Thrifty Thursday | Famous Names

Salad

It has gone quite warm in England this week with temperatures over 15C. This means I can eat salads and save on fuel bills! I did this sardine salad with chips and peas. The sardines were 38p a tin from Aldi, I bought 5 tins to stock up. My young friend said they would be no good because they weren’t a famous name; he also prefers the more expensive Tesco to Aldi. Just because a product has a famous name or comes from a supermarket that has built an image by spending our money in advertising doesn’t mean the product is any better. This particularly applies to things like eggs and bananas!

I also bought some prawn cocktail crisps in Aldi; they don’t taste quite the same as the famous name crisps, but 2 multipacks cost £1.58 compared to £2.50 for the famous names in Asda or Tesco. I also had 5 bottles of glucose energy drink for £1.59 and these actually tasted better than the famous name pack that usually costs me £2.00 when they are on special offer. The famous name one tastes slightly medicinal for some reason; this one was a little heavy on the sulphur dioxide (preservative).

Fuel bills

I’m saving on fuel bills, but my direct debit is still the same. We can expect a price increase at some stage; especially as energy companies will make less profits this year with reduced sales. The big price rise will squeeze some people’s budgets who are already struggling and in debt. I will have my account in credit and so my direct debit won’t increase. I can relax and being thrifty and frugal is all about avoiding the stress that comes when you are struggling financially and in debt.

5 portions a day

Trying to get your 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day can be difficult and even harder if you have children. It is worth growing you own vegetables in summer, but also look at frozen vegetables; a portion of frozen peas for a child can cost as little as 5p and so can reduce costs a lot. A portion is about 80 grams for an adult and 50 grams for a small child. You can get about 20 child portions from a kilo bag of peas. Try to give children fruit that is high in vitamin C too like an orange. Try growing runner beans in the garden; they don’t take up much space and it’s something you and the kids can do together.

Little emergencies

We all have unexpected expenses and mine this week is booking my car in for some work. The electronic engine management appears to have a fault. It’s been fine for 2 weeks and the light came on again yesterday and so it needs to be checked. Having work done before the fault becomes more serious can sometimes save money. The garage I use is a small garage that I’ve used for 8 years and they don’t do unnecessary work or overcharge me. They’ll collect the car, fix it and I pay and don’t have to worry. Taking it to a large dealership can be expensive and taking it to the guy around the corner can mean he doesn’t have the test equipment to do it properly.

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