A late Frugal Friday post

I am a little late with my weekly Frugal Friday post - mainly due to LOTS of work on at the moment and the school holidays, meaning I am having to devote every minute of spare time to trying to get a presentation of 300 slides done by Wednesday am around times when the kids and t-husband are asleep as the latter is off work and is on one of his 'Lets go off and do something everyday, I am on holiday' modes.

So this last week, even though we are now into Easter holiday, I have still been trying to cut back and spend less.

1. I heard on the local radio that they had some 50% off vouchers at various local attractions so I popped on-line to their website and bought a voucher for The Deep aquarium over in Hull costing me £17.00 instead of the usual £35.00 for a family of 4
2. We went to The Deep on Friday and had a fab day out. I took a picnic with us so we didn't spend any money on food while out, or need to buy any drinks (although t-husband and I did succumb to a coffee near the end of the day), and we had a really great day. We avoided the gift shop, instead heading out the doors closest to the big shark which attracted the boys as they wanted photos with it and the gift shop was forgotten. I will probably do a separate post on The Deep as it really is a great place to take the kids, and a day we thoroughly enjoyed as a family.
3. Last week I did my weekly shop in Sainsburys and kept the receipt. This week I went to Asda, and tried to stick to the same list. Where I didn't need things on it I tried to note the price in Asda on the receipt, and also noted everything extra I needed on the bottom. When home I entered it all onto a spreadsheet, yes you read that right, I did a spreadsheet. For the same items on my weekly shop, I spent £54.80 in Sainsburys and £48.45 in Asda. Next week I plan to take said spreadsheet with me and do my shop in Morrisons, and then the following week Tesco and do my own comparison! Getting really anal in my old age.
4. Today we are planning a long walk to my parents through the Valley Gardens in Harrogate. There is an Easter fair on in the grounds, and it also means the boys will have a 3 mile run before having to sit at Grannie and Grandad's for an Easter meal, but again this will be a lovely day and needn't cost us anything.
5. I did my first bit of up-cycling, we are in the middle of decorating the boys room and want to move their bunk beds out from the wall by 6 inches to put a shelf system at the side of their beds flush with the height of their mattress so they can both have some storage space and a light etc. My Dad priced up the wood which we want to match the bunk beds, and it comes out at about £80.00 which is more than we wanted to spend. I was rummaging through our downstairs toilet dumping ground and saw our old Ikea Billy DVD tower in there still waiting for us to do something with it. Tipped on its side it is the perfect length of the bunk beds, one shelf in the middle separate its and it will now provide a double shelf the right width for one of the bunk beds - as we also still have all the little pieces that would normally make the shelves for the DVDs, Dad can use these as ends and a separator for the 2nd one he will build which has more than halved our cost down to £30.00 so I am very impressed with myself.
6. Final one is the usual where I am using alot more left overs and what I have in the cupboards and there is less waste.

As usual, if anyone has any idea or advice, please let me know as we need to learn to cut back and be more frugal.