Your number 1 money-saving tip

[PupInAPram]

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

Floss your teeth every day and don't use your teeth to open stuff with.
You will save a fortune on future dental
bills and keep your own teeth looking good for way longer.

@florentina1

Washing lightly soiled clothes in cold water or warm water, without detergent.

Using the Airfryer and pressure cooker instead of the oven.

Stopped using the tumble drier.

Without detergent? How do you get rid of smells eg faint sweat?

Know what you already have , Ive gone through the housevand checked everybodys clothes to see exactly what they have so we don't buy anything we don't need . I've done the same with toiletries, makeup cleaning products and food .

@Tittyfilarious

Know what you already have , Ive gone through the housevand checked everybodys clothes to see exactly what they have so we don't buy anything we don't need . I've done the same with toiletries, makeup cleaning products and food .

So true. I've moved about a lot in the last few years and ended up with a couple of boxes of forgotten toiletries that I've just found - they're going to keep me going for months!

See if any of your mates with kids can offer hand me downs. My DC do get some new stuff but I also have lots of hand me downs from friends which is a total money saver

I'll add to that, when my brother and wife were having their first baby they met others at the NCT classes and stayed in touch, they would make a bundle of clothes to pass on between them which continued with second children.

Someone I worked with many years ago had a sister who was the same size and shape and had similar taste in clothes, they used to make up a bundle of clothes every six months to swap with each other.

I've been with EE for a few years, they offer incentives / discounts for every year you are with them, my current tariff for unlimited calls and texts and more data than I ever use id £3 a month.

@gracedentssketty I agree with grow your own as a hobby rather than expecting it to be a major money saver.

We are fortunate to have an allotment so don't need to worry about esthetics when it comes to construction. The polytunnel, fruit cage, bean frames etc are not things of beauty.

If you have gluts of things then learn about preserving them. Unfortunately you are unlikely to be able to trade as everyone has the same gluts at the same time!

Every year when the tomatoes really get going I start making a pasta sauce which I preserve in jars. The recipe changes through the season depending on what is in surplus/mouldering at the bottom of the fridge.

We use that sauce in anything which needs its flavour boosting: bolognese sauce, casserole, stew basically anything savoury. Not sure that it is money saving except that we always have some available so don't need to pop to the shop for a last minute tin of tomatoes.

Blackberry jelly is another preserve I make every year. The ingredients are simply blackberries, granulated sugar and a couple of apples for their pectin. Blackberries can be free or home grown, granulated sugar is cheap, apples can be the bruised ones from the bottom of the fruit bowl.

The kit you need for preserving is a very large pan, jars and lids. There are other things which make the job easier but aren't essential.

And also sell all your old crap. We just sold loads of baby stuff (as we are sadly not having any more) and raised around £250 with more to list and sell

@EliyanahM

I've considered a credit card but clueless as never had one - I took an online survey that came back saying that NO credit cards would likely be issued to me.. though I'm not in any debt and successfully repaid a TV and a vacuum cleaner back from Littlewoods. Any ideas which credit card? Like, specifically please

Join the Moneysavingexpert credit club, it is all free but it gives you details of your credit report and analyses which credit cards you are likely to get. There are lots of tips for improving your rating too.

I often see people on here suggesting 0% credit card transfers, which is a fab idea. However, before you transfer anything, look to see if you’ve got more than one balance on your card. I’ll make up a scenario as I’m crap at explaining! Say that you owe £1000 and have 3 balances on there balance 1 for £200 at 0% ends in 3 months, balance 2 for £500 ends in 8 months and balance 3 for £300 ends in 12 months. When the 0% for balance 1 ends and you if you still owe £100, only transfer £100 to another credit card rather than the whole amount. This is because, you still have 5 months at 0% on the £500 and 9 months at 0% on the £300. Don’t give that up and end up paying a higher transfer fee. Hope that makes sense.

I'm about half way through the thread and lots of people have mentioned meal planning. If you're new to it then it isn't just think about what to eat in the evening, think about what is practical. If you never get home before 5 on Tuesday but have to be out the door for 6 for brownies or whatever there's no point planning on having a roast that day. Either cook something earlier in the week to be reheated or accept that Tuesday is beans/egg on toast night or you may feel you can just about manage nuggets & chips. Nuggets from the shop are more expensive than homemade but if you are buying all the ingredients and not getting a chance to cook, substituting dinner with take out and then throwing out the nugget ingredients you would have been better off buying nuggets. It does take a bit of extra thought but knowing what's achievable will help you save

@Isonthecase

Mine is balance it. If you cut out everything that gives you joy you won't stick to it. For instance, we used to eat out too much so now instead of just not eating out I use things like clubcard vouchers or go when there's an offer on or have brunch rather than dinner. It still feels as good but costs so much less.

The other one is savings and a monthly portion of regular spends like insurance and Christmas come out of the main pot when my wage goes in. It then feels like I've got less money to spend so I'm more careful.

The good news is if your kids have only recently left you have the time to do a lot of this and it's infinitely more fun than nagging about homework!

Agree balance is the key when possible otherwise it all gets a bit depressing 😳 We've started choosing as late in the day as possible table time when we eat out which still makes the most of any "Early Bird" type menu. Especially on a Saturday night as it feels like we're still getting a "night out" IYSWIM? Rather than when the restaurant is empty and perhaps lacking in atmosphere. It gives us chance to still have a busy day but with a lovely treat at the end.

And I feel better about nicking a bottle of (house!) wine at that time of day

Have a “cheap” meal one or two nights a week - beans/eggs on toast or a jacket potato. One we do is baked sweet potatoes with lots of butter then mozzarella, a squeeze of lemon and either some paprika or some fresh chilli

Today I’ve printed out some “feeder to crockpot” recipes. Idea being you put ALL the ingredients in a bag in the freezer and then just tip the whole lot into the slow cooker before disappearing for the day. Totally takes the effort out of it.

Freezer to crockpot… feeder is quite different.

@EdgeOfSeventeenAndThreeQuarter That did make me chuckle!

Mine are small tips but my leccy bill is now the same as pre price hike:
Do a plug audit- does it have to be on? No- turn on/off at point of use. Yes- can it be off overnight?

Hob, kettle, microwave, broadband, printer etc etc. Broadband now goes off overnight.
If you are like me and leave lights on all the time, I've set Alexa (who I deem essential) to remind me to check the lights...I think a new habit might be forming! Also energy efficient light bulbs are a must - I need to replace mine.

A tip I got here is to boil the kettle once a day and put the rest in a flask. I have a giant one I got off ebay.

I'm thinking of investing in solar power trickle chargers to extend mobile phone battery life. If devices get charged less that's a good thing.

Not really for when you are on the bones if your arse (which I have been before), but if you are lucky enough to have some spends for clothes but not as much as you'd like-buy cheaper versions of the things you like that might be more expensive and customise them to make them look like the more high end versions.

Ie.I really fancied a Khaki jacket from scamp and dude recently but it was £120. Far too much. So I got a basic one off Amazon for £20, some iron on neon badges £1 and a Fluorescent zip from a market for £2, customised it a bit, add a leopard print scarf and it's a really good dupe-I get loads of compliments on it.

I also keep all my old clothes vacuum packed for when they come round again. Dd1 17 is now wearing my topshop kick flared jeans that I last wore two years before I had her! If you keep it long enough it comes back around!

Turn the WiFi off when you're not using it

I used to turn ours off at night. Gradually it got slower and slower. The guy on the helpline said that the boxes get pinged or something at regular intervals and if there's no response it's considered an unstable line and it slows down. That's just from memory, I may be wrong about the tech, but the point is that wi-fi only works optimally if it's on all the time. It took over a week for our speed to pick up again.

Every penny we both earn goes out of the main pot every month.
Only money to pay bills gets left in there.

This happened even in the days when £2 a month was going toward Xmas, bday and so on.

Now we earn more but still every penny gets filed away.
I put my car tax and insurance away each month, into pb. It's the only reason I now use pb.

Premium bonds.

I save for the children, put X per month into a totally separate bank, and bank account for holiday and Xmas.

In my bank account I have separate savings for the some aspect of the children.
DH has the Same.
We put a small amount away for car issue's each month, and allocate money each week for petrol , weekend spending .
If we to for a walk in the Woods and want to stop at the café.
We can knowing, every other payment we need too cover is taken care of.
With all these new prices we are thinking of stopping one weekend spending money.
When it comes to DC bday I'll have at least 100 per child already saved.
Xmas again a few 100 already saved.
It never stops each month.

The only downside for this is because we still don't earn that much and the money gets spread around, whilst we have a general saving pot we don't have that much too boost proper savings.

Ideally I'd like enough to buy a car but we don't have anywhere near that.
If we stopped all the other pots then we would.
But that also means we would struggle in those areas

Find out all the free and cheap stuff to do in your area. Go out regularly. Saving money doesn’t mean you have to have a boring life.

Make it a fun challenge to find as much fun creative stuff as you can to do for free or very low cost.

A new park or playground youve not been before can be a great day out for younger kids.
Film nights need only be the cost of a bag of popcorn and a dvd borrowed from a friend or bought from a charity shop.
For younger kids, try toy swaps with friends.
Love your local library
Improve your own skills. I found that by becoming a better cook, I spent less on cafes or takeaways, and my kids love a “quest walk” where I make up a story for them and they choose from various options. It’s a bit like d and d but enlivens any walk.
Staying hydrated, sleeping well and walking will improve your looks better than any skin care cream.
Approach money saving as an exciting challenge. Obviously this is hard if your finance is already cut to the bone, but set yourself challenges and problems to solve. I recently halved my weekly shopping bill by having a “tinned food” week. I made soup out of tinned veg for lunches, followed Jack Monroe Tin Can Cook recipes for dinners and sandwiches had tinned ham or meat paste in. I wouldn’t want to live like that every week, but once in a while it meant my shopping bill was £40 instead of £80 for a family of four.

If you buy rice in Tesco they do good bargains around Eid and Diwali. For example I got a 10kg of Basmati rice for £13 in Tesco. Same bag was £19 in Sainsbury's We eat rice a lot.

I cut our food bill in half (or more) immediately by swapping from sainsbury’s/Tesco to Aldi.
This was years ago and easy to do as I cook all from scratch but they realised different customers were coming and now have more “lux” food items.
The saving here isn’t necessarily the food - the stuff that adds up is detergent, cleaning products, booze, cereal, and cupboard stuff.

Energy efficient lightbulbs, and keep them off unless you absolutely need them on.

Get everyone in the same room, and only heat that one room.

No heating on at night at all - just extra blankets.

Cut down on kettle use.

I try to either use the hob or the oven, but not both. I also use the microwave a lot. Choose food that doesn’t need cooking.

Shop in the discount isle in the super market.

Charge phone at work.

Air dry my hair instead of using hairdryer.

Haven’t bought anything new for myself this year so far, just food, toiletries and house products

Very short showers, cut back on shampoo etc.

No takeaways.

Go through your subscriptions and see if you can cut any out.