Unicorn Poop

I am still feeling absolutely lousy, but I dragged my sorry ass into work today. Really wish that I had not bothered, no thanks and no sympathy. After 14 years with the same company you would think I would learn that my employer expects me to be dead before I take a day sick.

Harrrrumph!

However, now is a really good time to buy stuff.

Normally I would never advocate you buying anything, unless you honest to goodness need it. But if you do honest to goodness need it then buy it now.

I had Friday off to enjoy a long weekend. So off I tootled to my local town centre for a mooch and to visit the bank. As often happens The Chap also asked me to do 101 jobs for him, as he hates anything which could be even vaguely entitled as “shopping”.

I was delighted to do so as our road still had an inch of ice on it, TC had picked up 2 bags of rock salt and was going to have a go at clearing it with a spade. Now I would have cleaned a ticklish elephant’s bottom with a soft toothbrush to get out of that job.

One thing I really did need was some moisturiser for my face. As I hurtle towards 40 at break neck speed my face is just getting dryer and dryer or is that drier and drier??. The cheap supermarket pot I picked up for under a £1 was irritating my face a little by causing a slight burning sensation.

I would love to have picked up a Clarins pot, but at £40 I could not bring myself to do so.

However, I did come across a voucher for The Body Shop. I rarely enter The Body Shop as the last time I went in I found it a little too flowery for me.

Plus I thought it expensive.

However, they were offering an excellent deal with this voucher. Spend £40 instore and get £20 off your purchases. That is a 50% discount. So I ended up getting some day cream, night cream, hand cream and aftershave balm for The Chap. Total spend £41.50, price I paid £21.50.

This is not worth doing unless you really need something, but TC was delighted with his aftershave balm and utterly convinced it will make him look devastatingly attractive to women. I told him he did not need the lotion for that.

He still thought my face cream was expensive, and he is probably right, though I absolutely refuse to admit it to him. The situation was speedily resolved by telling him it contained Unicorn poop.

I like the moisturiser and would (so far) buy it again, but probably only if there was another deal. I was wondering if it was worth stocking up for birthdays / Christmas?

I accessed the voucher using my O2 priority moments, but  think you can also get it (or something similar) at vouchercodes  / voucherclouds and a link on the moneysavingexpert website and finally on their own website.

Frugally yours

Abigail

x

Food Waste Friday

"Trying To Reduce Food Waste One Day At A Time!" 

It is Friday, which means it is that time of the week again – Food Waste Friday (imagine Vegas style show girls prancing at this point to organ music and a cheesy crooner!)

After last week's success, I am back down to earth this week with a nasty bump.

3 items got thrown today.



Gravy left over from a meal last weekend. With it’s stealth technology, it holed up on the bottom shelf behind some butter packs. Probably trying for long term notoriety in the fridge fraternity.

Also the dregs of a bottle of milk that went out of date on Tuesday. It made close friends with a tomato left over from some work lunches that I bought back last Friday from the office. I like to think they had a doomed love affair and committed fridge suicide together, rather than be parted.

A Purchase

I am always trying to make what I have last longer, but after 4 months I have finally given up on this make up bottle. It is well and truly bereft of any foundation after soaking in hot water, shaking and some general cursing and threats.

I have been buying Christian Dior foundation for years, it is currently £28.50 per 30ml bottle.

For 12 months in 2011 when money was very tight for me I gave up my favourite brand and used max factor instead but at £14 per tub, I realised I was buying it every month. Nope, no money saving there. So at the beginning of December I bought it again and today it has finally run out. Equates to £7.13 per month.

£28.50 is a lot to spend on a bottle of foundation, so I decided to try a different brand and after reading up I decided to look at Benefit “Hello Flawless” – hey who does not want to look flawless at 35? It was a bit cheaper at £24.50 for 30ml. Off I trotted at lunchtime today and got them to colour match it to my existing choice. She then applied it to the whole of my face. Perfect, I liked the coverage and the tone.

I casually mentioned that their website was offering two free testers with every purchase and would she do the same. “Of course” came the reply. I explained I was coming to Benefit to save money and then the piece de resistance, House of Fraser has a 2 day event on 10% off all purchases so the final price was £22.05. She also gave me 4 moisturiser testers. Brilliant, £6.45 saved on my purchase and some freebies. I can most definitely live with that.

Plus inside the foundation box was a pore reduction tester.

What have you got reduced / free recently?

Frugally Yours
Abigail
x

Some are born to glamour, others become glamorous, or how even I yearn for the good old days.

I am not glamorous.

I wish I was, but I am not.   

I can do glamour but it only last 30 minutes or there about, after which my foundation is by my knees and my mascara has  created smudges that any Chinese panda would be proud of .

I get up so early to get to work, that now after 15 years I have given up being glamorous during       office hours and opt for clean and neat instead.

But I love make up, if there is a new product about, I know about it, I can talk knowledgably       about cream foundations, compared to mineral powder or whether one's skin would benefit from a serum or a primer getting ready of a morning.

One of the hardest changes to occur since my enforced thriftiness, is not buying expensive make up  brands. I cannot herald this as one of my greatest triumphs.

I am a product of a generation that believes that Christian Dior, Estee lauder, Chanel, Benefit and Clinique provide the best and whilst I am changing my opinion, it so far has been a slow process and one I am not entirely sure that I will completely win.

I love the indulgence of a beautifully packaged lotion, the desirable little cellophane boxes that house the pots of loveliness. I love the click of an expensive lipstick and the little freebies that are often given away as incentives. I am a make up label whore…..

However, nowadays my purchases have dwindled at the beauty counters of the department store and alternatives had to be found in order for me to be able to join polite society and to save the sanity of small children.

I changed my £23 Christian Dior foundation to a Max Factor for £12, and the Clarins slowly departed W Towers to be replaced with Simple. However, my greatest discovery has been Avon. They have some truly eye watering products that are still too expensive for this newly frugal dame. But those only take up a few of the central pages. The alternatives are endless in this little magazine. I am currently using their Solutions day and night cream with extract of amethyst, my skin looks clear and clean and it does the job. It was on offer when I bought it two pots for £11.

Their bathfoam is just delicious and frequently on offer – four bottles for £3 (I think) – the lavender and white lily are my favourite. Infact I often fill up my hand soap dispenser with these bathfoams and it is a simple and frugal way to still indulge yourself.

The fact is, I still want to feel indulged, I want to luxuriate. So here it is...

 the W Towers home Spa…

Ok there are no superior women walking around ready to massage your aches and pains away, but in this room with the door closed and only mood lights and candles to illuminate the walls, I can feel the cares and the stresses of the day melt away. I do not indulge every evening, but once or twice a month, I close the door and shut out the world for an hour. I may not be King of the World, but in my little domain, this is the one area where the world is most certainly not admitted.

Saying all of this, when Santa came chortling his way down my chimney this year, he did bring some truly superb and thoughtful gifts…

 The truth is whatever Avon come up with, and however Simple package their products, these delightful little tubes, pots and compacts raise my spirits and make me realise that maybe in better times some sins can be revisited.

But, for the time being when these run out then I will be returning to my frugal ways with a  whimsical smile and an eye on the ultimate prize…..financial freedom and a debt free existence. Which, in all honesty will last me a lot longer than any lotion or potion.

Frugally yours

Abigail

X

P.S I started writing this when I got home, but then I popped out for  a drink with a friend, on the way home I stopped at Tesco to the buy the milk and teabags I talked about yesterday and found these 6 rolls reduced to 25p. Bargain. Straight in the freezer and since I buy these anyway normally in bags of 12 (Warburtons has had a downloadable voucher for ages on it’s website) I know that 30 seconds in the microwave and they are ready to be used for a quick lunch.