It has been a while since I took part in this ‘Five Fabulously Frugal things I’ve done this week’ linky. However, the thrift and frugality continues! For those of you who don’t know, every now and again I team up with some other bloggers to share our five frugal achievements for the week. I have been looking at ways to save and make money. 2.I’m linking up with this Cass, Emma and Becky .
1. Selling our old clothes
I have finally started listing two huge bags of clothes that have been sitting around for several weeks. It has gone rather quiet on the eBay sales so I haven’t felt motivated, but I need to get it all out of the way. As Christmas approaches, I am looking even more closely at ways to save and make money. I am also having a good declutter. An awful lot has been going to the charity shop, but I will sell the better items. How about you?
2. Ziffit
As well as selling my old clothes, I am having a clear out of loads of DVDs that nobody ever watches, plus some books, via Ziffit.com. We are going to redecorate the sitting room in the new year and we don’t need any excess clutter.
If you have never used Ziffit, it is really easy. You just input the barcode of the item you want to sell and Ziffit gives you a value. I am maximising this by going via Top Cashback, which is currently paying 10.5% commission*.
The downside of Ziffit is that they don’t want items that are quite common. This means that you might input a lot of bar codes but have quite a few rejected. You also need to be sure they are in great condition or they won’t pay you plus their terms and conditions say they do not need to return the rejected items.
I was frustrated at how few of my DVDs were accepted but pleasantly surprised at the price offered for some old books. £5.49 for one of them!
3. Freebies
My latest freebie from the Savvy Circle is some Olay moisturiser. It is actually rather nice. I usually use a mega cheap pot from Aldi. This does the job of keeping my skin moisturised perfectly well and is a steal at £1.99. However, I have to admit the Olay one smells nicer.
If you want to take part in the Savvy Circle and try new products for free you can sign up here.
4. Black Friday
I don’t often join the mad scramble for bargains on Black Friday. I am sure it is all a huge marketing ploy to make us all spend more. However, I really want a new laptop. I have an old one that used to belong to my daughter. It is frustratingly slow and unreliable.
I am on the lookout now to see if any of the models I fancy are discounted anywhere. Mr S is buying me this for Christmas, which will show those Daily Mail readers that we aren’t as mean as they think!
I am also tempted by a few items on Everything5pounds.com*. I buy most of my work clothes from them now as they are such good value. I have yet to be unhappy with anything so far. They are always cheap but for Black Friday they have a buy five tens and get the sixth free.
Six items for £25 plus postage! You would struggle to get one thing for that in many stores.
5. Thrift soup
I fancied something warming for lunch rather than salads all week. I have been eating a lot of raw food in my bid to eat more fruit and vegetables and be generally healthier. So, I made a big pot of what I like to call thrift soup. It involves some good vegetable stock and whatever you have in the fridge. In my case this was celery, carrots, potatoes, frozen peas and spinach, some home grown courgettes, also from the freezer, half a can of sweet corn that needed using and some of my huge pot of Marigold stock. I fried up all the veg in some oil, added the stock to cover, plus a bit more on top, and simmered it all for about half an hour. To make it slightly creamy I added some parsley sauce that we had with dinner the night before. It was lovely and the day after it was even better. I love a bit of soup.
So these are this week’s five frugal things. What have you done to save and make money?
Ecothrifty post
I wrote a guest post for Zoe at EcoThrifty.com this week on cheap, eco friendly things to do with your children. It got mentioned on Twitter by the Joshua Paul Show, which has 137.5k followers! We were pretty happy about that. You can read the post here.
Whatever you have been up to this week, thrifty or otherwise, I hope you have had a good one. Here’s to a frugal weekend!
*Disclaimer: These are my affiliate links. If you sign up to a deal it won’t cost you anything and I will earn a small commission.
Julia says
I don’t go in for the Black Friday madness either – not even when I lived in America where my friends & neighbours would spend the previous day supposedly being thankful for all they have, before queuing at 3am for stuff they can be thankful for next year! 😀
I did it once, and decided then and there – never again!!!! 😮 It’s not for the casual browser, which I generally am! I sauntered in at 10am to find everything had finished and there was nothing left but long lines! On the other hand it was the first and only time I ever saw all 34 checkout lanes in Walmart open at the same time!! 😮
However, if there is something I know I’m going to be getting for someone for Christmas, it is silly not to look to see if it’s being discounted – which is how I’ve managed to find the Xbox game my youngest wants for £12 off in Tesco!
I then got an extra £1.50 off with a coupon I’d received in the post, but had expired at the end of August! I couldn’t use it then because the only Tesco near to me was closed while the petrol station it was attached to was being refurbished, so I thought I’d lost out, but there it was online waiting for me to claim!!
So all in all, I made a 30% saving! 🙂
Becky says
Oh I am going to pop to the everything £5 site!
lee says
You’ve had a great frugal week. We haven’t bought anything in the sales – I’m too wary that it’s all a con! 😉 I have to say that Ziffit doesn’t appeal after hearing that they don’t have to return items… I might stick to bundling items for eBay if there was any doubt.
Jade says
I’m having a big clear out of clothes too – hoping to get lots on eBay tonight as we could really do with a bit of extra money at the moment!