Four frugal things we’ve done and one frugal fail…

Because no-one can get it right all of the time! There can be a lot of pressure to only include the good bits, but we can learn a lot from other people’s mistakes (although not as much as our own, sadly).

Reusable takeaway coffee cups

We bought two bamboo fibre coffee cups with silicone lids for £1.99 each at Clas Ohlson. I was rather happy as I’d been after one to use at/on the way to work for some time, but as I found them at such a good price, I could get one for each of us.

I realised this week that this was one of the best buys I’d made in a long time: it’s so much nicer to have a big cup of coffee from one of these than from the pokey little cups that came on the top of the flask we bought a few weeks ago. You don’t feel as though you’re “roughing it”, and I can take my brew with me from room to room at work, as I don’t spend much time in one place.

Small investment for large returns on convenience and happiness!

Got a bargain on an electrical job

We got to the point with our bathroom renovation where we had to getting a sparkie in for an essential job – we will always do as much as we can, but sometimes you have to know where to draw the line with DIY and especially so when it comes to electrical work!

Lord Balders did a lot of the prep work so it didn’t cost too much to sort out the wiring. Now there’s only one pendant light in the bathroom and no unsafe wires lurking in the loft above, all for only £20. It would have been much, much more without our laying the groundwork (and the fact that the electrician is a friend of ours!).

Got home insurance via Quidco Compare

We put this off until the last minute – our home insurance was up for renewal this week, and our previous insurers were chasing us because the policy would not auto-renew.

Part of our personal finance policy is to switch insurance providers every year, and get cashback on top. This year was no different, so I used Quidco to get a quote on home insurance. The best bit is, if nothing has changed, you can just reuse your information from the previous year to get a new quote!

We got pretty much the same amount quoted to us, but later on we’ll be receiving around £26 in cashback for doing next to nowt.

Got my act together with using my TSB cards for cashback

Recently, I’ve let a few things slip (see below) when it comes to maximising the perks from our bank accounts. My TSB Plus account gives me up to £5 cashback per month on contactless spending, and my TSB credit card gives up to £5 per month cashback as well.

My latest income reports will show that I’ve not been using them much, but I’ve started getting my act together and making sure I use them first before my other cards.

Fail – I dipped into the overdraft!

Our water bill came out on the 28th – I knew this, but was distracted so didn’t check on all my accounts in time. There wasn’t enough in the account to cover it, so when I checked the day after, I was about £25 overdrawn.

This was totally unnecessary as we have the money – I just forgot to put it in the right place! I do have about 9 current accounts, I think… and being a lot more focused on writing and publishing these days means that I haven’t been giving my bank account juggling as much attention.

It’ll mean a small charge and I’ll miss out on £3 next month as it’s a Halifax Rewards account.

Aaargh!

Over to you…

I’ve done better, but I’ve done worse. How has your frugal week been?

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