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?

I should really start doing some of these things!

The only thing I do is to have a big jar that the whole family saves coppers, 5p's and 10p's into, and sometimes we put in odd larger coins if we have lots of change.

At the start of every summer holiday I get the dc to count it and bag it all up into those little bags that you get at the bank. Then we take it to the bank and change it into notes, and the dc have it as their spending money for the holiday. They are expected to use that money for ice creams or any other extras that they want, and if they want a trip to a theme park then we use some of that money to fund it as well. They also got new buckets and spades and inflatables out of it.

We usually have about £140 ish, and last Summer they decided to get a new paddling pool for the garden before the money was split and they could individually choose what to buy. It's a good way to get them involved in saving and budgeting.

Im off work today so ive gone through my bathroom & kitchen cabinets.
Ive got stuff in there i didnt know i had, so wont need to buy any toothpaste (4 int back of cabinet) bleach (2 bottles) all kinds of stuff.
Also enough tins of beans, pasta, rice to live out of cupbourds and frezer for a week or 2.

Did allot of double portioning on meals last week, so ive got curries, bolognaise, corned beef hash galore fo next weeks meals. That equates to a very cheep shopping bill to me.

I logged onto some on line survey sites, do a couple a night, takes about 30mins-an hour and have saved enough to transfer £45 into my paypal. Not bad, cash for nowt really.

Our penny jar is a slow burner, takes about 3 years to fill. But my 50p & £2 coin collections soon mount up, and i dont really miss them.

Its about chipping away i think.