Miss Thrifty

I try to avoid buying flowers online or using Interflora, if possible. Last year I was all set to send my mum a bouquet for Mother’s Day. Then I went on the Interflora website and got all moody when I saw the prices. Was it me, or were the tariffs all pumped up for the Mother’s Day weekend? I worked out for the cost of sending a half-decent bunch of flowers, I could fund the 500-mile round trip to go and see her. So I did that instead.

Since then, I’ve discovered Bunches. (more…)

My household bills are streamlined; up until now, the one exception has been our broadband internet.

We’ve been with BT since moving in two years ago, with the broadband costing around £20 a month. When our contract expired, BT’s semi-coherent call centre drones began telephoning non-stop with various deals, to get us to sign up for another 18 months, but to be honest their “special offers” were all pretty feeble. (more…)

Here are some of the interesting links I have been sent recently:

Refer Me Happy – This UK site pools all those “refer a friend” deals, for products ranging from contact lenses to mortgages.

Finance Dreams – a new UK personal finance blog. (Hey, the more of us the merrier!)

CashBack Automator – “Did you know most retailers give free cash rebates to online shoppers? Use CashBack Automator to find deals and save money.” I haven’t signed up for this site, because it’s a US one (also Canada, I think) and thus wasted on me. However, an impressive roll call of “supported retailers” includes Target, Gap and Expedia.

Approved Food & Drink – this tip came from Frugal Grandma, who spotted it in the Daily Mail (naturally). It’s an online retailer, selling clearance and out-of-date food and drink at rock bottom prices. They courier their wares around the country, with delivery prices similar to those of the supermarkets, and also have a cash and carry store in Worksop. All the other frugal grandmas must have spotted this one in the Daily Mail too, because Approved currently has an order backlog of nearly 12 days!

Finally,

Absurdly Cool – this site is an “automated free stuff aggregator”, which collates freebie offers and filters out the scams. It features offers from the US, Canada and the UK. A sister site, Oh! Big Deal! collates money off and discount offers in various US stores.

This one’s a beauty, so I thought I’d share it. It’s a website called Tesco Voucher Codes, which does what it says on the tin. It has all the current points voucher codes, money off voucher codes and wine codes. Definitely worth a whirl!

Here at Thrifty Towers, we have a delicate situation.

For Christmas, husband’s family clubbed together and bought us a Wii. They observed, quite correctly, that we did not have a Wii – and were, in fact, the one remaining Wii-less branch of the family. They also know that we are on a tight household budget. And what a lavish gift it was! As you can imagine, we were both stunned and grateful. Our Wii came with extra gubbins including another controller and a game.

Now here’s the rub. And before you ask, it’s not that they bought us a super-expensive games console and got pot plants in return. Those are good pot plants, damn it! (more…)

You know how, if you leave cheddar or a similar cheese out by accident, it turns hard and waxy? There’s a neat little solution.

Soak a clean tea towel or square of muslin in white wine (cheap wine is fine). Wrap tightly around the cheese and leave for several hours.

See? Told you it worked!

I’ve never been a gym person myself. I have tried, in the past, but I can’t get into it. It’s a lot of hard work for a lot of money, to stare at a blank wall (or worse, a flatscreen showing a dippy MTV reality show) while inhaling muscle mens’ vapourised sweat.

Mind you, my plans to take my exercise in the outdoors have come a cropper recently, due to the inclement weather: it’s hard to run or walk on solid ice and snow! My proposed regime may be low-cost, but it is also made more difficult by the pitch black early mornings and Yorkshire’s Arctic winds. If the weather carries on like this, I may reconsider the whole gym thing.

So FruGal’s tips on choosing the right gym have come at just the right time! There are lots of really useful ideas – all borne of experience. If you have made a New Year’s Resolution to lose weight, get fit or both, I’d recommend that you hop on over (you can star jump your way over if you like) and check them out…

From my Frugal Grandma:

These African violets are more than five years old and the reason why they are thriving (they are past their best in this picture and heading towards their yearly rest) is because they have never had anything other than rainwater.   

Lots of people love these flowers, but lose them because they give them water from the tap or filter, which turns the leaves brown and poisons the plant.

A week or so before Christmas, a medium-sized cardboard box filled with organic fruit and vegetables landed on the Thrifty Towers doorstep. (I know! Some bloggers have all the luck/freebies.) It was a pre-festive gift from the organic delivery service Abel & Cole, and was issued along with a challenge: (more…)

If you are on Twitter, you are based in the UK and you are on the lookout for bargains and discounts, have you come across the HotUKDeals feed?

I hadn’t until the other day, but I’m really pleased to have stumbled across this feed’s path. It does what it says on the tin, and is the Twitter version of hotukdeals.com: a website and forum devoted to hot-off-the-presses deals and offers. On Twitter, HotUKDeals tweets the bargains throughout the day; put it this way, right now there are plenty of them to get your teeth into. (more…)