What essentials and non essentials have you stopped buying?

[fateisdestined2025]

Essentials will soon be bread…will try to make homemade bread…

non essentials will be unhealthy snacks like chocolate and cakes, air freshener, furniture polish and other cleaning products.

Why would we stop buying these things?

I can imagine cost is a large part, alongside the health side. I’ve stopped buying certain breads I enjoy for both reasons above. I’ve also reduced chocolate significantly and buy crisps as a treat now. Sad isn’t it

Cost of living increasing , low income, want to live better, eat healthier etc etc

Surely buying bread is cheaper than making it?

I’ve stopped getting my nails done - I liked doing it, but the price just went up and up the point it was hard to justify.

Bread is a staple and an essential in our household.
However I've decided to stop buying bakery bread and buy it on sale at the supermarket instead.
Essentials in food are just that, they're essentials and any product that I use in making meals from scratch I shop for the on sale items or less expensive brands.
Non-essentials I started cutting them out a couple of years ago when the prices began to rise.
The only cleaning supplies I use are white vinegar, bleach, sparingly, and baking soda which the best all-around, and most versatile product I've ever used.
Habits, non-essential habits such as eating out we do very infrequently.
We visit with friends, we dine at home with friends we make our own entertainment.

Invested in a water steamer/ diffuser and use essential oils. Stopped using scented candles , plug ins etc. I believe it’s healthier and cheaper.

Nothing. I still buy the same stuff.

I can't believe it, but chocolate. Most bars of chocolate are now £3 which seems ridiculous. Cutting back on cleaning supplies. Only supermarket brand cleaning/ laundry products

Affordability perhaps?

I've stopped going to the hairdresser, partly because I know my own hair and partly because it's just not worth it!

Icecream from icecream vans - £3+ a time!

Less meat, more pulses etc to bulk out meals.
I don't buy kitchen roll any more.
Cleaning wise I bulk buy white vinegar and citric acid and use those instead of spray cleaners. Saves a fortune.

There's lots of stuff i realised I can do without or substitute. Cut your coat according to your cloth and all that.

This is just the most cruel thing ever 😭. A childhood favourite of every age in the West Midlands now a Mr Whippy is £3.50 and I think when we had a couple of weekends away throughout the country it was £4 elsewhere. And that’s for a regular single dinky winky woo cone and splodge of ice cream - flake was 50p more!

I have stopped buying lots of things cleaning products - vinegar and bicarb. I make my own now laundry detergents. Cleaning wipes . Kitchen paper.
Granola, Cereal, I make my Kombucha, Ice creams ninja crème- So no more of spending on Ben and Jerry Cookie dough. No more coffee from coffee shops. All the saving goes towards holiday budget. We have Good life, but mortgage and kids and a dog Life is expensive so we are trying to Save whatever we can.

Stopped buying snacks stuff like biscuits or cakes. Also don’t buy ice cream or Lurpak anymore. Lot less takeaways.

Alcohol. Saving a bloody fortune.

Chocolate 😞
Used to always have a stash of freddos for the kids but now it's £1.60 for four it's prohibitive. Better for them too but still.

It has been an expensive school holidays and even with not buying them treats when out, I've spent a lot on parking so next year I'll be changing up how we get around. It used to be something I did pay for as I don't spend much else but one day I spent £14 on two hours...no more.

Fuck me, it’s £1.60 for four Freddos?!

Don’t automatically buy snacks/biscuits/icecream etc in weekly shop, stopped using fabric conditioner, no longer drink Pepsi max, less takeaways

Yes, I thought £1.40 for five was ridiculous and then realised it was four. That was only two months ago, bad cacao harvest, global warming etc.

Not completely, but bread, wraps, baps, rolls, ice cream, and baked treats because I prefer to make my own. But I buy those probably one week in four.

Convenience foods - I batch cook and freeze more. Anything with a lot of additives and preservatives gets a swerve if I can.

Most cleaning products, though I buy a lot more vinegar.

Steak and salmon are treats now instead of staples,

I have cut out all chocolate, chips and snacks. And no more fabric conditioner. I’ve switched to vegetarian and stopped buying meat, fish and chicken.

Since the CoL shot up, I've switched to supermarket cleanser and moisturiser with no bad effects. I've reduced cleaning products to the very basics.

I gave up on shop bread when Waitrose stopped offering Heyford Wholemeal. I like real wholemeal bread with a crust. M&S wholemeal is dry and goes stale too fast. The local independent bakery charges £4.50 a loaf. 😮 Now I order a 16kg sack of wholemeal flour from our local mill & bake my own most Sunday mornings. It costs under £1 for 800gm loaf, it tastes far better, much less salt and no additives.

During covid I started growing/making my own food and it's stuck. I grow tomatoes, cucumbers & courgettes, herbs and figs, radishes & salad leaves in a few pots. I make my own tsatsiki and hummus, which takes 5 minutes, tastes better and costs less, for work day lunches.

I've learned how to bone a chicken leg properly, & now buy legs rather than breast. They taste better and a third of the price.

In autumn, I make enough jam (blackberry & apple, greengage, damson) from free hedgerow fruit, to last us a year. I bottle blackberries in syrup and ds eats them with pancakes through the winter. All free apart from some sugar and a bit of effort. I preserve french beans in oil, and freeze sliced apples. Make my own blackberry liqueur. This year I'm going to try making noisette as well - our hedgerows are laden with hazel nuts.

By the end of October my cupboards are full of free food. I seem to have morphed into my dm. 😁But it's all surprisingly easy.

Olive oil was a staple item in my kitchen...I haven't bought it for ages. I just use plain old vegetable oil nowadays

I've stopped buying cut flowers - used to love having a big bunch of lilies around. Now I treat myself to the occasional houseplant and propagate them.

Making bread is much cheaper than buying a decent loaf, I started making sourdough during Covid and struggle to eat anything else.
It is worth the effort, a loaf costs me about 50p including electricity.

I also make my own butter, it’s about half the price of supermarket butter.