Thrifty Thursday | Little emergencies

Saving for emergencies

We try to be thrifty and frugal and then when an unexpected expense comes along it’s not a disaster. I’ve had a little trouble with my car and the EMU, Electronic Management Unit appears to have a fault. This could be expensive! The light is coming on intermittently and so it could be a little damp getting into the unit or wiring, no need to panic!

I’ve been thrifty as usual, shopping around and so have money saved for these little emergencies. I went to Aldi and I save money there compared to a major supermarket and I save again because I cook. If we can save a little on essentials like food it leaves us money for the luxuries like beer! I did get a few bottles in Aldi and I got a stew pack and some carrots cheap. I made my second lot of chicken stew this week today. My tip for making stew is to use more herbs and onions for added flavour and a little less meat. I got jars of dried herbs for 50p in Aldi. I added basil, thyme and herbs d’Provence to my stew this week. Yummy!

Just as I was wondering about sending my car into the garage, my laptop stopped working. I already had problems with the battery and fan and now the hard drive wasn’t working! I thought about having it repaired, but the cost would go half way to a new laptop. That was what I did and the new laptop now needs all my programs reinstalling. The backup worked to some extent, but didn’t back up Office. I used the Windows 7 backup and it was supposed to be a mirror image of the hard drive.  I saved money by not buying a new copy of Office, I got my existing copy to install. They always try to sell you something and of course I get trial versions of two brands of anti virus!

I also went to Matalan this week and bought some clothes, that saved me even more money that I could put towards my laptop. The quality varies in Matalan and so you have to take a good look at the different items. I like the Easy brand but you have to check the sizes. I also had Pierre Cardin boxers and they are better than the Easy ones, simply because they are both size medium but the Easy are bigger!  You could get lucky if you are on the larger size though!

I did buy a few things in Asda this week and a small gluten free loaf cost nearly £2.00. I was hoping to get a Warburton’s gluten free loaf to try it. The Asda loaf tasted like the gluten free bread I have tried before; I won’t be having any more! The only things I have from Asda now are tissues, Bovril cubes, oven chips and sweetener’s. I also went in Morrison’s, with my friend. I was tempted by the fruit but didn’t buy anything. They have lots of fruit and their fish isn’t cheap but a good selection. So my best bargain was probably a local beer from Aldi for 99p for a 500ml bottle!

Incidentally, the new laptop is a Samsung with 4 Gb of memory, 500 Gb hard drive and the keyboard seems quite good. It’s not quite so fast as my HP laptop, but a lot cheaper at £399. I forgot to get the extra consumer protection of putting it on my credit , but at least it was reduced.

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