To want to share my money saving tips with you...

[gigglepin]

I have led a year long crusade to save money so that we wont be skint at Christmas.
It has worked! I LOVE Martin Lewis and have taken some tips form that website.

1. Saved all my 50p & £2 coins in a pot. Everytime i get to £10 or £20 i put it into a wee savings acount with a wee old fashioned paying in book.
   I know have £200 in that account.

2. Saved those £1 stamps (Only if i have a spare couple of quid in my purse)from the supermarket, i have £70

3. Saved all of my Club card points vouchers, i now have £50.
   Thats food shopping taken care of for Christmas period (Christmas day we have a sunday roast with Chicken, nowt fancy)

4. Ive been flogging bits and bats on ebay since about september....ive just sussed out how to do it, and i have £107!! I am chuffed to bits.

Ive bought a few bits and peices through the year, stocking fillers, that kind of thing.

I can start to order stuff now knowing i have the money. Its quite a relief tbh.

What tips do you have?

Do shopping at night in the reduced isle you will save £££££ especially marks never usually can afford shop their until I started late night shopping

I've started adding one or two things to my online shopping each week
This week was a hello kitty purse with chocolste buttons inside for a stocking from tesco.

I love these threads! My main tip would be to meal plan. Don't waste food ever. And shop at Aldi/lidl where you can. Go through your bank statement every 6 months or so and cancel anything you can. And deal in cash, not cards so you know what you're spending.

abbierhodes i meal plan! Its my bestest way of saving shedloads of cash!

Funny but i havent this week and im scratching my head about what to make.
Ive decided to eat out of the freezer this week, so its an especially cheap week, but it has thrown me completely!
I also double portion and freeze entire meals, that i find is a great saver, it provides what i call "free meals" for the following week.

Not sure if I'm allowed to post this (but what the heck). Called Sky on Sat to tell them I was cancelling the Skysports package due to money saving, they told me that 'as I'd been a customer a while' I could have the sports package for half price for 6 months.

So on one hand I haven't been entirely successful, in that I would've saved £20.25 by cancelling completely, but my hubby gets to keep the sports for £10 per month (we just need to remember to cancel in April).

So if you're not looking to cancel, might be worth a call (just be prepared in case it's not an offer open to all and they call your bluff, you'll need an 'out' otherwise you could be very unpopular with any sports lovers in your house! You do have to give a month's notice, so you could cancel your cancellation in time I guess).

I have been doing the same as cjbartlett and adding bits to my online shop. I also plan to repeat an idea from a couple of years ago . I made up Christmas hampers for my mum and dad ( who are divorced) and my mother in law that consisted of nice bits from Marks and Spencers and Sainsburys all of which was buy one get one free. They loved the hampers and they worked really reasonable.

Use a cashback site like Quidco - I got £110 back by doing my home insurance through them, also get around 3% every time I use my card in various stores including Halfords (get loads from them as DP's repairs cars as a hobby) and Debenhams. If you sign up and then get friends and family to do same, you also get £2.50 if you refer them once they also start earning cashback.

Mystery Shop websites e.g. Retail Eyes - you never earn big bucks by doing stuff, maybe a fiver, but you do get reinbursed your expenses, we've been able to take the DSS's out for loads of pub lunches for very little money.

Think big - go through your bank statements every 6 months and decide what is your biggest expenditure. And then see if it can be reduced. Then look at the next biggest, and so on.

i use the martin lewis website too and use it for upcoming freebies in shops and newspapers. i also go to cinema on sat/sun at 10.30am when its £2.50 per kid and an adult free. also i buy lots after the event. i will be buying next halloween stuff starting tomorrow and putting it away. i love a bargain and feel chuffed when i've saved money on something. i live on a budget and try to be careful.

My DS is doing WW2 in school, so we are going to try living on rations for a week. It will be fun. [sneaks out for a fry-up while he's at school]

Asda has currently got an offer where if you spend over £40 you enter the receipt details on the web and get a £5 off voucher to print off towards your next £40 shop (voucher lasts a month). You just need to remember to produce the voucher and the receipt at the till. I've saved £10 already.

If you're very courageous go to the supermarket at 3.30pm on Christmas Eve. They always have turkeys reduced to a fiver and sometimes bronze ones too. Have picked one up once or twice on the way through from last minute emergency shopping and it has gone down a treat at Easter!

noble Do you have a link for the Asda offer?

I am always spending more than £40 in there and have never heard of this.

i've just made pumkin soup with the stuff we usually throw away at Halloween. Unfortuately it was quite bland so i've put a huge dollop of curry powder in it and now its quite tasty... that'll do lunch all week.

oh and i made sure that all the trick or treaters got an apple - yeah they wont be back again - hardcore!

But we had a little family party - just the three of us and made - witchy sausage rolls, and black baked beans. and served with a jacket potato. (sausage and mash with beans!) who needs fancy £4 a pop treats.

Omg love this thread....
Already do some of the tips advised but I need to sell some stuff on eBay which I've never done b4 so I must get round to doing that plus after Xmas im going to start saving my 50ps in a jar I think....

may sound pathetic, but I even freeze a couple of spoonfuls of BBean and just keep adding until I have enough for the 4 of us normally take 3 cans to do it, which on the face of it is only 30p saved if I have got a bargin, Oh and what about the coast of the leccie?, well freezers are cheep to run and cheaper still if you keep them fullish, cheese on reductions can be frozen for instance to prolong its shelf life, and double portions of food can be frozen.
Slow cooker and pressure cooker can make cheap meat tender and are cheap to run.
my boys halloween cozzies home made and I got a lot of comments on the one I actually took 2 hours sewing last night rather than the one other DS wore, which had been brought by his DGP's this was at the time £15, one I made was um..material cost $8 dollars, whats that in real money?? 6 quid? but I have enough to make another costume, the pattern cost $3 in a buy one get one free type of way, but it was 3 different costumes from child to adult, so loads of scope, and I suppose the important thing was I do actually enjoy sewing, not one for someone who hates doing it.
I have currently several jars of apples, blackberries, red onion chutney, jams of all varieties, maramade, crapapple jelly, pickled beets, onions, red cabbage, only ingrediaents I have had to buy are sugar, vinegar, salt and the onions, 79pence for 4 500ml jars for chutney (I believe this is about £3 a pop at tesco,) and the onions for the pickles £1.50 for 1 kg worth and I feel ripped off because I found them on sale for £3.99 for 5Kg..humph! most the rest of the stuff was afternoons out on the weekend in country, picking with DS's and they also help make, which is quite frankly fun, but only one if you like cooking.

I work FT leave a 7.45 in the morning, get home around 6, have fun time with DS's then ask if they want to help, they bed by 7.30, me wine by 8, and yes I do live in a Sihthole! but living a messy house costs me nothing [hgrin]

I've just sold some kiddie and baby equipment/toys/clothes at a NCT sale. I made 70 pounds after giving 30% to the NCT. Email your local branch and they can tell you when your next sale is.

I've also done obvious things this month like not phoning mobiles from my land line, selling unwanted items and buying essentials on ebay, trying a fab/cheap mobile hairdresser, making soup, having 2 or 3 veggie days each week, getting some clothes in jumble sales

oh and the second hand school uniform box is fab at my boys school.

sacre the Asda £5 off offer is here

If you enter your receipt details for the price comparison it should then give you the option to print off the voucher. It's only running up till 13th November.

I don't use ocado anymore

I do loads of on-line consumer questionaire thingies. Ok, it ain't gonna make me rich, but I've been doing it a couple of months and I am about to recieve my third £10 voucher and a Tesco voucher for £10. It only takes about 30mins a night to do several different ones, so they do add up quite quickly.
Also, I do the Disney rewards thing. In each DVD you buy there is a voucher with a code on. Enter it on their website and you get points which you can swop for other DVDs, soft toys, stationary, etc. I have just recieved 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' free. Early Chrimbo pressie to myself! :)

These are all really good ideas and I'm going to try some. Morrisons at the moment are giving £25 to spend in store if you spend £40 or more in 6 consecutive trips and keep the receipts. We usually do so the £25 will come in handy to help towards Christmas or even the big shops when we run out of soap powder etc.

I discovered that if you are signed into Tesco for their clubcard you can log in and they have the details for all the clubcard vouchers they have sent you. We moved house and definitely lost some on the way so this was really useful. By using them in the rewards bit we have bought an English heritage annual membership for my dad and his OH and an evening out for my mum and her OH. So chuffed as cost nothing extra.
Now to see what can do with my nectar points! Anyone know if they do any 'double value' promotions before christmas? Got my eye on things from amazon which I can use my points for.
DH and I also have a money box which loose change and £2 coins go into. We also put money we have saved by not being lazy (eg cooking instead of takeaway). That all mounts up!

I was brave and shopped late on Christmas Eve last year. Will be doing it again this year I think. I got 2 turkeys and 2 duck crowns, loads of veg, ready made gravy, fancy sausages, pigs in blankets and lots and lots of fresh party food - spent just under £30!!! Couldn't beleive it when the ducks we're reduced to just £1! So be brave, get your elbows out and get in there!