Your number 1 money-saving tip

[PupInAPram]

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

We live on a very tight budget, we find good can be expensive so here’s what we do:

Meal plan (including lunches and treat cake bakes).
Only shop once a week.
No top up shops (if we forgot something in our shop or it’s run out- tough! We have to make do with what we have).
Try to make meals last 2 days (this is difficult with teens!), but chilli leftovers can be used as burritos the next day, Roast chicken leftovers go in quesadillas.
No coffees/lunches out, we take packed lunch to work.
Freeze leftover meals (even if it’s one portion)- the week before payday, we eat all the leftovers, we have a nice range of meals even tho it was a cheaper shop.
Free days out- at parks/long walks with picnic lunches.
Always find a discount code for things you need to buy/family day out at attractions.
Sell items you don’t use.
We try to play board games with our teens/read together instead of watching tv- saves electricity while keeping communication lines open and great for bonding.

@PupInAPram

I line dry already but I had never thought about washing in cold water. One to try. Wish I could try airfryer and pressure cooker cooking without the initial investment in them, just to see how got on with it 🤔

I was thinking the same and browsing on Amazon saw that they did interest free credit for the instant pot.

I do make a lot of soup so knew I would use it but not having to pay the full amount up front means that I start making the savings now which help towards the payments. It's costing me £26 per month for 5 months.

Never accept a renewal quote for car or house insurance. Always shop around.

doesnt this depend on who you are with? I am with a broker, not direct so they should be highlighting the cheapest deal anyway.

Learn to cook is my number one tip. As in properly cook, not just put things in the oven, or rely on ready meals. French onion soup is cheap as pennies but it feels incredibly nourishing on a grim day. £1 veg pack that most supermarkets do can be used for soup, stew, casseroles, roasts, etc. I have giggled a lot over the mythical MN roast chicken that can feed a family of ten for 2 weeks, but a 500g gammon joint is actually brilliant for all of the ways you can use it in different meals.

For your hair, is there a college near you that does beauty/hairdressing courses? My local one has an on-site salon that's run by the students and you can get a cut there for about £10 by someone who's only a few months off being fully qualified. It's not quite like going to a professional, but the standard is pretty much the same.

Meal plan and cupboard stocktake like an absolute demon.

Buy dried chickpeas, pulses etc rather than tinned and set yourself reminders to soak them in time for dinner (ditto reminders for anything that might need defrosting)

Use the library , they have an app Libby you can view loads of mags on for nowt.

If you can, pay yourself first.

Instead of looking at what you have that you can save at the end of the month, make a payment to your savings account when you are paid. If that money is put away, you are less likely to spend it unnecessarily. It can be eye opening how much money is gobbled up by those loads of little spends.

It's not really a money saving tip as line drying is free but, if you can't live without fluffy towels, it only takes a few minutes in the tumble dryer while they are still a bit damp to fluff them up and stop them turning into scratchy cardboard. It's even quicker if you have tumble dryer balls.

Microfibre bath towels dry in no time you can get twice as many in a wash .
decathlon one are great

Only wash clothes when they are dirty or smelly (apart from underwear) - a jumper that is only worn for a couple of hours as a top layer of clothing does not need to be washed (usually!).
You don't necessarily need a shower every day, despite what most of MN will say

Use the stuff in the freezer

@PupinaPram. The economy wash, I believe, uses less water, less heat and less agitation. It does take forever, so I put it on before going out. The water gently agitates and the cleaning relies more on the soaking.

Don't be very frugal in the supermarket and then cause £500 of damage to your car by reversing into the trolley bay

Buy loads of Tescos baked beans - they are a quarter of the price of Heinz & in my opinion taste better. We often have beans on toast with grated cheese for a cheap & nutritious meal.

Check you're on the correct tax code (uniform laundry, professional subscription etc).

I have been thinking about my parents who struggled and here are some of the things they did. They weren't alone. Some of these practices will return I suspect:

• very rarely showered/had bath. Not even once a week. Us kids were expected to bathe once a week
• only washed clothes once a week (this naturally limited what they washed)
• line dried
• pressure cooker
• only heated one room in the house
• grew their own veg
• leftovers were eaten long after they were probably safe
• electric blankets

I have adopted some of these e.g. I use a slow cooker and turn off the heating early and only heat one room.

But naturally I think people will wash clothes less often and will shower less.

Meal plan and see if work offer discounts on gift cards for a supermarket. I have an Asda one and when I top it up I save 4%. It really adds up. We've saved hundreds over a couple of years. It also helps with budgeting as you just can put what you want to spend that month on it.

Shop at Lidl or Aldi, it's amazing how much you can save, I can get £50 worth of groceries that would have cost £80-90 in Sainsburys or Tesco.

we recently changed our Virgin Media package to include Netflix and a free SIM unlimited calls/texts. (gave to DD1)

Checked with work and fine to use work phone for personal calls, so got rid of personal mobile.

Percentage of monthly pay direct debit to savings account, and use for emergencies. DH and I disagree what an, 'emergency,' is.

Stopped using the tumble drier, bought a Ninja cooker (cost involved of course, but not used my big oven since I got it a month ago), buy detergent which washes cold and do most laundry with it (it's fine!), walk the dog from home instead of driving a short distance to a nicer doggie walking location (I can walk there in 20 minutes, so dog getting longer walks), use the wood burner and keep a kettle of water on the top of it to warm up.

Cook from scratch.

Buy secondhand. So many things you don’t need to buy new.

Getting a pay as you go phone instead of a contract. I spend less than £5/month now instead of £40+.

I think regular clear outs and selling things on Facebook marketplace helps us

@AnybodyAnywhere

My top money saving tip would be to get rid of DH. He has absolutely no idea (choose to have no idea) of how to keep costs down and wastes spectacular amounts of money regardless of how much I try to drum it in.

This is my ExH (from many years ago). He's currently fleecing OW #4 (or is it 5?) and she's bloody welcome to Mr Big Motorbike/SUV/House/Holidays that he can't fund on his own.