Frugal Monday: Save Save Save

Hello Frugal, fabulous fashionistas!

Another post on how to make some savings ... we love making savings and surely in this recession period that's refusing to go away, you must love it too... here goes

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1. Cosmetics and Toiletries: if you are in the habit of buying expensive shampoos, soaps, cleansers etc. try out the supermarket own brands - recent studies have found Tesco's cheap shampoo to be better than the extremely expensive, well advertised brands! The Co-op toiletries are excellent and very thrifty - a large bottle of shampoo that lasts a family for 2 or 3 months comes in at about 80p. Superdrug always offers a host of body washes for £1. Every month when I shop for my bodywash I restrict myself to whatever is going for £1 at the time and I have found them offering last week’s £3 wash for £1 this week and last week’s £1 wash for £3 this week!
2. Wash clothes less. Some people wear clothes and then wash them, but I’ve gotten into the habit of wearing my clothes more than once if they’re not really dirty. I use my nose as a test — I don’t want to wear clothes that smell, but most times the clothes are still perfectly clean. This saves on washing.
3. Do your own manicure – I have always believed myself to be the worst at self manicures but with constant practice and some diligence – my nails always look fantastic and cost me close to nothing!
4. Limit the number of toys your children are able to have in the house. This will lower the clutter, increase the value of the toys you currently own, increase your children’s creativity as they learn to play with less, and also will decrease spending on toys.
5. If you love reading it is possible to spend a heart stopping amount of money on books over the years!Make full use of your local library - Instead of buying books, borrow! you can have as many free books as you like. You can also order any title that you particularly want. Remember to phone and renew your books to avoid charges if you are not returning before the due date.
6. The library often also has a great selection of DVDs (depending on your area), saving you even more. Mobile libraries visit most villages once a week and usually have no overdue charges - if you are very rural they will sometimes come right to your house - contact your local library for details. If you are a pensioner video rental is also free from the library
7. If you have a huge collection of books go through them and consider which you really want to keep and read again - if there are some you could do without try selling them on ebay or Amazon.
8. Buy your books from the book section of your local charity shops - I have found the most amazing books there and if like me you are a “read only once” kind of person then you really don’t want to spend heaps on the books
9. Read newspapers online - If you read a newspaper remember that you could probably read it online for free - most of the larger UK papers are available on the internet. To find your chosen one just go to www.google.co.uk and search for its' title.
10. Participate in a Book Swap club such as : Read it swap it – you will be pooling resources with thousands of other book readers all over the UK and all you have to bear is the cost of postage as you easily swap your books for other books.
11. Cancel magazine subscriptions. With the wealth of information and entertainment online, do you really need magazine subscriptions? With all the news online, do you really need a newspaper subscription? If you can get DVDs for free or cheap, do you really need a Netflix subscription?
12. Buy your books from second hand book shops such as:

• Green Metropolis where books cost £3.75 and you get £3 for each one you sell there. They also make a donation to the Woodland Trust for each book sold.
• Friends of the Earth have a bargain basement with 2nd hand and old stock worth checking out.
• The Book People are a fantastic source of discounted books, often selling sets of books for the price you normally pay for one - well worth checking here first.
• Amazon.co.uk provide a really reliable service and do have discounted items too - they also have the marketplace sellers where bargains can be picked up though you will pay £2.75 postage.

Frugal Monday: More Energy saving tips

Hello Awesome fashionistas,

We are back from our Christmas/New year holiday and we are starting our week off with a Frugal Monday post. Today we have more energy saving tips for you all. Some of this you probably know already so we are reaffirming them to you... and some you are hearing for the first time! totally cool...

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Here goes...

1. Keep the lights off during the day.
2. Use CFL bulbs.
3. Use nightlights that only come on when it’s dark.
4. Use nightlights in the bathroom, so if you have to use the bathroom at night, you don’t have to turn on the light.
5. Use rechargeable batteries for electronics and toys.
6. Store batteries in the refrigerator. They last longer.
7. Turn off the PC if you won’t be using it for an hour or more.
8. Get rid of your land line and use your cell phone.
9. Consider a family plan for cell phones
10. If you live in an apartment, see if you can split the cost of a wireless connection with your neighbours. But make sure it’s legal first.
11. Staying faithful to energy suppliers doesn’t pay – if you have been with a supplier for years and you get an offer for a cheaper tariff – take the leap
12. Energy prices (gas and electricity) have gone totally mad now and you can save a tidy sum if you make sure you are getting the best deal. If you are in the UK, you can make use of “which?switch” – which is a free energy switching service. Which?switch also compares over 20 suppliers and have a simple online switching service you can use. In 2010 the average Which?Switch user saved £270 on their annual energy bill.
13. Don't forget you can insulate yourself too - wearing warm clothes and layers can reduce heating bills - vests, legwarmers under jeans and cosy slippers all make a huge difference! And you won’t constantly need to have the heater on.
14. You can buy special insulation sheets to put behind radiators to reflect the heat back into them. Cardboard wrapped in aluminium foil does this too.

Ecofabulously Yours

The FabXchange Team

And the winner of giveaway is....

XXMermaid

The winner of the giveaway was randomly generated using a Random Number Generator available on random.org and shown below

P.S- Although we have about 65 registered members, only 25 of these members have subscribed based on the instructions in the giveaway making them eligible for the giveaway.

Congratulations XXMERMAID We will email you shortly in order to process your amazon voucher to you.

Thank you all for joining the FabXchange Online Swap Forum, we hope you will stay on and swap your lovable clothes, shoes, bags and books.

Ecofabulously yours
The FabXchange Team

FabXchange Christmas Giveaway *NOW CLOSED!*

Thank you to everyone that participated. We will now compile the list of subscribers and choose a winner randomly using random.org. The winner will be announced in a new post by Thursday, December 29th. We will also send an email to the winner.

The aim of the Online Swap forum is to encourage ladies to let their wardrobe items (clothes, shoes, bags, books and fashion accessories) live longer by swapping or passing on to someone else the ones they do not need. Its eco friendly and lets you revamp your wardrobe at a low cost.
Please check out the guidelines here on how to use the forum and lets get our swapping on!

Your feedback is important to us, so if you have any suggestions on areas to improve the forum, please let us know by leaving a comment or emailing us on info@fabxchange.co.uk.

Also watch out for more giveaways in the future.

Thanks again and we hope to see you on the FabXchange Online Swap Forum.

Happy New Year in advance,

Ecofabulously Yours,
The Swap Queens.