To ask for your most ingenious money saving tips

[Toothiehurtie]

my Best one is…

a visit to the card factory for cheap cards and gift bags and then picking up presents from car boot sales or charity shops. I have got some brilliant kids party presents for 50p so with the card and a cheap gift bag I have brought the cost of a present in for a pound before.

looking for any tips at all, obviously you can buy porridge oats in bulk cheaper than buying expensive kids cereal etc but anything clever or that people might not have thought of before.

don’t know how bad the fuel crisis will be but considering charging battery packs to charge phones at work and taking a thermos of boiled water home 😂

I wonder how the 4 kids view the current water regime chez @martinsmoneysaver

I keep reading about using white vinegar instead of fabric conditioner. It doesn't work for me.
Have tried various amounts of vinegar and the towels still end up stiff and scratchy.
Fabric conditioner decreases absorbency of towels and I've never found one that didn't make me itch. So I have to do what I've always done to make them soft and usable. Line dry until almost dry then short tumble dry.

Be disabled. I jest, obviously, but if anyone else is disabled, make sure you have claimed everything you can. PIP applications are brutal but it's worth trying. I also have a blue badge, a disabled railcard and a bus pass, which gets me free bus travel everywhere in Scotland. I also recently found out that people who get PIP are entitled to 50% or 100% off their road tax, depending on the rate you receive. Look for concessions and discounts - a disabled railcard gets you discounts some places, and if you use Tesco Clubcard, you can exchange £1 of points for £3 of credit, so I got my one-year railcard for £7 of points (instead of £20 cash).

I WFH home now but, similar to PPs, I used to shower at work rather than using my own hot water and electricity.

Heated throws are a godsend and if they come back in stock, snap up the Aldi one. It's about £30 (as opposed to £70 elsewhere), lovely and toasty, and you can put it in the washing machine if it gets grubby. I read somewhere a couple of years ago that they cost 2p per hour to run, which will have gone up in price but still far less than putting the heating on.

I bought a Flash Speed Mop to help my ADHD traits around cleaning but I have found that I don't need to buy the expensive refill cleaning pads - I buy a bumper pack of own-brand disinfectant wipes (the bigger ones specifically for floors). They fit the mop, they're convenient, it saves on water and it's about £1 for 25 instead of £6 for 25 Flash ones.

I divert it when it pumps out of the machine (I have access to the back) when it would otherwise go to the outside drain.

I don't divert it before it's done its job, it's afterwards.

You an choose for your card details
not to be automatically saved

Or rather select that option

Also I found out by accident that you can save lots on your food subscriptions. I cancelled Gousto due to over packaging and they kept offering me very tempting deals to re-subscribe. I didn't but I mentioned this to quite a few friends and they got lots of money off!

Heated throws are a godsend and if they come back in stock, snap up the Aldi one. It's about £30 (as opposed to £70 elsewhere), lovely and toasty, and you can put it in the washing machine if it gets grubby. I read somewhere a couple of years ago that they cost 2p per hour to run, which will have gone up in price but still far less than putting the heating on.

I should clarify that I realise this is still a decent outlay for the throw itself. They are a good size so you can share one across two people if you're sitting on the sofa, so you don't necessarily need one each. Mine is also a couple of years old and is good as new, so it will eventually pay for itself, though I realise not everyone has £30 spare upfront. I don't mean to sound insensitive by suggesting it.

And how do you wash your clothes? Just shove them in the cold hairy shower water after you've done all your floor mopping?

Jesus suffering fuck.

I buy clothes second hand for me and DC, batch cook, cycle everywhere including school runs (live in central London, so appreciate not everyone can do this). Pay myself first and automate all investment the day I get paid (that money disappears from my account and I tightly budget the rest).

I never throw food away. If anything is close to going off, I chop it up and freeze it for soups, sauces, and smoothies.

Buy fewer things that are better quality and use them frequently.

Any thoughts or recommendations for heated gilets?

It can be a money saving, or a time saving thing, but I absolutely fly through the supermarket as I buy the same things every time. I could do it blindfold now. Means I just pick up exactly what I need, not what I want. Overbuying is often wasted.

In Winter washing is dried outside as much as possible or in the spare room on an airer with a dehumidifier. Don't have a tumble drier anymore.

Once a week I plug in the powerbanks to make sure they are fully charged in case of a powercut. I have two fairly hefty ones. I have a battery operated radio and a head torch, aswell as the strings of fairy lights from Christmas. Keep your "power cut" supplies in the same place every time so you know where to find them.

No Xmas presents for adults anymore. I think all the adults in my family/friend circle are very relieved. Took me to say it though!

Probably not so much money saving as practical.

Had she actually registered with them?

I am and there are quite a few criteria you have to meet.

Hard boiled eggs ~ let them boil for one minute , turn the heat off , put a lid on and after ten minutes they'll be done . Do three or four at a time as you can store them in the fridge for a week, either shelled or unshelled in a small bowl of water.

I voted yabu, I would def not be happy with a present from a car boot sale or charity shop. Rather have no present at all.

When travelling from A to B always take the route that is more downhill than uphill. You will not need to put your foot on the accelerator for so long and will save on energy.

Google cold showers mental health and I promise you it is fairly well documented.
Not depressing at all - exceedingly bracing and you come out feeling invincible. A quick version of cold water swimming.

Dont outlay any money on 'solutions' and devices to save unless you have done your homework and there is genuine cost benefit and you wont just get bored and move on. Your feeds are going to be littered by desperate marketers trying to sell you topical shit. Not unlike buying even more storage boxes to declutter 🙄 we shall all be rushing off to buy heated gilets (stuff a hot water bottle up an old jumper instead!), electric blankets, puffa jackets, thermal curtains, industrial quantities of food for batch cooking etc, etc. Anyone still got flour from the great covid bread bake off ?

Where I work has "charge you phone here" notices and we are allowed unlimited hot water for flasks. No stealing involved.

@martinsmoneysaver you mop your floors with your dirty shower water?? That’s just gross.

I started to eat less to reduce food costs, not to the point it affects my health. I've found out that actually I feel much better.

This just sounds like a non existence

Yes, I do. FT.

As you note, timing is everything and once you've worked out what works for you it's not that complicated. I have various plans for an evening when I do this or at the weekend.

It's less of a hassle than it sounds because I have planned my time so that I am usually cooking in the kitchen or working on something that has me there for the cycle. I can delegate the mopping to someone else while I'm putting the water into the washing machine (which I'll have preloaded with the cleaning cloths for washing or will heat it more for the hot clean cycle).

The water can stay reasonably hot for a while if you divert it into a cool box.

It very much depends on the layout of people's kitchens and what works for them. It's hot water eventually going down the drain and I'd rather make as much use of it as I can before it ends up there.

I find this hard to believe. The French army at Agincourt in October 1415 got absolutely sodden in the heavy cold rains in the evening before and during the battle. They were quickly overwhelmed and defeated by a much smaller English army in just a few hours, suffering 10 losses for every single English loss. Some of the French noblemen knights even drowned in the marshes.

I doubt they were motivated or felt invincible. Their mental health must have been shot to pieces.

It is all very well coming on with sweeping statements like this, but you really do need to back them up with evidence. I shouldn't think many of the passengers of the Titanic felt that way either.