Miss Thrifty

Andrex has hooked up with top British lingerie designer Ayten Gasson (no, me neither) to promote Andrex Shea Butter toilet tissue. The result: a limited edition set of knickers, available to buy from the Andrex website. Saucy.

Apparently the knickers are infused with shea butter, to make them extra soft and silky. Butter-infused pants? Erm, okay. More importantly, they are going for £10 a pop, instead of the usual £79. So if you like your designer kecks at knockdown prices, check them out. For every purchase made, £5 will be donated to a women’s cancer charity.

I’m not a fan of Ticketmaster, generally – I don’t like their booking fees and I take my orders from 1990s rock totty – but the concert giant’s latest scheme gets the thumbs up from me.

In short, you can trade in your old mobile phones and/or iPods for a Ticketmaster giftcard. Find out the value of your item by visiting this site; if you want to proceed they’ll send you a stamped, addressed recycling envelope. For every phone recycled, Ticketmaster will also donate £1 to charity.

Apparently the phones can be traded in for up to £150. To give you a guide: my current phone, a Nokia 6500s that came free with my latest mobile contract, is worth £40.

Image credit: In Veritas Lux.

Ha! Thought that would get your attention.

If you are in the habit of visiting Pizza Express and spending £40 or more per visit – i.e. you don’t scrimp on the garlic bread – the restaurant chain’s latest offer is one for you.

Pick up a “Summer Pass” card next time you are there. Register the card at www.pizzaexpress.com. Ask your waiter to swipe your card whenever you visit and spend at least £40. After the third such swipe, your card will be credited with £40.

Simple, si?

On the subject of Pizza Express, don’t forget that if you are an Orange customer, you can enjoy 2 for 1 pizzas on Wednesdays.

Image credit: Inanimatt.

Optimal Print, which produces business cards, wedding invitations and the like, is running a wedding-themed competition. You don’t have to be affianced to enter, though.

First prize is £500. Second prize is an iPod Touch. Third prize is, erm, a T-shirt.

Entrants should choose a wedding invitation design (note: you don’t have to buy it!) and send this, along with 250 words describing their dream wedding, to wedding@optimalprint.com.

The competition details are here. The closing date is 25 August 2009.

Here is one for locals and Yorkshire lovers: 1,000 Leeds hotel rooms are going for £10 apiece. It’s a wheeze organised by Visit Leeds, the city’s tourist body.

Some of the rooms are going for £10 for one night; others are going for £10 for an extra night; others are going for £10 for a third night. The accommodation on offer includes celeb haunt 42 The Calls, and the serviced apartments at Roomzzz Central.

If you aren’t familiar with the city: do check the location of your chosen hotel, as some of the places taking part are quite a way out of the city centre. If you’re coming by car, please note that you will get totally and utterly lost somewhere inside Leeds’ notorious one-way system.

Reasons to visit Leeds, apart from shops and that: (more…)

Before I begin, I’d like to remind you that I live in Yorkshire. I would add that I live in a mid-terrace on a former council estate with semi-retired, salt-of-the-earth couples on either side. So I’m sure you won’t be surprised when I tell you that I have the thriftiest neighbours ever. How fitting!

They are also extremely kind and generous. Colin, who lives to my right, is a TV repairman. One day he brought round an old Sky box and remote control, and fixed us up with Freeview. Another time he got annoyed after I paid a roofer to replace a couple of tiles and detach the broken TV aerial from the chimney. Our neighbour told us that we had only to ask, and he was perfectly happy to go up there for us. (”Why not? Two words, Colin.  Rod.  Hull.”) When we moved in he let me borrow his garden equipment so that I could try and tackle our bombsite of a back garden. (more…)

A nice TV researcher from a production company called Betty asked me to post this request. Happy to oblige…

Does your Dad wrap your Christmas presents in newspaper? Does you Mum ration your loo roll?

Or are you a proud penny pincher yourself?

Are you Britain’s Most Thrifty Family?

If these thrifty money-saving antics sound familiar then we need you!

We’re making a new programme for a major TV channel, which will celebrate thrift.

We want to hear your most frugal living tips and meet the thriftiest families in Britain. Please contact Claire or Esme on 0207 907 0867 or email claire.braden@betty.co.uk

Over at his Losing Face blog, James continues to document his life without cash. If you are unfamiliar with his story: James “gave up” on cash for a drunken bet. More than eighteen months later, armed with his trusty Visa card, he is still going strong – and the dare has become a way of life.

From what I can gather, the PR bods at Visa were practically beside themselves when they found out about him. (more…)

This is the industrial-strength rendition of my Hassle-free oven cleaning post. Trust me: the inside of your oven door could look like it was painted with Cuprinol, several times over, and this would still make it look like new.

For this heavy-duty version, you will need:

• Liberal quantities of bicarbonate of soda.
• Water.
• A bowl.
• A cloth.
• A wallpaper scraper.

Yes, that is all! (more…)

So there I am on Twitter, minding my own business and retweeting links to handsome competitions (if you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know that I’m keen on comps), when I go and win one! Methinks my lucky karma must have been building up of late; seriously, the last time I won anything was at Gala Bingo in 2005.

My prize is courtesy of the generous folks at Informed Choice, an independent financial planning company. It is a £1,500 LifeWealth Design: a six-step process, which identifies my personal goals and then “quantifies” them with a comprehensive financial plan. Sounds good to me; I’m still determined to pay the mortgage off in the next ten years, so I’m sure I’ll have enough to keep them going…

Anyway, I’ll let you know how I get on. I haven’t had my personal finances hauled over the coals by independent professionals before – let’s face it, the plonkers in Abbey’s mortgage department don’t count - so I’m looking forward to this. When they see the obsessive-compulsive way in which I have organised my finances over the past couple of years, will they (a) fall to the ground and praise this miraculous vision?  (b) edge away slowly? 

The company is giving away one of these plans every day until 25 July 2009, so if you’re on Twitter and you fancy giving it a go, follow the instructions here.