At last a month where time doesn’t seem to have flown by. I love October, autumn seems to really kick off and nature looks so beautiful. It’s also the start of a really expensive season too. We love to celebrate Halloween and Bonfire night meaning that room is needed in our budget. October has been a good month. Despite the extra expenses we have still managed to save money.

Here are my five frugal things for October.

• Instead of buying lots of new decorations for Halloween I checked what we already had first. I have stuck to a budget of £20 which includes the kids costumes, sweets and a few new decorations. It’s so tempting to overspend this time of year so I’ve been really strict with myself. I will pick up some things in the sale after Halloween too to save even more money next year.

• I’ve started meal prepping for the week on a Sunday afternoon again. I find we save so much money this way as nothing goes to waste. As well as saving money prepping saves me time too which is a huge bonus.

• As much as I love being organised and buying gifts early for Christmas I often forget exactly what I’ve bought. This leads to overspending, so I’ve taken the time this year to create some spreadsheets. I can already see that I only have a handful of gifts left to buy and exactly what budget I have left.

• We had an unexpected windfall this month so I’ve paid a huge chunk off the credit card debt. My biggest resolution for next year is to clear this debt totally so we’ve had a great head start.

• The heating has stayed firmly off this month. A lot of that is down to the fact that we’ve had unusually high temperatures for October. Nobody has gone cold and we’ve saved money which makes me very happy indeed.

If you liked this post then why not have a look at my Five Frugal Things For September post.