This Weeks Frugal Living

It is getting to that time of the year when I start to think about Christmas. It said on the radio on Friday (24th October) that this was the day that most people start to think about Christmas shopping. For those who read my blog, they will know that I have already bought most of my Christmas presents by now and this week I started to look at those gifts that are food and drink related.
I leave these until later in the year as food will have a best before or use by date. 

I received a 20% off reduction code from Thorntons this week as they are one of my favourite chocolatiers I had to look at their website. There I found a hamper that was on offer which is still available here. It has been reduced from £57 down to £24.99 and with an extra 20% off I paid just £20 for it. I bought two and only paid £1 delivery (if you spent more than £30). This arrived within 3 days of ordering as they always have a quick delivery service. Once you have ordered from them and provided your email address you will get regular emails with offers or reduction codes.

I was delighted with the items when they arrived as the earliest best before date was end of February and the latest was May 2015. There was a really good selection for presents and stocking fillers ranging from medium and small boxes of Continental chocolates to boxes of Special Toffee which is one of my sister's favourites.

Sainsburys  recently sent me a months worth of extra points vouchers for the Nectar Card. I have posted details on making the most of rewards cards on a previous posting which you can read here. I made sure that I did my shopping at Sainsburys as I was getting 800 extra points each visit. Every time I shopped there they gave me a money off voucher for next time so I got £6 off a £60 shop and £7 off a £70 shop etc. I also won some addition points in a point.a give away promotion. I now have over £60 on my nectar card so I will do my fresh food shopping at Sainsburys at Christmas.

I started clearing out the freezers in readiness for stocking up for Christmas and we enjoyed a lovely joint of beef last weekend. I cooked a traditional roast dinner which lasted us for three days. I cooked fresh vegetables every day to go with the beef. I had managed to buy large family packs of prepared vegetables from Marks & Spencer during the week at the reduced price of 45p each.

Yesterday I took out a tub of what I thought was a home made casserole or soup but once it had defrosted I took another look to find it was stewed rhubarb & ginger! I had planned for us to eat this as an evening meal one night this week so I will have to have a rethink. I pondered what to do with the rhubarb as David does not like it, so I bought a large tub of yogurt and will have the two together with some granola at lunch time. I save jam jars but only the Bonne Maman ones as I adore their shape and red & white gingham lids. I will put the rhubarb, yoghurt & granola mix in one of these to take to work for lunch next week.

We visited the Cheshire carboot sale again this morning but found it was fairly slim pickings with mainly traders there rather than genuine car boosters. However, David managed to buy 8 LPs (now called vinyl) at 50p each, a Reebok jacket at £2 and some CDs at 50p each.

I found this great Jamie Oliver's America cook book which is as new for £2. David is a lover of American food so I am sure I will be trying out some of the recipes over the next few weeks. The seller gave me this cute Clarins bag with some samples for free.

I bought a mixture of DVDs for £1 each with one being a box set of 3 films for £1. This should keep us happy over the next few weeks when we cannot find anything we like to watch in the evenings.I found a Louis Vuitton style make-up bag for £1. It is black patent leather style and matches a bag I bought a couple of months ago.

Finally I bought this Homer Simpson vhip flask and cups set for £3. This is a little stocking filler for my brother in law for Christmas.