Can I have your best frugal living tips please?

[MushroomTree]

I'm nearly back on my feet after leaving an abusive relationship and I'm looking to move into my own flat with DD (13 months).

I can afford it but money is going to be tight so could I please have your best frugal living tips? TIA

Freeze soups and stews and casseroles etc in bags instead of pots so you can get more in your freezer.

@Destinysdaughter

Not RTFT but just wanted to add, Primark, Wilkos or Poundland for makeup. Also when my foundation in a glass bottle is near its end, I prise off the top, turn it upside down and leave it to decant into a little plastic pot. You’d be amazed how much foundation is still left in the bottle!

You can squirt a bit of moisturiser in there too to get the last of the dregs out as tinted moisturiser.

Fantastic tips.
I often have fridge porridge for lunch at work as it's so cheap and I love it. Costs just pennies if you can get free fruit.

www.slimmingworld.co.uk/recipes/overnight-oats

I always have a big bag of porridge oats in the cupboard as it's so cheap, and I'll often have it as a snack if I'm hungry with some honey instead of buying expensive snacks and so good for you.

I don't use natural yoghurt in it, I use flavoured Lidl yoghurts, very cheap and I always have a big bag of frozen fruit in the freezer, I have fruit trees in my garden and go blackberry hunting this time of year.

I buy almost sell by date chickens usually Lidl again. Got one for £2 the other day, roast it and shred it and it lasts me a week padded out with carrots, potatoes, lentils or whatever.

I only buy frozen vegetables (apart from potatoes and carrots) as there is no waste and you can just use a handful.

My small chest freezer was the best thing I ever bought. I do batch cooking with leftovers and things that have been in the freezer for a long time.

If you drive scour all the local garages and find out which has the cheapest petrol and completely fill up your car there, works out cheaper than putting small amounts of petrol in all week.

I have to have a reliable car for work as I travel daily and do home visits, we all have lease cars, it's an expense I don't need but by shopping around and getting a car from Manchester I got one for £120 a month instead of £200 like all my colleagues.

I combine frugality with making money wherever I can so as to really stretch my income. Im running a free Facebook challenge starting 6 September on how to find an extra £50 in your budget in 5 days, which combines the best of my tips, though real frugaleers on here would have their budget trimmed to the bone anyway!

I remember a teacher telling me 'to save the p's - remember the p's (pasta, potatoes, pulses and puddings.) Yes it's carb dense but filling and won't kill you if it's just for a while.
Lentil soup and crusty bread has to be one of the cheapest and most nutritious meals around.
Whenever, I'm needing to save a bit I resort to using pulses in casseroles, soups, flans and they're so tasty Try and get hold of a recipe book called The Bean Book by Rose Elliot - my bible.

Don't get me started on toothpaste tubes. When you've squashed it as much as you can - cut the top off about 2cm down. You'll have enough for another couple of days. It's amazing!

Love the old MN fave of trying to stretch shopping by a day (or preferably more) That’s really helped us this month.

Ooo just thought of another tip. For each pound of mince add a handfull of porridge oats about 15 mins before the end. Thickens spag bol, chillie, shepherds pie etc so you can use more liquid and bulks up the meal. Easily makes another couple of portions and the oats take on the taste of the mince and you cant tell they are in the meal.

Buy Christmas gifts all year round.

It sounds obvious but just keep away from the shops as far as you can. I realised during lockdown that although I thought I was saving money buying in charity shops I was still spending £ in them at the weekends. Go through all your household bills and get better deals if you can. Buy frozen not fresh veg.

Well done op and congratulations on your brand new life. It will be hard but you will be on control.

I learnt a lot from mn when I was a newly single parent.

If you only shop in lidl aldi and farm foods. There's a lot of spending temptation in the big supermarkets.

Meal plan like there's no tomorrow. Try and monthly shop for dry goods if you can it keeps me away from the shops a bit more.

Make sure you're home is as insulated as possible. There are grants for loft insulation etc if you google.

Buy decent flask if you like hot drinks. Makes a cold park trip with a small child much more bearable and works so much better than a takeaway cup for keeping the coffee warm! Honestly well worth the money.

Never leave the house without drinks and snacks. My dds had the small sistema bottles for years which fit in the smallest handbag - that and a cereal bar at the minimum for any event of leaving the house. The cost difference between taking from a multipack and buying a snack out is huge.

Buy big and decant - make sure you have some small tubs which they often sell in lidl but they are everywhere - we have the Russian doll style lunch box tubs but anything will do. I buy in bulk own brand choc buttons for example.

Get yourself a lunch box as well as the kids.

Ditch brands as much as you can. The only thing I concur after 12 years that needs to be branded is mayonaise. Lidl own brand is 🤮. I even ditched green giant.

Sign up to some testing web sites. I got this off mn back and did sense reach. Worked better when the kids were babies but I got whole boxes of laundry capsules etc for just filling in the survey. I reckon I did quite well over the years in products.

Register with your local pharmacist then you can get things like calpol for you dc free. Adds up.

Get an electric blanket if you can - ask for one for Xmas maybe. Mine cost £12 in asda god best money ever spent I've had it years and really makes a huge difference being on only a few minutes.

Get used to reselling kids clothes. Baby clothes go quick on fb - much less faff that EBay.

I really had to learn the hard way to spread costs over the year. Now I'm a big wiser I have a few bank accounts on the go which I pay into each month for vet bills, kids activities and a weekend away one (this one is suffering just now!) to avoid big scary bill heart palpitations. Just realised I don't have one for the bastard car mot but you get the idea.

Make sure you know what free activities there are locally and plan your week around them. We used to go to rhyme time and then buy a year pass to the aquarium (city specific obviously) so we always had something to do.

Find the best local parks around and fill your flask x

My mantra is the small things add up...

Like others i never buy drinks out (water bottle is always with me)
I use washing up liquid to clean pretty much everything, I dilute it and either add a few drops of EO or a cap of zoflora.

I bulk buy washing powder (FFoods), measure exactly what I need and mark it on a scoop using nail polish (doesn't rub off). I make sure its just less than is actually recommended.

Handwash is cheap bubble bath from Aldi/Lidl (59p) decanted into old squirty bottles. I buy really nice soap from tkmax and use that instead of shower gel as it lasts for ages and nicer on the skin (better for environment).

I grow my own herbs, it literally costs pences and keeps growing back imo nicer to cook with. Parsley will keep going through winter if you look after it.

Make soup..preferably out of odds and ends most people will throw away (broccoli stalks, potato peel etc). Put it all into a clean bag (bread bag) into the freezer and when its look full make soup. The only thing I would recommend buy is a cheap stick blender. Freeze the rind of blue cheese as it makes great flavour in soup.

Make your own compost if possible. Its really easy and saves a fortune ..I grow everything in my hm compost and only buy as a last resort. Loads of diy vids to make your own.

If shopping at lidl/aldi (or any store that sells homey things) stay away from the ailes that sell random things or just don't stop to look unless you are specifically needing something and are on the hunt for a good deal.

FB is really good for getting free or very cheap furniture. My daughter has just furnished her first flat (I could quite believe what good quality things she was given). Charity shops were more expensive but delivered quickly so no need for hassle of a van.

Look for second hand before new. Most things that are given away or sold cheaply are declutterers with stuff that has lots of use left in them. Even my husband came slightly used .

We have made greeting cards with the dds as long as I can remember. Buy the packs of bank cards and stickers from Poundland or the range. Decorate the cards with the kids and never need to purchase one again. Dd1 is obsessed with this and now she's 11 is making artistic masterpieces for grateful aunties! Dp parents have got going with it too (been shielding throughout Covid so no cards shops in months) and been doing fancy paper cutting with videos on YouTube. Think this might have saved mil sanity at Xmas time bless her.

You will get good at saving all manner of nice paper for this endeavour and frankly it's a really calming activity.

When your dc get to birthday party invite age try and go to IKEA and buy a load of their cheap cuddly toys for party gifts.

On the slow cooker note I must make some stew again.

You can buy tins of stewing stew in lidl etc I can make a lovely stew with one tin, a load of random veg and a stock cube, paprika, tomato purée, you get the idea.

Great thread! Every 3 months or so eat the whole freezer down. Things don't keep well forever and it’s surprising how long it can keep you going for. Makes you smarter on leftovers you freeze knowing you WILL eat them. I also wrap meats in freezer paper it’s made huge difference. Instead of throwing in whole pack bacon which I never get round to defrosting I can wrap up 2 slices takes 60sec to defrost in microwave and have bacon sandwich whenever you fancy. Previously I would opened pack used half and then gone in bin.

I stopped going to the shops unless I really needed something, the I just get some milk and “something for tea” would end up as £20.

I also keep things in my Amazon basket for months watch the price go up and down (they vary so much) then buy when I think is good deal. Handy for regular buys or looking ahead for essentials.

@BestBeforeYesterday

Fill up empty freezer space with scrap card or old newspapers. Why?

Freezer is cheaper to run full. I wouldn’t bother with newspaper though, bread is cheap enough, and edible

@Akire that's sage advice about Amazon I didn't know that!!

About Amazon, I always put the items I want to monitor in Camelcamelcamel and they tell me how the price went up and down, and I can set up an alert for when it reaches the price I want to pay for it. I never ever pray full price for an item, unless it's something I need to buy urgently.

Other -unrelated- tips:

• I boil one kettle in the morning and put the rest of the boiling water in a flask. Then I have it ready for making tea for the rest of the day.
• I batch cook and freeze. Not only it saves me time, but I can buy the ingredients in larger quantities spending less. Plus, less temptation to buy ready made meals as I have them home made in the freezer.
• When I do my supermarket shopping I always buy 1-2 items that I don't need immediately but they are on offer. This way I stock up on the things I like but rarely have to buy ingredients at full price.
• Wash and repair. I often think that something is broken or unusable and needs replacement. Over the year I learned to take my time to look at that thing in details and sort it out. It might be that that pair of children shoes only need a good wash and a new pair of laces. Or that stain requires bleach to be applied with a brush to avoid further damage. Or that a bit of glue might fix that broken hair brush.

In my area that is a fair amount of support for parents on a low income. It helps to be on Facebook and follow all the local parent groups. I have seen recently posts from organisations providing free clothes, food and activities/play sessions.

Another little tip (sorry I just remember things randomly!).

I remember that years ago when reading these posts I always struggled to understand the concept of buying in bulk. Surely, I would have ended up with a lot of waste, or eating the same thing for a week in a row etc.
It took me a long time to understand how to store things properly.

For instance, now I no longer buy small -1 portion- pots of hummus. I just buy the biggest pot I can find and decant in small (recycled) glass yogurt pots. And I freeze them.
We don't eat much bacon, but I use it in dishes. When I buy bacon, I use what I need and freeze the slices two by two (then put them back together).
I make sure to have all my flours and grains and pasta well sealed in containers so that I can keep for a long time with no insect to contaminate them.
I learned to freeze things I didn't know I could, like butter or cake.

Keep your phone rather than upgrade. Then move to the cheapest sim deal you can find.

The sim only method is amazing especially as you can get quite old phones repaired now 😀

I’ve started filling my thermos flask with boiling water from the boiler in the tea room at work before I leave in the evenings. Saves my kettle at home! Stingy or what?! 😂

Boyes for make-up. I’ve gone there for make up all of my adult life and my skin is still young (I’m 50 next year).