Cheap Tuesday

I haven't done a cheap Tuesday post in a while...maybe because I haven't been able to think of anything insightful, budget-wise. I've been racking my brain and drawing a blank when something small came to me. I guess it's all the very small things that together make a difference to living cheaply (or cheaper).

I'm typing this wearing my dressing gown as it's pretty darn chilly in my house. It's the one and the same dressing gown that I got from Ezibuy (paid for by my parents) when I was 14 or 15. It's lime green (faded a bit now) and after owning it for nearly a decade, I can't stand the sight of it. But, because it's in perfectly good condition I can't bring myself to fork out for a new one. So I guess that's a bit of a budget tip - sometimes it is best to push aside consumerist desires and make do with what you have. Of course I'm a complete hypocrite in  this area as I throw much more money than it'd cost me to buy a new dressing gown on inane purchases all the time :-)

The second lesson I can draw from sitting in a freezing house, rugged up, is that you can save a huge amount of money on your Winter power bill by not having any heating. Yes, it may be colder in the house than outside, but it's quite bearable if you wear multiple layers, spend as much time in bed as possible, drink copious amounts of tea to warm you from the inside out, and do as much cooking/baking/soup making as possible as the heat of the oven warms up the kitchen at least. A good, thick pair of bed socks helps too.