Tell me your best money saving tips please!

[SevenOnwardsAndUpwards]

DH is going down to a 4 day week soon, it's intentional as he works over 50 hours and is finding it too much, but it does obviously mean we'll have less coming in than before. On paper we should easily be able to afford it, but we don't seem to have much spare cash and nothing in savings though I don't know where it all goes tbh. We don't spend loads on going out and don't have sky so no obvious savings to be made there. I've already thought we need to cancel experian, switch phone away from BT and drink less . What are your best and easy money saving tips so cutting back doesn't come at the expense of a worse quality of life for the DCs? They're 5, 22 months and 5 months if that's relevant.

Actual programme here:

SuperScrimpers Series 6 Episode 6

• Make your own play doh with salt dough (one cup salt to two cups plain flour and add water until it's the consistency of play-doh.
• If you normally have a real Christmas tree but don't want to buy a fake one, what about scavenging a deadfall branch from a walk in the countryside, then sticking it in a bucket of gravel to make an arty bare christmas tree. Some cheapo lights and you're set (they cost about £80 in John Lewis!).
• Bake your own mince pies - give the kids some pastry and cutters to make "biscuits" (used to keep me entertained for hours)
• Make a colouring/activity book each for the kids. You can download, trace or draw pictures and puzzles and print them out at work if you're cheeky or at the library for about 5-10p per A4 page

-Don't spend money on fancy antibacterial cleaners if you're family is reasonably healthy. Most household cleaners can only remove a certain spectrum of pathogens, so unless someone in your family is immunosuppressed you can get most of the bugs with hot soapy water, and the odd bit of value bleach. -Make tea and coffee by the pot instead of constantly putting the kettle on if you're a big tea/coffee drinker. If you're out in the garden or something use a flask.

• If you're a regular gym goer could you run in the park instead? Look for parks which have obstacle courses in- monkey bars are really good for bingo wings!
• Use up all the odds and ends of makeup and toiletries that you have in your drawer
• Check out the notice boards in your local library for free/cheap stuff to do.

Start putting aside some money for Christmas NOW! If you know that you will definitely do your christmas shop at a certain supermarket, check out their saving stamps as they often give you a bonus once you save a certain amount.

I'm sure I've got more than this as I'm a right cheapskate but my mind is currently going blank...

Sell stuff. People will buy anything....second hand clothes, toys, old bits of furniture etc, rather than giving to charity shop/school collections. Have been doing this for the last few years in our local paper (free ads), and totalling it up as I go. Just over £4k worth sold so far.

Similar tips to everyone else and I need to take some of my own advice

The big thing for us I think is a Molly maid dryer - its suspended on a pully in the utility room. Dry most things on that now, even in the middle of winter so have drastically cut down on using the dryer.

Meal plan and shop at your local markets for fruit and veg - I got 4 carrier bags full at weekend for £17. If it looks like its going off, cube it and freeze it. Shop at Aldi for most of your shop. Local butchers for good quality meat. Eat less, and use less in your meals (if recipe says 4 chicken breasts, use 2 etc).

Sign up to Groupon / Living Social etc - especially the family versions - great for getting discounts on local farms / pot painting etc / discounts at restaurants etc. Have given restaurant coupons as presents too (just need to check they're still valid until Christmas etc).

Don't buy anything on Ebay until you have enough in your paypal account - i.e. you have to sell enough stuff to be able to spend. I try to operate at a nil balance if you see what I mean.

For petrol / diesel - you can check online which is the cheapest garage to you. Worth doing.

Collect Tesco / Nectar points - never use your Tesco points for shopping - get the x4 value / double points deals to make sure you make the best use of them. I always use ours for RAC cover or towards holidays (Eurotunnel etc).

Start a babysitting circle with a few mums from school - everyone "earns" points by sitting for someone else (1 point for every half hour, 2 points after midnight) and then "spends" them when they use a sitter. Apart from the fact its free, your child knows them and you know their children.

Re DIY - wait for the discount weekends (i.e. 15% off everything at Homebase). If you see something you like (wallpaper / curtains etc) just have a check online / ebay to see if you can get it cheaper. Get a sewing machine - I've made quite a few roman blinds now and saved myself a fortune!

Good luck!

I'm confused about the fleece curtain lining still. So are they iron on on the back of the existing curtains? How about if they are lined?

I don't think the fleece linings are stuck to the actual curtains they just go between the window/door and existing curtains- to give an extra layer of draught proofing

I could be wrong though

All my curtains are interlined - makes them hang better and keeps out draughts. In winter I leave them closed all day except for the sitting room.

I used safety pins to attach fleece to our curtain.

Dinner courtesy of Waitrose tonight.

Ds1 lasagne 49p
Ds2 cottage pie 49p

Dh and I had chicken breasts with mushroom sauce.
Chicken was 20p per breast
Mushrooms. Had a glut from the market for £1. Made soup and sauce out of them.
Served with 45p asparagus and 30p mange tout.

Bargainous!!!

Monthy shops instead of weekly. You save money and time and waste less.

Heating anything up is expensive. So once it's hot make the most of it. Do all your ironing in one go, not just the bits you need that day. Try to cook more than one thing in the oven (pie for tonight, pie for freezer). Wash all the dc in the bath together. If you boil the kettle put the left over water in a flask for later. If it's cold and you put the heating on set the timer on your phone for 30mins to remind you to turn it off.

We sometimes do a toy swap with friends. It doesn't have to be permanent or anything special sometimes it's just nice to do a different jigsaw/watch new dvd.

If you're disciplined get a Tesco or Santander credit card or both Santander gives cashback on purchases (go through topcashback to get £15 towards£24 per year fee). Tesco means you can treat dc to toys and days out for free. When you go out make some pasties, there's loads of suggestions online, cook, double wrap in foil then wrap in a towel. Hot lunch and a towel to wipe down damp benches. Take a flask of tea and a homemade fairy cake for dc and everyone's happy and you've avoided the cafe.

(From ages further up)

I don't agree that making bread is a false economy if you already have a breadmaker. We live somewhere with no shop and I don't pass anywhere near work either. I would be constantly popping out to town for bread without it, and buying other rubbish at the time, no doubt.

My bread costs max 50p for a 600g wholemeal loaf (it's 40p for flour and pennies worth of all the other things) and is fresh and healthy every day. Only value bread or puny little loaves are cheaper than that.

Ok I'm a bread addict and trying to justify it here but YKWIM!

Buy children's clothes from charity shops. If you live in a dubious area like I do (stoke) then bus to more affluent towns nearby where the stuff is often all next,monsoon,marks' and even some boden and joules all as good as new.

Agree with all the frozen veg/berries etc.

Also tinned fruit - just make sure it's in juice not syrup.

Use small bowls for cereal for portion control!

If buying stuff like apples, bananas, carrots etc buy them loose not in a prepacked bag - usually ends up cheaper.

Download the 34 day trial version of You Need A Budget (YNAB) - it's an excellent envelope budgeting system which will make you aware off where every penny is going. I went from having nothing at the end of each month to saving £130 towards Christmas monthly, over night, plus budgeting towards annual expenses, cutting my food banjo in half, etc., just by having a new mindfulness about our income and outgoings.

Posting in case anyone can make use of this - our HSBC fixed rate is up at the end of Oct, so went online to find another deal. As an existing customer was able to fix at £20 less a month with £500 cash back! Am still stunned - in fact I had to phone up to check it was right - but this has certainly taken the pressure off for Christmas.

Also turn the telly off most of the time. We never have it on before school and since the start of term the DCs also don't watch anything after school Mon-Thurs either. Saves electric and better for them too (IMHO) - they play more nicely, we have board game evenings and read more too.

Lougle I have to ask, what the Jeff is a food banjo :o

thatsinteresting I didn't mention credit card because I think many are against it. But I'm a fan with cashback cards.

Asda also has a cash back card. I get petrol from them too so that's always good. Similarly with amazon.

hahaaa that's my phone's autocorrect. Food budget, although if there were such a thing as a food banjo I'd willingly cut it in half

There's a cashback option on mysupermarket.com. I saved £17 with canny online shopping yesterday and earned myself £4 cashback, paid into my Paypal account.

:o

Actually - just seeing the ironing one (do all in one go - which is wrong btw :) ) has got me thinking

Get a real idea about how much it costs to run appliances by understanding this;

Find the power rating for your appliance. For example - my kettle (looks now) is 3000W or 3 kilo watts - i looked underneath the base plate.

If electricity costs, say 25p per kilowatt hour. Then running the kettle for say 5 minutes, 12 times a day would equal a total time on of 1 hour.

So we can say...

Power transferred in kilowatt hours) = power rating of unit (in kilowatt hours) x time (in hours)

so for our kettle

power transferred in kilowatt hours = 3 kilowatts x 1 hour = 3 kilowatt hours.

Now the cost of electricity is about 25p per kilowatt hour, so it would cost 25p per day to use the kettle.

Take a pc

its power rating is 0.25 kilowatts and its on for 5 hours. That would cost;

0.25 kilowatts x 5 hours x 25p = 31.25p or about 31p.

So in the iron example, the cost of electricity used is the amount of power it would take multiplied by how long its on for in total.

The kettle is slightly complicated by the fact that the more full it is the longer it will take to heat up to 100 deg c. So it does make sense to only heat what you need.

But essentially, the big hitters in terms of lecky usage are; washing machines, dishwashers, tumble driers. They take a lot of power because they have a heating element and they are on for about an hour per use.

Just to clarify the iron thing. IF you need to iron all the cloths anyway - then it doesn't matter if you do piece by piece or all in one go. But obviously using the iron for less time will cost less money.

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