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.

Foods like cress, rocket, and other salads are often some of the first foods you need to cut out of your budget, so great if you can grow your own.

Fair point.

I have a few tips from my childhood that I seldom share on threads like these because they lower the tone.

But when the object is not to spend-

• the wax paper bread wrapper was used to line shoes with small holes (if you couldn’t put your finger through it, it didn’t count)

• soup can be made from things that would otherwise go to waste. Pasta water is a thickener. Add in the stalks of the mushrooms and you have mushroom soup. If you have freezer space, save veg peelings, tops and tails to make broth. Potato skins are delicious baked. A handful of nettles in the spring (check they haven’t been peed on) adds valuable nutrients to soups and stir fries. Dandelions are nutritious too.

• Bread puddings can be savoury as well as sweet. There’s no excuse for throwing away bread.

• Eat porridge for breakfast or cold as muesli if fuel poverty is an issue. Keeps you full for ages.

• Cut the ends off of tubes - there’s usually a couple more applications in there. Cut the washing detergent bottle in half when it’s empty and it will be enough for the last wash. Although powder is usually cheaper anyway.

• Rice Krispie (not branded obviously) treats are a good way to stretch chocolate for kids.

• Cheap baked beans , rinsed, can be used in other bean dishes.

• During the war, people in cities bred rabbits for meat.

• If you have trouble sticking to a budget, use cash and leave your card at home.

@sashh my granny used to knit jumpers upside down for her kids, so she would knit the cuffs last, and unravel them a re-knit if they were out growing them or got a hole. I don’t think she even knew what a pattern was.

This is my top tip. Old school tights and pants as filling.

Second tip. Make a temporary blind out of an old sheet or duvet covers from the charity shop. Especially if you have ridiculously wide windows.

Another vote here for making good use of your oven. Once you've filled it with jacket potatoes and a hot pudding; dry your laundry in front of it.

We have a pretty bog standard airer/dryer/clothes horse/whatever you call it from Tesco from a couple of decades ago and granted with a galley kitchen it's a bit of a pain when someone wants the loo. BUT it saves the washing from getting that slightly damp smell from when it doesn't dry stick enough in the winter.

I really recommend using summer, lightweight (4.5 tog) quilts between mattress and bottom sheet as an insulated mattress topper. I bought v v cheap (£2 for 4) sheet-straps to keep them in place and even grumpy teens swear they’ve made a huge difference in warmth and coziness.
If you purée up a jar of the cheapest pasta sauce plus a tin of cheapest baked beans plus a tin of carrots you get a tasty, very filing and nutritionally much better pasta sauce for pennies extra per portion.
There’s a wartime cookbook (v cheap secondhand) called Victory Cookbook that is full of ideas and recipes from the Ministry for Rationing etc that are actually very tasty - you can make dirt cheap potato pastry that’s super filling and yummy for example.

When me and my dh lost our jobs during the 2008 recession the thing that really helped was meal planning for a month not just a week so for example bolognese made, bulked out and frozen in four portions for spagbol week 1, add a chilli powder for week 2, used in lasagne week 3 etc

Loving this thread, thanks OP!
& also loving the idea of school mums being part of a quiche! Should be the collective noun- a quiche of school mums.

Granny square crochet is faster. Warmer quicker! And no sewing together, just the pesky ends.
Sit on a blanket (eg on dining chair) keeps you warmer than just a blanket on top.

Prepping: you will need food, light, warmth, drink, toilet, washing. Cooking.

Lighting:
Head lamp (one poster recommends shining it into a plastic milk bottle of water to make a lamp)
Wind up torches can be about £7 quid.
Warmth:
Blankets from the charity shop. Wash in the bath at home if too big for the machine.
Aldi used to do wool rich socks. Otherwise double or treble socks with the outer ones a bigger size.
Slippers.
Stand on a bath mat when washing up/cooking.
Hot water bottles.

Cooking: disposable bbq and extra charcoal.
Make a hay box. (Heat pan and put in a box insulated with old clothes/coats/duvets to continue cooking)
If you have a food flask use that to keep it warm for later.
Keep some heat up easily food. (Eg tinned veg and curry)
Keep some just add hot water food.(cous cous, mug shots, cup soup)

Use soap bars for hand soap and in the shower/bath. When you get to the end of the bar saves the scraps over the course of a year (use a dull knife to scrape any residue from the tray).
Once you've collected a big lump of them wrap in a cloth or muslin. Tie into a ball, and run under water (or soak in a bowl) put pressure on the lump and keep massaging until the lumps solidify together. You have a new bar of soap to use for free.

Washing:
You can have an adequate "bath" in a bowl of water and two jugs as practised in 1990s shared unheated draughty old house. (Wash hair first, use one jug to rinse before conditioner and one after conditioner. ) Then top to toe washing with only undressing a bit at a time. It was a lot warmer than a freezing bathroom. Maybe only for a emergency.

1970s bathnight was once a week with washing bits and pits in between and kid in a baby bath or kitchen sink in between if necessary.

Keep bottles of cheap water in case the power/water goes off.
Water purification tablets are cheap. (Prepping on a budget)

Toilet.:
Bucket, plastic bags and cheap car litter or soil from the garden.

Those things are 'cutting their cloth' though. It's just that their cloth is much bigger than other people's. It's still cutting back in a way that will affect the wider economy and, therefore, other local people/businesses.

I'm a "have a cleaner, go on holiday, use chain restaurants brigade"-er, but I can assure you I have EVERY idea how hard it is to have zero income, in a freezing cold house, with young children to try and keep fed, clothed, warm and unaware of their poverty. It's fucking miserable. I genuinely hope that by employing our cleaner, buying a takeaway once a month etc, we are supporting people to prevent them having the same hardship we once had.

Hot water bottles and cosy socks are my best cheap keep warm advice. Having warm feet/toes makes the rest of me feel much warmer. Also a stock of mug shots etc, dried foods, that can be made up with just hot/boiling water in an emergency. We also have a camping stove for this purpose (well, it was for camping, but will get out if necessary). Simple camping stoves are very cost effective to buy, especially this time of year.

Thanks @BeanStew22. I'm going to try this tomorrow with cushions in a binbag. I'll let you know how messy it gets.🙈

I found the cushions, along with a box of curtains in some boxes that I brought with me when I moved here years ago. So my top tip of the day is look for the boxes you didn't get round to unpacking.😁

Sorry if this is a stupid question.
Can you use a camping stove indoors if you make sure there is adequate ventilation?

@Bearsporridge That's a great idea.

The OP did ask for an upper limit of £7.50.

£11.99 pop corn makers do seem frivolous.

That’s not what the thread is about. The OP has said the thread is for poor people, not for well off people congratulating themselves for employing a cleaner and buying takeaways.

And again, buy a camping stove is another outlay that many can’t afford. And it’s not even safe to use camping stoves at home

Sorry what's the clay flowerpot trick?: Loving this thread and have so many ideas thank you.

If you follow the rules, no - but… I’d maybe stick one on a hob (more heat resistant than anything else in your kitchen!) with the window and back door open. But then danger is my middle name! 😉

I have a ghillie kettle which does require an outlay, but it’s reliant on torn-up cereal boxes and twigs to heat and you’ll never run out of gas halfway through your sausages!

cheap preaching-to-the-choir tip - use washing powder. It’s much cheaper, you can vary the amount and you rarely need more than half the recommended amount, AND it’s better for the internal workings of your machine increasing longevity.

I think I'd use mine in my garage with the door open if it's rainy or windy, otherwise outside. I wouldn't want to let any heat out of my house in winter if the power was out anyway.

Genuine question - how is a camping stove less safe than a standard gas hob that many people have in their kitchen anyway?

I know there's concerns about carbon monoxide build up, but that applies more to confined spaces like tents.

The other issue would be the risk of it being knocked over. I've always found them to feel quite unstable when camping, but as long as you're careful with them, don't leave them unattended and don't set them up where they're likely to fall over and set fire to the curtains, they're no more dangerous than using an installed hob, surely?

On the matter of cost, a camping stove could be something people have anyway. Surely I don't need to remind people that not everyone who is struggling with the cost of living is in a bedsit with no possessions or storage?

My tip isn't essential but has saved us £100s of pounds over the last 17 years. Learn to cut hair. I cut DHs hair from a YouTube video and since then cut all the kids hair ever since. There are so many videos you can do any cut with any hair type. My 3 kids have very different hair and over the years have wanted all sorts of styles. I had zero skills but now am pretty good. There have been the occasional shite cut but who hasn't had that. They are all teenagers now and all of them tried normal hairdressers before coming back to me as I know what suits them.
You do need one pair of good scissors (not used for anything else) and a comb. You may also want clippers. But these are about £25 which with the 4 of them is cheaper than one haircut.