Five Frugal Things We’ve Done 31/05/19

The last two weeks have been some of the most expensive we’ve had this year – being frugal has definitely not been on the top of the list with my mother visiting, so I was wondering if I’d have anything worth sharing.

However… I had a nice surprise when I started to jot down some things from the last few weeks – I think you’ll agree that an attempt was made!

Mum’s giffgaff SIM card

Before Mum took off, I ordered her a giffgaff SIM on a £6 plan. That way she could keep in touch with us here by text (when she wandered off at the shopping centre) and have enough data to chat to her friends online (in the shopping centre).

It arrived incredibly quickly so it was here waiting for her, was easy to set up and was cheap as chips. Winning!

Painted trainers

You may remember that I mentioned my problem with knee pain and how I’ve been managing it before.

Mum has struggled with heel pain for years as well, and has brought over her old, extremely eye-catching pair of Z-Coil trainers for me to keep.

She’s got a newer pair, so changed the spring heel on the old ones and brought them for me. The only thing was, the trainers themselves were very tatty, being so old and well-used. The leather had cracked all over and was flaking off.

The shoes are so out there that I was a bit reluctant to wear them out when they looked shabby, only because they were already going to get a few looks because of the heel. Ste came to the rescue and actually painted them for me! They need a bit of a tidy up but the first coat proved it was worth it.

One more trick – I swapped the laces for black laces from my own trainers, which instantly made them look cleaner and more fresh. Now I look as though I can leap tall buildings in a single bound!

Reaching my Inbox Pounds payout

I won’t go too far into this as I want to update my Inbox Pounds post or write another, but I finally reached my £20 Inbox Pounds payment threshold. FINALLY.

Loyalty card wombling

Mum’s legendary love of shopping has meant that we inevitably have to split up when we hit the shops. Being a tourist, she doesn’t have any incentive to be loyal to British stores, so when we caught up with her after she bought some books from The Works, we got her receipt to tack on the loyalty points to our account.

It’s worth noting that if you don’t have any loyalty cards for the stores you’ll be visiting, a cashback credit card can be an easy way to make the most of your purchases.

I bought an iPhone

That may not sound very frugal, but I wrote about my phone dying four weeks ago!

For someone like me, that shows a remarkable amount of restraint.

We tried everything to fix it ourselves and took it into a decent repair shop, but were told it wasn’t worth the cost of trying.

Of course, buying a phone was going to be a dear do – as one says here in Lancashire – but I tried to make it as efficient as possible by buying a second-hand phone on eBay and combining that with a 15% off voucher and cashback. So here’s looking forward to me working out how this newfangled thingy works after 7 years of Samsungs.

Over to you…

Has your frugal fortnight been eventful?

Last fortnight

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