My thrifty life.

Those of you who know me will know that I like to save money; ie not spend it. If anything is going free, I will have it. Even if it's ugly. I find spending money stressful. Especially as we currently barely have any. But even when we do I like to save it for all the important things we want in life. Like our own house and travelling. I also am teaching our kids to save :)

You will hardly ever see me at the high street. The last few times I have been I came home empty-handed. I just cannot justify the prices. Not when you have freecycle, car boots and charity shops.

I didn't used to be like this. I was a bit of a shopaholic. I would spend all my spare time (before kids!) in the shops. Our bank balance was not too great. Then we lost our house, and all our savings in the recession. I started to realise the value of money. It is not everything in life -far from it. But we need a certain amount to get on in life. And it's nice to save for our dreams. My current dream is to have a VW campervan in our back garden. We will one day....

So, I thought I would share with you some of my tips. Some of you I'm sure will already do many of these things. But for those of you that spend like I used to they might come in handy ;)

1) Spring clean your finances. Go through all your standing orders, and look over what you spend in a month. Ask yourself if it is all necessary. Little things add up.

2) Add up your monthly income and your monthly outgoings (ie just the basics.) Then give yourself a monthly 'spending budget' and stick to it. I get it out in cash in weekly amounts and then when it's gone, it's gone.

3)Visit your local charity shops and car boots. Seriously. They will change your life. You will not believe some of the things you can get.

4) Join freecycle and local free pages (there are many on facebook.) I cannot even list the amount of stuff we have got for free over the last year since I started using these sites. House furniture, kids clothes, electrical appliances, garden furniture...the list is endless.

We got last year a whole bedroom set in Indian wood - it is massive and so well built it will probably outlive me. (Excuse the mid-packing messy rooms!)

I also needed a couple of dressers for our new house so got them off freecycle.

One ugly dresser;

Painted, and voila! It will be my craft dresser!

We got a highchair;

A trampoline;

And Lizzie's beloved playhouse.

Plus about a hundred other things. Of course I also offer stuff on freecycle myself - I am a firm believer in recycling and if there are things we do not need, I offer it to others.

5) Set up a savings account. If you can afford to save a certain amount monthly, set up a direct debit for that amount. Unfortunately for us, Ryan's income varies so much we have to just put away what we can each month (if we can.) I am scared not to save now.

6) STOP SPENDING! It sounds obvious. But you can seriously have fun at home, or out without spending much at all. We recently collected vouchers from the Sun newspaper so we can go to Warwick Castle for free next week. When the weather is this good too there is no need to spend money on expensive days out. The park is just as much fun.

I hope one day when we are rich (ha ha!) we will still live like this. Any more ideas people?