Miss Thrifty

Here at Thrifty Towers, we’re planning our first vacation in a loooong time. Later this year we’re flying from London to San Francisco. We’re going to hire a car, drive down to Arizona and fly back to the UK from Phoenix. We used to live, work and study in Phoenix, so we’re really excited about catching up with our old chums and dining at our favourite restaurant in the world again.

You’ll be pleased - if not entirely surprised - to note that this operation is to be executed with the requisite lashings of financial chutzpah. My husband, who is self-employed, won a training grant to go to California and embark on a highly-specialised, week-long course there. Not bad, eh? The grant covers his tuition and flights, along with a week’s worth of accommodation and food costs. This has slashed the cost of our holiday.  He’s flying out before me; I’m going to meet him in San Francisco the day after the course ends. Then we’ll fly back together, a week later.  

I tried to book our flights and car hire online, but didn’t get very far. Flying into one airport and out of another, with three different flight dates, meant that I spent an age scribbling prices and codes down on scraps of paper, while tapping my fingers irritably as the various flight sites’ price options loaded. The car hire was a challenge too: a couple of the companies will let you pick up the car in one state and drop it off in another, but with various stipulations and with various additional charges whacked on. I must admit, the prices quoted weren’t particularly attractive either. Not unless we wanted to fly from London to San Francisco via Germany (hello! wrong direction!) and New England.

I hummed and hawed. My husband phoned from work to say he would have a go. Just minutes later, he called back to tell me that the flights and car had all been booked! What’s more, the prices he had found beat my online “bargains” by quite a hefty margin.

His secret? It’s a simple one: Read the rest of this entry →

A great site called fatfingers.com, which is free to use, exploits eBay sellers’ orthographic shortcomings.

It searches out the thousands of eBay auction items that are currently listed with titles and descriptions containing spelling mistakes. These auctions often expire with no bids, as potential buyers do not find them.

I ran a few keyword searches on fatfingers.com, to see what was around. At the time of writing Manolo, Jimmy Choo and Zac Posen all drew up blanks. If you are searching for Canon, Minolta, Armani or Diane von Furstenberg, however, you may get lucky…

Another day, another carnival! My post Women’s Institute: Thrifty Goddesses? is featured in the latest Money Hacks Carnival, hosted by PF Buzz.

My favourite post from this carnival is 36 Ways to Reduce Your Home’s Energy Use, by Ben at Trees Full of Money. There are loads of great tips here.

I’m over the moon! Not only is my post Bowing to Frugal Grandma featured in the latest Festival of Frugality, but it has been chosen as an Editor’s Pick! Many thanks to the festival’s hardworking hosts, FIRE Finance.

Also, Miss Thrifty had a record number of visitors at the weekend. My plans for world domination are proceeding smoothly, bwa ha ha.

Back to the FoF: I was taken with the post Save by Not Saving on These Things , at Our Fourpence Worth. It lists products that aren’t worth scrimping on. First on the list is cheese.

I am delighted that my post Ah, for the love of laptop computers! which explored the dilemma of having to buy a new laptop computer when you’re on a frugal budget, has been featured in the latest Carnival of Personal Finance, hosted by Broke Grad Student.

It’s a BIG carnival, but my favourite entry has to be Paris Hilton Works Harder Than You Do, from the SavingAdvice.com blog. When I read this post I had what I think the self-improvement industry calls a “paradigm shift”!

Hot Fuzz on DVD for £3.00? Irresistible.

It’s on special offer at Sainsburys, which has some really good deals running from now until 2 September. You can find the full list here.

I was going to run with the 60 beers for £20.00, but did not wish to perpetuate the popular notion that Britons are binge-drinking boors. As if.

I was on one of my flying visits to London today, for a couple of work meetings. The trains from the north all go into Kings Cross St. Pancras; I have a nifty little money-saving tip that I’m going to share here, just in case it helps anyone else.

You see, when I get to Kings Cross I always pack away my laptop and swap my comfy boots for spiky heels. But this leaves me with a couple of extra bags that I don’t want to haul around all day long - and especially not when I’m balanced precariously on designer footwear! Kings Cross has a Left Luggage desk but it’s £6.50 per item per day, which is pretty steep in my book.

So this is what I do. I exit the station and pop into the lovely British Library, next door. There’s a locker room down the stairs, and it’s free to use. The lockers take luggage of all shapes and sizes; they take a pound coin as deposit, but you get that back when you open them again. The lockers are intended to be used by the readers, but even if you aren’t a registered reader (which I am *flutters eyelashes*), the locker room is in a public part of the building and technically, it’s open to all. So you shouldn’t feel too naughty! 

This ploy saved me £13.00 today; not quite enough to offset the stupendously stupendous price of my train ticket, but hey ho.

My Thriftymobile is super-cheap to run: it’s a 23-year-old Mazda with just 40,000 miles on the clock, and rock-bottom insurance rates. But there are downsides: just occasionally, something goes wrong.

The car started leaking oil a few weeks ago, and while local mechanics have been humming and hawing over fixing it (no takers, to date - jeez, it can’t be that awful!) the tarmac parking space outside my house has been collecting round oily dibs and dabs. I was told to get a pressure washer to clean them away, but then I saw the prices.

So I was pleased to come across this delightfully frugal nugget on Real Simple:

An oil spot can put a damper on an otherwise spick-and-span surface. Follow these guidelines to eliminate that eyesore in a flash.

Absorb the grease by covering the spill with standard kitty litter (which contains clay that draws in moisture and causes liquids to clump).

Add just enough petroleum-based solvent, such as paint thinner or mineral spirits, to wet the mixture.

Cover with a plastic garbage bag. “This is the most important part of the process,” says Don Aslett, a cleaning expert in Pocatello, Idaho. “It will ensure that the spot stays wet and the solvent doesn’t evaporate.”

After 24 hours, the “kitty litter should appear black,” which means it has soaked up all the oil, says Aslett. If the kitty litter hasn’t changed color, repeat the process.

And I tell you what: it works!

Real Simple

I’m about to blaspheme.

I have found fault with the Women’s Institute.

There’s a feature in The Times captioned Old-Fashioned Home Economics: As household bills soar, the Women’s Institute offers some valuable lessons in thrift. And I’m not impressed!

To put this into context: I’m obsessed, in an utterly unhealthy way, with the WI. Despite their attempts to rebrand themselves as young and funky (see website link above) we all know the truth: it’s about flouncing around in pearls and flowery frocks, making jam, beef Wellingtons and Victoria sponges, and giving rapturous applause to visiting speakers who hold forth on a variety of life-affirming, vicar-tinged subjects. Before I offend any WI members reading this, I should also point out that the idea of wearing pearls and flowery frocks, and making lots of conserves, makes me drool. When we moved to Yorkshire from London, I naively believed that I could finally join the good ladies of the WI and fulfil my ultimate Domestic Goddess fantasies.

Sadly, it was not to be. They meet every Wednesday afternoon at two - when I’m at work (duh).

Even so, my heart did a little skip when I saw this article. I confidently assumed that it would be a cornucopia of thrifty gloriousness. Read the rest of this entry →

Apologies for the late-running Friday Bargains. Further to my post last week about the trials and tribulations of choosing a new computer when you’re on a budget, my wheezy old laptop decided to force my hand with a spectacularly ill-timed implosion.

I’m now the proud owner of a spanking new Sony Vaio VGN-NR32L, which is sleek, silver and - best of all - runs very fast. I’m also delighted to be the proud owner of a £ key once again. My older laptop was an American one, so it only typed $. This has caused not a little tooth-gnashing, while writing a finance-themed blog.

During the course of my laptop travails over the weekend, this is what I learned about trying to be thrifty while shopping for an overpriced plastic-and-metal cuboid: Read the rest of this entry →