To ask for your tips on frugal living?

[SeeClearNow]

First time poster. Reading some posts earlier prompted me to start a thread for us to share our tips on frugality and budgeting. Most of us are feeling the pinch and I thought it would be helpful to hear all the different ways we can save some money that perhaps we hadn’t thought of.

Would love this to be a friendly, judgment free thread. Hit me with your top tips, no matter how big or small - I want to hear them all!

Chatterbug22......I think you are mistaken in your thing about switching tv off at the wall. There is a programme in R4 called ' more or less' about statistics. Sounds a really awful idea for radio but actually one of my favourite programmes (sad as I am). They investigated this claim and although you are correct for pre 2010 (? Not sure of date) models there was some regulation introduced that makes a max cost of leaving the power on....something like £3.50 a year. All saving is saving but not the £50 you were thinking.

Check what temp you’re heating your hot water to. I was always getting scalded by ours, I checked and it was heating to upwards of 75c! Reprogrammed to 55c, nobody has complained of cold showers and saving gas.

Use up all your leftovers. If you have just a little bit of something left put it in a container in the freezer and add similar things until you have enough to make a soup or to add to mince to make a tasty meal. Yes to batch cooking but everyone says that. If you have solar panels think carefully how to make best use of them. For instance - do whatever you can that needs electricity during daylight and don't use electricity hungry appliances at the same time, for instance washing machine OR oven. Don't underestimate how much electricity it takes to boil your kettle - fill a thermos with whatever hot water you have left over.

Ive spent £9 on to good to go (found at about it on here) this week and it has provided, breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. 3 magic bags in total.

Things I do…

vinted for clothes.

Good to go app (often get Greg’s bags, make a great picnic for the next day).

Forage (I forage a lot and have a freezer full of fruit and wild garlic).

Grow your own, some people say this costs money but it doesn’t have too.

Take food with you when you go out so you don’t have to eat out.

Find places that are free to visit or join national trust or similar (we don’t pay to get in anywhere).

Meal plan.

Market’s, much cheaper for fruit and veg, sometimes cheese and bread too.

Agree with this, I have avoided places like B&M and Home bargains for this very reason, shelves of useless tat and plastic that no one really needs.

I bought a shower sand timer for £3 off eBay! It’s 3 mins long.

it’ll save me 50% gas and water in the shower as I timed yesterdays shower and it was 7mins with hair washing and shaving legs etc

(shower is gas heated as is the bath water!)

Probably already mentioned (haven't backread yet). But I make the most of 'introductory' deals. Have just got 3months of a specific type of hygiene/grooming product for £2. As soon as I had shipping info for the deal I cancelled the monthly subscription.
My bank do 'cash back deal's' so I have some simply cook meal plans coming that are usually £10 but I paid £2.

Another Gousto link here as mine got used up - it’s 100% free box of meals
only allowed 5 referrals per month

I also forage. I have just made my first batch of jam for this year. It is made out of small sour plums and cherries from the ornamental trees growing along the roads in our area, a handful of redcurrants from a neglected bush in my daughter's garden, and two withered eating apples. I pick as things get ripe and store in a plastic container in the freezer until I have enough. In the next few weeks we will be picking elderberries, then crab apples and blackberries, then sloes, and they will all go into my hedgerow jelly. I will probably pick rosehips this year and see whether they make a nice jelly - I remember loving rosehip syrup when I was a child. Crabapple jelly is nice, and crabapples make an excellent base for mint jelly. I never turn down an offer of fruit or veg from somebody that has too much. It all goes into the freezer to be used later if I can't use it now. We also have a lot of hazel trees in the hedges round us. Hazelnuts are lovely toasted and added to other things.

Make MSE your default mindless scroll on the internet

use ynab

listen to Dave ramsey

use bar soap

lower food expectations. We've gone back to having a ham or cheese
sarnie with some chopped veg for lunch. The odd fancy salad but not so much. A baked potato or soup night is also a winner. Nothing wrong with sausages,
mash and peas for tea.

Agree with darlingdodo.

I remember when stores used to be very small and didn't carry a lot of random stuff. Everytime I walk into a super retailer I find myself picturing all the factories belching out smoke and sweaty children painting acres of poorly manufactured rubbish just so it can choke up all the ports on container ships.

All the lentils recipes on mumsnet have been a god send.

If cooking a meal for, let’s say 30 mins, in the oven. I turn it off after 25 mins and use the retained heat to cook for 5 mins for free! After all, an oven doesn’t go from 180 degree to 0 degrees in 5 mins 🤷‍♀️ I use the air fryer as much as possible though as I can cook even quicker and it uses less energy.

Reduce phone and laptop screens to under 50% brightness
Come winter I will be cycling to the office 3 days a week to save on home heating and also showering there
Drive more economically

It doesn’t cost £50 a year to leave the telly on standby. It’s been estimated to be around £12-16 but still an unnecessary expense.

Most of things on this thread are small fry.

Look at the biggest items. Rent mortgage, insurance, car expenses etc etc. Energy consumption obviously.

Not being funny, but women mainly look at food. But there are bigger savings to be made elsewhere.

I have just made my first batch of jam for this year. It is made out of small sour plums and cherries from the ornamental trees growing along the roads in our area,

@DilemmaDelilah I apologise in advance if you already know this, but the pips of ornamental cherries are very poisonous as they contain cyanide. You have to remove the pips before cooking them/making them into jam.

This is such a good one - it’s so easy to waste money on random stuff in these types of shops. I try to challenge myself to “no spend” days. It’s really just trying to form better habits - it’s slowly becoming easier to ignore all the tat!

Oops sorry was meant to quote this!

Most of things on this thread are small fry

Look at the biggest items. Rent mortgage, insurance, car expenses etc etc. Energy consumption obviously

No shit sherlock but those are obvious. Listing the small changes you can make are more likely to be things that others have not thought of.

I second ynab! The book literally changed my life. I’m still a bit rubbish with money but it helped me create some semblance of a budget for the first time in my life. For the most part I’ve stuck to it but I do fall off the wagon on occasion. Currently listening to the podcast for extra motivation!

@lightand makes a good point. Switching from porridge to cereal ain’t gonna save you that much money in the long run.

Bigger things we have done that I know aren’t possible for everyone

• prioritised having jobs where both DH and I can cycle to work so we don’t have to spend any money on our commutes, other than bike maintenance. We live in a commuter town and have friends who are paid London wages but they spend £600 a month on their season ticket which is equivalent to about £10k pre-tax salary.


• This has also allowed us to be a one car family and spend very little on petrol. I have estimated that we would spend nearly £1k per year running a second car not including petrol.


• Again not always possible depending on your employer but we both compressed our hours so we do 4 long days each. This means we only pay for 3 days childcare per week but we have full time wages. We share pick ups and drop offs. Saves us around £400 per month.


• used the cycle to work scheme when buying our bikes/accessories that we couldn’t get second hand, so you save tax and NI on that as it comes out as salary sacrifice.

Afaik all cherry pits are. I believe I have not met a single person cooking with them though. Such pita to remove them😂 but yeah.
Btw apple seeds and more are same

Check that all your bills are as cheap as they can be - phone, insurance, broadband etc. Can you switch or change package?

Meal plan and buy a lot of stuff reduced / yellow sticker. Batch cook to save time and energy. Use a halogen cooker or air fryer to save electricity.