For my final five frugal things post of the year, I could just round up what we’ve done over the last two weeks, or round up the best of what we’ve done over the last 52 weeks. I previously did a roundup of 2017’s five frugal things, so it seems like a better idea to stick with my new tradition.
The past fortnight has been a pretty decent one for savings, with a Boxing Day run to Primark yielding a new hooded dressing gown for £5 and some ridiculous fuzzy lounge pants for £2 – you can be sure these are part of my winter survival strategy!
But onwards with the reflection over the past year’s money saving antics. What were our frugal highlights?
#1 – Buying a replacement oven using Zeek credit from Quidco
Back when our house was up for sale, our oven broke… so we had to replace it, and quickly. In the first week of 2018 we arranged to sell the house, so it was great to be able to get the cost down thanks to Quidco and Zeek.
#2 – Crazy Zeek & Argos voucher stacking
When we had to shell out for new furniture for our new house, we wrangled a somewhat complicated bit of voucher stacking between Zeek gift cards and Argos vouchers. Mighty proud of that one! Plus our BT Rewards card and cheque worth £120 turned up, so that was a very good couple of weeks.
#3 – Fixing our lawnmower for £7
Fixing stuff is a big part of our frugal system, and we regularly pop in details of things we’ve repaired – even our cars. This summer, finding the right part to fix the lawnmower ourselves was a pretty cool achievement!
#4 – Signing up for Curve
Signing up for a Curve account was one of the highlights of the year as it’s paid us back so much in rewards points, and I know it’s helped lots of others who have used my referral code. It’s a good feeling!
That same fortnight saw us getting started with our new hobby of melting aluminium, which led to my learning how to cast pewter, which led to firing up an art project I’d been sitting on since 2014. Very eventful indeed!
#5 – Our £25 cast iron fire surround and slate hearth bought on eBay was the bargain of the year, no doubt!
We also found our dining table and chairs for a song on eBay, but the fire surround was an absolute steal, and the first thing we got stuck into on the new (not quite so new anymore) house. Knocking the chimney breast out was a massive, filthy job and we were so tired… but it was well worth it. We can’t imagine our living room as it was before!
That’s it!
I should give a special mention to the BIGGEST wombled coupon and my first art sale on Etsy, although there are lots of other bargains we’ve picked up along the way.
How’s your frugal year been?
