Miss Thrifty

Following my last post about love it! magazine, I’ve been directed to a rather splendid collection of top tips over at the Hero of Switzerland blog.

My favourites are the “talking point” party decorations (left), the giftwrapped stones and the tube of toothpaste that is left in the freezer, then chopped up into thrifty “after dinner mints” for people who can’t stretch to After Eights. Not forgetting the “designer toothbrush holder”…

Oooh, hello love it! magazine! You are looking classy as ever, I see, with your v. special blend of apocalyptic/bawdy real-life tales. And all of it for peanuts!

This is one of the many magazines that Sue (my lovely next door neighbour) dropped round recently. I have kept it by, because the regular “top tips” page in this issue has, quite frankly, surpassed itself.

If you think that you have seen just about every money saving tip going, think again.

Let’s take a look, shall we? (more…)

The price comparison site Money Supermarket is running a video competition called Let’s Have The Savings! The winner gets £500 prize money.

To enter, you have to make a short video of yourself as you embark on a fun way to spend your savings. You then have to upload the video to YouTube and e-mail the URL to adair.cameron@moneysupermarket.com. Oh yes: while on screen, you have to say “LETS HAVE THE SAVINGS!” Very Lobby Lud.

The competition closes at midday on 9 October, and the winner will be the person whose video has the highest number of views.

Blog carnivals: I loves them! Other personal finance bloggers were kind enough to feature some recent Miss Thrifty posts in carnivals last week.

Cleaning silver – this one’s a beauty was featured in the 23rd Carnival of Pecuniary Delights, over at Almost Frugal. This is an old favourite, which shows how to clean jewellery and household items using tin foil, salt and warm water – and none of those stinky, gunky cleaners.

Six thrifty uses for a lemon made it into Gotta Little Space’s Make It From Scratch Carnival. This post was also picked up by one of my longtime favourite bloggers, Funny About Money, and a new UK blog called Voucher Mum (tagline: “saving mums money, one voucher at a time”). Thanks for the kudos and the tips, ladies!

Political Calculations featured the lemon post and the cleaning silver post as two of the “best posts from the past week’s business and money-related blog carnivals“. I am spoiled!

My wedding anniversary trip to Harrogate Turkish Baths was included in the line-up for the 221st Carnival of Personal Finance, hosted by Financial Highway.

Trade your old mobile for pop concert tickets edged into the Carnival of Twenty Something Finances, hosted by Rabbit Funds. I say “edged” because, well, let’s just say that Facebook has stopped showing me tailored ads for dating sites and cool T-shirts and has started showing me ads for weight loss products and baby clothes instead…

The Bill Amberg Penguin Classics books – for a snip was featured in the 81st Carnival of Money Hackers, over at ABCs of Investing. If you can’t find these beautiful, leather-bound books in your local discount bookstore, remember that you can also get them for less than half-price from the Penguin website.

In case you’re wondering about the procession image: I’m at the back, just out of shot, with a soap nut bikini and feather dusters for ostrich feathers.

Image credit: debs-eye.

…Because I just received this:

Hi!
I wanted to get in touch with you because I work in the PR department of Threadless. We saw your post of a Threadless Tee giveaway and we’re so excited that your readers love our tees. We have some exciting news that we wanted to share with you. On 9-9-09 ALL Threadless tee-shirts will be on sale for $9.

Please let me know if you might be able to post about this and let your readers know about this awesome limited time sale

Thanks!

[name redacted at PR's request, for "privacy" reasons - ah, who am I to quibble?]

Threadless makes great T-shirts and posts them around the world. So when a new voucher codes website got in touch, proffering Threadless freebies for Miss Thrifty readers, my inner hipster sat up straight.

Here’s the deal:

1. Visit the website: VoucherHub.com.

2. Come back here.

3. In the comments section at the bottom of this post, write a THREE WORD review of VoucherHub.com.

I will then pick two winners, whose reviews most closely resemble my own opinion about the site…

The prize: each winner will receive a $50 Threadless voucher. Some of the Threadless tees cost $25 each. If you’re feeling thrifty, there is also a sale section with stacks of tees selling for $9 – so $50 can go a long way!

To be in with a shout, get your reviews to me before 5 pm GMT on Sunday 6 September. Good luck!

P.S. I notice that I’m not the only personal finance blogger hosting this giveaway, so if you’re a Threadless fan and a prolific commenter, you could win big…

UPDATE: Thanks to all who entered; this was tough! Five entries captured my thoughts perfectly and made me smile, so it was difficult to choose between them. So out of that final five, I ended up going for the niftiest ones. The winners are (drumroll)… Mauricio, with his admirable alliteration. And Jo B, with her rhyming chutzpah. Threadless vouchers on their way; keep your eyes peeled for my next giveaway…

Here at Thrifty Towers we recently celebrated four years of wedded bliss. It feels like a lot longer than four years – is that a good thing or a bad thing?

This year we wanted to go somewhere fun to mark the occasion. We have come a long way since our first wedding anniversary, which took place not long after we had returned to the UK with hollowed pockets. My mother-in-law gave us a £20 note and we went to Colchester Odeon to see a Jack Black film. In lieu of a proper dinner we went crazy for the pick-and-mix, and spent much of the film feeling queasy because we’d eaten too many sweets. Yes: we were that classy. Who said romance was dead, eh?

And this year? We made it to the Turkish Baths in Harrogate, which is not far from where we live in North Yorkshire. Baths aren’t obvious romantic settings – particularly when, as in this case, they are run by the local council – but these ones are something else. (more…)