Can we have a 'best money saving tip' thread please?

[PlateSpinningAtAllTimes]

Myself and DH have decided that we really need to have a frugal couple of years to start properly saving some money. I think the MSE website is good but can be a little overwhelming- so much info! What are your best tips for curbing spending?

My tip: meal plan, cook in bulk, freeze individual portions. Lasagne and pasta bake seem to freeze well and are cheap to make.

Oooh thought of more...

Check out uk.freecycle.org/ if you don't know it, you'll be amazed at what you can get for free.

If you have a water meter, check you haven't got any water leaks. Check taps, dishwasher, washing machine are off and no toilets filling. Wait a few minutes. Go outside and look at your meter - if any of the dials are moving you probably have a leak. Contact water people who will advise how to find leak/s. We had 3 small leaks (dripping tap and toilet cisterns), added up to paying for significant amount of unused water... Got refund of £200 from water company as a 'leakage allowance'

A couple of money making (or free stuff getting!) tips too.

I use Swagbucks to do surveys and watch videos and earn Amazon vouchers. To be honest, it's not as good as it used to be and the surveys can be a bit dull but it's worth doing for extra cash!

I've also signed up with BzzAgent and Senseresearch to do product tests. You have to give you feedback but you get to keep the products. I love giving my opinion so it's perfect for me! For BzzAgent, I've had E45 lotion, ready meals, cookies and I've just signed up to taste Flora and got a voucher for a free 1kg tub. Senseresearch have sent me sanitary towels and fabric softener to test.

If anyone is interested in any of these, let me know and I can provide links (and get points for referring people!)

Eeeek should've previewed that post, should say £100 refund not £200... Not so impressive but still much better in my pocket than theirs!

Save on expensive oven cleaning products, buy a non stick liner and line the bottom of your oven. The gunk just slips off with soapy water, no need for mr muscle. Also if you do a lot of baking buy a few and cut them to size for your various tins and baking sheets and you can stop buying baking parchment. You can get two in a pack in poundland.

Be prepared! Folk have said already about card factory but my family seem to like cards that say mother, brother, aunt etc so Last week I wrote a list of all we'd need for extended family for a year & went and bought in card factory. Apart from having on hand I won't be wasting petrol popping to town to pick them up as and when needed.

Don't cut your hair, grow it until it's at least a foot long & donate it to a charity that makes wigs for cancer patients.

Great thread

I've discovered the poundshop ( totally converted), I buy multi purpose cleaners from there, and those plastic moulded (?) bags that you use to put kiddies presents in, the ones with Disney and stuff on the front. Lets face it, a little 'un won't be interested in the bag itself, only the contents. Saves on buying wrapping paper, although there is some in the poundshop too if you need it!

I've also bought a mini sellotape holder from there too, with a couple of extra mini sellotapes that come with it. Handy.

And the most recent thing I've done, which has been mentioned in the thread, is cancelling the newspapers. We used to have one every day, and only read a few pages. What a waste! Now we're saving £20 a month and some of the money has gone towards a night in a hotel!

Keep 'em coming.

Another one for baby - Cloth nappies can save you £££££'s. I recently started using them for DS3 and really wish I'd done it sooner. I thought it'd be a hassle, they wouldn't fit well, more washing etc etc... I was wrong. Look nice, fit well, do loads of washing anyway so don't notice another load. And am feeling nicely smug at saving cash every time I change one (plus not adding to landfill is good too)...

You can often get good deals on bundles or last years designs etc. I got mine here and they're lovely and very helpful.

Disposable nappies from Wilko, available in Maxi and Junior sizes. DS2 has been out of nappies for 6 months now, but they cost £1.55 for 26 nappies. Also their wipes are brilliant value, about 50p a pack.

For hair dyes, try Savers. I died my hair at the weekend and paid £3.90, rather than £5.90 for the dye.

Sorry not had chance to read through all 12 pages (yet!)

However my tips are card warehouse for bday cards, I got 10 for £1 recently.

Look out for fb selling pages for kids clothes and also for selling clothes.

Only ever buy something if you really need it!!

Wilkingsons are good for toileteries.

Sorry, I meant to say dyed.

If someone you know is a CostCo member they can add you as a member for £12 a year. Careful what you buy in there as it is not all bargains, but they sometimes have v good special offers on brand name items. Also a good place to go birthday shopping I discovered today.

I like doing card crafts, so make my own cards for all occasions. I generally stock up at the Hobbycraft show at the NEC in November (having a specific list of stuff I want) and it's always cheaper even than buying the separate items online. I save a lot of money and get to do something I like.

I still have enough stuff left to make all my Christmas cards (although I did win a few boxes of Christmas cards on the tombola at the school Christmas fete).

I make money on my days off by mystery shopping and survey websites.

Take a flask of coffee/tea when out and have it in the park etc.

Buy drinks for the kids in the supermarket and take them when going out (£1.99 for 6 or 8 fruit shoots and 1.50ish for one in a coffee shop)

I now get blank cards from The Works for £1 and get DD to decorate with sequins/stickers and squiggles. I would rather the recipient thought I (well, DD!) had spent time on it rather than just grabbing one of the shelf. Cards usually get binned so I don't sweat whether or not they are a 'kid' person.
Plus I get to do craftiness with DD as an activity that morning before we meet whoever is the lucky recipient
If you do art with DC (under 2) try just squirting paint directly onto their pictures. I have a friend who used separate pots and was forever running out of paint because most of it was washed down the sink. This way you have less washing up too!

£1 for a pack of blank cards, that should read!

Save and send the creations of dc in pre-school and early primary to relatives as cards for Christmas and Easter. It looks like you did all the hard work with glue and glitter and gets said treasures out of the house. Win win.

Have a 'spare change' tub in the house to decant loose change. It's amazing how soon all those 2p's and 20p's all add up over time.

Have cashed in £100's at a times with this seemingly insignificant little gem!

If you're doing a small (basket) shop, keep a tally of what you're spending in your head as you go along. It's not hard, you just need to go to about the nearest 50p for each item. It's interesting at the till to see how accurate you've been. I usually find my guesstimate about right within 70p or 80p either way.

What a great thread!

Agree with saving small change and £2 coins, I've done this for years and among other things have bought 2 leather sofas, paid for holiday deposits, a cooker, microwave and decorated rooms, from the £2 coins.

It's also went towards christmas, holiday spending money, just depends how much I've got and do I need to use it then.

Putting savings away on pay day is the best way to save, I also have a tin from the £ shop and when I can I put a £10 in it for emergencies, that way it's there but I won't open the tin unless I really need it rather than taking it out because I want a takeaway

If you use shower gel, buy one of those scrunchy net things, I got 4 for £1 in Morrisons, it's amazing how much longer the gel lasts, a little goes a long way!

Also Morrisons give you 1p of a litre of petrol for every £10 gift card you buy, great if you buy them for presents or like me, I needed a new fridge so I chose the fridge from currys, then bought £250 of gift cards and got 25p off each litre of petrol, I also buy them to pay off my Next account.

Morrisons again, been getting £10 off a shop if you spend over £35 for 3 weeks, so instead of using the voucher on my shopping I have been buying £10 of saving stamps, along with a couple that I buy every week anyway to put towards the big Christmas shop don't forget to put your shopping through in 2 lots if you spend over £70, then you will get 2 vouchers, so £20!

Re-cycle birthday cards, literally

This only really works within a group of friends/family who are all on board and in the know with the idea.

To start, buy an ordinary card from the shop then when you go to use it, rather than actually write on the card use post-it's. One inside with the greeting on and one on the envelope with the recipient's name on.

When you have received it for your birthday, you then use it for the next birthday amongst the group. In reality I only do this with one friend so we have the same card boomeranging between us!

So then, said card does the rounds without anyone having to fork out £2ish every time.

I hope that makes sense

Loving this thread! My top tip is just to not go into town shopping so much! And when I do go I have a list with me. Otherwise I tend to wander round aimlessly and before I know it, I've spent £50 on things I could probably have done without.

Fully agree with the meal planning thing. I've been doing this religiously for about a year. If anyone doesn't yet do and needs a bit of a helping hand, I fully recommend Menus4Mums. I'm no longer a member but I still use their meal plans and my children liked most of the dinners and actually expanded the range of food they liked.

Another tip is to buy packs of cards and wrapping paper from the Book People for kids birthday parties etc - works out at about 50p per card. I also buy the packs of kids books from them and split them up for presents.

Marking place!

I don't get the saving shrapnel thing. If you kept it in your purse, and spent it on milk and bread or whatever, the equivalent money you did not take out of the cashpoint would be sitting in the bank earning (admittedly nugatory) interest. Surely this is only a good tip if you would otherwise have thrown it away - and who would do that?*

*DP. He seriously thinks shrapnel is not money. He doesn't literally throw it away, but he leaves it around in exactly the same manner that he leaves lying around everything else he considers to be rubbish and expects me to throw away. I scoop it up and spend it.