Frugal wins for March

By Shoestring Jane

Welcome to Shoestring Cottage, where I write about all things thrifty, frugal and money-saving. Every few weeks, I like to tell you about some of my frugal wins for the week. I believe that the small things really do add up! It’s not about being mean; frugality means that we can stretch our money as far as possible on the things we need so that we have a little left over for things that we want.

This week’s frugal wins

Buying on Vinted

I have a big birthday coming up, and we are celebrating with a rare holiday abroad in Greece. So, I have been saving money on holiday clothing by scouring Vinted for bargains. 

So far, I have found a beach bag for £2, a long floaty dress for £4 and two pairs of sandals. One pair were a little big, so I will just resell them. They only cost £4 anyway. The other are a pair of Skechers, which cost just £8 and will be excellent for walking. I need a sturdy pair of sandals, but I have another, daintier leather pair on the way that cost £5. Now I need to stop! Things are so cheap, it is easy to get carried away. However, I am short of summer clothing and this is such a frugal way to replenish my wardrobe. 

You have to pay postage on top, which usually costs less than £3. 

Second hand curtains

Mr Shoestring’s elderly mum asked me to look out for some curtains for her bedroom if I was passing a charity shop. They are often very cheap; in fact pretty much all of the curtains in our house were second hand from either charity shops or eBay.

However, I haven’t been able to find any the right size in the cottage style she likes, but Vinted saved the day again. I hadn’t thought to look for items for the home on there before this, but it is worth a look.

I found several possible pairs for around the £5 mark, and she chose these floral ones from Dorma. You can’t go wrong at that price!

Discount flowers

Daffodils are my absolute favourite flowers. You see their bright yellow heads and you know that spring is in the air. One of my daughters bought me a couple of bunches at Aldi last week, which are still going strong. But today in the Coop I found two more bunches reduced to 10p each. Now that they are in a vase of water they are reviving well. But 10p! I love the Coop when they do last-chance reductions like that.

It has actually been snowing today, so having daffs everywhere has really cheered me up.

Time to plant some seeds!

Having decided to plant a vegetable garden after all this year, we have yet to start any seeds. Or even buy any, until I found a few in Lidl when I did the grocery shop this week. I didn’t get many, only four packs, but they were a good price at around £1.50.

Justin has started making a few raised beds at least, but we need to go and buy some compost to fill them. A trip to the garden centre is in order this weekend, where we can get more seeds and maybe some sort of fruit tree. We will have to see what’s on offer at a reasonable price.

We grew a lot of fruit and vegetables at our old house and had a greenhouse too. We hope to get another at some point, but for now will have to make do with the plastic one that our vendors left in the garden.

Selling our old clutter

I finally got back to listing on eBay this week. We had a pile of our own things, plus a few interesting collectables that a friend gave me, that had been sitting around for ages. 

I photographed them and got them on – at last! One of the collectibles was this interesting vintage Optiscope – a kind of slide projector or ‘magic lantern’. I’m hoping it will sell for at least £75, but we shall see.

There is yet more stuff in the garage that I have ignored long enough, so I plan to get some of that listed next week.

I hope you enjoyed my frugal wins for the week. How has your week been? Feel free to share in the comments. If you want to see more of my frugal life, check out my YouTube channel here.