Picking up bargains #fivefrugalthings

We are preparing to go off on a budget holiday to the south of France and I am very excited! Luckily, we don’t have the expense of a cattery as my lodger is looking after house and animals (and plants, actually – I am going to give her a rent reduction!). I have been picking up bargains to take with me. We are super lucky to have free accommodation whilst we are there, but still want to keep all costs to the minimum and just enjoy the sunshine and scenery.

Reading material

I have been looking out for some books for my holiday and have found a couple of crackers. Firstly, Zoe from ecothriftyliving.com (I have met her and she is a lovely lady) has published her first one. I have purchased it for my Kindle. Eco Thrifty Living: Save Money, Save the Environment and Live the Life You Want is an introduction to the concept of saving money whilst simultaneously being kind to the environment. This is how I try to live but I have lots to learn so I am looking forward to reading it. Hopefully it will save me some money!

I also picked up the intriguing but slightly controversial sounding The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F**k by Sarah Knight in the charity shop for £1. It sounds like a book I should have read years ago and is about ‘how to stop spending time you don’t have doing thing you don’t want to do with people you don’t like’!

I love picking up bargains when it comes to books. Trouble is, I spend far too much money, usually on Amazon, on books and other stuff. I am thinking about getting Amazon Prime so that I get the postage free at least plus next day delivery (as well as films and music streaming, of course). You can try it free for 30 days here.

New water bottle

Another Amazon purchase….

I lost my favourite glass water bottle when we were at the open gardens in Bures recently. We have some metal ones, but don’t like the taste of the water if it starts to warm up. So I invested in two more to take to France. I don’t want to have to buy plastic bottles of the stuff when we are out and about if I can avoid it.

I thought these MIU ones were really good value at £8.99 each. They are glass with a silicone cover, very similar to the one I lost.

A cheap dinner out

We seem to be eating out a lot at the moment – not good for the waistline or the wallet. However, it was my daughter’s birthday and she came to stay for a couple of days. We went again to the Quayside Gurkha restaurant in Colchester. The food is always delicious and so cheap!

I cast my Slimming World regime aside for the evening and had vegetable fried noodles with dumplings, followed by banana fritters. Mine came to about £15 for all three dishes, which is ridiculous. Check out the Trip Advisor reviews!

Growing our own

Everything is looking promising in the garden at the moment. The vegetable patch has courgettes, runner beans, beetroot, sprouts and chard, we have herbs in pots, and in the greenhouse there are tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and salad leaves. We are also growing a lot of flowers, as mentioned in my recent post Saving Money in the Garden: 15 budgeting tips. Hopefully, this will save us money on our grocery bill. Gardening is good exercise too!

Eco deodorants

You might think that a solid eco-friendly deodorant in a cardboard tube would be expensive. Whilst they aren’t the cheapest to buy initially, I found that my first one lasted over six months! I then composted the container it came it, which gave me a warm, green glow. They really work too.

I think they work out brilliant value for money. My first one was by Earth Conscious and cost £7. I got it from &keep, which is a lovely eco-friendly online store. The one I am using now was a gift and it’s by Ku.tis. It smells lovely and works really well too, but is a bit smaller than the Earth Conscious one. It costs £6.50. They are well worth a try.

I hope my food pics haven’t made you too hungry and you are picking up bargains too!

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

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