Aibu - what are your best money saving (or making) hacks?

[milkyman]

I have just become a stay at home mum and need all the help I can get!

Bump! I could do with some help in this area
I made a decent amount selling things on eBay last month, not a long term solution but helped me out for a while

I work in the evening and try to spend as little as possible in the day! I'm trying to force myself to justify every purchase but coming up to Christmas thats fairly easy!

eBay!! I sold half of my life when I had my baby. So many clothes I was only holding onto in the hope I'd one day be thin again.
I've also bought loads of clothes on there and sold them on again

Yeah, I sold so much stuff on eBay when I was pregnant - had a huge clearout, made a couple of grand 😳 paid for most of the baby stuff!

I do bet matching through profit accumulator (check it out on YouTube), I can make between £200-£300 pm but people can and do make £500+ p/m. All you need is access to the internet. :) currently means I can pay of my credit card. Finally!!!!!

I eBay. It's a hassle but I made £50 selling about 12 items I would have charity shopped otherwise.

All the usuals, weekly meal plan, shop for only what is on the list.
ALdi/lidl shop only.

Batch cook double portions, freeze half for a free meal the next week.

Don't take your purse out with you.

Free stuff, park, walks play dates with the kids.

Martin Lewis is your friend, have a wee look on his website, it's fantastic .

How does batch cooking save you money jimijack, it seems like it just moves the spending from one week to the next.

I buy large packs of meat etc and freeze what I don't need but I can't work out how to save money by batch cooking

Batch cooking can save money if your using say a big bag of celery onions carrots rather than buying them for one dish and rest ending up in the bin. I know some supermarkets give you say 3 onions for 99p or an get big bag for 59p.

Also means you an but big bags of potatoes and per dish it’s much cheaper. Whereas on normal week you just let half go to waste.

It’s also more to do with you plan what you need to buy rather than adding that 10th tin of tuna because you can’t remember if you have any. Or buy random stuff that can’t really make meals around

I was tempted by match betting, until I thought about the lay bet side of the system, and realised that for that to work, a real person is placing a back bet. A real person who is probably spending their own money, and could be developing a gambling addiction. So the "risk free betting" would be risk free for me, but not for the punters who I needed to place bets against my lay bets. I can't do it. Which is a shame.

Thanks Akire, I always buy the biggest sizes of everything and never throw any away so I don't think batch cooking would save any money for me.

I also meal plan so don't end up with extra, I need to find some other way to save

SandyDenny batch cooking saves money because you can bulk buy ingredients, but also because you use proportionally less energy.

One thing that worked well when I was a SAHM was try to wait one more day for the main food shop (so, every 8 days rather than every week). It forced us to eat the wrinkly fruit / imagine recipes with the ingredients that had to be used up.

We have "leftover meals" once or twice a week where we all eat different things from the fridge / freezer.

Write down total (honest) income and outgoings. I go through my online banking. Go back about 3 months to make sure you have all spending.

Make a budget. Include savings to cover emergency/surprise spending.

Meal plan

Put cash spending in different envelopes or in different bank accounts and transfer correct amount in at the start of the month.

Leave your purse/bag at home as much as possible. Decide to have 1 spending day a week where you make all purchases. Anything forgotten waits until the next week. Unless it's essential.

Switch down brands in the supermarket. Try and make a note of the prices on things you buy regularly. Check stores like poundstretcher, B&M, Poundland etc for the same items but cheaper.

Check direct debits and see if any can be cut completely or reduced.

Set budgets for Xmas, Easter, birthday spending.

Start Xmas shopping early. Use eBay, charity shops, buy and sell pages on FB.

Walk instead of driving/bus as much as possible.

No lougie - most of the people on the lay betting side are doing the same thing - so it's win/win :)

Small things that add up here is having all transactions on my debbit card rounded up to the nearest £ with the extra going direct to a saving account. I've started doing the same with cash too, empty anything smaller than £1 out of my purse at the end of the day. Have around £150 from doing this since April, not including the 50ps that ds has for his money box. It was meant to pay for Christmas but so far the gifts I've stashed away have come from our every day budgget without a problem. Dd is saving £2 coins towards a Disney trip too.

We do lots of free things and low cost groups, the ones we go to are run by a couple of local churches. Remembering to fill up water bottles before leaving the house and always having a packed lunch in my bag for ds even if I'm not planning to be out over lunch time. I was spending far too much on things for him when we stayed out longer than planned. In the summer I took ice lollies out with us instead of buying on day out, in our kleen kanteen which easily keeps them frozen for a good 4 hours.

Bulk out meals as much a possible. Even massively fussy dh likes lentils in mince dishes now now and complained when we ran out. Buying and freezing reduced items and favourites when on offer, invested in a massive freezer when our old one died.