12 Days In...

 And doing ok and not so ok. Mike's just off to Tesco to put some old clothes into the recycling bin there and is also getting some cinnamon whirls :-s not so good for saving money! He's also gotten other stuff during the week from there too :-s one good thing was that he picked up two packs of salmon last night heavily reduced. They were £4 each reduced to about £2.39 and they were also 2 for £7 so they also took that £1 off our price too. We had them tonight with the rest of the potatoes which a few had started to sprout, and we had some of the carrots which had started to go a bit manky on their ends (I cut them bits off lol!). It was delicious!! I'll probably use up the remaining carrots tomorrow and get some new ones when I go shopping - probably around lunch time again to try and get some more reducies :oD and I'll probably meal plan a but better for next week too. We still have one pack of pork mince so maybe a chilli one night with that... Might have to reintroduce Freezer Nights on a Friday too and eat up the frozen leftovers from previous meals. So that will be 2 nights down, only 5 to go :oD sorted! And you know what, the odd treat is good for the soul. I refuse to feel guilty for it. We're bound to have ups and downs with this frugal budgetary malarkey and we just got to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and get back to it :o)

Had some free entertainment tonight after dinner. Ayse's been learning "The Cup Song" so gave a demonstration for Mike at the dinner table which led to me getting Wenty (laptop) and pulling up some videos of Stomp on Youtube for us to watch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0XdDKwFe3k&feature=share
Hehe just seen that you can actually add links to your blog! Awesome! Fingers crossed it works lol :-p

Hmmm Frugal Tip #12 - Entertainment
*Free entertainment is all around you
*Instead of the cinema, buying, or renting a dvd or new film on Sky Box Office etc, have a regular swap of dvds already owned with friends, family or co-workers. Make sure everyone has stuck a label with their name on inside the cover so it gets returned to the right person. If you have 10 people to swap with and you all have 10 dvds to pass around, that's potentially 90 new ones for you to watch
*Make use of websites such as 4od and youtube
*Download free books, all the classics tend to be free. Also fanfiction could be fun if you like certain films, tv shows. You could also decide to write some fanfiction to share
*Have a family game of charades or play board games. Many families have a weekly game night
*Take the dogs out for a walk as a family

Just remember, it's the people you do the activity with that make all the difference. You could pay to go to the cinema with someone you don't like and end up having an awful time whereas watching a dvd at home, snuggled up on the sofa with a loved one for free would be so much nicer. Make the most of what you have and who you have. Can you tell I watched Derren Brown's Apocalypse today? It was awesome! Two parts roughly about one and a half hours in total :o) Did you see what I did there? I noticed you can change the wording for the link!!! Hehe I'm so proud of myself lol!! One day I will get the hang of this technology malarkey and know what I'm doing!... Maybe!

Hugs xx