Anyone up for a Low Spend September support thread?

[DiscombobulatedHedgehog]

I really need to do a Low Spend September, anyone up for joining me for moral support?

Costs just seem to keep rising and rising. I’ve cancelled every subscription I can, and reduced my phone bill down too, but day-to-day life with kids fritters away money and I know I need to be more mindful. I do already take a thermos of tea everywhere I go, that and a water bottle saves a lot. Plan is no fizzy drinks all month. I’ve reduced costs of children’s school lunches this week by using thermos food flasks for soup and stews, I’ve been doing them overnight in slow cooker to put in the flasks hot each morning. I think I’ll try and use cash as much as possible. And read from my TBR pile.

I need to start cutting back a lot so am up for this.

I'll look at subscriptions etc first then need to literally take stock of the kitchen and storage cupboards.

The slow cooker will be coming out too.

There will be a lot more but am putting my phone down to try go back to sleep!

Yesterday was emptying and listing freezer contents. Pleasantly surprised to find ingredients for 29 meals and that’s before I looked in the store cupboard. Also spent ages looking through good food site for inspiration. I’m not giving up subscriptions and already have cheap phone deal of £10 a month so I’m going to be selling things on Vinted in the hope of funding an up coming holiday.
if only I could encourage my DH to eat more veg and become veggie I would be onto a winner.
For school lunches I would make some really hearty soups and batch cook. Portion out and then defrost and reheat for lunch. I do it all the time to take to work.
A great healthy snack is popcorn. Make your own as it is way cheaper and you can experiment with different flavours.
Im going to make these again as a good snack.
www.chewoutloud.com/4-ingredient-cheese-crackers/

I'll join. I'm paying ds' halls room in a few weeks so I need to cut back.

This weather has meant I have loads of tomatoes in the garden so I've made a huge amount of basic tomato sauce with garlic, and frozen it in portions. I can use it as the base for chilli, spag bol, cassoulet, veggie soup. I'm also slicing & freezing apples that I use in porridge when it's cold. And making enough jam and pickle to see us through to next year.

Once ds is at uni, I will eat a lot more veggie food which should cut the bills. Definitely agree with the slow cooker.

My broadband contract is up for renewal so I need to find somewhere less expensive than EE.

Tomorrow's job is to pull out all my winter clothes and check what I need. I've just retired so moving from work wear to jeans and sweaters. I'll be home all day so I expect my heating bill to go up. 😕

@DanaScullysLegoHair definitely slow cooker!!

@Fiddlesticks1 that’s a really good amount of meals in the freezer, and you’re right batch cooking soup is a great school lunch plan. Can never have too much soup.

@Meadowfinch I’m rather envious of your produce, it’s simply been too cold and wet and miserable here this year for anything to grow…even my apple trees aren’t happy. I’d o have some crab apples though so will make some crab apple jelly. Apple Butter is a really nice preserve I recommend if you’ve not made it before, we don’t often seem to make it this side of the Atlantic yet it’s lovely.

Joining! We are planning to move out of UK in the spring so I really need to make some extra savings....

@Saddaughter999 that will be exciting! What are your savings plans? I don’t have any cheap supermarkets nearby which is a big shame, but am trying to add more cheap veg and beans/pulses to pretty much every meal.
Cost of petrol here shot up 4p per litre today, it cost me £70 to fill up and I just wanted to cry tbh - it’ll need doing again so soon.
My big thing tomorrow is not spending on the children whilst we are out in town, if they want anything they can spend their pocket money! I’m avoiding taking them swimming this month - it’s £20 for me and two children which I think is expensive…but then, I think everything is.

I've spent a lot in July and August so up for a cheap September. I'm thinking I'll be eating out of the freezer as much as I can. I have a lot of frozen meat I can use so not have to spend so much on shopping. Anything I can save I'll put back towards Xmas.

I have saved a lot of money by getting electric car I can charge up overnight on very cheap charge for far far less than petrol.

I’ll join - I want to take the DCs away in Spring so I need to save up now.

My first job is to get a handle on meal planning, and being more organised with it. I recently got rid of the microwave as I so rarely use it, it wasn’t worth the space it took up, but it does mean I need to plan ahead and get things out of the freezer earlier in the day.

Luckily I can walk to work, and the kids walk to school - as long as I don’t wuss out if it looks a bit grey outside.

I like to sew and knit, but I have enough fabric and yarn, so by making an effort to use up what I have in the house, I’ll save money whilst decluttering. I’ve almost finished a jumper that I’m really looking forward to wearing. Maybe I could make some things to sell on Etsy etc for extra income.

I haven’t had much success with selling on Vinted - things sell, but for so little money it just feels like it’s not worth it.

I would definitely like to join this please.

August was reasonable for me as my children were with their dad for most of the month. However I’ve just totted up my groceries spend in August and it came to £412!
that is grotesque for one person!! I’m actually trying really hard to lose weight- so I guess it’s not too hard to see where I’m going wrong.

that is crazy though, as some months with the three of us I can get it down to around £300.

anyway, really want to stay on the straight and narrow in sept as there are a lot of big expenses coming up this year.

Oh may I join?

Im allowed to buy food and that's it.
Haven't brought myself to deleting vinted as yet. I get addicted so easily. I wanted some badges for a charity denim jacket I picked up for just 5.95
27 badges later and almost a 100 quid gone

Cooked a large gammon. Had gammon with salad for a couple of nights. DH had gammon and eggs for brekkie one day and tonight it’s Carbonara. So a £6 joint has cost less than £2 a day. Sometimes I freeze some to be used with left over chicken to make a pie. It all helps in trying to cut down on spending.

Hoping those of you on this thread are going to come up with ideas. Cutting cost of food shopping is a biggie. Any great recipes out there.

I've been out of work since Feb 2025 after being made redundant when I was 8 weeks pregnant. We are now relying on my partners salary alone as I'm too unwell to go back to work at the moment.

Things we do that helps to reduce spending are to buy larger joints of meat and get 2-3 days worth of meals out of it. We are a 2 adults, 1 child, 1 toddler household and if we cook a good quality 2kg chicken we get a roast out of it the first day, a second chicken meal out of it on day 2 and then strip any left over chicken off the bones with a tin of chick peas/pulses on day 3. It also means that we have the cooker on once in those 3 days for 90 minutes and the rest of the day just warming through on the hob and it's much more cost and energy efficient than cooking a smaller amount every day.

We keep hold of the juices from the roast and leave it too cool and separate out some of the fat. This then goes into the fridge/freezer and use in otherwise vegetarian dishes as a good quality stock which lifts a simple dish into a very tasty dish.

Over the summer I bought half a dozen small juice cartons for apple or orange juice and keep one of these in my day bag as a treat/emergency drink when out with my daughter.

We had got into a good routine of doing a mix of online shop in Sainsbury's, or a mix of Aldi and Tesco in person. Through the summer we have been only doing online Sainsbury's shops for convenience but the amount of fruit I have had to throw away because it's arrived slightly bruised and then by day 2 mouldy. I'd like to go back to using our Aldi for fresh stuff and Sainsbury's/Tesco for cupboard staples - my daughter has food allergies so for some thing we need very specific products