To start a Prepping for Poor People thread?

[TooBigForMyBoots]

I'm poor (household income well below £20k). With the energy price rises, CoL crisis and possible power cuts ahead I'm wondering what tips other people in my position have to give to prepare us for the winter ahead.

As this is a thread for poor people, recommended purchases should be £7.50 or less. This is not the thread for recommending Agas, sheepskin boots, 70quid blankets or moving house.

Feel free to move this to Prepping or CoL @MNHQ if you think it's better there.

Great idea... Bump!

i think if you think outside of the box for presents for people and then assign the money you would have given them towards a bill or a necessity you start to see money differently. So if you’d normally buy a friend a card for £1.50 and a Bottle of wine and Instead agree to make tea for each other or do a favour then you normally would just save the money but if you literally put the money in an envelope and then when you have enough then use it to buy a big bag of rice rather than smaller packets then every time you use the rice it feels free.

charity shops have pound sales sometimes and I’ve got lovely warm jumpers from there,

selling on vinted is great because the money mounts up and then you can use it to buy things you need rather than spending money.

having a night a week where you go to bed early with a hot water bottle saves on heating and if you plan one night a week it would save money over the year.

a takeaway is very expensive but if you’re ordering anyway having a bigger size isn’t much more expansive and then you have leftovers for another meal which feels like a treat.

I'll start.

Poundland has battery powered LED lights, 2 for a quid. They have self adhesive bases so can be stuck anywhere. Even in rented homes, stick it to a bit of cardboard and blue tac it beside the light switch, under cupboards so you always have some light.💡

Sorry @Ihatemydogbmnamechange, you beat me too it.

If you have a sleeping bag or unused duvet, use it as a mattress topper. It keeps the heat in and makes your bed cosier.😊

If you have a streetlamp outside your house, save money by keeping lights off
cheap tealights and empty glass jars for power cuts, ditto cheap torches
charity shop to buy things
community pantry for £4 a week can have approx. £15 worth of goods-ask for tinned and dried/non-perishables
yellow label foods to freeze
hand soap
shower/shampoo bars

At the risk of sounding like something out of Viz:
Cut the legs off old trousers, stuff with other old clothes, tights, odd socks and sew at each end. It's not pretty, but it makes an effective draft excluder for doors.

Some great ideas here.

I still can’t believe this is 2022....

Rather than just trying not to use the oven try to fill it if you're using it. Even if it's just with a rice pudding; that takes two minutes to throw together, is incredibly cheap and can be reheated in the microwave once made.

Rediscover the desserts of the eighties and nineties. My house is generally full of things like rice puddings, jellies, fruit crumbles, bread and butter pudding, blanc mange, egg custard even semolina. All can be made relatively easily and cheaply, you can lower sugar when making things yourself and they fill tummies and bring joy.

Along the same lines it's apple harvest time of year. If you post in your local Facebook group there are a lot of people happy to offer a bag or you can go roadside picking (make sure you are safe from cars obviously but thry have tested roadside fruit and as long as it's washed it's fine)

oh god

organize your food storage to minimize waste and duplicate purchases.

Tbh, I think we reached full Viz Top Tips at

If you have a streetlamp outside your house, save money by keeping lights off

Excellent thread. Watching with interest.

Yes!!
I’ve found my people - people who are really going to have to ‘cut their cloth’.
So sick of the “going to have to cancel the cleaner, have only one foreign holiday a year and start using chain restaurants brigades”
. Some people really have NO idea….. YET!

Start saying Hello to other school mums (not the ones in a quiche). I know that this is a difficult thing for some, but the cold and dark is easier if the DC think it's an adventure and you have another adult to talk to.

You might strike it lucky and score a new friend in a different energy area.😁

if you have a smart tv, there is a screensaver thing you can get of a fireplace with a roaring fire that plays on loop, complete with crackles. It is amazing how the power of suggestion makes you feel warmer just by having that on.

battery lights everywhere. we Mr Beams ones from Amazon that come on when they detect movement, and stay on long enough. Worth buying as they last for years.

layer up. Two pairs of socks helps keep feet warm.

flasks to keep hot water hot instead of boiling the kettle. We got some from charity shops.

Using school mums in a quiche is another great saving haha

Check if your library has online services. You can register online for the library for free then log in from home to read the latest magazines, newspapers and kids comics all for free.

We've gradually replaced our light bulbs with low energy ones, and this is over a long period, to spread the cost.
By buying odd things like extra cans or dried food packets, again over a long period, I have built up a buffer in case of shortages.
I double up on curtains in the winter, hanging two on the same hooks, any old thick material from charity shops, on the outside so I don't have to look at it.
Door curtains and draught excluders help.
I have bought some of those cheap stretch wire things that people hang net curtains with, but I am using them to hang sheets of bubble wrap on the draughty windows that aren't double glazed. That way, you can draw it aside like a curtain, if you want to see outside. (I used to tape it)
I have some fleecy dressing gowns, bought from charity shops, which I wear over my clothes in winter to save on heating (and fling them off if anyone comes to call)
I wear fingerless gloves, too, as my hands get cold. And scarves.
Cheap candles or tea lights help to warm a room, especially with the clay flowerpot trick.
There's a big weekend flea market near us with all sorts of stalls, including fruit and vegetables, which they practically give away near the end of the day. Likewise short date meat, sold off from a lorry, and trays of eggs, very cheap.

Hmm... I draw the line at the 90s puddings. I'm happy to have none.

Plus, having grown up in at times extreme poverty, I don't think there can be "tips" on economising. It's just a tale of misery and suffering. Will sharing the bathwater and rinsing/reusing kitchen foil improve anyone's life? When you're that poor, you know your options.
Seems like for some poverty is like a hobby. The competitive under-spenders.

Kids thermals in bigger sizes fit small adults and are so much cheaper. Wear decathlon base layer ones in age 14 for £3.99 under pjs and so much warmer.

Combining two idea from above, I've replaced light bulbs with LED bulbs but the one in the bathroom has a motion sensor.

If you can keep the freezer 2/3 full, if you need to put newspaper to fill the gaps.

Switch plugs off at the sockets, standby uses the same power as the TV being on.

Saw this the other day on Twitter, and thought it was pretty useful. I was also going to say door curtains, but we don't even have window curtains on some of our windows as when DH tried to put them up, the wall crumbled. Does anyone know if command hooks would help with that?

I don't know about command hooks but you can fit roller blinds upside down.

It works best with the blinds that have the long strings.

So you fit the roller to the window sill or lower window frame, add hooks to above the window or to the window frame and run the stings through them.

@Mamathulu depending on the weight of the rod and curtains command hooks certainly can hold up light curtains well. the 3M products i believe can hold more weight than command.