Tips for a luxurious feeling lifestyle on a modest budget

[pengwig]

After reading a few threads on the cost of living I wondered if we could share tips for living a like that feels luxury on a bit of a budget?

My tips are home baking, even simple easy to make cakes are much nicer than even expensive store bought and served with a nice pot of tea or a coffee at home is more affordable and enjoyable than paying for a dried out, bought in cake sold in most cafes for 4 times the price.

Also instead of expensive candles I either use a little portable essential oil diffuser with essential oils or wax melts. I burn them in the hall and they seem to fragrance he whole house really nicely without being too strong.

Any other tips?

Beautiful coffee cups. For my morning cup of coffee. Bean to cup machine a reconditioned delonghi. And a frothy milk gadget. Just lovely.

a silk pillowcase it just feels so lovely.

really fluffy facecloths and a clean one for each evening.

a few drops on either the hoover bag or one of the filters. So the air that is pushed out smells good. It is lovely.

Yes! We have a set of white organic cotton reusable square baby wipes from Cheeky Wipes and use them as facecloths. They are fluffy and lovely and look good in a little basket.

Buy some antique or vintage china - you would be amazed how many inexpensive never-used (they were treasured as wedding gifts, stuck in a china cabinet) sets are available for sale! You will feel like drinking tea with your lovely cakes in at Downton Abbey set! Such affordable luxury!

This!!!!!!

Yardley soap is not one bit worse than Guerlain or Floris and it is always sold at TK Maxx at a discount.

Mmmmm Chocolossus - you can't even finish one biscuit in one go!!!!

Thank you @OPTIMUMMY no way I’d have thought about Zara for perfume and I can’t wait to treat myself ❤️

I really like expensive body wash so I buy the 5 litre packs and decant it into my own hand wash and shower wash containers. For something like Faith in Nature or Bramley it works out about a third cheaper.

Love this thread, thanks OP! My affordable luxuries:

Little vase of flowers on my desk when I work from home. All picked from the garden so cost nothing.

Cream for my coffee mid-morning

Oh de Loo drops from Purdey & Figg - these are more expensive at £17 a bottle, but make the loo smell like a spa and are special enough to motivate DC to flush the loo properly so they can put them in!

Gradually building up a quality summer (100% linen), Christmas (brushed cotton) and rest of year (100% cotton) set for each bed, by stalking Vinted for bargains

As each pan or dish claps out/loses nonstick/handle goes wobbly, I replace it with a Le Creuset or Pyrex version from ebay. Gorgeous to use and last forever.

Restoring my DGM's beautiful bone china sets by finding replacements for the breakages on ebay - i now am back to a full 1950s teaset and an almost full 1930s one.

Finally embracing simple korean-based skincare routine: much much cheaper than the luxury western products and results even better, and i feel like I'm pampering myself twice a day.

Art from talented friends - i have a pebble mosaic embedded in my garden paving, I paid for the materials which were about £20 and it lift my heart, it's so special. Have a print in my house from another one. Paid for in wine.

Good-quality frozen croissants. M&S and Waitrose do them. You can then bake them yourself from frozen. Delicious and make your house smell like a bakery. Eat them on a weekend morning with good coffee from a proper tea and coffee shop (sadly we don't have one locally, so I try to remember to get some when I'm in bigger places!).

How do you add it to the hoover? Sorry for the silly question!

I agree about Christmas lists and we do this in my family. So someone might want to buy you a candle or chocolates or a handcream and it IS really helpful to know your favourite brands. So i dont request specific things always but I will say “If youre getting me X, I like this scent/brand/flavour”.

I dont think it’s mercenary. In fact, im a lot harder-up than the rest of my family so if I didnt do that they might drop a lot of money on something quite luxury - but not the exact type I like.

I guess this only works if you have fixed preferences (which I do). So any chocolates that arent peppermint creams are nice - but not quite hitting the mark!

Loving some of the tips here

I wondered this too so I looked it up. Apparently a few small drops on a cotton wool ball put in the hoover bag or dust compartment. The advice says to make sure the oil doesn't get on the hoover as it can damage rubber parts etc. I'm going to give it a go!

Many thanks! Will give it a try too 🤞

On the Hoover side of things, you can also make your own 'shake and vac' carpet freshener by mixing bicarb with essential oil.

Zara perfume is good. But they seem to have discontinued the Apple Juice a PP was talking about. I love it but couldn't find it in any Zaras near me during the heatwave.

I put it on a cotton wool ball and vacuum that up.

I completely uplevelled my wardrobe by shopping secondhand. I have some beautiful outfits now by doing this and using a restrictive colour palette so everything works together.

is that not messy? There'd have to be an awful lot of bicarb for a tiny amount of oil otherwise it would soak into the carpet

@GrimDamnFanjo just wondering how you went about this, would you consider sharing? Did you pick colours and a few brands to focus on? Or design a capsule wardrobe type of thing and then search on Vinted for an item type? Sorry if this comes across as a bit silly, I don’t know how to do fashion!!

20-30 drops of oil to 500g bicarb

Flowers.

Lidl/Aldi sell bunches of flowers cheaply. Depending on the time of year I add foliage from the garden. Quirky vases from charity shops/flea markets.

I bake my own shortbread and you can't even make it for that price! (If you make it properly with real butter and not that ghastly 'can't believe it's ever been near a dairy' stuff).

When I rinse out my filter I put a few drops of essential oil in the water. Sometimes I put some drops directly on the filter but it's not always recommended, depending on the type of filter you have.

Thank you- going to try this afternoon!