What small things do you do to save money?

[Teadrinker11]

I fear I've turned into a desperate cheapskate the last few weeks to save as much money as I can. I never charge my phone at home, always in college or in the car. I carry my own cup around and teabags with milk instead of buying a takeaway. I'm also doing cheeky things like nicking toilet paper and teabags which I know is awful. Also reusing matches, another desperate thing. What small and seemingly miserable things are you guilty of to save the bobs?

Turning TV off at the mains = £36 a year saved! I found a website that had the average cost of using appliances.

Turn broadband off overnight = £24 a year

How do you re use a match??

@Mrsbclinton

How do you re use a match??

Ha ha. Exactly!

My beautiful grandma was born in 1914 (and lived to be 100!)

Living through post war Britain and rationing, she always used a tea bag twice!k

I reuse teabags and when I use a jar of sauce (rarely) I rinse the jar with water and the lid on and pop it into the pan. Cleans the jar, stretches the sauce.

i add water to the tom ketchup when finished aand add it to spagg bol/chilli etc

its surprising how much is left

I shop online with Tesco - use clubcard vouchers to pay for the delivery, and check through my usual items on the app and stock up when they're on offer. I won't pay full price for loo roll!!

Probably not what you’re after but when I have to buy lunch at work, instead of a sandwich / meal deal with is £3.50 plus, I’ll just buy a tin of soup for less than a pound and is probably healthier, as well as a piece of fruit.

Recharge phone at work, rip wet wipes in half, park far away from town centre and walk to avoid parking charges, buy all the reduced meat for my dog (and freeze), no going out (am broke anyway!!) and make full use of library and Netflix/Prime…

I used to procure loo roll from pub toilets where the holders didn’t work as a student. I like weak tea so use a teabag twice or more. Always have my first cup of tea in work (also means longer in bed!). I take a handful of sugar sachets from Costa /Starbucks/MacDonald’s (only ever the big corporations). I have a hot water bottle instead of putting heating on at night.

@Mrsbclinton

How do you re use a match??

Light one candle with one match. Then in the same time if I need the match for something else instead of using a new match I use light the first one from the first candle.

We have an economy 7 type tariff (not UK), that gives us the cheap rate at weekends as well as overnight. All the laundry, dishwasher, vacuuming, oven cooking etc is done during cheap rate hours.

Solar water heating (well, that was quite a big thing, but it's saving a lot).

Use a slow cooker instead of the oven as much as possible.

Keep the fridge and freezer about 3/4 full - apparently this the most efficient level.

Open the dishwasher And turn it off when it moves onto drying
Blankets instead of heating

This may be silly but measure out the amount of detergent used for washing rather than free flowing it into the compartment. The amount required is much less than you think! It's expensive stuff!

I don’t buy myself anything specific for lunch and tend to make do with picky bits/toast/leftovers. I am at home most days for lunch though which makes it easier.

How is that re-using a match?
And isn’t that just normal?
Like the people sloshing out sauce jars with water, I’ve never done that with the intention to save money, just to avoid waste - saving money is a by-product of that.

I use my bedroom more than my lounge in the evening, because it’s warmer (smaller and better insulated) and it’s warmer in bed than on a sofa.

I make a big pan of lentil and carrot soup for lunch - get 3 lunches out of it and it's cheap , filling and nice 😀

Oh, and a brilliant tip I heard on a podcast - save the peel from onions and carrots, and the dregs of celery, and keep them in a bag in the freezer. When you have enough, use them to make stock.

You can also do this with orange and lemon peel and make marmalade, but we only get through about one jar of it a year these days, so it's not worth the faff anymore. It does work well though, if you like marmalade.

Years ago I was going through a rough time financially.

I'd buy a relatively cheap jar, but tasty, jar of curry sauce (ie jalfrezi)and warm up some of it, and pour it over rice (but without adding, say, chicken).

I'd stick the remaining jar of rice in the fridge for another night.

The jar would last me for about three evening meals.

It was a very cheap meal!and tasted nice!

Probably an obvious one, but, similar to sauce jars, use warm water to get out the last bits of shampoo and liquid soap from the bottles.

As pp have said rinse the sauce jar with a drop of water to make it go further.

Do the same with shampoo, conditioner and washing up liquid.

Only buy dilute juice for the kids rather than cartons/fruit shoot or fizzy pop. Lasts ages.

Go to bed earlier at night so the appliances downstairs are switched off earlier and there's no extra cuppas/snacks going on.

Reuse my teabag. Only I drink tea in our house and I like it weak so I'm happy to use a teabag twice.

Buy dried milk substitute and coffee mate to save on buying milk. Lasts ages.

Buy Kenco coffee refill packs from One Below. 23 cups of coffee for a quid - and I make myself one in a takeaway cup for when I go into town/out with the dogs. Saves on buying one for £££ while I'm out.

Only shop at Lidl and go either early in the morning or in the evening when things have been reduced. It's best when there's a ton of bread products reduced because it's all freezeable. I get everything for 20p each (bagels, scotch pancakes, crumpets, loaves etc) and end up with enough for 4-6 weeks or more and I've only spent a couple of quid. Bargain.

I never waste food. If there's bendy veg in the fridge I make soup. I turn any stale bread into breadcrumbs or croutons. And I only take notice of use by dates on packet and fresh meat. Cheese and eggs etc I use until they've gone.

Fix things rather than replace things.

Anything that looks like it could make a nice stock (peelings, chicken carcass etc) goes in a bag in the freezer. As do egg whites if I've only needed to use a yolk. And red wine. I don't get it often because it's a luxury so if there's a drop left I bag it and freeze it to go in a sauce or casserole at a later date.

Cut tubes of toothpaste or creams in half when finished, you can go loads more of the product out.

Buy my daughters clothes out of season. If you buy next years winter coat in the spring sales it's much cheaper!

@MistySkiesAfterRain

Turning TV off at the mains = £36 a year saved! I found a website that had the average cost of using appliances.

Turn broadband off overnight = £24 a year

Can you give that link? I've found a few but they are either a few years old, in dollars or show based on cost per hour which isn't really relevant for something like boiling a kettle. Would be great to see something in today's costs.