What's the most extreme example of effort to save a few pennies you have heard of?

barbara I always cook with granulated sugar anyway. I bake a lot and I can't tell any difference.

In my broke student days, I had a flatmate who was exceedingly careful with money. When I first started seeing DH, and got through rather a lot of condoms, she insisted that I should be paying her for the extra loo roll we were getting through.

I've done the taking food from the breakfast buffet for lunch, but only because I'm not a breakfast person and while dh is merrily eating his way through a few pigs I struggle to eat a piece of toast. I wrap up a croissant or two and have them with a coffee for lunch.

QuiteUnfit agreed!

I'd happily spend actual money on broccoli that was all stalks - I don't like the florets, only the stalks. (But not stalks that have had a thumbnail dug into them to snap them off - ugh!)

On the trimming of veg before you put it in your trolley - do those of you that do that feel able to do so because nobody is watching? To me it's like going to the hot food counter, ordering a chicken, digging around in it to remove the bones, then demanding they reweigh it to get a better unboned price.

If we have run out of caster or icing sugar, I sometimes grind down granulated sugar in the food processor
My DM always did this in the 1970s, as I think there was probably a bigger difference in price then.

I'm amazed that some of these things are thought of as being miserly! I always reuse teabags, cut off the laddered legs of tights, turn off the shower while soaping, save non-soapy water from the kitchen for the garden, reuse wrapping paper etc. However, even I draw the line at stealing eg loo paper, and also do give generously to charity.

We are such a consumerist society, so why would you not reduce your consumption where you can?

My mean streak is that I don't use black bin sacks, but instead use plastic bags the food comes in for my kitchen rubbish, and just drop it in the wheelie bin each night.

Going back to the original lighthearted tone of the thread, I try not to let DP use caster sugar bought for baking in his coffee because it costs more than twice the price of granulated sugar but it's not the end of the world if he does.

Luckily we have space to store both granulated and caster sugar and two types of brown sugar and icing sugar and the granulated sugar lives with the tea and coffee and the other sugars live in the baking cupboard, which DP never thinks to look in anyway.

If we have run out of caster or icing sugar, I sometimes grind down granulated sugar in the food processor instead of going out to buy caster sugar and congratulate myself for saving a few pence in the process.

Use

We cut the toothpaste open with nail scissors to us every last drop.

"I re use gift bags, why would you throw them away? . Seems really wasteful! "

I don't have enough space to keep things for years just in case I might re-use it. The 'just in case' mentality is where hoarding begins.

Gwen but don't you have a small stock of a few sheets of wrapping paper somewhere? Re-using gift bags is just like that. And unless you get given hundreds of presents in gift bags a year, and never give anyone else presents, then you aren't "keeping things for years", just something the thickness of a magazine for a few months until you give the next present. It's really wasteful to just throw gift bags away.

I sometimes cut open tubes of cream to get the last of it out. When it starts to feel empty, there is often about 10/20% of the product left, so a lot to throw away. I scrape the face cream into a tiny pot and then use it for travelling.

I also bought sundae spoons from the pound shop for getting the last of the peanut butter out of the jar. The Sunpat jar seems designed to make it hard to get the last of it out of the jar.

I really hate water waste, so have enthusiastically taken on some of these tips.

I have been enjoying the Mean Queen blog mentioned upthread..... some of the tips are great, some seem to tip over into th outright bizarre and miserly, but I know we are way too wasteful generally as a household so I am going to incorporate some of the tips.

MIL can't walk more than a few yards so has a blue badge. Local national park charges for parking, so when we visit and plan to go there, FIL and MIL will spend a good hour arguing about which combination of people will go in their car, be dropped at the barrier, then drive home, then pick up everyone else, then drive back, then MIL will park in the free blue badge area, FIL will then drive to her, bring her home, then when we want to go home we should find the one phone box as no mobile reception, and FIL will drive MIL back to her car and then drive out, MIL will ferry four people to FIL's car and then collect the others.

Meanwhile MrNC and I get the kids ready, lob entire family in the people carrier, and go pay £6. FIL can't believe we pay for parking. I tell him I'm not paying for parking, I'm paying to avoid listening to him and MIL arguing over parking! He conceded that might make sense...

MIL and FIL are both war babies with a bit of a hoarding problem - BIL and I clear out the back of the fridge every few months, mainly so it's not a danger every time you open it as usually you get a glass jar or plastic box on your foot. Definitely a shoes-on house!

This is a great thread!

I like to think I'm reasonably frugal but some of these are just bonkers on another level

DM used to re-use Christmas wrap. It was quite cheering to see the same designs come out year after year. I wash out the dregs of the shower gel and use it as shampoo. This practice has been slated here before but I aintent bald yet

I am poor and can't afford heating/hot water, I shower with a bowl in with me which I use to flush the loo, boil a kettle to wash up every two days and use that water to flush the loo too (water meter). I reuse bags for sandwiches/dog poo (NOT the same bags), and buy cheap food in the shop where I work when the reductions go on. But even I don't reuse teabags!

I keep picnic freezer blocks in the freezer at all times. Supposedly to cut down energy consumption.

I have different sized notepads (A5 or A6) made of paper that's still white on one side. Using a hole punch + a piece of ribbon from the neckline of a top + cereal packet cover makes an exercise book! For my own use, obviously- I don't want people reading my bills etc.

And I put fresh bars of soap in clothes drawers for the perfume and use the dried up ones in the shower as they last longer.

No apologies!

his Dad posted them second class

now that is cheap!

Countess The probably just shop every day or so and keep it somewhere cool so like they did before everyone had fridges. Their house is probably not as hot as a lot of younger people either. Fresh food doesn't turn into poison if it is unfridgerated for a day or so.

We have elderly friends who don't use a fridge. The stuff is put in the side. They never get ill. I don't understand it. They have been like this for years. My
Mum thinks they have evolved into being tolerant to sour milk and orange juice etc.

Be more panda - I let the bathwSter go cold then water the front plants with it. I have occasionally done thensvk garden but it is a lot of traipsing up and down stairs. There is a special hose you can get. It uses a squeeze pump thing to get the water flowing and the gradient (dropping it out of the window) does Therese to water the garden.

Also you don't have to fill up the cistern. You can just pour a bucket of water down the loo to flush it. Pour it from up high abs it is s much stronger flush than the toilet. We had the worlds worst flushing loo when I was s teenager. All poos had to be flushed this way 😂

I know someone at uni who wore very strong prescription glasses. They were so old and absolutely knackered, and eventually a lens fell out. He just carried on with one lens for weeks! Then the other lens fell out - he asked his Dad to send his spare pair from home and his Dad posted them second class he couldn't see anything until they arrived!

A lot of the water saving ones will be from people who lived through the 1976 drought. I think you could get fined for wasting water so if you wanted to water your garden you had to use old water to do it.

Also using old bathwater to flush the toilet is totally sensible. Half the world doesn't have access to clean safe drinking water and we have so much of it that we use it to flush our toilets. There should be grants available to install grey water systems in houses and all new houses should collect either used water or rainwater for toilet flushing at least.

We should appreciate how fortunate we are to be able to afford to use things so frivalously rather than laughing at people who try not to be wasteful.

Do people really throw away gift bags after one use? Even in places like Card Factory they start at a pound each and I dread to think how much they are in WH Smith and Clintons. Of course they should be reused. So wasteful not to, both in money and resources.

apples My knife!

I was born n 52 and we had all mod cons ...I reckon I was very lucky.

Some of these frugal stories sound like health hazards.

We have family gift bags
Me, MIL and SIL all keep the gift bags to reuse and every so often we'll swap different size bags. If MIL has to buy new ones she always gets bags with designs on that she knows we'll all like to use again.
Some of the really nice ones have been going round the family for a few years now.