Miss Thrifty

Slow Cooker: save on money and save on washing up was featured in the 239th Carnival of Personal Finance, hosted by Darwin’s Finance.

Miss Thrifty’s pick: Staying Off the Car Payment Treadmill, by Tough Money Love. “I don’t understand the logic in borrowing money to purchase a depreciating asset”, notes Mr TML. Me neither.

When “cheap” and “Manolo Blahnik shoes” go together was featured in the 212th Festival of Frugality, hosted by Yes I Am Cheap.

Miss Thrifty’s pick: Composting on the Balcony: The Easy Way to Environmental Virtue, by Life On The Balcony. It can be done! This blog is dedicated to gardening tips for flat-dwellers.

Talking of gardening: Growing Brussels sprouts for Christmas was featured in the Make It From Scratch! Carnival, hosted by Out of Debt Again.

Miss Thrifty’s pick: All Day Beef Stock, by Making My Own Luck. I can tell you that if I ate meat, I’d be sloshing this over everything…

Image credit: Infrogmation.

The Cath Kidston sale is currently in progress on the company’s website. As regular readers will know, I am v. partial to Cath Kidston but bristle with indignation at the RRPs. This time around, some of the discounts are stingy but others are pretty good, so I thought I’d round up the most bargainous of the bunch for you. Here they are, divided into the website sections:

Accessories: nothing to write home about here, unless you’re in the market for thick woolly scarves.

Bags: bonanza! The cowboy tote bag (left), made from oilcloth with leather trim, is reduced from £55.00 to £30.00.

I love the cowboy print – I even have it on my bedroom wallpaper – and there are a few cowboy bags in the sale section this time. The cowboy messenger bag is reduced from £38.00 to £25.00. The cowboy bucket bag is reduced from £40.00 to £25.00. I hope this doesn’t mean that the cowboy print is for the chop…

Bathroom: washbags down from £18.00 to £12.00. (more…)

The car got stuck on ice – or rather, I got the car stuck on ice. I was driving to a meeting in my hometown, screwed up the one way system and ducked into a cul-de-sac to check my road map. (I have lived here for three years and still have to do this; I’m not sure if it says more about me or the town planners.)

I wasn’t thinking though: this was a downhill cul-de-sac.  I drove in – but damn it, I couldn’t drive out again. Much of the snow has cleared here in Yorkshire, but the roads are icy something rotten. In the end I parked up and walked (well, slid) the rest of the way.

It’s not the first time this has happened. Last week I parked up at work and, when it was time to go home, found that the car wouldn’t budge. Nonchalant wheelspins: yes. Motion: no. I had to tear up the car window cleaning cloth with a kitten heel and shove it under the front tyres before I could move off. It was not a dignified exit.

Gentle reader, it is my fervent desire that such irksome situations do not befall you as they have me. So here is the budget-friendly solution, comprehensively researched and validated by yours truly…

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A slow cooker, I have discovered, is a gift from the Kitchen God. I’ve had mine since November and I’ve become ever so slightly obsessed with it.

Slow cookers have been popular in America (where they are also known as “crock pots”, after the Crock-Pot® brand) for ages. They used to be popular here, too – and from what I can gather, are gaining in popularity once again.

For the uninitiated, this is why slow cookers are great:

1. They save time. You pile your ingredients in the slow cooker before work, turn it on – and come home in the evening to a yummy stew, all cooked and ready to go.
2. They are easy to use. See above.
3. They save on washing up. Generally, washing up = one chopping board, one kitchen knife and a good wipe around the inside of the slow cooker.
4. They reduce food waste. No need to let those squooshy tomatoes or that stray courgette go to mush – chuck them in the pot.
5. (Drumroll) They save money! They don’t use as much energy as an oven or electric hob. I have been making frugal-but-fabulous dinners with cheap ingredients including root vegetables, tinned tomatoes (value range), dried pulses, herbs from the garden and lots of crusty bread.

Today is a case in point. We haven’t done our  January supermarket shop yet, partly because all the snow up here in North Yorkshire has made it difficult to get around and partly because, like most people, we are el skinto this month following the excesses of Christmas. So we’ve been making do with our dwindling food stocks. Open the fridge or the cupboard door and there isn’t much to look at but right now, bubbling away as I write, is a stew made from the following: (more…)

“Manolo Blahnik” and “cheap” are mutually exclusive terms, right? Even on eBay, it’s difficult to get a Manolo bargain. New, they go for £400 a pair, which is probably more than I’ve spent on footwear over the past decade.

Before I go any further I’d like to emphasise that I’m not a shoe freak. Frankly, I wince when cretinous women slobber and drool over Choos and Louboutins. Such a waste of money, energy and dribble. Read this newspaper piece about celebrities’ “best days ever” and you’ll see what I mean.

However one day seven years ago, something splendid happened.

I was wandering around the high street during my lunch hour. I was in a bad mood: at the time, I was working a wretched job for a pitiful pay cheque. I wandered into the local Oxfam thrift shop… (more…)

It’s New Year’s resolution time. Whirling dervish: on your marks, get set, go!

1. More blogging. I’m going to have more time to blog in 2010: I’ll be blogging on the same range of thrifty subjects, but more frequently. This site is also going to get a new design as, although this one has a certain homespun flavour that lends itself well to the Make Do and Mend theme, it’s time for a change.

Why am I telling you this? Well, if there is anything that you would like to see more of, less of – or would like to see, full stop – then please let me know. For your info: the most popular Miss Thrifty posts for 2009 included thrifty Cath Kidston wallpaper, a Tesco voucher codes tip-off, a look at fake wedding cakes and a failsafe, eco-friendly wheeze for cleaning an oven. This creates a rather pleasing image of the typical Miss Thrifty reader as a domestic god/goddess in a pretty, vintage setting. (more…)