New life, new hope – review of my frugal week

Hello frugalists, and welcome to my review of my frugal week, the last one of Frugal February! This month my intention was to spend only on food, bills and essentials. It has gone pretty well! Here is what we have been up to this week.

Keeping the grocery bill low

I have been thinking a lot about how we can mitigate rising food prices. In fact, I did a whole YouTube video on the topic. If you missed it, you can find it here. Don’t forget to like and subscribe!

I feel it is all in the organisation. Using what you have and not wasting any food, learning how to stretch more expensive ingredients like meat, shopping with a list at discount stores like Lidl and Aldi, and keeping your meals simple so that you can cook them with minimal time and fuss are just some ideas. 

I did actually go slightly under our food budget this month, despite getting a £15 meal deal for Valentine’s Day. Our budget was £250, which includes some of Archie’s food, toiletries, loo roll and cleaning products too. We actually spent £231.10. However, there are still a few days left so we also have some wriggle room on this. 

Meeting the new baby

We had a very special occasion this week, going to meet our new great niece! She is just over a week old. I had to fight Mr Shoestring and his mum for cuddles, but it turned out there were enough to go around. What a gorgeous little dot.

We took dinner with us, because the last thing you want when you have just given birth is to have to feed hoards of relatives.

I made creamy mustard chicken from A Girl Called Jack*, as this isn’t expensive to make and is quite delicious. We had a home made apple crumble for dessert.

This is a nice, cheap dish if you are doing a dinner party actually. The cream makes it feel special but chicken as the main ingredient keeps the price down.

Bargain gifts for my frugal week

I wanted to buy some nice gifts for the baby, as well as her big sister ( who is actually only 15 months, so still a baby herself).

I decided to go for a mix of new and second hand for each of them. They would be surprised if everything arrived new now – they know that I did a whole year of buying second hand during 2021, so I know where to find the bargains! Big sis got a huge Peppa Pig George plush toy that I found in the charity shop, plus a new baby doll with a dummy, which was from Asda. I thought she might like holding her baby whilst her mummy or daddy are holding her sister.

Baby girl got some eco friendly wooden rattles from Etsy and a second hand Lamaze soft doll with teething rings and rattle attached – another charity shop find.

They seemed to like them – well big sis did anyway. Baby girl was too busy snoozing all day!

Not frugal!

On my way in from the car yesterday I dropped my handbag, my glasses fell out and I ended up stepping on them! They aren’t totally destroyed, so I am hoping that the optician can repair them. The lens has popped out but I am not sure if the frame is still usable or not.

My problem is that they are my only pair with my current prescription. I baulked at the cost of them and decided to stick with the one pair last time and use my old glasses should anything such as this occur. Anyone else found the buy one, get another free/half price type offers only apply to single vision lenses? Mine aren’t single vision so I thought I would manage with one.  I might be regretting that if they have to go off for repair for any length of time or if they need replacing altogether.

When I go I will ask for a copy of my prescription and I am going to get a spare pair with just the reading part of my prescription online. I have looked into this before, but because my prescription is quite particular I hesitated to spend a lot and not quite get them right. But I figure if I get just the single lens version that will be a good spare for when I am working on the PC or reading.

I have been doing some research and will look at this deal on the MSE website. Has anyone else tried buying glasses online? I would love to hear your experiences.

Finding treasure

I was going through some of the clutter in my parents’ garage this week to see if there was any bits worth having. They want to clear it out but, as mum is currently housebound since she broke her hip and dad is a little frail too, it’s too much for them. 

I pulled out some bits to take to the charity shop, but also asked if I could have this beautiful wicker granny trolley. It will be lovely for the boot sales, but I might actually reserve it as a form of storage. It could sit in the corner with my unlisted eBay stock and actually look attractive. Better than the assortment of bags that I have at the moment! This was the highlight of my frugal week, as I have wanted one of these forever.

When the weather is better I will pull their garage out with them supervising and get rid of the excess clutter they have accumulated over the past couple of years. Who knows what treasure we will find?

Anyways, that is my frugal week. Let me know what you have been up to in the comments.

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

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