Frugal things for a month of overspending

My title might seem like an oxymoron, but it has been an expensive few weeks. I need as many frugal things happening as possible to offset the expense!

May and June are always expensive for birthdays. I have a large family and for some reason lots of them were born in early summer. This year, however, there were three big ones. My Mum hit 90, and my second daughter and nephew were 30. We also had two lots of car insurance and the home insurance to renew this month, and we are off on a long weekend to York, so had to budget for that as well. We also had the wedding of a good friend! Why does everything happen at once? Still, the weather has been great for all of our celebrations.

We had a party for Mum, but extended it a bit to include Chloe and Joe in the mix. Here they all are!

So, what inexpensive birthday-related and other frugal things did I manage?

Cake making

One of my sisters organised for a professional to make Mum’s cake. It was an absolute beauty (and cost a fortune)! I offered to make a cake for Chloe and Joe. It looked rather rustic compared to Mum’s but, in all honesty, it tasted a lot better!

It was a light sponge with a blueberry cheesecake icing. Scrumptious! A friend shared her secret recipe, and I will definitely be making it again.

A labour of love

What do you get a 90-year-old for a birthday present? Mum doesn’t want more stuff at her age. Some of us focussed on experiences, but I thought I would repeat the album I did for my late dad’s 90th.

It was a ‘This Is Your Life’ style book. I pulled together photographs and stories from friends and family and told the story of Mum’s life. She was delighted with it, and everyone seemed to enjoy looking through and spotting themselves at different ages in various dubious outfits. The 1970s ones were the absolute best.

It was a fun day and wonderful to catch up with everyone.

Reverse meal planning

I am now spending as little as possible to save money for our trip.

To keep our food bill low, I am reverse meal planning – that is, I’m shopping from the kitchen cupboards rather than hitting the supermarket.

I have been looking at what we have and have made a meal plan based on store cupboard ingredients. There are a few fresh bits I need, but I will get as many of them yellow-stickered as I can. I found these at my local Coop recently. You can’t see the sticker, but the bread was only 20p. I obviously popped in at the right time.

Free activities

I have also been researching free and frugal things to do whilst we are in York. My YouTube viewers have helped with suggestions for these, but if you have more let me know in the comments.

So far we have:

The Railway Museum

Walking the city walls

Perusing the Shambles shopping area

York library and garden

Yorkshire Museum gardens

We will pay to go in York Minster, though, as it looks so beautiful and my cousin was waxing lyrical about it. We have cinema vouchers from my birthday, so plan to see the film of The Salt Path one evening, plus the girls have paid for Justin to have a cream tea at Betty’s Tearooms for his birthday, so that is booked! It should be fun.

No spend month

Other than our expenses for York, we aren’t buying anything unless it is essential. So, a no-spend month is coming up. Apart from food for us and the animals, there’s nothing we really need. Whilst the weather is nice, we will focus on tending our vegetable patch and growing some food. This will also help with the budget. I was thrilled to discover this morning that we already have tomatoes arriving in the greenhouse.

What frugal things do you do when you have a period of expense? Let me know in the comments. See you next time!