What thrifty tips do you NOT recommend?

[ArcheryAnnie]

There's been discussion on other threads about some "thrifty tips" which don't seem all that sensible, like rinsing the sauce off spaghetti hoops to reuse the cooked pasta (wastes sauce and calories), or boiling soap to make shower gel (wastes electricity and soap - better just use the soap bar). What other thrifty tips have you either invented or tried, that you would warn other people off?

Here's mine: people have said a pinch of cheap curry powder helps elevate all kinds of dishes, including baked beans, tinned tomatoes, etc, and helps ring the changes in a monotonous diet. Here's what curry powder doesn't elevate, kids: porridge oats. Many, many years ago (pre DS), desperate for something other than plain porridge made with water, which had formed the bulk of our diet all week, we tried currying the porridge with an onion. Now, if I make or buy terrible food, I'll still usually eat it anyway, and just determine not to buy or cook it again. Not so this: oats, curry power and the onion all wasted. Don't ever repeat my mistake!

Oh, my goodness. Thank you so much for posting this. It really made my evening. DH and I have just finished dinner and we quite often read things from our phones to each other. I was laughing so hard I could hardly get the words out. I can just imagine it in your house. It sounds wonderful

Mine doesn't stink. There must be something wrong with yours.

This is the audience these recipe ideas are aimed at - people stuck with the choices middle class virtue signalers impose on them when they chuck those endless cheap tins of budget line spaghetti/beans/meat chunks into the foodbank crate -- products which they wouldn't dream of putting in their own cupboards.

Some people put those things in a foodbank box because it's what they can afford to donate. And foodbanks ask for tinned things like that.
I appreciate that point you're trying to make and I wouldn't sneer at anyone for trying to wash the spaghetti hoops. But I also wouldn't sneer at the people donating it.

They aren't that expensive compared to normal condensers any more. It's not worth scrapping a perfectly working tumble dryer to buy a heat pump one, but if you're buying a new one anyway, the difference is often about £1-200 which you'll make back very quickly if you tumble dry a lot.

I think having a big woollen shawl keeps your head, neck and shoulders warm and so makes the rest of you feel snuggly. I find it really helps, outdoors, or if the heating is coming on and you're waiting for it to do so.

I agree with the poster about working more hours - if you can, might be more cost-effective than seeking to save money. I also think that if you try at these side-hustles and extra jobs - when you don't absolutely have to, you will get better and better at them, so you'll always be employable. If things getting really hard, finding employment may become the biggest problem.

which would be a fair point on a thread about saving money, rather than one on cost saving...plus it's not really hugely more convenient, the only stepthey do for you is ordering the ingredients. Downloading the recipes from gousto yourself and ordering the ingredients for online delivery is about 15 minutes extra 'work' a week (work you can do from your sofa while watching tv) and a third of the price....

A lot of small pharmacies have shelves of shampoo, bubble bath, soap, toothpaste, etc going very cheaply - £1, for big bottles. They also sell household cleaning products cheaply.

I was amazed recently to note how expensive products are in Superdrug - toothpaste, etc, compared to these cheap independents.

Reminds me of a joke I heard recently - whoever discovered that graphene is the thinnest material on earth had clearly never seen an Aldi bin liner. Boom boom!😁

Regarding the boiling the kettle and filling a flask thing;
My dad lives alone, he has an electric shower and showers rather than baths. he has storage heaters rather than raditators. So his immersion heater was on to heat up water for washing his pots. when it packed in and he couldn't afford to repair it he used the extra water from the kettle (2 cups minimum each boil) to put into a thermos and tops it up every time he has a brew. He uses this water to wash his pots (once per day) rather than spending the money to fix the immersion.

I know what you said, I read it and I was commenting on it. People suggesting multiple buckets for a wash have lost the plot.

I'm not sure people do know how to manage without a shower, multiple buckets for a wash, how do you wash you hair in the bath. I think a bit of back to basics wouldn't be a bad thing.

I can understand saving spare boiling water for washing up or possibly coffee if you have a good flask and aren't bothered about your drink being properly hot, but it's never going to be hot enough to make a decent cup of tea.

No idea if it's cheaper on the hot water but I save time and a little bit on tea bags by making a pot of tea with 3 tea bags and enough water for 4 mugs of tea then I microwave throughout the day so it's quicker than boiling the kettle.

Some people here have obviously never been really poor.

When I was poor, ie had no income and got no benefits at all for months due to DWP being useless I really learned how to economise.

I never once roasted a chicken that's for sure! The oven was for special treats only- it costs a fortune in electricity.

I mostly ate cold food and bread based meals.

It was great for my waistline!

Most of my savings came from non food as I don't have the stomach for cheap food eg most ultra processed food.

Eg-
Learned to cut/ dye own hair.
Did own manicures with other people's unwanted varnish.
Did own brows.
Shaved rather than waxed and only when necessary.
Walked everywhere within 4 miles, hardly ever went further.
No deliveries ever.
Washed once a week. (Was old immersion boiler so just put it on once a week to clean me, DC and dishes.)
Used minimal dishes/utensils to use less water to clean them eg eating out of the sauce pan.
Wore clothes until they were dirty.
Clothes either from charity or in sales in cheap shops.
Boxes of wine were the only alcohol drank and only rarely.
Never ever got a hot drink out of the house. Never took DC to McDonald's etc.
Used reusable nappies.
No tumble dryer.
No landline (noughties). Had to go to library to get online! DC had no screens except TV with 5 channels. They did survive!
All furniture from charity shops.

I actually had an ok life. We don't need as much as we think we do. Buying all this fluff then scrounging on food, and making yourself ill by it is crazy!

I like the sounds of that. I think I'll give it a go if I can find a spray bottle.

I’m impressed people only put one cup of water in kettle to boil! My family have never mastered that.
Going to try the washing up spray bottle.

Some people put those things in a foodbank box because it's what they can afford to donate. And foodbanks ask for tinned things like that.
I appreciate that point you're trying to make and I wouldn't sneer at anyone for trying to wash the spaghetti hoops. But I also wouldn't sneer at the people donating it @3amAndImStillAwake . Well said.

@C8H10N4O2 surely the reason people donate the tinned stuff to the food bank in the first place is because (a) they are long life, and (b) they are well aware that it is likely the people using them may not have full cooking facilities - and even if they do, the cost of fuel is likely to be an issue . I don't understand why you would speak dismissively of people who donate these things as 'middle class virtue signallers'.

Wait what

How is this even....a thing

I use it in my hands only like you describe. I hadn't even thought to rub it directly on my hair!

Shampoo bars are an expensive luxury for me, and more about being green.

I am utterly bemused by the idea that being thrifty is only for those in the bare bones of their arse....

I've been there, and I was living frugally, just to survive. I'm now in the incredibly privileged position of not paying rent which gives me the opportunity of saving to buy a house- so I am living thriftily (granted not frugally though) but have a pot of money that I can access if it means it will save me money in the medium term.

I surely can't be the only one that has a savings pot for a specific target who would like to get there as quickly as possible??!!

Anyway, the thrifty thing that I don't recommend is browsing the aisle of doom in Aldi/Lidl unless you have great will power to not buy things - they may be cheap and useful items, but generally you will spend money on things you don't need. Hardly a saving then.

Supermarkets alter their prices depending on where the shop is. Our local Sainsburys and Tesco are very expensive as they are smaller and in the city centre. Pisses me off because it discriminates against people who have no choice but to shop there.

But small city centre versions of Tesco etc (so 'Metro' branded) are convenience stores, not supermarkets so aren't intended for people to do their main shopping there and compete with other convenience stores, not supermarkets.

It will be a rare person who 'have no choice but to shop there' and most of those won't be price sensitive anyway because city centres tend to have higher housing prices than slightly further out, so people living there will generally be more affluent.

It's like the previous comment about being thrifty being only for being on the bones of your arse so any suggestion has to work for the disabled single parent who's children will only eat chicken nuggets and who lives on the 5th floor of a council flat with no lift so can only do her shopping a day at a time and can't travel any further than the Spar 100 metres from her front door, or else someone will shout it down with whataboutery.

No-one says every suggestion works for everyone and no-one says that it's going to lift someone out of poverty by doing the thing, it's just sharing of ideas that people may want or be able to try, in the hope that it will help someone, or in the case of this thread, might not be worth bothering with.

It will be a rare person who 'have no choice but to shop there' and most of those won't be price sensitive anyway because city centres tend to have higher housing prices than slightly further out, so people living there will generally be more affluent.

I understand why you'd think this, but "city centres" extend out further than you'd think, and even somewhere like the west end of London has social housing. Most city centres are surprisingly mixed. Newly-gentrified areas are even more extreme for this - lots of people on modest incomes as well as plenty of very well-off people, all shopping at the same supermarkets.

I'm in zone 2, lived here 20 years, and only very recently got a lidl, which is heaven - otherwise its "tesco metro" and "express" supermarkets all the way.

I shopped in a smaller Tesco in the middle of a council estate a few weeks ago. So local residents could walk to it.

Very few of the special offers I can find in the bigger shops and seemed to be a dearth of the own brand cheaper items. My small shop was noticeably more expensive than it would have been in my big Tesco.

It's a cynical pricing policy to get those who don't drive to pay more and in this case, certainly wasn't in an affluent area.

The key word was "budget". Its partly about the quality. Frankly the most useful thing you can donate to a foodbank is money - let them buy what people need and as far as possible what they want.

If you don't want to donate money then check from the local foodbank list and yes tins/jars have a long life and can be very useful but does it have to be the cheapest tins availalble (which was no name spaghetti hoops and non name mushy peas for a long while, I've not looked recently)? Better tins of decent pulses, beans, veg, fish were occasionally donated but buried under cheap hoops with minimal nutritional value.

However that wasn't my issue - my issue was people sneering at recipes designed to give people who have zero choices some ideas to vary the dreaded spaghetti hoops and other repeating cheap items, especially when trying to get the kids to eat the only food you have available (its a myth that hungry kids will eat anything)