Five Frugal Things We've Done This Week to Save Money

We haven’t written a #FiveFrugalThings post in a few months I think. Not that we haven’t been frugal in our ways (and made some mistakes along the way), but that we have just been so busy with life and everything in between.

All the ‘kids’ are in the midst of exams and I swear we worry more than they do. Anyone else feels this way?

It’s like Leisa and I can’t breathe when their exams are on! And guess what? They always smash their exams every.single.time. No questions asked. But next exam season, we are back to worrying again. They do deserve nice holidays and things. So that gives us the motivation to be frugal and to save money. So for now, we will keep the kitchen door rotating for them with enough of the best homemade pancakes, waffles with supplies from JM Posner, and smoothies. We can’t wait for the summer to come to see the results.

Here are some of the ways that we manage to save some money this week:

Free flowers
Perfume
Nuts with Nectar Points
Video editing lessons
Haircare

We want to hasten to point out that although we are frugal, we absolutely believe in having nice experiences and things that might not be cheap. We live the frugal lifestyle so that we are able to afford them.

We don’t believe, however, in building up too much debt, so nice holidays are always planned and saved for.

Free Flowers will help us to save money this week

We love buying and having fresh flowers at home. There’s just something about knowing that they are natural and fresh. They also exude such a lovely fragrance that is hard to miss.

Well, this week we didn’t have to buy any as we were sent two gorgeous bouquets by the TV company for whom we have been working. It was such a pleasant surprise and one that reminded us to be giving too.

We also gifted one of the bouquets to the parents of our friends as they weren’t very well. That did put a smile on our faces too.

One pleasant surprise was that we sat at the table later on in the day to get some work done and saw some of the peonies gently unfolding in front of our eyes. It was like watching a National Geographic show!

We are going to definitely save money with these perfume samples

Top secret! We are going on separate holidays this summer. All will be revealed in time. But we do think we deserve some more sunshine this year and we are going for it!

Our friends also love some of the same perfumes we do and tend to ask us to leave it with them after our holiday. Does anyone have friends or family like that?

Not only that but with the efforts now on traveling lighter and with little or no liquids, we have come up with this plan to ask at the perfume shops for perfume samples! Is that just me or do you do it too?

Problem is, when someone asks me what perfume I’m wearing, I won’t even know what to say. It could be anyone of my little samples.

This though will definitely save me a quid or two. If I could get a sample of my all-time favourite perfume, I’d be even happier. It’s really some of the simplest things that make me smile.

Free nuts with Nectar points

When Leisa fills up with petrol (I sold my car) we use our nectar cards to collect nectar points which we often then use when we buy groceries at Sainsbury’s.

That was in the ~~good~~ old days when I worked as a teacher and had to pass Sainsbury’s every day. My nectar points then were usually spent on grocery items or prizes for the quizzes I used to run.

This week though, we went into town and wanted to buy a pack of raw, unsalted cashew nuts. We found them in Sainsbury’s and Leisa had enough points to pay the price (£2.35) using some of her Nectar points.

Free video editing lessons

In an attempt to up our game on YouTube, we sought to have some lessons in video editing which is something we had not done before.

So we organized a meetup with girlfriends Stephanie and Stacy, twins who live nearby. They are much younger than us and quite good at video editing and Instagram etc.

The day ended up with us catching up, demonstrating to them how to make a simple dinner, them filming us cooking and then they showed us how to edit the video after we had sat down to the feast.

You can check for the video on YouTube but here is a photo of the meal we prepared.

I reckon we have managed to make a saving on video editing lessons. What do you think?

Haircare is saving us money since we do it ourselves now

We admit that our hair does take a lot to maintain. Whether it is braided, washed, straightened or styled, it costs a lot when we go to the hairdressers.

We are learning little by little how to manage it and we are pleased to report that for all of the studio days of this season of Shop Smart Save Money, we did each other’s hair.

It might not look like much to you, but simply washing and drying our hair at the hairdresser costs £25. Other services are charged significantly more! So what a great idea it was when we decided to try to manage ourselves! We might just decide to keep it up too.

We do spend money on our favourite shampoo and conditioner as well as other products, but it is still totally worth it.

So for now, the pampering we are used to at the hairdressers will be at least paused. All in an effort to save money for nicer things that we can enjoy at a later date.