Five frugal things we’ve done this fortnight:

After a month in our new home, it’s started to feel like plain old home. I still don’t have a place for everything, and I’m way off track with establishing a routine… but who cares? Moving is hard work and I’m pleased with what we’ve accomplished so far before the school holidays.

On the frugal front, we’ve made it for the first month without buying any new furniture or smaller extras save for the living room curtains. Talk about restraint, it’s been so hard!

I’m so looking forward to getting the things we promised ourselves (dishwasher!) and truly settling in. Here’s what’s made the last two weeks particularly thrifty around here…

Claimed our BT reward card

I mentioned before that we took out a BT broadband contract through an MSE deal instead of through TopCashback as I usually would. The downside of that was trying to claim the promised £120 BT reward card through BT’s website. It is IMPOSSIBLE.

Now, I spend a lot of time online because of my blogs. I know how to navigate a website. Let me tell you that BT have buried the claim process under a haystack – they provided no way of simply clicking on a link to claim the card, and when following the links they provide, you simply end up in the same place, asking you to log in again.

The only way I could actually claim my reward was to speak to a rep via the online chat and have it claimed for me. The deal also came with a £50 cheque… but of course, this isn’t promoted. Once you find the right website to claim it, though, it’s very straightforward – but the entire thing made me look at BT with a much more cynical eye.

That’s £170 that (if it ever arrives) I’ll have worked for!

Glue gun repair

I was feeling a bit fancy when I managed to rescue a hot glue gun that had a broken trigger. I took it apart and sorted out the spring mechanism that made the trigger work, and although it snapped loose again after the first try, I’d sorted it after the second.

Then I used that glue gun to make a new cat toilet…

Cat toilet training disaster… but I’m persisting.

Remember last time when I mentioned starting cat toilet training?

I came home from work one evening determined to take my cat toilet training to the next stage. We were at stage 2 – with the cats using a bowl of litter with a small hole in the centre. (This was made of part of a clear disposable plastic cup hot glued into the middle of a round washing up bowl.)

Stage 3 was to make the hole in the middle of the bowl bigger, and I set to cutting up a plastic mixing bowl and hot gluing that to my cat toilet… but when I was finished, I’d made the hole far too big. Mohawk looked at it, stuck her head into the hole and wailed. Then she went off to try to pee on the doormat.

The big jump in the size of the hole scared them all, and I destroyed the original bowl in trying to fix it. I ended up having to buy another bowl, but the new plasticware still came to £3.50 all in, which is still cheaper than a Litter Kwitter.

Also, if we never ever get away from this stage, we’ll still be using so much less cat litter and putting up with less stinkiness than before. It’s totally worth it!

Poundland shoe repair!

Lord Balders is feeling pleased over having fixed two pairs of shoes with one £1 tube of epoxy glue from Poundland.

GDPR mania

As a blogger and as an artist, there was no way I could get away with not facing up to the new GDPR regulations. I know that many small business owners have felt under pressure to part with serious amounts of cash to get someone to show them the way, but after a lot of reading I figured I could get to grips with it myself.

One thing I did was to set up a pay as you go PO box because there’s no way I’m advertising my home address to the internet. Sorry, internet.

Registering as a data controller cost £35 for the year, but hey, that’s business. By the way, if you’re a hobby blogger with no commercial interests, then there’s no need to register – thought that might come in handy to know!

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.