Frugal & Home made christmas

Watching the christmas stock in the shops since September  and Advertisements about christmas has me all worked up not with excitement but with frustration that people are being pushed  in to parting with there hard earned money.

 I know it can be difficult when you have teenage children who want latest thing and however frugal i am we always bought our daughter one of the current toys/gadgets she wanted but she always had to wait for her birthday or Christmas for things she wanted , there are other ways you can save on the cash to make up for that one expensive present.

 This is what i do every year to make Christmas more affordable so that we can enjoy it without spending a fortune .

First of all buy some quality christmas decorations from charity shops or car boots and use them year in year out they will never get tatty if you buy the quality items, sticking to traditional colours helps, you can get some great prices in the summer at car boots.

Our quality decorations are about 10 years  old now even the tree was from a charity shop for £5.00 bought after christmas 

The only new item was the fireplace banner that i bought when taking back a present that i could not have a refund years ago, It was in a sale but now Christmas would not be the same without my fireplace banner , I am sure you experienced sewers could easily make one from your fabric stashes.

Here it is at the old house.

And the new house.

The Tree 

The old House.

The new house.

Buy the Ingredients for your  christmas cakes through the year to spread the cost and make your own.

Decorating cakes can be very expensive this lot were decorated with a bag full of miniature Christmas decorations bought for £1.00 at a car boot the star ones above were made with using my daughters star cutter.

Buy your mincemeat for your mince pies in January when its reduced it will keep a couple of years or more.

Make home made Christmas hampers.

What do you do to save on the cost of christmas.

On another note remember this Dave made me years ago it houses out tv etc

Sorry about the blurry photo , I wont moan about the sun . 

Match pots of paint and a remedy of Amazon  wich mixed with paint lets you paint directly on to the wood without sanding down , Laura Ashley wallpaper reduced to £5.00  and  you have a new look , I will update with another exiting project in the room soon with a full page blog. 

Linen update , Ironing them is taking so much time as i have to spread it out because of pain in my Arms but it will soon be ready to photograph and share . 

xxxx

Forward planning

Do you forward plan to save you money or do you wait until the last minute hoping  to grab a bargain.

I dont just mean for christmas , I mean in in everyday life.
It can  be hard if you have not got much disposable income but with forward planning i  stretch  our money just a little bit further.

Here are just three examples.

I colour my hair with a little help as i dont like wasting money at the hairdressers, especially when i have not been not  100% happy in the past.

 All i do is have a dry cut twice a year wich costs around £12.00.
  I have tried cheap hair colours before but have been disappointed at the grey coverage , I will never be truly frugal with my hair and let it go grey as it makes me look older than i am.

Anyway we went to B & M last week and i always pop in to Bargain Buys wich is on the same car park and they had nutrisee hair colours £1.49 , Normally they have the odd shades.
 Never the shade i require ,wich is a beige blonde but on this  occasion they did so i thought i would give it a try.
 It was the foam one that they introduced quite recently.
 Retailing in the stores some time back for between five and six pound , I think they have discontinued it because of the foam aspect so i was i little wary, but to be honest i prefer the method there is less spills ,its more controllable and great grey coverage as i have two stubborn areas around my temples and the coverage in that are is very good ,

So today forward planning i bought six this should last me a year with a saving of at least £21.00.



Last christmas i purchased a christmas wreath from Morrison's as i dont have holy or ivy plant to make my own any more .
It was cheaper than buying a nice Faux one, It was £6.00.

 So i did an experiment and hung it on the back of the door in the shed to see if it would dry out and its not to bad.
 What do you think , I will add some more ribbons from my stash.

The other thing i did was make a batch of pizza dough.

 I already have the tomato topping in portions in the freezer wich is made out of tomatoes going wrinkly( i never waste a tomato)
.
So with  cheese and some tinned pineapple from Morrison's (28p) that i always have in my store cupboard , I made enough for eight one person size pizzas using the dough hook on my mixer.

 we had two for saturdays tea and froze the rest of the  uncooked dough in portions.