Five(ish) Frugal Things

Fahed has his last operation this coming Friday, and assuming everything goes well he should be back at work when the new term starts in January. Yay! So we shall be approx £1000 better off each month. So the first thing on my frugal to do this week was to update my budget/plan.

1. New budget to accommodate changed (reduced) insurance costs and additional income. I want to save £10k for work on the Crete houses by September.
2. We have started to shop 2 weekly instead of weekly. Its mostly veg as we stock up with meat from the farm and we have a larder full of other stuff, so we definitely wont starve. Seems to work for us so far. No waste and we get creative near the end of the 2 week period. Coffee situation is looking a bit dire at the moment though!
3. My car is booked in to have the bonnet and some other rusted bits sprayed on Monday. Bargain basement price, then mid week we swap the cars over and he does some work on Fahed car. Total cost is £150. Surely the paint must cost more than that??
4. Ah, was i moaning about Faheds car last week? It died and we had to tow it tot he shop. In fact my lovely neighbour had to tow it with Fahed as he also have a 4x4. Very kind so no tow truck cost. Repair costs were only £130. It really pays to use the small, local guys ahead of the main dealerships (lets hope i still think this in a few weeks time)
5. Eve and I booked our flights to Malaga for our little Spanish trek in April. £100. Thats for both directions....for both of us! Admittedly we changed our days to find the cheapest flights but darn, some kind of a bargain.
6. Our rail ticket is 15% reduced as long as we buy before 31/12, so that is also in our plans.
7. Fahed cooked from scratch all the week, as he normally does, except yesterday. Jamal treated us to KFC. Sadly it was soggy and horrid, however Fahed  had made a hot and spicy salad with it (with home pickled chillies), some pitta and hm humus, so overall not bad. And it inspired is to make our own fried chicken, which we did when Jamal came home from Texas and Alabama, but we haven't really done since.
8. Today I am sanding down the woodwork in the bathroom, to save Fahed from replacing it. He need to fix a few bits where I dropped something heavy and broke it but overall I think it can be saved. Wish me luck!