15 Days Till Christmas: I Love, Love Actually, Actually

Little one will not sleep for more then 20 mins, taking an hour to settle him back down, trying to wrap presents, write cards and plan the rest of the presents - not to mention writing some bloody blog.

But Love, Actually makes it all better. I really so love this film. So Christmasie and great. So I thought I'd give a countdown of my favourite bits of the film: In no particular order as I love them all and I will no doubt forget a million things and have to edit this post so much. 

1. Did I mention it features Colin Firth

2. The dude from The Family who goes to America

3. Hugh Grant as the Prime Minister. 

4. Love to hate that Bitch that seduces Professor Snape

5. Martine Mccutcheon swearing (especially when she has sworn the first time mimics going bla to the other housekeepers)

6. Stacy and the guy from the office small talking and mock shagging

7. The guy singing 'Christmas is all around us' just his face makes me laugh.

8. I love that guy who's wife dies even the little bit of the funeral made me cry today

9. When they watch Titanic

10. When he tells the kid to run after the girl

11. When he meets Claudia Sheffer

12. When Colin Firth is having akward convos with the Portugese lady

11. The trumpets in 'All you need is love'

13. When the whole town comes out to see Colin Firth's proposal

14. Rowan Atkinson - Love that bit so so funny (we have an unfounded suspision that Rowan Atkinson just turned up that day and was like 'so Richard Curtis I'm here where my part' and Richard Curtis thought 'Oh shit I'd better make something up. That scene is what he came up with. 

15. The bit where the guys holds up the cards for Kiera Knightly

16. Perhaps I just Love, Love Actually, Actually

17. The super happy ending where everyone gets what they want (except Emma Thompson - bloody Professor Snape)

18. Tiffany and Hugh Grant bowing after kissing

Just to name a few. A Thrify way to spend a happy evening.

Love, Mrs Thrift x

16 Days Till Christmas: Tesco Clubcard Exchange Kicks Budgeting Arse

I turned £20 of Tesco Clubcard points into £40 to spend on Toys at Christmas. Which is like the best thing possibly in the world!

Omitting one or two all of my group of friends now have children so Christmas time can get expensive quick. Especially as my friends are so lovely and generous to my little boy so I didn't want to palm them off with cruddy presents for their little ones.

Here's my stash:

Quite a haul. I was really impressed with how far my money/vouchers went too. With some offers they bump up the price of the toys so your voucher is spent so quickly. I only spend a bit over £20 on this lot.

I was at my friends this afternoon to exchange presents and the winner seemed to be the pony set I got Tilly who is three who carried her pony set around with her for the duration of the afternoon. So sweet.

Saved me a sodding fortune! I really do not know how I would of done it otherwise.

So the moral of the story is - don't spend your points in the year but save them for Christmas. You can get vouchers that are unspend resent to you  too- which I need to do as I will stash these for next year as I'm not an Aldi convert.

Love, Mrs Thrift x

17 Days Till Christmas: Tis the Season to be Jolly, Fa la la la la, la la la la

We have a tree but what about the rest of the house?

Well...............I took boxes out of the cupboard and then took a picture. Why? Well your dying to know my method of Christmas decoration storage. I will hold you in suspense no longer:

The only bits I brought this year is the silver tinsel. The rest of my stuff we've been collected since we moved out 10 years ago.When we first moved out we where so poor we'd buy one ball ball a year. Lucky I redid our haul last year and now have a nice selection of Christmas stuff.

I Christmasfied my self by moving the pictures up and putting (from left to right) our nativity scene - minus Jesus coz he is not born yet, tealight with berry wreath, a spinning Christmas tree silver thingy, tealight with berry wreath, and a fireplace tealight holder.

TV stand with little bells, santa and snowman stuffed toys:

Christmas Cards (When I get some) will hang on the tinsel and my mum made the stockings (is she not so very clever):

So all the decorations. Yay yay yay Christmas.

Love, Mrs Thrift x

18 Days Till Christmas: Borrowing a Tree

As established from previous post I'm wanting to borrow an artificial tree this year to save on the expense of the real tree we usually buy.

My sister in laws boyfriend's mum and dad had a tree in the loft (they now go real too). The only problem was my sister in law is the most relaxed person in the world, a bit like my husband and I had to ask like 20 times as to when I could get the tree ie. now now now! I want to put it up early this year so we can take it down promptly so I can start sorting and packing for the new house. 

After I send too many poking texts my husband finally got off his bottom at 4.30 PM on Saturday (only 2 hours before little ones bedtime routine starts - just pointing that out not bitter at all) and he went and got the tree. 

This is my tree. Do you like?

I really do prefer my real tree from last year. (Photo before in previous post but here it is again.)

Real trees are just so beautiful on there own even before you have decorated them that you can't really compete. 

I was going to put tinsel on the tree and brought some from poundland but I think as it was rather thin and weedy it just looked crap. 

I did buy two reels of silver beans which look great on the tree as does the candy canes and star which where all from poundland. 

Soooooooooooooo the tree is up - YAY Its Christmas. 

Love, Mrs Thrift

19 Days Till Christmas: Pat a Cake, Pat a Cake, Baker's Man, Bake me a cake as cheap as you can. Baker: "You can just buy them cheaply at the supermarket you know?"

Which is a shame as I really enjoy baking.

On Sunday my group of friends and I are meeting at one of our houses to see each other for Christmas and give the kiddies their pressies and I said I'd bring a cake.

I was going to make an apple and almond cake. It's so easy. Just make a purée of the apples, let that cool. Mix all the other ingredients together, add the purée and put in a tin, scatter flaked almonds on top and bake. So easy and really tasty. (If you'd like to make its called 'Gluten-Free Apple and Almond Cake' on the BBC Food website.)

I was in Tesco with my calculator (Aldi not selling all baking ingredients) added one bag of ground almonds - 1.99 on the calculator, another bag of ground almonds - another 1.99, and a bag of flaked almonds - 99p. Then it hit me - WOW I've just spent almost a fiver and I haven't even brought the eggs yet (and it requires 8 so that's £2 more for eggs) so 7 pounds on a cake!!! I must be able to get cheaper cake so walked around to the cake aisle and saw Christmas Chocolate Yule logs and £1.20 each.

So I brought two, naturally. My budget was a tenner and I spent £8 on the extras I needed and even got to buy bananas and nice Blackberry jam with the money saved buy not making a cake.

What I can't get over is that you'd think it would be cheaper to make a cake! What a tipsy turvy world we live in.

Love, Mrs Thrift

20 Days Till Christmas: Christmas Jumpers

I love Christmas jumpers. Okay I said it! I love everything about them - the snowflakes, the snowmen, the polar bears, the reindeer  the red, the grey, the blue, the big knitted cozyness and the fact that sometimes the motif jumps out at you.

See is this not Christmas perfection?

Perhaps not, I am so in love with Colin Firth that I am unable to judge unbiased  I am also tempted to post pictures of him in Pride and Prejudice  but am trying to remind myself that this is a blog about saving money and not Colin Firth.

Oh yes so Christmas Jumpers. This year - before no spend days had began, I brought my little boy a Christmas jumper from Next  - would buy other half one but he would not wear (I had to convince him into a subtle grey stripped shirt this year so no way as festive jumper).

 My little ones Christmas Jumper this year. Next - £14

The biggest advantage to this jumper is that I brought it in October so I could get my Christmas Card photo done (my Christmas card is now a picture of my little boy in a Christmas jumper).

If I could of waited Primark have some lovely Jumpers:

Penguin - £7

Reindeer - £7

Which is remarkable like the Jojo Mama Bebe jumper I brought last year (which I still prefer to the Primark version - although I can't really put my finger on why:

Jojo Mama Bebe - £20 (I recall?)

Personally my favouriate Primark jumper - which I'm so tempted to get even though he has loads of jumpers:

Polar Bears - Primark - £6

And if I had a baby this year I would so get this:

Primark Santa Suit - £12 (which I still think is quite alot)

Merry Christmas Jumpers everybody.

Love, Mrs Thrift xx

21 Days Till Christmas: I'm walking in the Air - and that's still free right?!?

Snow Snow xxxx

The best Christmas activity to date. Putting on the wellies, hats, scarves, wrestling my boy's little fingers into mittens and going to play in the snow.

In the communal bit (ie. bin space) about to go play in the snow for the first time:

He saw it last year but as he was only 9/10 months he wasn't particularly interested. But not now! Even before we had got outside he was poised at the window looking at our street - so he must have noticed a difference. It was such a surprice too as we where up at 5AM I opened the curtains to see big chunks of snow outside, only visible where the street lamps where shining as it was still dark.

I wasn't sure how much he'd like playing it so we just went to the little green (or white) outside our house which is where everyone hangs their washing in the summer.

But he loved it so we took the short walk the the field.

And we saw some very cold ducks on a icy pond.

So much snow - such little feet:

I had to coax him home the best I could as his face was getting very rosie!! Once our boots where off and wet trousers and gloves where on the radiators we had a bit of hot chocolate:

And we watched the Muppet's Christmas Carol :)

A very Christmasie morning. And well FREE!

Love, Mrs Thrift

22 Days Till Christmas: Deck the Shelves with Cut Out Paper, Fa La La La La, La La La La

I did a nice little craft today - making a paper chain. This was made really easy as I got the paper from Homemaker magazine. All I had to did was to cut into strips:

And stick together. The hardest part was stopping my son ripping the paper chain and eating the glue!

Hung up on my self so if my first decoration to go up and even better free (magazine was a couple of quid but a month ago so as far as this months out goings are concerned - free!)

I never made a paper chain before and I am quite pleased with the results. If I can find some nice paper for cheap I may make some more. 

PS: I do recommend Homemaker magazine. I believe it is new. They had loads of stuff for crafting, cooking, knitting and pretty things just to name a few. Good for someone like me who is no longer Cosomopolitain (seems to be aimed at career women) and not yet Goodhousekeeping (read one only a few months ago which had an article about Grandparents providing free babysitting from the POV of the Grandparent - so It's not my judgement it is there demographic) . So this magazine fits me :) Go buy it - unless like me you now can not afford it!

Love, Mrs Thrift

23 Days Till Christmas: O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, How I want you fo-or Free

So I am trying to beg, borrow or.........well maybe not steal as decorating my flat with stolen goods is probably not the right tone. Anyway I am on the hunt for an artificial tree. We usually get a real tree but due to cost of course, as well as the fact we will be moving at the end of January so I'll be taking the decorations down as early as possible to start packing. Therefore we will be faking it this year.

My tree last year:

I've emailed about a tree on freecycle but they didn't get back to me. :(

I'm waiting to hear back from my sister in law's boyfriend who's family have a 6 ft tree they don't use as they now go real.

Or failing that my sister has a small black tree. (Do you remember that year when they where 'the it tree'?) But it is small so will not have the impact.

Would like a tree though as I think my little one will really like it and the lights - probably more then he'll like what is under the tree.

So I'd better keep begging.........

Love, Mrs Thrift

24 Days till Christmas: DVD why so Blu-ray

I was planning on updating my favourite Christmas DVDs to Blu-ray as we now have a HD telly. But I will be watching the DVD for at least another year as this is SUCH an unnecessary expense. But when you have a great film who needs the extra quality? (My husband would say you do - but he is a techno-geek so we'll bypass his opinion.)

My favourite favourites?

Its a wonderful life: I always cry. It has everything you want in a movie let alone a Christmas movie. Love love love.

Muppet's Christmas Carol: Muppet's in authentic Victorian dress, quoting Dickens and singing. What more do I have to say.

Perhaps I will lie the DVDs in a bed of tinsel so they feel new to me.........................................

........................Ahh that better. New again. 

Love, Mrs Thrift

25 Days Till Christmas: All Wrapped Up

Usually each year I come up with a wrapping concept. Last year I had dark blues, silver and brown parcel paper. This year the Cath Kidston booklet came through the door and instantly I fell in love with their wraps.

See isn't it beautiful?

I even considered buying the Cath Kidston wrapping paper when I couldn't find any spotted paper anywhere else, and at £9 for three rolls and each roll only 3 meters! I can't believe I was mad enough to consider it!!

There I sat knowing I could not afford the wrap- repeating in my head 'Wrapping paper is not important  Wrapping paper is not important'. I need a new solution. Which was soon given to me by Asda.

When in Asda buying nappies I spied a roll of pretty paper for £1 for 10 meters. Yes that right that 10 times cheaper that my dream wrapping paper. So I brought 3 rolls to cover all the pressies. I also threw in some silver bows at 25 for £1 - hay live a little it is Christmas - or soon will be.


My wrap for this year:

Luckily I also have some luggage tags left over in a nice parcel brown which I brought half price at WH Smith during the year - as I use for Christmas but also for birthdays and stuff. I might even stamp and emboss a snow flake in the corner, if I can be bothered, to make them extra festive.

In conclusion not much of a wrapping concept this year and more a wrapping compromise but I'm happy with how it will look under the tree and try to remind myself it will all end up in the bin come boxing day.



Love, Mrs Thrift

I'm Dreaming of a Frugal Christmas

Advent is upon us once again and I have no money spare to spend, spend, spend as I usually would.

So every day in Advent I'll be adding a frugal Christmas measure to get me in the spirit and save money.

Love, Mrs Thrift

Apple Economics

My little boy had a habit for getting an apple taking a bite then throwing it on the floor. So the apple is left like this:

Usually I would just throw this away and eat another apple. But not now I'm Mrs Thrift. I cut the bit out and ate the apple. 

MENSA just called to say I'm a genius!

Love, Mrs Thrift

Bananna Economics

Today I turned these:

Into this Banana Loaf :

Great as I am the worst for hating bananas the second they are a bit too ripe. And is sugarless so brilliant for kiddies. As it is sugarless you do have to have bananas as ripe as you can bare to leave them - as they provide the sweetness.

Here is the recipe for anyone who may like to have a go with me.

Ingredients:
200g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp ground mixed spice & 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (or 1 tsp of mixed spice/cinnamon)
100g butter
150g raisins
Anywhere between 2 large and 6 bananas
2 eggs

Method:

1. Preheat Oven to 180 and line and grease a loaf tin (mine is a 2 lbs tin but this recipe does work as long                                                         as your mix fits in the tin - or could half mixture to fit smaller loaf tin.

Here's my loaf tin (which is my Great Nanny Joyce's - so perhaps up to 100 years old and still going strong - now that's Thrift)

    2. Sift flour and spices into bowl rub butter until resembles bread crumbs.

Here's my bread crumbs:

And this what my little boy was doing as I weighted ingredients and rubbed in butter. 

    3. Stir raisins into mixture.

    4. On a plate mash the bananas, then add the egg to the mashed bananas and mix well. 

My little boys favourite bit and means he can help out without making my measurements off.  

    5. Make a well in the flour mixture and add the banana and egg. 

    6. Stir with a metal spoon until just combined and pour into loaf tin, making sure it gets into the sides of the tin.

    7. Put in oven for 40 - 60 mins with a good golden colour on top and when a knife comes out clean. 

    8. Cool on a rake and enjoy. 

This is a versatile recipe in which you can make just with the bananas (leaving out the raisins) or using figs or nuts instead of the raisins. 

Love, Mrs Thrift

Fight!!!! Pampers vs Asda's Nappies: And how knowing that I'm brainwashed helps nothing.

Still smug from my Aldi savings I needed to address the fact that I only had four nappies in my house.

Lodged in the back of my brain somewhere was that my sister (before her darling daughter decided she wanted to stand up during her nappy changed and therefore switched to pull ups) used to use Asda's brand of nappies and said they where really good. 

So I walked in the rain (keeping an the £2.70 return fare in my pocket - who knows I may even burn some cals) to my local Asda store in town. 

I had £8 in my budget left over from my Aldi shop and I thought that I'd spend that or maybe have an extra pound left over, to perhaps slap in my back pocket. 

Turns out I've decided to become a Pampers Executive when I grow up - as Hell they make a mark up. I usually pay £9.99 from Tesco for 48 nappies. Asda you pay £5.67 for a pack of 48 Little Angle Comfort Dry Nappies and £5 each if you buy two packs, which I did because we're only going to use them and it will save me another trip especially to Asda to buy Nappies. 

I did have a little lament as I used and then disposed of the last Pampers. Hey, he has only ever had Pampers Nappies since he was born. And yes I am that brainwashed into wanting my baby to defecate into a brand named product. But I will try Asda's and see. 

Due to my poor turn around in blog posts it has been almost a week since my purchase, so I will be putting Pampers in a head to head against Asda's Own Here is the score:

Pampers	Winner	Asda’s Own Brand
Smugness of using brand named product	Pampers	Inner shame of not using branded products
Very Expensive	Asda	Half the price of Pampers
Hardly ever leak	Draw	No leaks as yet
Very soft and thin	Pampers	Harder and bulkier feel
Design is a bit garish	Asda	Cute subtle design
Very absorbent – can hardly feel any wet even after going the whole night.	Pampers	Very absorbent – can feel a little more moisture after a whole night.
But doesn't It come down to cost?	Asda	Did I mention they are half the price!!!!!!!!!

So its a draw!!! As the above table doesn't really help I will just remind myself that he is only going to soil them anyway and just buy the cheaper ones!!!!

Love, Mrs Thift