Miss Thrifty

A yummy mummy pal of mine, shopping for Christmas presents for her four-year-old, has just scored £52.00 worth of toys from Littlewoods Direct for £22.00 plus postage.

Here’s how she did it:

1. Littlewoods has launched a 3 for 2 offer, covering more than 2,500 toys, gifts and jewellery items. This offer expires at midnight on 30 November.
2. What’s more, this offer comes on top of a slew of slashed prices. Some of the toys (such as the Fifi dolls, above, selling at £12.00 down from £26.00) have already been reduced to less than half-price.
3. If you click on the link for this promotional codes website, you will also get some great discount codes: one gets you £15.00 off your first order (minimum spend £25.00) and another gets you £10.00 off when you spend £30.00 or more.  (more…)

Hello! I’m your Thrifty Christmas Fairy. Struggling to keep track of all the panic-stricken stores slashing prices ahead of Christmas? Rest assured that this lil’ thrifty blog is at your service!

You’ll find a list of all the current sales below. I’ll be keeping this post on my front page and updating it whenever new information is released.

Have I missed anything? If so, please let me know via the comments and I’ll add it to the Christmas Deals Master List pronto…

02 DECEMBER

Debenhams - Oooooh - another three-day sale bonanza is on the cards! The reports say that prices will be slashed by 20 per cent again. The sale begins tomorrow (3 December) and ends on Friday.

29 NOVEMBER

Half-price Christmas decorations at Sainsburys.

28 NOVEMBER

A handy round-up of the latest deals in today’s Times:

Threshers, Wine Rack, Victoria Wine Until Tuesday, 40 per cent off all wine and champagne

Gap Until tomorrow, 30 per cent off everything with voucher

Jaeger Until tomorrow, 30 per cent off men’s and women’s accessories with printout of e-mail in own stores and online, not in concessions

Harvey Nichols 12 Days of Christmas shopping to December 7, 25 per cent off men’s and women’s fashion and accessories

Selfridges Christmas Comes Early voucher today and tomorrow, 20 per cent off with voucher; 10 per cent off fragrance, beauty

Whistles Until Monday, 25 per cent off everything in store and online with voucher

Karen Millen Until Monday, 20 per cent off everything on sale in store and online with voucher

BhS Today, extra 20 per cent off

Woolworths Until tomorrow, 10 per cent off music, DVDs, games hardware and software, phones and accessories, electricals, electronic instruments and sat-navs with voucher; 20 per cent off everything else with voucher

JJB Sports Until December 14, 20 per cent off children’s character clothing with voucher

Adams Kids Until December 7, 20 per cent off on all purchases in store with voucher

Liberty Tuesday to Friday, Liberty cardholders only, 50 per cent off men’s and women’s fashion; 20 per cent off everything else; 10 per cent off beauty and fragrance

Marks & Spencer December 4, (unconfirmed) 20 per cent off most stock except food.

(more…)

I’m just a little crazy right now. I’ve been skitting around like a demented ladybug all week, trying to tie up all the loose ends and get everything done before I jet off on my holiday. My journey to the airport commences in a few hours’ time and I haven’t even started packing yet. Glurk. I’ll probably end up panic-packing - then wind up at San Francisco International Airport with four denim skirts, a pair of slippers and a muu-muu.

I have some great guest posts lined up as my holiday cover, and I hope that you will enjoy reading them. In the meantime, this plopped into my inbox today:

Chiconomise       
Chiconomise is a new lifestyle newsletter featuring offers, sales & discounts for people who want to live stylishly for less. Founded by BBC One’s The Apprentice winner Michelle Dewberry, the newsletter aims to lead its readers to the best deals to be had in fashion, beauty, eating, drinking and going out. To find out more about the newsletter and to sign up to receive it, go to www.chiconomise.com.

Interesting, no? (more…)

Hey! My post about our forthcoming Thrifty Roadtrip has just made Editor’s Pick at the 35th Money Hacks Carnival!

Thanks to My Two Dollars for organising a great carnival this week, with lots of pictures of steam trains. You can’t go wrong with the Old West.

Also in the carnival: I really enjoyed Lisa at Condo Blues’ post about budget-friendly household cleaners. Lots of white vinegar, baking soda - and crystal clear instructions on cleaning floors, counters and dishes. This tip was new on me:

Vinegar in the Jet Dry container of the dishwasher. Vinegar works to keep spots off the glasses just like Jet Dry, Cascade, or a store brand-sheeting agent. Actually, I think vinegar has better sheeting action and keeps water spots from forming on my glasses. Who knew?

Yes, I know I’m really late to the party. I’d read all about Freecycle, which reduces waste by encouraging people to post their unwanted items online, and pass them on. But I hadn’t really paid much attention, because (a) Freecycle always popping up in those same rubbish “recessionista” features in the women’s pages. You know: those round-ups that tell us all to go out and stuff fallen fruit into our Lulu Guinness handbags, and take our clothes to “swap parties”. Also, (b) I’d presumed that Freecycle’s domains were eco-trendy places like Islington and Brighton, rather than my creaky Yorkshire backwater.

But lo! I looked Freecycle up, and it turns out that the little place in which I live (pop: 13,000) has its own, thriving Freecycle group. (more…)

Following my round-up of property raffles a few weeks ago, this blog has received oodles of hits from people in the UK searching for home hooplas. So thanks to Miss Thrifty reader Sima for alerting me to the news that the draw for that lovely 11.5 acre fishing estate in Devon, which was due to take place today, has been postponed pending a Gambling Commission investigation.

The issue appears to revolve around the difficulty level of the question that all entrants had to answer correctly before they could purchase a ticket. The couple who have organised the raffle did clear the question (”What is the cost of an adult full season coarse fishing license for 2008/2009?”) with the Gambling Commission before launching their house raffle sale, so fingers crossed that the draw goes ahead. If worst comes to worst, they have pledged to give everyone their money back.

I have copied their statement below, in full.

Apparently the last-minute flurry of interest from the powers-that-be has been sparked by the growing numbers of house raffle sales around the country. Here’s an update on the others: (more…)

I’ve been thinking about writing a will for a while now. It’s not like we have much to give away, but we own a house, we don’t want to make things difficult for anyone left behind, and reading c jane’s and Nie Nie’s blogs brings home the truth that anything can happen, at any time.

Ashley at Wide Open Wallet has been writing about her will recently, and this has finally inspired me to action.

To anyone who hasn’t made a will before, I will say this: it’s a lot quicker and easier than you think it will be! My husband and I went to a very sweet solicitor on Monday, to go through the finer points. Wills for the pair of us are only going to cost £100, which is less than I was expecting. We took along the forms that our solicitor gave us to fill out with details of any pensions and stocks (ha ha ha), who we wanted as our executors and guardians of children, plus details of any legacies that we wanted to leave.

Filling out these forms makes one very morbidly-minded. We chose one of our in-laws as the first executor, on the grounds of his Teutonic efficiency. But then fell to thinking, what if he dies? So we added my brother as the second executor, just in case. (more…)

Dear Sainsburys,

I made the following observations, while walking around your supermarket today: 

1. I like your pouch of fresh hollandaise sauce for 99p. It is freezable, so I can pour the contents into an ice cube tray and it will keep us going for a while. This works out at good value. 
2. Talking of your fish section: can you cut the prices, please? The battered haddock at the fish and chip shop is cheaper than your woolly-looking fillet selection. Still, I suppose you’ll argue that your haddock is line-caught and the fish and chip shop’s were trawled in alongside innocent dolphins. Grumble grumble.
3. And no, before you ask: I’m not going to stoop to the economy salmon fillets. I have enough doubts about the provenance of regular-priced salmon fillets, thank you very much.  (more…)

Caitlin Moran in The Times is one of my favourite columnists - she makes me laugh a lot. This week is no exception: she has been writing on media attitudes to squeezed household budgets, and I think she’s bang on:

Within the middle classes is a faction that is responding to the impending Cashpocalypse with what seems suspiciously like eagerness. Joy, even. They’ve practically got recession advent calendars, counting down to the day where the first Pret A Manger goes bust. Over the past year a series of Guardian and Observer supplements and “specials” have sketched out a vision of just how fulfilling a global depression could be for their readers. According to their features departments, a decade of economic stagnation, energy crises and social turmoil is going to pass in an enjoyable homely whirl of home-made fruitcakes, Victorian parlour games and a covetable back-garden turnip patch. The Guardian has shown us how to make corsages out of ribbon-scraps and a front-door mat out of wooden pegs;just last weekend The Observer ran a feature on collecting free, wild foods that made reference to a recipe for “acacia-flower beignets.

She concludes: (more…)

Today is a traumatic day in the Thrifty household. Our statements from our energy provider, Southern Electric, have arrived.

I have been able to scrrrrrrrrrrape my jaw from the floor and regain my composure - but it has not been a pretty episode. We knew our gas and electricity bills were going up - UK energy companies have all shuffled their tariffs skywards over the past couple of months - but we didn’t expect that the rises would be quite so steep.

We do everything by the Thrifty Book: we found the cheapest tariff using uSwitch, and we pay a fixed monthly direct debit, which qualifies us for a 5 per cent discount. We live in a brick mid-terraced house with small rooms, so our usage isn’t that high. For the past year-and-a-bit, we have been paying:

£21 ($39) a month for electricity

£25 ($46) a month for gas

Southern Electric has now written to us to let us know that from this day forth, we will be paying: (more…)