Well today I had no excuse I had to go into town, could not be avoided. I had to exchange my sons school shoes for a different size the next ones up. Kindly my mum pays for the school shoes & uniform bless her. I needed to get some cards for birthdays & an anniversary coming up my elderly neighbours. I bought 5 cards for £1.00 in the card factory & an anniversary one for 29p!. The other cards are from a while ago & were 7 cards for £1.00 (2nd picture). I have a filing cabinet at home an Ikea metal one and it has a drawer which contains birthday cards & wrap. I always try and recycle used wrapping paper,tissue paper etc & love using brown parcel paper to wrap presents . I like to have a stash of birthday cards. Especially when they work out individually very cheaply & are very good quality cards. After reading "Please May I " blog & being very impressed with her christmas present stash. I decided while I was out to buy one little christmas present. It is for a lady Mr No spend works with she keeps him well at work feeding him the lovely cakes she brings in!. I was in BHS & there is a jewelery sale on. I bought her a little emerald green bracelet for £2.00 reduced from £8.50 & a lovely emerald green rose ring £1.00 from £5.00. They are very pretty. I will find a little box & make them all fancy inside with tissue paper. Bhs has a great jewellery sale on at the moment. I guess they are making way for christmas bits & peices. So that is the first christmas present I have bought. There are a few sales on at the moment & most of it is to make way for christmas. I would sooner do my christmas shopping now. I buy for my two children, my mum,dad & sister. Mr No Spend likes to give the 2 ladies at work a little token gesture. I like to give my elderly neighbours a little token gesture to. I always pop in and see them and have a cuppa & a cake. The elderly gentleman always brings me green beans he is great at growing veg. The other day there toaster broke & I had a spare one in the garage all boxed up which I took over to them for them to keep. They were very pleased & said please let me give you something for it. I said no & do not go and buy another one as this one is yours to keep". I thought they might have thought that I was only loaning it to them otherwise. One more thing decluttered!
While I was up town I got my son a birthday present. He is in to skateboards & scooters. He hangs round with other boys who are in to this as well. Anyway he really wanted one of these t shirts that are in the in thing & his friends have . It is a t shirt from a shop called Hollister it was £20.00. I think it is a lot for a t shirt & the fact that it is branded. But I thought rather than me buy him one that he does not deem cool! I would buy him the Hollister one at £20.00 which I did it is a very nice t shirt, retro style . Sometimes being a frugal no spend sorta woman I look at things and think oooh thats a lot of money etc. But when I sum it up he will pratically wear it to death, till it falls apart probably!. Which is then money well spent. Where as I could buy something that he does not like and he will not wear it at all?! ,which is then not money well spent. Then because he likes something a lot he will look after it better ( because he knows he wont get another one in a bloomin hurry of his frugal ma!) . It will be placed on a hanger or popped neatly over the end of the bed!by him too. Also things are different now. When I was at school I was not very fashion orientated & no one else was either times were different. Master No Spend just wants to be like his friends & they all want to be like each other & hang out and scooter & skate. When Master No Spend gets to an age when he can have a saturday job he can start buying his own odd things. I do have a limit to what I would be happy to spend on certain items. Like he wanted Topman monkey jeans!£28.00 something or other. I took him to Primark and £10.00 same style!
I do understand he wants a certain look as that is what his friends & fellow generation are into. But equally I give him my advice and say fine you have that t shirt but how about we team it with a more frugal bottoms!. Also at his age nearly 12 and probably till he gets into his later teens he probably wont be frugal I wasnt. Its like a life journey. You pass through different areas to get somewhere. When I first moved in with Mr no spend we were busy accumulating stuff that we thought we should have. Now I give it away! When you are younger you think I need this or I need that. I guess its a bit like peeling back the layers to get to the core & children will do that when they go through to adulthood later on . Its there journey too. Hope anyone gets what I mean xx !
- Card factory 6 cards £1.29
- Bracelet & ring Bhs (christamas present) £3.00
- Birthday present son £20.00
- Mc Chicken sandwich & diet coke £1.98
- Parcel £1.78
- 4 boxes of grass seed from poundshop £4.00
- Bus fare £2.00
I have bought the same cards from card factory, i like to go in and bulk buy about £2 worth. i try and buy them with the 'blank' message inside so i can used them for occasions other than birthday.
ReplyDeleteHello there, thanks commenting on my blog! Don't get me started on Hollister.....£55 for a hoodie...blooming rip off or what BUT the DD just had to have one and then another :( I swear they put really poor lighting in the shop so you can't see how much things cost lol The good thing is that she has a monthy allowance, so she decides what she spends it on and when it's gone...it's gone. The other one that's all the rage is Superdry...still v pricey too. Anyhow, nice to meet you and I look forward to getting to know you better. Sue x
ReplyDeleteI must be tight, i refuse to buy branded clothes for the 15 year old unless i can get them heavily discounted.
ReplyDeleteSome good bargains today, I am always looking out for bits to pick up to pop away for birthdays and xmas, the best way to go