5 People Who Have Taken Thriftiness To The Extreme

Meet five people who have taken unconventional measures to save money. Whatever you’re saving for, the FSCS protects your money up to £85,000 in the unlikely event that anything should happen to your bank, building society or credit union. To check if you are eligible for savings protection up to £85,000, please visit: www.fscs.org.uk/protected

Ginger discount

Daily Mail / Via dailymail.co.uk

When Richard Macrae, 30, from Aberdeen in Scotland was given a fake ‘ginger discount card’ as a birthday present from his friends, he used it to his advantage and managed to save more than £200 at bars, restaurants and cinemas. 'People have always given me stick for my hair colour, but now I'm going out three nights a week and saving a fortune. The joke is on them.’

Thrifty redecorating

Meta Picture / Via themetapicture.com

A man in the US converted his dingy basement into an authentic looking hunting cabin on a lean budget of £65. The cabin includes a stone fireplace, wood beams and even a mounted deer head!

Extreme couponing

Brentwood Gazette / Via brentwoodgazette.co.uk

Jordan Cox from Hutton, England, collected enough coupons to purchase £600 worth of shopping for just 4p! The 16-year-old pupil spent one month saving 470 coupons from newspapers and magazines. He then generously donated all the food to Doorstep, a homeless charity that provides food to disadvantaged people at Christmas.

Trade you a paperclip… for a house?!

Picasa http://2.0 / Via oneredpaperclip.blogspot.co.uk

One man offered up a red paper clip to trade for bigger and better items. 14 trades later he bagged himself house! It took him just one year, and now he’s a published author, a Guinness World Record holder (for creating the world’s largest red paper clip and for the most successful internet trade) and has been on several Japanese TV shows!

Fearne Cotton’s thrifty DIY tips

FSCS / Via youtube.com

Fearne Cotton gives a bit of an insight into how she saved money during the early stages of her career: ‘There were a lot of customised clothes. I would write poetry on the walls in paint, in my kitchen I spray-painted silver stars on the ceiling, and I made my own canvasses of modern art – if that’s what you could call it! There was a lot of thrifty home improvement that was going on that was pretty bad.’