Monthly Archives: March 2016

Do you shop well for less?

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Hello Dear Reader,

I’ve sat and watched the TV show where a trendy young family are taught to live just as stylishly for a fraction of the price. The couple were not uncommon as the loved labels, brands and how they looked was important to them. We’ve all been there, we’ve all been young and worried about appearances and we may or not have grown out of it. Well, I haven’t it’s still important to me although I don’t want to spend too much money. I also want to eat well and have a clean and comfortable house and again, I don’t want it to cost me much again.

I have the opportunity every now and then to wander round a posh department store and get a feel for what I like. I’ll then take a look around stores like Primark, matalan and other similar stores and know what look I like and find a way of achieving it. That being said, I have a kind of uniform of dark straight leg trousers and tunic tops with a scarf here and there and jeans for the weekends. None of that is expensive and I can look smart really reasonably. I certainly don’t give in to labels unless I’ve found something incidentally on the clearance rail at TK Max and that’s a really rare find. I’ll also have a browse round the charity shops although they are often more expensive than the discount stores. 

I keep the house clean and know it can be done without any brand names and I get everything I need from the bottom shelves in the supermarket of their basics brands and add in bicarbonate of soda that I buy in kilo bags from the DIY shop and that cleans everything from the bathroom, loo to the oven. Old towels get cut down into cleaning clothes which I use to dry the floor after washing it. I use soapy water for most things and buff things clean with a clean dry cloth. I keep laundry costs down too with basics soap powder and I use white vinegar as softener and it’s really cheap too and just a tablespoon will soften the clothes just fine. I was a brand girl once and turned to bargain brands to save money and now I use them because they do the same job just fine.

I do think we live well, we eat well, we’re smart and tidy and the house is clean and comfortable but we keep the expenses to the lowest costs possible. There are lots of things we do to live well and I’m sure you do too. There are loads of ways to live well and here’s where you can ask a question that could start with “how do you save money on…..” Or leave a handy money saving hint where you can leave advice for the rest of us.

Here’s my questions that you can help with. How do you save money on: pet care, motoring costs, travel costs, home decor …..

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxxx

Don’t be seduced!

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Hello Dear a Reader,

Tonight, I’m sharing an infographic from the Money Advice Service. The MA is a non profitable advice service that gives financial advice. They are not selling anything. Those pesky supermarkets do everything they can to get an impulse purchase out of you. Just remember, it’s your job as the head of finance in your own life to spend nothing more than you want to. 

I do most of the things on the list and more.

Over to you, please share what you do to keep those food costs to your set budget as I love it when we get the money saving chatter going.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

  

No spend days become…

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Hello Dear Reader,

Whilst in a reflective mood today and I wondered how I became such a tightwad. I worked out that I save in excess of my household costs. So, that’s 40% living costs and 60% savings. It didn’t happen overnight. 

Those of you who’ve read for years know that we went deeply frugal in 2009 to clear our massive debts and kept being frugal to pay down our mortgage. You see, I’ve always got a goal and reasons to keep my purse firmly shut. And when I say shut, I mean it. I don’t purposefully buy few clothes, beauty products but I just don’t need much. There are many many experiences that I’m looking forward to and that I experience right now that costs nothing or next to nothing. 

Whether it’s cynicism or maybe contentment but most of what I see for sale just doesn’t interest me. Fads, fashions and on trends just don’t do anything for me and instead of saying just no, I also think, who on earth would want this rubbish? The world and all its marketing tries very hard to part with my money but some how, the likes of you and me can just see it for the gawdy meaningless tripe it is.

So where am I going with all this? To begin with, I started with no spend days. You see, I used to keep money on my person and there was always something that could be bought even if a bag of salad. I made up my mind that I would pick a day on which I wouldn’t spend any money. I kept at that until it became a habit. I then moved on to more than one day and then just kept going.

It’s reached the point where, on the first of the month, I can pay everything by direct debit, leave £200 to pay for a month’s groceries and then move every penny to a savings account. Currently, 75% of that is transferred to our French bank account to pay for the woodstove installation and the building work we need done. The other 25% pays for anything we need here but once there’s enough in the account we transfer what we don’t need to the mortgage capital. My no spend days are now six days a week and sometimes I don’t ‘get the shopping in’ every week.

Living a debt free thrifty life isn’t for everyone. I know some of you like the theatre, cinema, eating out, having nice up to date clothes and if you enjoy that then carry on. For us, it’s trips to France and now to our other home in France so that’s my version of a ‘night out’. Those of us who save up for the experiences that are important to us happily have no spend days so we can afford to do so.

Now my lovvies, over to you. Are you part of the ‘no spend’ fraternity? If not, would you like to be? (I’ll get back to the how many steps tomorrow) What motivates you not to spend. I like our little end of the blog chit chat and look forward to hearing from you.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

The ups and downs!

frugal exercise, frugal weightloss, Uncategorized

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Hello Dear Reader,

Once I used to have fat days and thin days, now I just have fat days and I’m OK with being fat days. We endomorphs, pear shaped with the predisposition to put on weight have to be careful with what we eat. If I’m really really good then I can keep weight off but anyone who knows me knows that I can be good for quite a while and then, I don’t slip, but dive head first into the active dismissal of any dietary rules and let the belt out a notch and then another…….

I had a moment yesterday when I tried to wear size 14 jeans and struggled. It’s no good feeling cross with myself as I know what I’m like. There’s no good feeling dismissive or thinking about that dietary roller coaster but just accept the inevitable. Anyway, recent research has proved that fasting diets really don’t do us any harm and we can rein ourselves back in if we put on weight by decreasing our food intake for a while and recalibrating our weight again. Men do it quite happily. They put on weight and then just really cut back until they lose it without any of the drama that some of us women feel, they also step up the exercise and drink more water quite happily too.

So, those few extra pounds have to go. I did try Slimming World. Although the group were lovely, it worked for the majority and the focus of the weekly weigh motivated me, I didn’t like the ‘clubiness’ of it. Nor did I like the smelly feet when people took their shoes off to be weighed and standing close to people in the queue with poor hygiene really put me off too. My intolerance to humans being humans, so as the colloquialism goes….’my bad’. I should get over that but somehow I struggle so you’ll just have to forgive me on that one.The only bit I enjoyed was being weighed. I also wish that the fiver a week paid for a bollocking as celebrating half a pound off (frankly, that’s less than the weight of the average poop!) really didn’t motivate me whereas that look of disapproval along with a ‘you can do much better than this’ works better for me personally.

There we are Dear Reader, who else needs some ‘these trousers are a bit tight’ motivation? If you’ve got any then feel free to leave some. I think I’ll set up a walking diary so we can increase our movement together. I’ll immediately aim for 10,000 steps a day and maybe we can try together. I could blame this long wet winter but in truth, I’ve just used that as an excuse. I know we’ve been here before haven’t we?

Who’s up for the walking diary? May be then we can move on to the ‘how many miles?’ diary.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

 

Welcome to Frugal Queen’s new home!

cornwall, Days out, Uncategorized, wood heating

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Hello Dear Reader,

I’ve moved. If you’ve found me without me giving you any clues then well done! Life in all it’s thriftiness/ish has continued. Hopefully, there won’t be the problems with commenting or who can read the comments that my previous format had issues with.

We’ve had the usual week of doing our very best to not spend any money! I capitulated and bought new work shoes. I could have carried on with the shoes I had but they were looking decidedly down at heel and I have a professional role and should look so too. Quite rightly so, nonetheless, I searched online with Clarks, found the shoes were half price(reduced to £22.50) and had them sent free of charge to the local shop where I could try them on and then pay for them if I liked them. I did and now I look smart and professional again but for half the price.

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More thriftiness throughout the week. We’re eating very simply. Lots of meals where I cook once and then we eat that for lunch for the next few days too. There was a lot of turkey cottage pie, carrots and broccoli this week but it kept us going. Some weeks, it’s soups, this week it was mince and mash. I don’t mind and it saved thinking about lunch for most of the week. I could tell you about how we don’t eat out, don’t eat takeaways, don’t eat ready made food but then you know that. I succumbed to a £2.25 pack of Sainsbury’s sushi of Friday as I needed a ‘lunch on the run’ as I had a lunch time opticians appointment. I’m studying a lot recently so bought some single vision lens glasses and bought some from their cheapest £25 including the lens as it’s not great to sit in front of a screen for hours with my vari-focals. Totting that little lot up this week…..£49.75 makes a hole in our savings but some things, with the exception of £2.25 on sushi, are needs must!

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The sun came out today and didn’t it make a difference! My furry friends had another trip by car in their dog carriers. Very little moaning from them today and they settled really quickly. Normally, they have the back seat to themselves so they are doing well to be contained and in their little crates. We went to Hannafore beach at Looe which is enough of a drive for the dogs to have ‘crate training’ but a treat for them at the end as they love to get their paws in the sand.

We’re being proper tightwads this month as we’re saving for the wood burner in our Huelgoat home. I always install a wood burner where ever we go. It’s a massive initial investment but it soon pays for itself. It’s much cheaper to get the work done there than here as it’s so much more common to have one as the sole source of heating in your home. Ours here is a dinky 5KW stove but there it will be a 12KW monster to heat the whole house and will be the sole source of heating and clothes drying. The downstairs is open plan and the stair case is open tread so the heat will circulate. (Modern wood stoves have a double burn system so they’re virtually smoke free and not sending particles into the air. Wood is also carbon neutral and renewable.)

Here, we also need to pay for next years wood that gets delivered tomorrow and will see us through next winter. I always buy it a year in advance and stack it away what’s more, I always stock up when I’ve been paid as a form of security as I always feel better when the bills are paid and this is sort of our heating bill.

Not much else to report this week. Although it’s a delight to drive to work and back in the day light, see the daffodils in the gardens and hedgerows and there’s also a glimmer of blossom here and there.

So, from trying our best not to spend any money to me blowing money on work shoes, glasses and sushi……it’s been an expensive week. Note to self: must try harder next week!

I hope you leave a comment, even if just to say hello, tell us about your thrifty week or what you think of the new format.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxxx