Amazing Charity Shop Finds

I love to go and have a nosey around our local charity shop, in the past I've got so many fab toys and clothes there.  Today was an amazing day between us I reckon my sister, my mum and I saved £70 at least!

I got a pair of toddler Adidas trainers [look like they've never been worn before] in tthe next size for my son £3!  These would be at least £30 rrp.
I also got a M&S 3D jigsaw for him [extra xmas pressie] in fab condition for £2.50.  This would be easily £10.
I got two packs of make your own crackers for £3 for both packs [these would be at least £5 each, so a saving of £7].

My sister got a pair of knee high New Look boots for £4, these would've easily been £25 brand new [and they were in immaculate condition] and mum got a Tesco cardi for £1.99 [approx £10 rrp].

All in all a good days bargains!!

Approved Food

Well I finally caved in and made my first Approved Food order on the weekend - I've been putting it off because of the high postage costs but they now do a special off of £7.50 postage for 56kilos which seemed really cheap.  The whole order [including postage] came to £34.89 and consisted of the following:
Coca Cola Zero 6 Pack £0.99 4 £3.96


15 Taxi Bars Pack £0.99
CASE PRICE De Identified Dried Soya Mince 4 x 200g £0.99
Seven CASE PRICE Just Juice Pure Orange Juice 6 x 500 ml Bottles £0.50 = £3.50

CASE PRICE Magic Fruit Strawberry and Rosehip Fruit Juice Potion 6 X 4 Packs £0.99
CASE PRICE Pringles Rice Infusions Sweet BBQ Spare Rib Flavour 160g £0.99

Ten Fruit Tella Strawberry Sweets 39g £0.20 = £2.00

Twenty KP Crisps Salt and Vinegar Flavour 25g £0.10 = £2.00

McVities Mars Mini Rolls 15 Pack £0.99

Two Phileas Fogg Sea Salted and Indonesian Black Peppercorn Flavour Crisps 140g £0.50 = £1.00

Two Tuc Original Biscuit Sandwich 150g £0.50 = £1.00

Six Robinsons Be Natural Blackcurrant and Pear 600ml £0.17 = £1.02

Two Nestle Milo Energy Drink 400g Tub £1.19 = £2.38

Thirty Kelloggs Fruit Winders Doubles Strawberry and Blackcurrant Strip £0.12 = £3.60

Kids Planet Mix Sweets 300g £1.00

Coral 3 Body Sponges Pack £0.99

I'm hoping this will be all our snacks and drinks for a few months - I can't wait for the delivery to come it'll be fab to have my stocks replenished again.

I also went to M&S to do our xmas food shopping the other day [yes I know M&S is not cheap but we had £5 off a £30 spend and I like to treat us sometimes!].  Got some fab whoopsy items which have filled up my freezer and also got given vouchers for £5 off a £25 spend every week in Jan. If I can go in and just spend £25 [which will then be £20] and just buy deals and whoopsies that'd be fab.  I'd rather buy whoopsy good quality food than rubbish normal price stuff.

Halfway there with Toluna

Woohoo just logged onto Toluna and after doing a few more surveys this week I've now got 42220 points so half way to the 80000 I need for a £15 Love2Shop voucher, previously I'd just deleted these emails but now I'll be doing every survey I'm invited to do to save as many vouchers as possible for xmas and bday pressies next year!

£9 free shopping!

Went to Home Bargains [HB] this evening to get some essentials as my stockpile of basics was mostly used up before the house move [beginning of Nov 09], and had two pairs of pjs I had bought as xmas pressies but decided I didn't need them in the end to take back.  I wasn't sure if they'd take them as I had no receipt but the did and they were £4.50 each thus £9 free shopping happy days!

Also counted up my change pot [started Nov 09 after the move] and we had 22 pounds in there so I will cash that in tomorrow, along with a cheque for £5 for two pairs of earrings sold this month.  So in total £36 more to add to the savings fund.

I also have 20 euros lying about upstairs, from our holiday to France earlier this year, that I am going to take to the bank to see if they will let me deposit these or exchnage them for me [I'll post an update on this tomorrow].

Free Food Woo Hoo!!

Well I have a very kind great-uncle.  After telling him all about my new-found love of my slow cooker, he went to Mr M and bought me a beef brisket joint worth £3.61 [money which I will now transfer to savings].  I will cook this for tea on Saturday, and I think Jay and Finn will be very pleased, me being a veggie on the other hand will have to take their word for it!  I also used my slow cooker to cook rice today and what a difference to cooking it on the hob!!  It expanded sooooo much!  I may have overcooked it slightly as it was a little bit too soft but we'll use it and it's all trial and error.  It's definitely one to try again though and it seems to go so much further.

Other money making news today:  I sold an unwanted toy on netmums for £4, which has gone straight into the savings.  I also sold some dvds on musicmagpie for £13 but I will not add that until the cheque arrives and the money is in the bank.

Free Christmas Alcohol

Well yesterday's Mummies and Munchkins meal was a huge success, Finn and I shared a meal so the whole afternoon only cost me £5, and him and his friends played for hours in the free play area and us mums had a good old catch up.  The cupcakes were very well received, and no-one had to fork out for dessert and another mum had bought crackers and party bags while the pub supplied free craft packs and balloons for the kiddies, it's fab to know that you can do something really fun and it not cost you the world.

Finn having fun on the slide!

Other good news today: Hubbie came home with a bottle of Australian Red Wine and a crate of 18 Becks , courtesy of a client, which starts off our Christmas alcohol selection well and would've cost us approx £14 for the two so I am going to transfer this to our savings woo hoo every little helps!

Today has also been a great success with the slow cooker, we now have a lovely quorn and veggie stew for tea for tomorrow and all the ingredients are ready to make a tomato sauce and risotto in there tomorrow.  I found a great blog today with lots of recipes and hints for slow cooking: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/02/creamy-crockpot-risotto.html, which has inspired me to try and use mine everyday to batch cook very cheaply.

I've also been trawling through a few of the diaries on MSE about becoming mortgage free - these guys are amazing and so inspiring, it made me think that maybe the money we save in 2010 may be better put towards an overpayment as opposed to an extension... hmm food for thought!

Finny-Roo Jr Designs Xmas cards

I have a small business Finny-Roo Designs [named after our fave little muchkin of course!] for which I make and sell cards and jewellery.  For special occasions, the very creative namesake of this business likes to make his own cards and today we have finished his xmas cards for friends and family.  All made from crafty bits I have collected over the years these have been completely free and he has had a blast making them, and best of all each one is completely unique.  I'll take some pictures and add them later...

Free entertainment and Xmas cupcakes

Well to get in the festive mood Finn and I went to our local school's carol service today.  It was so lovely, Finn spent the whole time cheering, dancing and being enthralled by the huge Xmas tree, and best of all it was complely free.  This afternoon we have our annual Mummies and Munchkins xmas meal, we go to a local cheap pub where they have a free indoor play area for the kids and spend a few hours gossiping and letting the kids wear themselves out!  Admittedly we do have food which is not the most frugal thing to do but it's cheap and cheerful and we do it instead of buying each other's kids xmas pressies so all in all a much cheaper xmas celebration, and to be fair with the mountian of toys all the lil munchkins get from family on xmas day this is something completely different for them.  I'm also going to make little xmas rice crispie cakes for dessert which will save us money, all with ingredients and decorations bought from Home Bargains [my fave shop ever!]. I already ahd the rice crisipes but I think they were about 50p for a huge bag [I'll prbably use about 5p worth], £1 for 200g white chocolate, although I'll only need 50g of this [25p], 29p for a box of twenty of the cutest little xmas decorations ever [1.4p each], and 19p for a pack of 100 petit four xmas cases [less than half a penny each].  I'll also add a sprinkle of magic edible reindeer glitter which I have hiding in my cupboard just waiting for me to make christmas cupcakes. I will make 20 cakes [one for each munchkin and mummy {of course}] and this will only cost me 69p!  If I bought these from a shop they'd be at least 50p each!  I'll upload a piccie when they're made, although I'd better get on with it before Finn wakes up!!

Tesco Clubcard Plus and Frugal Cooking

At the start of this year I signed us up for a Tesco Clubcard Plus.  This is not something Tesco promotes very well but it is an excellent way to collect extra clubcard points.  Basically it is a clubcard and a savings account in one.  You just need to call the Tesco clubcard line and they will transfer your account to a clubcard plus account.  You then set up a DD of anything from £10 every month and you can use this to pay for your shopping in Tesco and when you use this card as a payment card you get double points.  Now I don't tend to shop in Tesco as I find it more expensive than other shops but I always go when I have vouchers for extra points and just buy those things.  So I didn't think there was much point me putting more than £10 on a month, but I'd pretty much forgotten about it and had not missed the £10 a month and at the beginning of December realised I had £120 saved.  Thus my food shopping has all been done in Tescos this month and has not cost me a penny out of our bank account.  I am going to do this every year now so that I do not stress about having to find extra money for food in the most expensive month of the year. 

Always one for a bargain I picked up some fab ones last night.  I got a pack of stew veg [5 carrots, a parsnip, a swede and four onions] for 50p [which works out at 4.5p per vegetable] and a bunch of sweet onions for 13p, so today I am making French onion soup in the slow cooker, which, other than a little bit of butter and stock will cost me only 31p! 

The rest of the veg will be used to make a veggie soup, with a bag of reduced cabbage [20p], some red lentils [pennies worth{although these do have to be cooked before going in the slow cooker}] and a tin of value tomatoes - again a really cheap, warming meal that is so easy to make in the slow cooker and really good for you at the same time.  The total cost of this will be about 70p!

I am also going to make pizza bases in our breadmaker which Finn and I will decorate later.  Again this is a really cheap way of making pizza and a fun activity for kids.  All you need is a few different toppings chopped up [basil, sweetcorn, pineapple {tinned versions are cheap and cheerful] olives etc...], a tin of value tomatoes, a bit of tomato paste and plenty of cheese [but while Mozzerella is lush any cheap mild cheese will taste fine and makes for a cheaper meal] and who can resist a homemade pizza and movie night in in this cold wet weather we're having!

It is so much fun sorting out your cupboards and making yummy meals out of very little, knowing that your family are eating well and your piggy bank is looking healthy too.

Homemade Christmas Deckies Part One

Well today Finn and I have spent all morning making salt dough Xmas deckies a la Kirsty's Homemade Christmas.  He loved it and they look fab - I'll put some pictures on later.  There is now glitter and paint everywhere but one very happy little boy has just gone to bed so tidy-up time for me.  We also sorted some red, green and silver beads today and are going to thread them later to make a garland for the xmas tree.  I'm feeling very festive right now!

Freebie No1

Just found a code for a free 30 day trial of LOVEFILM & two free cinema tickets at Odeon cinemas: LFAWCINE.

Just have to remember to cancel a few days before Jan 7th so as not to pay anything.  That's our xmas viewing sorted!

Kirsty's Homemade Christmas!

Hoorah Kirsty is back with more homemade ideas [this time Christmas stylee] Tuesday and Wednesday on Channel 4 - let's see what fab ideas she has this time...

A bargain at 25p!

I was very chuffed this week when I went to a gorgeous little shop in our town and found they were selling a big selection of their [usually very expensive] greetings cards at 25p each!!  I found some fab ones that I will now cut up and re-use to create my own hand-made cards and sell them at £2 each!!  Tonight I'll be watching X-Factor and creating creating creating!

GOALS FOR JANUARY 2010

1. Make and sell 20 cards and/or pieces of jewellery

2. Start to learn how to knit

3. Make Xmas cards ready for Xmas 2010

4. Redesign curtains in the front room [no need to buy new ones] and paint the front room

4. Make thank you cards with Finn [much messy painting and gluing anticipated!]

Finn 'turned Picasso' in our old house, before the move!

Welcome to my blog

Hi there
This is my first attempt at a blog but I wanted to create something inspiring to keep me motivated on my great saving mission of 2010.
I have spent ages this weekend planning my budget for 2010, to try and keep our spending down as much as possible and give us extra money to put in the attic piggybank.
I also had some good news this weekend, OCR Examination Board have asked me to be an assistant examiner for one of their A-Level modules in June 2010. This will get the old brain cells working again, after two years out of education. Apparently I have to mark 250 papers [!!!] but the total payment for this will be £1300 [6% of our savings goal] so more than worth it. I just have to spend plenty of time refreshing my knowledge now - wish me luck!