Five Frugal Things We’ve Done 28/06/19

I feel as though I’m having a bit of a frugal resurgence here! Getting back to our thrifty routine was always going to make me feel like that, but over the past few weeks I feel as though I’ve managed to step up my efforts quite a bit, so that’s made me kinda proud.

As an aside, I’m also working on a wedding budget guide, so the industrious feeling is making me happy. Anyway, let’s get on with the frugal things we’ve done!

Bank account switching

It has been a heck of a long time since we switched bank accounts for cash – we did it a lot before buying our first house, but wanting to be cautious about amassing credit checks too close to remortgaging slowed us down to a full stop.

Click here to read about how we used to make money from bank switching.

We’ve both switched to Royal Bank of Scotland, which should give us £250 by the end of August, and another £100 next year.

TSB are offering a referral bonus of £75 for switching (until July 31st)- click here to take advantage of this offer.

Setting up my Transferwise account

As blogging is one of my regular income streams right now, I have to negotiate one of the most tricky parts of the job: getting paid in US dollars.

Now, holding some cash in dollars could possibly be an ok thing for me some day, as I do have family in the US, but I can’t really set my income aside for some day with no way of using it.

One major problem comes in receiving USD via PayPal and then trying to get it into my bank without taking a huge cut thanks to conversion fees.

So I thought I could keep a US dollar balance in PayPal and use it for blog expenses, but the truth is that you need a card for lots of online purchases – and that’s where TransferWise has come to my rescue.

I’ve connected my TransferWise accounts to my PayPal account, and that’ll allow me to use my US currency however I want!

If you need to transfer money between currencies, this referral link will give you a free transfer with TransferWise.

10p eggs

Just like our free swedes from a few months back, we were in the right place at the right time to grab a bargain in the supermarket.

A giant crate of eggs were being given away for 10p per half dozen, so we swiped as many as seemed socially acceptable!

Shopmium’s been paying off – literally

Every month I write about our grocery spending – how much we spent, and how much cashback we made. Up until now I haven’t had any cashback to report, as my balances have been building up, but since starting to use Shopmium that has changed dramatically.

I’ve had over £10 paid back to me so far, so that’s a lot of nice things we’ve been able to try for free. The guys are enjoying the treats as they can eat a lot more than I can!

You can join Shopmium here and get started off with a free jar of Nutella.

Learning finger knitting

You’ve got to love a quick, easy craft to help you upcycle and recycle fabrics and yarns, right? This week I learned to finger knit, and it’s so easy!

Now I have even more ideas for using up those old clothes I tend to hoard for crafts.

Over to you…

Here’s hoping your frugal fortnight has been fun!

Last fortnight

I’m linking up with Cass, Emma and Becky in this week’s ‘Five Frugal things I’ve done this week’ linky.