Five frugal things we’ve done this fortnight:

April is the month when our car insurance renewal comes around, and we always pay annually, so of course we never exactly look forward to a sizeable chunk of cash flying out the (car) window. Add in the other lingering costs of settling in to a new home – final utility bills and new appliances – and it can start to add up.

Here’s what we’ve done these past two weeks to balance the expenses.

We bought our dishwasher with Zeek and Argos vouchers!

I bought the dishwasher!

At last, we did it… but it won’t be delivered until May. Booo! Last time, I saved over £40 on my purchases because of buying Argos gift cards through Zeek, and this time, I didn’t shave as much off, but I still got a discount. Plus, I got a new toaster for free thanks to the £10 Argos voucher that my last purchase gave me. (I haven’t had one since the last one went BANG quite a long time ago.)

Now I can rejoin the toaster-owning western world, and eventually clean my toast-bearing plate in our swanky dishwasher!

Comparing car insurance gave a surprising result

Flabbergasted, but at least I’m honest – my current insurer actually came up cheapest of all! I did a comparison with TopCashback as I usually do, as well as with Confused.com, and I was shocked to find that my current insurer beat them all.

Well, shopping around is a great habit to get into, and it means I can rest easy with my deal and my savings.

Bought yet another secondhand car…

If you’ve been reading this series regularly you’ll know that this pops up fairly regularly!

Bangernomics is not for the faint hearted, as I’m sure I’ve said before, and it’s not for the vain either. Both of us have decided it’s time to get something a bit nicer than the tin can we were driving, especially after a week where we got two flat tyres. Replacing all of the tyres would have set us back more than half of the car’s original value, so considering everything else we’d have wanted to fix, it was clear that it was time for another motor.

This model’s the best one we’ve had so far, and it’s a convertible, so here’s hoping we get one or two summery days to make it even more worthwhile.

Canceled Amazon Prime trial and got a free month of NowTV

As I said I would, I canceled my trial before the month was up and used ten McDonald’s Monopoly pieces to claim a month’s NowTV entertainment pass. You can get a fortnight’s trial anyway, but another couple of weeks isn’t bad and it’s kept the youngest Balders happy.

This is marketed as a prize, but in reality it’s likely to catch people out as many won’t remember to cancel before the month is up.

Composting

I’m not new to composting but I’m starting all over again in a new garden, and I’m determined to make the most of what we have here. There was a neglected, empty plastic compost bin at the end of the garden, and I’ve started using it in the hopes of reducing our landfill waste and creating free compost for flower beds.

A new garden in spring is a challenge in a way, as you need to wait and see what comes up and what you’ve got to work with. I was feeling a bit daunted before but now, I’m looking forward to it!

Over to you…

What are your frugal achievements this week? Let me know in the comments below!

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