beautiful pots, all from the same people. My daughter beat me to a fire pit from the same place, which was only £5 and an absolute bargain.
We also found a lady selling brand new toiletries and perfumes for between 20 and 50p, a nice canvas for the hallway, two Harry Potter first edition hard backs, a very 80s looking boiler suit, a pair of UGG boots, some nice bric-a-brac for the kitchen and a cake stand.
I spent about £45, but reckon the garden fork and spade alone would have cost me that new.
It was a beautiful day, and lovely to have a reason to walk around such a pretty village chatting to the occupants, rather than just driving through as usual. It’s easy to embrace frugal living when you can make an entertainment of it!
I showed some of my second hand haul on my YouTube channel here. Come on over and have a look, and don’t forget to subscribe!
2# New to us gazebo
My parents gave us a gazebo a couple of years ago, but it has languished in the shed since. It isn’t a pop up one, and we just hadn’t got around to working out how to put it up!
As summer has finally arrived and the weather is lovely and warm, Mr S decided to assemble it. It has been great this week, and we are going to keep it up all summer so that we can have visitors outside as much as possible.
It has been so lovely to have the extra shade and Archie has loved lying under it. Not bad for a freebie.
3# Batch cooking
I spontaneously bought loads of meat whilst I was in Aldi this week, with a view to doing some batch cooking for the freezer. It meant that I could buy bigger packs of everything, which works out cheaper than the smaller packs. I bought sausages, stewing beef, cod fillets and chicken thighs.
It meant that my grocery bill was a bit higher than I expected, but as I will be cooking double or treble of about four of our meals this week it should make the next few weeks a bit cheaper.
I also bought a huge pack of mushrooms which had been reduced by 30%, so they were only 98p. They will be useful in my batch cooking too.
I will be publishing my Aldi haul next week on my YouTube channel.
4# Cheaper pets
Even if you do your best to embrace frugal living, when it comes to pets I have to admit they just aren’t cheap. There is the pet insurance, the regular flea and worm treatments, the annual vaccinations and the food. In Archie’s case, there is also the damage he has done with all the chewing, such as my sandals that he ate this week….
Nevertheless, we try to save money where we can. Because he has started chewing again, I have been buying loads of chews and they can be expensive. I found that Wilkinson’s is one of the best places for these, after Poundland (although they don’t always have much of a choice).
This week I found two huge packs of them as they were two for £8, on special offer. These should keep him going for a while, and hopefully divert him from chewing my shoes!
5# £5 off your loo roll
I continue to buy my loo roll from Who Gives a Crap. Not only do the rolls come wrapped in pretty paper, they are 100% recycled, work out cheaper than the branded stuff and 50% of their profits go to build toilets in developing countries.
It was a godsend during the initial phase of the pandemic, when toilet paper suddenly became scarce as people started panic buying. We didn’t have to worry as we knew it would be delivered once every few months before we ran out.
We had a delivery this week, which I stash in an old laundry basket to get it out of the way (that is the one down side of buying your toilet paper in bulk!). If you fancy giving it a try and want £5 off, my referral code is here (I will also receive £5 off my next order if you use it).
So that’s my week, trying to save money where I can. Do you embrace frugal living to save money and live more sustainably?
I’m linking up with this Cass, Emma and Becky in this week’s ‘Frugal Friday’ linky.
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