Miss Thrifty

Hello! I’m your Thrifty Christmas Fairy, 2009 model. Struggling to keep track of all those slashed 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…

08/12/09

Argos: up to 50 per cent off toys.

Very.co.uk: if you are splashing the cash this Christmas (unlikely, if you’re reading this blog – but hey ho), check out  this online department store. It has up to £300 off flatscreen televisions. There is also a very tasty deal on the Nikon S630 digital camera: was £459, now £229. Total saving: £230. (more…)

Here in Yorkshire there are plenty of entrepreneurs, plenty of people with big ideas and plenty of enthusiasm for saving cash. That’s a winning combination, in my book. It gives rise to super-thrifty initiatives such as BeTheMiddleman.com, a new property “portal” that is already attracting a good deal of attention. The online service, which aims to cut down on estate agents’ and letting agents’ eye-watering fees, is aimed at buyers, sellers, landlords, tenants and lodgers.

I asked Zoe Piper, Yorkshire entrepreneur and one of the founders of BeTheMiddleman.com, to give Miss Thrifty readers her best elevator pitch and provide five good reasons why they should buy and sell their homes online. Over to Zoe…

If you want to sell your house or buy a new one it’s going to cost an arm and a leg, right? Wrong! You can do it on the internet for free.

Free?

Yep. BeTheMiddleman.com lets you list your property for sale, completely free. There are no upfront costs (apart from buying your HIP), no monthly costs, and no commission costs when you complete the sale. (more…)

…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…

One of the most popular posts on Miss Thrifty is the Make Do and Mend post, which features some of the choicest nuggest from the Ministry of Information’s wartime compendium of household tips. Those nice people at John Lewis have just published their updated take on this book. Sadly they haven’t sorted out their online PR and I can’t find a link to the book anywhere, but the Daily Mail ran a selection of its tips today.

Two of the ideas that caught my eye featured that most useful of fruits: the lemon. Lemons are what, 22 pence each? If you are like me, you will cut one into wedges for fish, or into slices for boozy drinks – but there will often be some left over. Leave it in the salad drawer or on the fridge shelf and it withers away. So here are some of my favourite ideas for leftover lemons: (more…)

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.

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.

Yes, I know that Bonjela tastes nice, but here’s a cheaper idea from Frugal Grandma. Speaking from personal experience, it works very well. I must warn you though: this is a very British cure that isn’t for the faint-hearted. It is – quite literally – upper lip-stiffening stuff.

Frugal Grandma says: (more…)

The Coolest Gadgets site has launched a competition to win a television. It’s no ordinary telly, either: it’s one of those state-of-the-art, bells-and-whistles jobs.

The LG LF7700 has a 42″ screen (i.e. it’s huge) and retails at £850. According to this review, it is swish in appearance and has an integrated Freesat HD tuner. What do you mean, you don’t know what an integrated Freesat HD tuner is? It means that you can get high-definition Freeview telly via a satellite dish, as any fule kno.

It also comes with an intelligent sensor, which adjusts the picture according to light conditions. I guess that means that you don’t have to close the curtains when the sun starts shining during Saturday Kitchen. Sweet.

If you would like to give this hulking mass of liquid crystal a good home, you have to piece together a word published letter by letter over the next few days, and enter it into the Coolest Gadgets prize draw. The competition is open to UK residents, and the prize must be delivered to a UK address. Good luck!

Coolest Gadgets: Win A Television Competition.

Last month I found bags of grilled, frozen aubergine slices in the freezer section at Asda. £2.20 for 500g. Thought I’d give them a whirl. I do like aubergines, but they usually go at £1 a pop in fresh produce and I’m always in a race against time to cook and eat them before they go brown and soggy. Also, I hate fannying around with the salt and the muslin when I go to prepare them.

Sadly, after the frozen aubergines had been sitting in my deep freeze for a few weeks, I realised that I didn’t really know what to do with them.  They were featured as a Delia “Cheat” ingredient last year, but that was for a meaty moussaka – and I don’t eat meat. Also, I read a couple of Delia-themed reviews in which people claimed that the aubergine slices were dry and flavourless. Hmmm: maybe not such frugal food after all?

So I asked the nice ladies over at Cookware Essentials if they would help me out with a suitable (and frugal!) recipe. They duly obliged, with an aubergine, tomato and pasta dish. I tinkered with it some more, and I’m pleased with the result:

(more…)