Thrifty Thursday | Thrifty Christmas

I think everyone tends to spend more at Christmas and often too much. You should however still shop around and look for bargains or you might regret spending too much in January.

I have bought all my Christmas presents and have food and drinks in for Christmas. I still need to get some salad next week but I have everything else. I will do a  buffet for my guests and offer them a a selection of food, drinks, liqueurs and they even get to pull a cracker this year. One of the things everyone likes is prawns and they were £2.99 from Aldi. I might get more because I like prawn salads and I’ll treat myself as it’s Christmas! I also like sardines and I got 2  tins of those at Aldi too for 38p each; they make a frugal meal. I cooked a chicken stew last week that was delicious, the vegetables were a stew pack from Lidl. I had carrots, parsnips onion and swede and I added chicken and herbs d’Provence and made a really good warming stew. I also had beer for Christmas from Aldi for 99p for 500ml bottles. I had basa fillets from Aldi, they were 3 for £2.99 and they tasted nice. The crinkle cut oven chips (99p) from Aldi are good although I wouldn’t have the Lidl ones again. I also went to Asda and found items reduced but they have lots of buy 2 or buy 3 to save money. I don’t always want two. I have been looking for Chinese 5 spice for a while and found some for £1.75; or two for £2.00. I obviously had the two, but will I like it and how long will they last; I suspect years! A lot of fruit was cheaper if I bought 2, so I didn’t buy them. I did buy some nectarines though. I had to buy three multipacks of crisps to get 94p off. That is the only processed food I eat regularly though.

In Asda items on the till receipt are marked D (VAT free) or V if they have VAT at 20% on; that makes the crisps expensive. In Lidl and Aldi, VAT free is marked A and items with 20% VAT on are marked B. All my items except alcohol were marked A in Aldi. A good indicator of how thrifty you are is to look at how much goes in VAT to the government out of you shopping bill. The other thrifty and frugal indictor is how full your recycle and garbage bin is at the end of the week; mine are half empty.

Although I shop around, I don’t go specially to any supermarket and try to go when I’m passing. Why waste petrol? I want to go to a Christmas market next week you can pick up a few bargains at markets and find some interesting presents. If you want a really cheap present check out the china mugs in Matalan for £3.00 and Poundland have lots of things suitable for inexpensive presents.

Many of my readers aren’t in the UK and so this blog won’t be very helpful, but people around the world are becoming  more thrifty and frugal. I’m sure everyone gets the general idea that if you’re thrifty over Christmas you’ll have money in January. Too many people are putting Christmas on their credit cards and some are even taking out payday loans at horrendous interest rates. Payday loan companies are booming and making obscene profits out of people’s misfortune; don’t be tempted by them. The interest may not seem much but often it mounts up.

I’ll be doing a frugal blog tomorrow and showing you my really frugal Christmas gift. I have plans for lots more blogs and so please comment and subscribe to my blog so that you get regular updates. I will be doing more frugal food blogs, I’m planning to do a very different Chinese stir fry and if it tastes as good as I hope, I’ll do the recipe. I’ll continue with investment blogs and my ‘how to make your first million’ blogs, too. You can find lots of blogs that I’ve written recently on the home page. If you’re thrifty, you have made your first step towards your first million! Spendthrifts rarely get rich, although some are born rich!

 

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