Your number 1 money-saving tip

[PupInAPram]

What is your number 1 tip that saved you the most money on regular household spending?

@User76745333

For those cutting down on meat I can recommend soya mince. It’s about £1.99 a bag (but often on multi buy at Holland and Barrett) and a bag will do three bolognese/mince type meals for a family of four.

I’ve halved the amount of mince I use by using half mince half soya mince in all mince recipes and nobody can tell.

Before you stock up on this please try it a couple of times. It gives me absolutely awful flatulence and stomach ache and had to bin it. Heard the same from other people. I am fine with other soy products but not this. I use pink lentils to make mince type meals and they are fine.

I'm curious what tips anyone has that aren't 'turn your heating down' or 'wear extra layers' and 'no Starbucks', you know, for those of us who live like that anyway? It still amazes me that there are people tumble drying whole loads of laundry (or doing a wash every day) and lounging around the house in winter wearing summer clothes with their thermostat set at 20°.

My biggest tip for improving quality of life is to stop voting Tory.

MayMorris they won't zest after freezing, too squishy. Zest them all into a freezer bag first then you can use as much zest as you need fir a recipe straight from frozen.

@SpringLobelia

Never go on Amazon or ebay when drunk.

( posted under another user name once how DH and I bought a baby grand piano once when shitfaced on pink champagne. neither of us play the piano. Nor do we have room for a piano).

Your my kind of people

Oh yes and I am having stab at growing more veg from seed this year.

Cupboard audt.
Meal plan.
Down brand everything, doing taste tests etc to see if it's worth the saving. Aldi beans taste of beans as does the ketchup, tastes of ketchup.
Bread is made by a large company and packed for aldi etc.
Put on a jumper and turn the heating down to 17°.
Use a slow cooker or airfryer.

"I use pink lentils to make mince type meals and they are fine."

I've never seen pink lentils.

Stay I Wetherspoons all day
Get pissed. Lovely and warm in there sage on heating😂😂

@Gwenhwyfar

"I use pink lentils to make mince type meals and they are fine."

I've never seen pink lentils.

Pink lentils - www.drweil.com/diet-nutrition/recipes/pink-lentil-curry/ You might call them orange but I have always know them as Pink but their correct name is Masoor Dal.

Red lentils is the name I've always seen them sold under in UK shops for the last fifty years traditional in lentil soup. It appears from Dr Weil's website that they aren't as well known in the US.

Brown / green / Puy lentils take longer to soften but retain their shape and imo ate better in mince. But red lentils are the most widely available ime.

Red lentils are a perfectly good padding ingredient but the soya mince has the texture of mince and so the dc can’t tell the difference

Nnique. Brilliant choices, well done with the variable menus.

@LBFseBrom

If you lived near me I'd give you a brand new electric pressure cooker, a Pressure King Pro I think it's called. I bought it on a whim. It is still in the box, never used. Now I'm on my own I really don't need it. PM me if you're anywhere near Bromley and can collect.

Wow, what an amazing gift. Hope the person who collects it appreciates this appliance and makes the most of it. It's a pressure cooker, slow cooker, can be used for sous vid, steamer, bake cakes, make yogurt and jam .... All at minimum expense I use mine daily and very often twice a day. Between my gas hob , the King Pro and a combination microwave/ convection oven I keep cooking costs to a minimum. I also have a regular pressure cooker for the gas hob but hardly use it as the King Pro doesn't need me to be around .

Review your house insurance.

I had had mine on automatic renewal with the building society for years - talking with a friend who has a much bigger property and more possessions than I have, realised that I was paying way over the odds.

Phoned the BS and got the same cover for less than half the cost! It's scandalous how current customers are treated by many companies.

West Facing

Exactly
I know someone who auti renewed for years & was paying £1000+ for house insurance per year
I search around each year & pay approx £100 per year

All insurance, never auto renew !

We can all tell the difference with soya mince and it's not nice (IMO)! We don't use much mince anyway, as we bulk up with vegetables.

Don’t go to B&M. Ever. The place is evil and sucks you in with their scrub daddies and novelty cereals.

I use quorn mince (also cheaper than meat mince which you only need half of) and nobody can tell the difference.

Slowcooker - I find things are more flavoursome - not less as a PP said - and don't need any salt. I also make cakes in mine.

Clingfilm for leftover raw veg - twisting it in a bit of greaseproof paper instead works fine, the veg doesn't sweat, and it's better for the planet

"if your water is on a gas boiler showing less really isnt going to make much difference, its the electric thats shot up in price and the standing charges, not so much the gas unit prices."
Remember, the boiler is powered by an electric pump/motor

Make sure your central heating thermostat is in the right place.

We turned our thermostat down to 18 degrees and couldn't understand why we were baking hot but the heating was still on. So we did some investigating; our thermostat was in the dining room, the coldest room in the house and rarely used; the heating system was struggling to keep this room at temperature meanwhile our main living spaces were hot.
The thermostat is now in our living room and our gas consumption has fallen.

Pay all your regular essential bills (rent/mortgage, council tax, water, electricity) by direct debit/standing order then make a budget for the rest of your weekly spending and take it out in cash to pay for for everything else (food, clothes, extras) that can vary week to week.

Then take that cash out on a Friday ahead of the weekend, when your spending is more likely to be erratic, as you can economise more easily in the week (taking in packed lunch to work, not making unplanned purchases etc).

This really helped me when I had just graduated and started work and found budgeting hard.

We can all tell the difference with soya mince and it's not nice (IMO)! We don't use much mince anyway, as we bulk up with vegetables.

Ok forget the soya mince addition tip!

Meal planning and only buy what's on the shopping list.
Cook in bulk and freeze meals.
Bake at home for treats and don't buy snack foods.
Flask for boiled water.
Wait a week before buying stuff...if you still need it, try to find a better price for the same thing.
Cash back apps.
Voucher browser extensions. They can find coupons for the websites you visit.
Round up in savings account. Some accounts let you round up the pennies on each purchase and save them. Soon adds up.

Quorn mince is just nasty. Give me lentils every time!

I bulk out stews with carbs - dumplings in the stew or cheese scones on top. I also add loads of vegetables to stretch the stew further. I can get 8 servings out of a recipe that says ‘serves 4’.