Can we start a general frugal tips thread please?

[poshsinglemum]

I tried starting this on the money forum but no-one took it seriously.

General money saving tips very welcome. Am on benefits and struggling. Very hand to mouth.

My tips;
Buy second hand baby clothes on ebay/nct sale.
Sell stuff on ebay.
Turn off lights.
Make sure appliances aren't on standby.
Cook a bit too much and freeze.
Am really getting into charity shops.
Make Christmas decorations/presents.
Lentils with everything.

Buy a slow cheap slow cooker (the expensive ones don?t seem to do much more than the cheaper ones), that way if you eat meat you can buy the cheaper cuts like braising steak, chicken thighs and drum sticks, diced lamb, cook for a good few hours the meat is extremely tender. It?s cheaper to run than an oven and you can make loads to freeze.

Lentils with everything! Just remember to pre cook green lentils and drain before adding to the dish (if you don?t the scum that forms on the liquid that they are cooked in needs scooping off or else all diners will suffer from?er, bad gas.) Red lentils are fab, they can be thrown in and forgotten about!

Unless its meat use the best before date as a guide, you can test your eggs that have gone past their date, put them in water, if they float they are off?..they sink, they are fine. They have to be pretty out of date before you get a floater! If they are half way up, crack into a cup and give the sniff test?.if in doubt don?t.

I have just been advised by my mother to go to the ?pick your own? farm shop near to us and pick stuff in abundance when it is in season because it will be cheap, then I must blanch it and freeze it apparently, sounds like quite a bit of effort but it might be a good way of having affordable frozen berry?s through the winter.

If you have a dishwasher use own brand powder or tablets, have been using Finish for years?.not sure whether to be miffed or not that the sainsburys own is just as good (just as well though, I can?t run to finish anymore).

Plan meals then go shopping with a list and stick to it, there are some isles you won?t even go down so you won?t get caught by those 3 for 2 offers you just don?t need.

Apparently eating too much sugar ages the skin, that keeps me away from the biscuits, chocolate and general junk food isle.

Learn to love porridge! 1kg approx £1 of proper porridge oats makes mine and 1 DD breakfast for over a week, I started eating it for weight loss, as it keeps me full until lunch time (sigh, yet more money saved as I no longer snack mid morning?) I?m not so mean as to make it with water and not milk though, I tried it (to cut more calories) but it really wasn?t very nice and DD, quite rightly refused to eat it)

Do clothes swaps with friends...plus loan each other maternity clothes and baby bits, you only need a few months gap to not need everything at the same time.

I hope I don?t look to mean?.

Just because its discounted doesnt mean you need it

When buying think do you really need it. If you have to consider it then you probably don't

ThingumyandBob - have a slow cooker, which I use often (just bought a slow cooker recipe book from the bookman at work for even more delish recipes). Porridge, I love (with water and a splash of milk). I do home baking for the boys.

Can I as biteofun how often do you use that oil method? Is it every day?

Cancel the window cleaner and give the windows a good clean in the spring, or arrange a one off clean. They really don't need doing every 6 weeks (that's how often ours used to come).

Cancel the paper. You can read it all online for free.

Cancel the wheelie bin cleaner. It's a 2 minute job to rinse the bin out yourself.

Don't use the carwash and do it yourself. Good exercise too!

Cancel your takeaways. This has added benefits of making you more creative in the kitchen and reducing your fat and salt intake as well as saving £££££'s. Some of the money saved can go towards a bottle of wine or two. Then you still get a treat without spending anywhere near what you would have on a takeaway.

Make the DC's walk to school instead of giving them bus money (if it's not too far). This saved me £10 per week last summer. I do give them bus money on dark/rainy days though.

Cancel your veg box. You can buy organic ingredients quite cheaply in supermarkets now, and then you can buy only exactly what you need. I do miss my veg box though.

Use the car less and walk whenever you can.

Use less meat in your cooking. I use the same amount of beef for two casseroles that I used to put in one! I just bulk out the recipes with lentils, vegetables and beans. Nobody has noticed there is less meat yet.

Make your own biscuits and cakes. It really can be cheaper. I make flapjacks for lunchboxes with fruit in. They last for ages, the DC's feel they are getting a sweet treat, and they cost pennies per slice.

Make a soup each week to use up all the leftover veggies. You can freeze it in portions.

I used to throw away the dry crusts left at the end of the loaf. Now I save them, turn them into breadcrumbs and freeze them, and then use them for topping casseroles/pasta dishes etc.

I save and freeze even small aounts of leftovers. It's amazing how quickly you build up a collection of frozen meals. Last week I got all the dishes out of the freezer, the DC's chose which they wanted, and everyone got fed without me having to do any cooking. Result.

Hi again.

I phoned up my mobile phone company to find out how I could cut my bills down and apparently I was paying to RECIEVE nuisance texts so I cancelled then and changed price plan.

I buy tescos market value meat. I know that the animals havn't been treated as well as organicly reared livestock(and possibly not as good for me.) but needs must and I eat less of it.

Cheap recipie ideas.
Winter vegetable casserole;
Parsnips
Suede
Sweet potatoe
Potatoe
Butternut squash
red onions
butter beans (if desired)
Tin of tomatoes
Spice such as cumin or herbs.

Cut veg up to medium chunks and steam to just soft but not mushy.
Fry onions.
Add onions and veg to casserole with tin tomatoes, veg stock, herbs or spices and beans.
Mix and cook for 1-1.5 hours and serve with rice or bread.
Adjust quantities to suit taste.

Forgot to mention half a pint to a pint of veg stock to ingredients.
Woudl also be lovely with dumplings. Have to try that one.

went blackberry picking yesterday. was great fun. DD loves tehm and they are now in the freezer awaiting a apple and blackberry crumble!

if you blow dry your hair every day this might save you a bit of money and time.

i have wavy/ frizzy/ thick hair

i wash my hair and then blow dry it thouroughly (sp?) straight and then finish with the straighteners. this can last me 3/4 days. longer if i tie it back/wear a hearband for the 4th/5th days. rather than washing it everyday and blasting it with dryer, i find i fidle with it more to keep it straight/in shape and it gets greasy quicker. will save on electric and shampoo/conditioner.

make a list of your staple shopping items, like toilet roll, milk, bread, shreddies etc and know their prices. Then shop around to see who normally has the lowest prices. For example Farmfoods does very good quality toilet roll (as good as say Andrex) at £2 for 9 rolls. This may work out as more expensive then £1.26 for sainsburys value range 12 rolls but the quality is so much better that you use less. They also do hovis wholemeal and best of both, two loaves for £1.50 and 4 pints of milk for £1. All the best deals i have found. However Tesco does their own brand shreddies at £1.36 a box which is about £1 cheaper then the branded variety. It may take time but it is definately worth shopping around and planning what you will need and when.

If you grocery shop online go through mysupermarket.co.uk. It tells you if you can buy a chosen item cheaper and on average I save an extra £5-£7 per week.

Also, shopping online has saved me £££s as I only buy what we need. Our weekly bill has gone from over £100 per week to around £60 and that's for four of us!!

An oldie but a goodie - I save delicate items until last when ironing then turn the iron off and use the residual heat to iron the last couple of things.

Likewise turn the oven off just before you've finished cooking and let the residual heat finish it off.

Cook veg in the microwave - a lot quicker and cheaper than boiling on the hob.

Our immersion heater has no thermostat so I am experimenting with exactly how long it needs to be on to produce acceptable bath water and buying a kitchen timer to stop me forgetting to go back and turn it off.

Hi absolutely loving this thread some great tips thanks. Menu planning is really working well for us and so is using up leftovers we made pasties for lunch today with leftover corned beef, potatoes left from sunday lunch and a few veggies. DD helped too which made it a great thing to do on a cold, wet morning.
Plus I am now putting on an extra jummper instead of switching on the heating and showers instead of baths.

If you fill up a drinks bottle up with water and place it in the toilet cistern it apparently then uses less water when you flush.

I know this is gross but at night time I don't flush the loo at all unless on of us has done a scooby doo.

Great thread!

Use a pressure cooker. They are cheap to buy and make great soup and casseroles quickly. It means you can cook cheaper cuts on meat quicker (its a bit of a false economy to buy cheap stewing steak then have to cook it for 3 hrs!)

Plan your meals and then write your shopping list - that way you can make meals with anything in the cupboard/fridge/freezer that needs used up and only buy what you really need

Agree with a previous poster about own brand dishwasher tablets - Asda smartprice ones are fine! Make sure your dishwasher is full before you put it on and use an eco programme at a lower temp.

Take packed lunches to school/work.

Cook in batches - eg eat half and freeze half

Just mentioned this on another topic and thought it was worth mentioning on here.

Whenever you make a purchase of any kind, check a cashback site like quidco.

Things like:

• Home insurance (I just got £70 cashback for signing up with Aviva, which happened also to be £150 cheaper than my current insurer.

• Switch your home broadband to o2 which is the highest rated provider in the UK and only £9.95 a month - and get £100 cashback from quidco if you go via their site.

• Car insurance can also get you £100 cashback via quidco.

• Buying things like CD's/games/etc for presents can get you around 6% cashback from places like HMV

• Booking a hotel room on laterooms or similar can get you about 6% cashback via quidco

• If you're booking a holiday, I got £124 cashback from quidco from an all includive with Thomas Cook a few months ago.

Any purchases you need to make, check quidco to see if you can earn cashback. They pay it straight into your acount a few weeks after the purchase (minus a £5 annual charge).

Food Shopping - check out www.madaboutbargains.co.uk - sign up to their email alert and check which supermarkets have 'buy one get one free'/'better than half price' offers on things like dishwasher tablets/washing powder/deodorants/toothpaste/loo rolls/etc and when you see a really low promo price, buy 6 months worth.

We've got our eye on some very expensive nursery furniture and travel system ready for our first baby due in April 2010, so it all helps!

It does. I've started doing the monthly shop on-line and getting the BOGOF's. I've done a 2 weekly meal planner too so we're not buying more than we need to.

I'll tell DH about quidco. Our home insurance is up for re-newal in Jan so I'll check it out.

Poundland are selling Johnsons baby stuff (shampoo etc) for £1 each too atm.

Ladymarian, it may be a false economy to use an oven for one casserole instead of a pressure cooker, but I cook in batches, so have several casseroles, other dishes, etc to freeze.

Looking at other posts, I've had a slow cooker for 20 years, it was a house warming present! One of the best I guess, use it at least once a week in winter. As well as casseroles, it'll do a pot roast of brisket, a cheaper cut that needs slow cooking. Left overs get turned into beef soup with the left over gravy.

My freezer, however, is small. I need to work out if it will be more economic to get another small freezer to keep in the garage.

And though I don't get masses of time, I may actually try baking more, biscuits & cake. My other half seems to like the Xmas cake I did last year, so I made another. Can't eat it myself, I never could stand those really rich fruit cakes (but dd has discovered marzipan!).

JackieO - I love your two week menu plan. I am going to steal it

Jackie - do you please have recipes for:
mon - spicy sausage stew
sun - nut roast
weds - middle eastern rice and lentils

Thank you.

Quietly re-fill all expensive bottles of handwash stuff (dh mildly compulsive about handwashing, & chunters about bar soap) with cheap supermarket shower gel.

Refill all spray bottles of surface cleaner etc with cheap stuff - it works just as well.

In fact, be ruthless with cleaning products generally - you don't need fabric conditioner, or half as much washing powder as you think.

Home baking - we have recently re-discovered my mum's 60s Marguerite Patten cookbook. Kids like making jam tarts, upside-down pudding etc, we no longer buy a Sunday 'treat' dessert - win/win! Also good for lunchboxes - pasties to use up veg.

Always cook double & freeze - replace 50% of meat/veggie 'meat' substitutes like Quorn with pulses.

Charity furniture shops - we've recently bought a much bigger house, & are skint. Oxfam, British Heart Foundation & Kirkwood Hospice shops have furnished the house (& taken the previous owner's buy-to-let stuff off our hands). Lots of charity furniture shops springing up & they are brilliant.

Yes to charity furniture shops. We just got a decent sized cupboard for arty crafty stuff for only 30 squid. Much better than what we would have got in Argos or Ikea AND we didn't have to put the darn thing together!

Eat soup - make it to use up all the bits of vege in the bottom of the fridge.

Oh and check out the Love Food Hate Waste site.

And deffo meal plan.

And use the library - so obvious but so brilliant.

I have a cunning plan for christmas stocking fillers - have just gone through the kids' toyboxes chucking out old small toys and harvested about 5 bags full.
So what if we all met up somewhere sometime and swapped pre-loved toys? Nicely repackaged, they'll never know the difference, and it's a few more quid we don't spend on plastic crap... BTW, is everyone here from Cambridge, or am I being a dim newbie?

Luzbug, there are people here from all over - Im in Northern Ireland.

Its a lovely idea though

I am liking this thread! I am currently trying to pay off my debts so very focused on frugality.

As well as online banking I also have an A4 notebook and write out a monthly spreadsheet of money in and out on each date in pen, and bank balance in pencil (so I can update if needed), keeps me focused on how much money I have/need/am saving.

I too am a fan of my slow cooker, library books, meal plans, etc.

We go to the cinema kids club sometimes on a saturay or sunday morning for £1 each - much cheaper than any other activity treat that would excite DS. Mind you he is also just as excited about going to the 'big children's library' in town so maybe he is just easily pleased.

luzbug - my DS's class has a treat box that they get to pick a sall stocking filler type toy from when they have been good - a few parents where joking the other day about searching in the bottom of their toy boxes to restock the treat box. {whispers} my clearout haul of small plastic tat goes to the charity shop}

Haven't read the whole thread, but some things I do:

when cooking veg/pasta for tea, I put the water in the saucepan at lunchtime. That way, it heats up by a few degrees before I need to cook, thus saving a few extra minutes cooking time. also, I tip in the leftover water from the kettle if it's still warm, as I figure I might as well use the heat that's there already. Also, if using frozen peas or sweetcorn, I get it out earlier in the day to thaw, so it cooks more quickly. Only little things I know, but all helps to keep the energy bills down.

I always iron non-cotton things after turning the iron off. The latent heat in the iron is enough for school shirts etc. Also, only iron once a week (or once a fortnight as it's more cost effective than doing it every day.