Five frugal bargains this week

Hey and welcome back to Shoestring Cottage, and my review of my money saving week. I managed to pick up some frugal bargains this week, so I thought I would share those and our frugal doings generally. After my (mostly) no spend February, I still want to do a low spend March, but I have budgeted for certain things that I need.

A day out

We had the most fantastic trip up to Norwich mid week to see the matinee performance of Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. If you haven’t seen it, it really is the most joyful story, with fantastic songs and some excellent performances.

The ticket was my Christmas present from my three daughters. They knew how much I loved it when I watched the film on Prime (you can get a free 30-day trial here *. It’s worth it just to see Jamie! You can cancel before you need to start paying the subscription.)

We thought about getting the train up, but only fleetingly. It would have cost us at least £20 each, so we had to drive. This is annoying, as I would always prefer to go by train. Less stressful and better for the environment. Driving only cost us about half a tank of petrol – around £25 I reckon.

We had intended to get some street food from Norwich Market – there is a lot of variety and it’s generally good quality. In the end, Mr S treated us all to lunch out and we chose the Giggling Squid, which does Thai food. It wasn’t as cheap as something from the market, but it was totally delicious for a rare treat. The platter I chose was only £11, though, which I though was great value.

We also had a mooch around the charity shops and the M&S sale, which brings me onto my bargains!

Sale bargains

The M&S in Norwich is huge! They had several rails of sale items at the front of the store with up to 50% off. As I intended to buy some new loungewear anyway this month, I searched through to see what I could find. 

I was really pleased to find a pair of cornflower blue joggers with a matching sweatshirt. Both were £15 originally, reduced to £8 and £7.50 respectively. I also found a really pretty pink tie dye top reduced from £8.50 to £4.50. Primark prices, but better quality!

Charity shop frugal find

I didn’t buy much in the charity shops, as I didn’t want to lug too many bags around with me. However, I did spot this colourful jumper in my size for £4, the favourite amongst my frugal bargains from Norwich. I couldn’t resist picking it up as I am always layering up at home to avoid putting on the heating.

My daughters all bought a few frugal bargains too. They love a charity shop as much as I do!

A lick of paint

Our downstairs toilet was originally an old larder. With three teenage girls at home when we moved here ten years ago, a separate toilet was essential, as one of them was always hogging the bathroom, so we converted it.

It’s a tiny, uninspiring space and had got a little tatty. The walls are quite uneven too. I decided to use some leftover white and green paint to give it a bit of a lift. There is a little trick I remembered from the 80’s that I thought was worth a try: sponging! Rag-rolling, sponging and stencilling were all the rage back then. The thing with sponging is that it totally disguises an uneven wall and uses very little paint. 

I also invested in some pretty floral hand towels from eBay. They have the look of Cath Kidston without the silly price! I’m pleased with this transformation, especially as it only took a day or so and cost nothing except about £15 for the towels.

Fussy dog, part 52

I seem to be continuously complaining about our fussy cockapoo, Archie. Honestly, he is the best dog – so loving and sweet natured. But he is so flipping fussy and expensive to feed.

This week I decided to encourage him to eat some of his relatively inexpensive kibble by blending it with his more expensive meat.  We give him either chicken or liver usually, being the cheapest options. This time I got a couple of packs of chicken livers, which I cooked and whizzed up in my ancient Kenwood food processor.

He didn’t rush to eat it, as he would if it the liver had been in bigger pieces. However, once he got really hungry he gave it a try, realised it tasted nice and scoffed the lot! I will be repeating this little exercise for sure.

So those are my frugal bargains for this week. It’s been a good week, but because of our trip and my DIY, I haven’t done a lot of work. Off to catch up!

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